The Singing Bone (9 page)

Alice leaned into her mother's side. “He likes it like that. I think it's cool.” Her mother smelled good, like a perfume, and her skin was warm from the sun that came through the kitchen window.

“Has he gotten radical?”

“Radical?” Alice repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“Jason's father. He moved to New York. He's with the Panthers.”

“Mom, I don't think so. Just because his dad moved to the city doesn't mean he's a Panther.”

“I saw Mr. Stover once driving around the neighborhood.”

“When?” Alice asked.

“Oh, I see him every now and then. I don't remember. I think he looks in on Jason. He tries to see him.” Alice's mother squinted at the photo. “Jason's so tall now. You all are. Except for little Molly.” She tapped Molly's face and smiled. “So cute when she was little. Always running after you, and you were so sweet to wait.”

The next time Alice saw Trina was at the field party. Alice and Stover were sitting in the back of Dan Crew's pickup truck drinking beers. Trina climbed up and sat with them, hugging her jacket around her. “Hey,” she said, and Alice and Stover both looked up and, laughing, Alice said, “Look who it is!” and Stover said, “Man, I thought we were never going to see you again.”

Trina rolled her eyes and pushed her hair behind her ears. “What? You can totally not get rid of me,” she said.

“Where's Lee?” Alice asked.

“He and Mr. Wyck had something to do, but you two should come over tonight. Molly, too. Where is she?” Trina asked, scanning the field. “I have the most amazing 'shrooms in my bag. Allegra gave them to me. I want to take them with you guys.”

Dan Crew climbed into the truck with them. “Did I hear someone talking about 'shrooms?” he said. “Shit, I'm ready for that.”

Trina's face held no expression. “No,” she said. “You didn't.”

Dan put his arms around Alice and rocked her back and forth. Alice laughed and took a sip of her beer. He wasn't her boyfriend—was he? If she let Dan keep his arms around her, said yes to another beer, jumped out of the truck, and ran away, she guessed that Trina wouldn't talk anymore about 'shrooms or going to Mr. Wyck's house.

“Whatever,” Trina said. She climbed out of the truck. “I'm going to find Molly,” she said with her back to them.

“Psycho,” Stover mouthed.

Alice pointed at him and, when Trina had gotten far enough away so she wouldn't be heard, said, “I
do not
want to go to Mr. Wyck's.”

“Who is Mr. Wyck?” Dan asked. “And what's up with Trina?”

“You don't want to know,” Stover said, then turned to Alice. “No. You couldn't pay me.”

“Oh, shit!” Dan said. “Is he that dude who lives in that old house on the other side of the reservoir?” Alice and Stover looked at each other. “That guy's cool. People talk about him. I've never met him. He does tattoos. He has wild parties, man. I mean, I haven't been, but people say.”

“Yeah?” Alice was playing with Dan's Zippo lighter, mastering the technique of hitting it open by lifting the top with her thumb and then bringing her thumb back down over the flint to light the flame. “What do they say?”

Dan shrugged. “He's got good pot. You can go and hang out with him, and just shoot the shit, and he's old—like thirty or something—but he's cool. He was in the war.”

“What else?” Stover asked.

“That's all I know.” Dan was playing with Alice's hair, wrapping it around his fingers. “But I do know one thing, my friend,” he said to Alice. “You are not going anywhere.”

Alice picked up her beer bottle and touched it to Dan's. “Cheers to that,” she said. “Stover, cheers.” He touched his bottle to hers and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

“Sing something to me, Alice,” Stover said.

“Yeah, Alice,” Dan said. “Sing.”

