The Telling (27 page)

Josh and I wait halfway between the cage and the double front doors. “What if she doesn't fly out?” he whispers.

I eye Winnie's outline. The eagle appears to be looking to the sky rather than at us. “She will,” I say.

He brushes the end of my ponytail from my shoulder. I feel his skin's warmth through my sweater and his glove. “How do you know?” Josh's expression is open. His blue eyes are dark and frank. I posed a similar question once to Ben. Ben was lamenting that Winnie was imprisoned in a cage. I asked how he knew that Winnie wasn't happier being fed and cared for.
Because she's a wild animal being kept in a cage,
he told me, slow and simple, like, wasn't it obvious?

Now I answer Josh: “Because the alternative is for her to stay in a cage.” I hear Ben's voice speaking along with me in my head. I know
that Ben felt that he wasn't so different from a caged animal. He liked to say:
It doesn't matter whether a prison looks like an island or a shack; if it has bars to keep you in, there's no difference.
I didn't point out that the boy kept in a shack would probably disagree.

Another minute passes. “You can wait with the others if you want,” I offer. With each minute I'm steadier, more solid. The schnapps has either worn off or it's steeling my bones. With each breath I inhale the
rightness
of being here. I wouldn't mind if a police SWAT team stormed the building. I want the universe to know that I'm doing this for Ben; I want the universe to deliver the message to him.

Josh nudges my elbow. “I'm not leaving until you do.”

I smile at him. “Thanks for following through with this even after Ford and the dogs.”

“Everything is going to be okay.” Josh levels his head with mine. “I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise.” He slips his arm around my shoulders. I rest my head against him lightly. His chest is warm on my ear. Josh Parker's infinite charm is aimed at me. He's making promises; the sounds of our inhales and exhales mingle; we're bathed in moonshine and surrounded by twinkling eyes like stars. This is what I've been waiting for.

Winnie alights to the branch ten feet below her perch, and then another ten. Her progress is soundless; my thoughts are an uncooperative babble. The Lana from our stories would spit in the face of whatever danger Josh thinks is circling us. She wouldn't need to be held. She wouldn't need a boy to promise her that he'll keep her safe. She would keep herself safe—and probably end up saving Josh once his pluck and optimism failed him. Winnie settles on
the lowest branch. I'm not even afraid, because the girl I am now believes—madly—that Ben has found his way back. Ben would never, ever hurt me.

“Call the others and let them know I'm about to open the door,” I whisper, moving from Josh.

I reach the entrance and check her progress over my shoulder. Josh's voice on the cell is eager as he tells the others we're about to flee. Winnie beats her wings and skims the floor to the first chunk of eel. Her golden beak catches the moonlight and an amber eye flashes at me. She swoops forward for the second chunk before I blink. There are five pieces to go before she'll reach me.

Little shocks of anticipation fire off in my fingers as they close on the door levers. I yank inward. They groan and I realize too late that there isn't anything nearby to prop them open with. Josh has read my mind, and he runs to tip his weight against one as my shoulder blades press the other. Winnie is two chunks of eel away.

Her wings extend, and their individual feathers ripple and fan out. From the sidewalk the lampposts illuminate the spectrum of browns on her wingspan, running from damp earth to coffee made weak with cream. The wings are bent at the joint like a bat's, and then they straighten, doubling in length, longer than I am tall. The baby hairs on my temples flutter as she sweeps her wings to the ground, her impossibly white head rearing back.

At that instant, with the savage bird three feet away, her eyes trained on me as though I'm prey, the sharp hook of her beak made for tearing into skin, I understand Ben. I see him as clear as if he were standing between me and the eagle. I hate, hate, hate the museum and Winnie's captors as much as he did—
does
. She's wild and fierce and she's
been reduced to living in a cage and eating sushi from the floor. And I hate myself almost as much for calling this beautiful beast Winnie, aloud or in my head, for not thinking of a better escape, something that would have allowed her to be a majestic animal, to be what she is.

Winnie makes it to the remaining limp piece of eel, a foot before the threshold. I swear she looks directly at me, daring me to try and stop her. The indigo sky looms open to her and she buffets the air with her wings and takes off, leaving the last pathetic scrap of sushi on the floor.