So Alice sang. She sang “Goin' Up the Country,” but she sang it slow. She liked to ebb the words and move them around, to rearrange the sounds. She made it sound like they were going to get lost in the country, not like they were going to have a good time. Stover lay down on his back and looked into the sky, and Dan changed places with her so he could put his head in her lap. She stopped sometimes to take a sip from the beer bottle. She could see Trina and Molly dancing in front of a bonfire that someone had started. She couldn't hear the music, but she knew it was from someone's radio, a tape, probably Zeppelin. Trina was really dancing, but Molly was just sort of jumping around. Alice thought she looked like a little shadow puppet. She smiled as she sang and began to speed her song up to their dancing. It wasn't much faster, but it was enough, because Stover turned his head to look at her and Dan shifted in her lap and began to sit up, and it was strange, because Trina and Molly began to come over to Alice. It was like she'd called them. Trina danced as she walked, her arms in the air. The Cheerleader, Alice thought. She looked stiff. Molly was running towards them, a smile on her face, her arms outstretched.

“Trina gave me some 'shrooms,” Molly said when she reached the truck, and Stover reached over the side and put his hands on Molly's face. “Where are you, little bee?” he asked, smiling down at her.

Alice looked from Molly to Trina, who lifted her chin at Alice and looked away, a smile still on her lips. Triumphant, but why? And then she had her answer. She heard Stover say, “You can't go alone,” and Trina passed him a bag with tinfoil inside, and soon Alice had the bitter taste on her tongue as well. Maybe it would be a bad batch, she thought, but then she remembered they were Allegra's, who dried herbs in her kitchen and had a guru, and she thought,
If anyone knows mushrooms, it's probably Allegra
.

If Trina said something to Dan about not following them, Alice didn't know and didn't particularly care anymore. They traipsed through the woods, starting and stopping, watching the progress of their flashlights over the trees, slipping behind branches and running down to the reservoir. Stover carried Molly on his back, bouncing her up and down and singing. Molly let her cheek rest on Stover's back. Her eyes closed, she said, “I can hear your heart talking to my heart,” which made Alice and Trina laugh. They didn't know why it was so funny, but all Alice could imagine was two giant cartoon hearts leaning towards each other whispering
I love you
.

“One has little stick cartoon legs,” Trina said. “You know like those little fucking shoes Minnie Mouse wore? The ones with the bows?”

“What are fucking shoes?” Alice was laughing so hard that she dropped to her knees. Trina sat down next to her and grabbed her hands. “Yes!” she cried earnestly. “You know those tiny shiny black fucking shoes Minnie Mouse wore? And those little sexy socks?”

“You mean Betty Boop?” Alice was rolling around on the ground. “How are they fucking shoes?”

“Betty Boop and Minnie Mouse are foxes!” Trina said. She was laughing, lying on her side next to Alice. She rolled onto her back and looked up. “Check it out, Alice. Look up.”

“Up?” Alice said, smiling.

“No, at the sky, stupid,” Trina said.

Alice rolled onto her back and looked where Trina looked. They could see the stars, the moon. “Oh shit, that's so pretty,” Alice said.

“Right?”

After a while, Alice realized that Trina was no longer next to her. She stood. “Trina!” she yelled. No one answered. When she reached for her flashlight, she couldn't find it. “Trina! Molly! Stover!” Then Alice was silent, and stood as still as she could in the night. There were so many sounds. She could hear every snap and crack. With her hands straight out in front of her, she took a few steps. She stopped again. “Molly!” she yelled. A tree branch snapped. The wind moved through the branches. Alice put her hands out again, She touched a tree, then another, and she began to stumble about.
Uphill
, she thought,
away from the reservoir
. That was safest. But she was confused. Did she know up from down? She stopped for a minute and rested her head against the trunk of a tree. The bark was rough and warm under her fingers. She pressed her cheek into the tree. She imagined sleeping in the forest. Was she upright now or had she started to sit? She was sitting. Alice struggled to stand.

Look up
, she heard Trina say, but Trina was nowhere near.
Look up, stupid
. Alice sat again, tracing her spine down the tree's bark. She laughed. She was a bear scratching her back. She looked up at the sky. She could crawl like an animal. Animals knew uphill, downhill. She tested it out, moving on her hands and knees. Everything felt the same. She pushed the leaves around with her hands and lay down. She was cold. She closed her eyes and pressed her ear to the earth. Something was coming. She could hear rhythmic snapping of sticks beneath feet. Alice sat quickly and listened. There was a light. It could be anything, anyone.

Alice began to run—in which direction she didn't know or care. The moon afforded a little light, but when Alice fell, and fell again, she grew more agitated. She lay still, breathing heavily. How far had she come? What if she was in the woods forever? In the distance, someone was shouting her name—
Alice!
—and for a moment, she didn't answer; instead, she rolled into a ball, frightened.
Alice!
she heard again.
Alice! We can't find you!
She got to her knees and, in a small voice, said, “Alice.”

She waited, wondering what would happen, and when she didn't hear anything, she repeated her name, this time more loudly. It was funny, saying her own name in the night, in the forest, as if she was announcing herself. Giddy, she did it again: “Alice!” she cried, jumping up and down.

Then a figure appeared, stepping out from behind a tree. She crouched again, crawling backwards to hide herself behind a rock, but it was too late, he'd seen her. It was a man or a monster, and he was above her, looking down. She stared. He was covered in white fur.

“Alice,” he said. “It's me.” She kept staring, afraid to move, and then he looked down at his body and laughed. “You're frightened of my coat.It's just a coat. Alice,” Mr. Wyck said, his voice soft. He was luminous, brilliant, like the moon. “Alice, honey,” he said again. “Did you get lost?” He put his hand on her cheek. She closed her eyes. “You're hot.”

She shook her head, rising. “I got lost,” she said, looking around, and then he wrapped her up in the animal-skin coat and they began to walk, uphill, now she was sure, and he hummed into her hair and kept an arm around her. Soon he brought her out into the apple orchard, where the moon seemed to shine more brightly than it had in the woods.

At the start of every semester in Introduction to Folklore, Alice tells her students that each family has its own history, its own lore. She asks them to write down a story that's always told when the family gets together, or that they've heard repeated on more than one occasion. “Think of a story that two or more people tell together. Then find a direct source,” she always says. “Find someone who was there. Ten to one they won't tell the same story. There will be conflicts,” she tells them. “‘That's not how it happened,' or ‘I never said that.' ‘You're thinking of the other time,' and ‘Now you've got things out of order.' Who has all the details right? Is one person exaggerating? Does the end of the story change? Whom do you believe?”

Find the direct source. I'm the direct source
, she thinks.
I'm the key
.

She's waiting for Hans. She agreed to meet him. She's been rattled ever since the boy banged on her car. She keeps looking over her shoulder, especially when she walks to her car after teaching her night class. Once, when she'd had one of the guards walk with her, he said, “I wouldn't think someone like you would need someone walking her to her car.”

“What do you mean, ‘someone like me'?” she demanded. What if he was a Wyckian? “What are you implying?” she said when he didn't answer, and when she looked at his face, she couldn't read his expression. They'd reached her car. She was taller than he was.

He stepped away from her and held one hand up. “I didn't mean anything. Sorry if I offended you.” But still she couldn't read his face. He wouldn't meet her gaze. She got quickly in her car, locking the doors right away. After that, she walked alone, looking over her shoulder, her keys splayed like claws in her clenched fist.

“I'm not sympathetic to Jack Wyck,” Hans said on the phone. Hearing the name aloud was a shock. She hadn't heard anyone say the name out loud in years.

“No?” she said.

“No.”

“Who could be?” Alice wondered if he was bluffing, but he didn't sound like it, and she'd rented
Death Christ
, admiring the way he had managed to expose the weaknesses in The Doing's arguments without coming across as overly hostile. He took them seriously, which had clearly worked in favor of the film. The Doing knew they were being listened to, and so they had revealed themselves.

  •  •  •  

The rain has ended and the sky is gray. Usually the small park by the river where she's chosen to meet Hans is more crowded than this, but the last few days have been cold, and there are only a few people around. Alice chooses a bench where she can see both the path and the river. A family is nearby—a mother and two girls—and Alice listens to the girls' cries of delight as they play. She looks at the mother, who is sitting on a bench, reading. If Alice asked the woman for a family story, the most likely story the woman would tell her would be how her parents met—or the immigration tale. But maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would tell Alice something horrifying.