I
am reckless.

I am a heaving chest.

I am alive, alive,
alive
and out of breath and shouting and slapping my thighs until they sting. I land in the SUV after leaping through the open door; I don't feel the impact. Duncan slams on the gas and we shoot forward. There's no alarm shrieking, and the screeching of his four tires around corners is unnecessary and potentially drawing attention to our getaway. No one gives a crap. Let the police, their sirens throwing color across the night, come after us.

“Holy fuck!” Rusty whoops. Josh punches the sky through the sunroof and howls like he's gone mad. Duncan hits the horn for three blasts.

“You should have seen Winnie up close, B,” Josh says. “Her wings were this wide.” He spreads his arms all the way out. Duncan slaps Josh's hand away from his face. Josh continues unaffected. “The eagle looked right at Lana.” He points two fingers from his eyes to mine. “And then Winnie bowed her head like she was
thanking Lana
for her freedom.” He palms his hands in a humble gesture. “The bird was in such a hurry she left the last piece of sushi!”

I bite the inside of my cheek hard. I want to say:
Why would she thank us?
She was probably cursing us for letting her rot in there for so long. She left the last piece of eel because she's a wild animal who prefers to hunt her dinner. The sushi was
beneath
her. It had nothing to do with her being in a hurry.

I frown at the seat in front of me. Josh reinvented the eagle as a tame pet, no fiercer than a dog begging for steak at the dinner table. He wanted to stay in the museum with me after he sent the others away. Josh wanted to leap into the spring and search for evidence. I usually admire Josh's confidence. But not everything is harmless. Imagining that wild animals don't bite is not the same as knowing they bite and accepting the risk. One is brave and the other is foolish.

Becca squishes her face to the window, trying to peer up at the dark sky. “Where do you think Winnie will go?” she asks after she's given up.

“Far away from here,” Carolynn says.

“Where are we going? Shell Shores to bonfire?” Duncan asks over his shoulder.

“Too close to town,” Josh tells him. “The police could be on patrol, and they'd see the smoke. We've lucked out so far.”

“Your pool house?” Rusty hollers, throwing wadded-up paper at the back of Duncan's head.

“Veto,” Carolynn says. “Let's go to the lighthouse at the point. It won't be locked and we can take the stairs to the top.”

We merge onto the two-lane highway that follows the cape in the direction of the lighthouse. Duncan sews a zigzag between the two lanes. Becca spills the schnapps as she raises it to toast the eagle's rescuers. Carolynn twirls a finger in the air, but even she can't temper
her smile. Five miles and a snaking gravel access road later, we pull into the lot at the base of a grassy slope. A narrow and steep staircase is cut into the rock bed of the hill. The hill's slope ends abruptly where the land collapsed into the sea. The cliffs are black and sparkling, and we studied fragments in geology during the month we learned about the unusual mineral composition of our tiny island.

At the hill's summit, Gant's historic lighthouse shoots into the sky. The tower's stones are veiny with fissures and caulked with green-and-rust-colored moss. A single scarlet door is the only entrance or exit. The tower has a medieval look, as though it's the lighthouse on a war-torn island above a sapphire sea. It's been here since Gant was feral and uninhabited. The island's rocky shelf has always been dangerous for mariners, and sailboats still capsize catching on the shallow, jagged reefs that jut out into the sound like the points of a star. The lighthouse's craggy walls, gallery deck, and gold light fracturing and banding from the lantern room are only ornamental now, since most boats are equipped with radar.

Dad took Ben and me here a few times. We liked climbing the spiral staircase, mostly because of the way it amplified our voices. It gave ordinary talk a magical resonance. Tourists with their foldout paper maps of the island line up for their turn into the lighthouse on summer days. This point is the southern tip of the island; its least inhabited cape.

“How did you know the door wouldn't be locked, Car?” Josh asks as he holds the rusted monstrosity open for us. We shuffle up the stairs. Duncan leads, the girls are behind him, then Josh and me, and Rusty last.

“This is Carolynn's special spot for all her romantic trysts,”
Becca purrs, throwing a devilish wink over her shoulder. She pokes Carolynn in the side, and Carolynn squirms away. They end up clasping hands and swinging them like little girls do. “Didn't she ever take you here, Josh?” Becca teases.

Carolynn laughs at that. “Yeah, right. Josh and I spent most of the three months we went out with his moms. Remember how they'd find little excuses to check on us in your room?” she asks. “I gained ten pounds from all the cookies they brought up.”

Josh smiles at his shoes, remembering, and then says to me, “We were only fourteen, and she was my first girlfriend. My moms have gotten a lot less protective since then.”

The gold light seeping through the grates in the stairs bounces off all the surfaces and gives him the look of a freshly baked gingerbread boy. He holds his hand out for me to take. I feel a blush spread as I do. Josh is straightforward and kind and interested in
me
—Lana McBrook, formerly and inaccurately known as Uni-Boob—and he doesn't care about our separate histories. So what if he's too optimistic and his bravery borders on foolish? So what if he's friends with the two-faced Becca? Josh is the kind of boy who makes you giggle dumbly, smile dreamily, and sigh like a leaky balloon. Josh Parker is why girls doodle hearts and listen to love songs on repeat. After a summer of awful, I need someone who will reinvent the world as a more harmless version of what it is.

There is constant, echoing chatter and the percussive melody of shoes as we climb. “You don't remember hearing it at sleepovers?” Carolynn asks me when she starts up about an old ghost story she swears is infamous on Gant.

“No,” I say, trying to look neutral. I am not. It is because of Becca
that I was excluded from all those sleepovers. I also don't like hearing that word:
ghost
.

I haven't been thinking of Ben in terms of ghosts. I haven't completely lost my grip, though I have been thinking of him in terms of
being here
, after death. Not only being here in some wispy, spirit way, but present enough to poison two people, chase one of them through the woods, and leave my rosary in our hiding spot.

“God, the story used to freak me out so bad. So there's this lighthouse guy, a keeper,” Carolynn continues.

“They're called wickies,” Rusty breaks in. He gets dubious looks. He tugs the bill of his baseball hat lower, and I lose sight of his bashful eyes. “I did a report in the third grade. So what? I like lighthouses. They're the catchers of the ocean. They make the calls and tell the rest of the team the way to play.”

“That's not why you like them, Rusty Pipe.” Duncan chuckles, craning around, his expression all smarmy self-satisfaction. Then to us, “He does 'cause they're shaped like—”

“We get it,” Carolynn says. She shoves him to continue up the stairs. “Okay, so this guy lives in the cottage we passed on the access road, and he was responsible for lighting the lantern in the lighthouse each night.” She skips two steps up, leading our procession with the look of a morbid tour guide. “He lived on Gant with his wife, and they were all alone because there wasn't a town here yet. This one winter his wife gets really sick. Tuberculosis.” Every few steps she glances back at us to confirm she has our undivided attention. “Her death is drawn out, and he can barely leave her side without her coughing and choking on blood. But he does. Every day at dusk he sprints to the lighthouse, runs up these stairs”—she stomps her ballet flat—“lights
the lantern, adds the amount of oil it needs to burn through the night, and then rushes home to his wife. He does it for thirty nights in a row, and thirty nights he returns and she's fine. The thirty-first night it's the same deal, except that he trips up these stairs.”

Carolynn spins and we halt. Her eyes shine and she points to the step Duncan's on, one below her. “His boot caught right there.” Duncan reverses a step hastily and then rolls his neck, making it crackle, like it was all part of one nonchalant movement. There's a stirring of a wicked smile on Carolynn's lips as she continues, “He fell to his knees and popped up, but he was slower. He limped. The trip to the top and back home took no more than a minute longer than usual.” She tucks a loose lock of hair behind her ear and adds in a regretful tone, “But that's all it took.”

Carolynn twirls around to continue the climb. “What happened, Car?” Duncan asks, uncharacteristically somber.

“The wife choked on her own blood. Asphyxiated.” Carolynn turns for a beat to drag her finger horizontally across her neck. “The keeper burst into his house to see his wife's body spasm, one final time. He was heartbroken. Alone. It was too cold to dig a grave. He figured that the ground would thaw in time. One night turns into three, and three to five, and before he knows it, he's been inside with the body for a week.”