When Sparrows Fall (32 page)

Jack crossed the lawn. The archangels looked like whirling dervishes producing eddies of iridescent globes. Jonah squatted on the grass, blowing bubbles but not chasing them as the wind snatched them away. He hummed a few notes, lifted the wand to his lips again, and blew. Contented. Happy. Too young to have been warped.

Martha chased after Jack. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“To the cliffs.” A gloomy place to suit his dark mood.

She hopped up and down in her boxy shoes. “Can I go with you?”

“May I,” he corrected, like Miranda. “Yes. Come on.”

As he and Martha walked behind the barn, he slowed so she could keep up with him, but his mind raced. They moved from the clearing and into the woods. The trees blocked most of the wind, producing a sudden calm that only emphasized the turmoil inside him.

Pushing through the dogwoods and laurels that overhung the path, he remembered finding his card, crumpled in the mud. So much had changed since that morning.

The path to the cliffs had grown greener; the bushes and trees had begun to leaf out. Thousands of violets rose above the black litter of last year’s fallen leaves. Year after year, layer upon layer, green things lived and died and decayed. Each new spring was built upon the deaths of previous seasons. And each new season ended in death.

He tried to shake off his morbid thoughts. It wasn’t even Friday, but the
blues were about to hit. The infection was creeping up on him like a virus. There was no antidote. He would have to ride it out.

Martha started singing, her sweet voice jouncing as she skipped.
“Rockabye, rockabye, sweet—Maya baby.”

That little jolt in the rhythm again. That imaginary baby who’d died but came back to life. She was sometimes an infant, sometimes a playmate, her age changing to accommodate Martha’s playacting.

Martha raised her volume, belting out the lullaby so loudly that it jarred Jack’s nerves.

“Didn’t you tell me Maya died?” he asked, to make her stop singing. “So you’re singing a lullaby to a ghost.”

“What’s a ghost?”

“We’d better not use that word. Your mama doesn’t approve of ghosts.”

“But what’s a ghost?”

“The spirit of a departed—never mind. I don’t dare try to work ghosts into your mother’s theology.”

What did it matter? Crazy talk about an imaginary friend who was dead and then not dead—none of it mattered when Miranda was trying to take living, breathing children into some weird counterculture in the hills.

“Uncle Jack? What’s theology?”

“The study of God.”

“That sounds hard. Like for big people.”

“Yeah, most four-year-olds save it for when they’re older.”

“I’ll be five pretty soon, and Jonah’s going to be two. Maybe Maya’s birthday is coming. Maya’s going to be … I don’t know. I’ll ask Timothy.”

“Hold on, now. Why would you ask him? I thought Maya was your friend, not his.”

“Huh-uh. He gets mad when I ask him stuff about Maya. But sometimes he keeps saying ‘Maya, Maya, Maya,’ and it drives me crazy, but then he gets all grumpy and says I’m the one who drives
him
crazy.”

“You mean Maya is
his
imaginary friend? Isn’t Timothy too old for that?”

“I don’t know.” She skipped ahead, pointing. “We’re almost to the cliffs.”

They rounded the curve and faced the vista he’d first seen on the morning Miranda fell. The morning he met Timothy on the path.

A fierce wind bit Jack’s face. He imagined Martha being blown into the air, her cape acting like Mary Poppins’s umbrella, except it wouldn’t carry her to a safe landing.

“Stay close to me, Martha.” He took her hand as they went closer.

She slowed to baby steps, a funny shuffle that revealed her reluctance to go too close to the edge. “Is this where Mama fell?”

“It is.”

They peered into the ravine. Water gurgled on the jagged rocks. It was a dismal sight, all those rocks and branches that must have punished Miranda’s tiny frame as she fell.

A small brown bird flew from a bush and darted down the cliff to disappear into shrubs beside the water. That was one advantage birds had over humans; if they lost their footing, they could fly.

“That must have hurt so bad,” Martha said.

“Badly,” he corrected, feeling numb.

She squeezed his hand. “Are you sad, Uncle Jack?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. It’s shivery here.”

“Let’s go.”

They began walking back. Her little feet trudged slowly in their clunky shoes, giving him more time to worry.

Wendy Perini and her crew wore shoes like that too, and those awful dresses. No makeup. They smiled a lot, though, like happy robots. He suspected that Wendy wasn’t merely submissive; she was subservient. As Miranda must have been to Carl. And, no doubt, as Mason’s wife was to him.

What’s a half person?
In Miranda’s case, it was a woman who’d spent half her life under a man’s control.

She must have been a cute teenager. Then Randi met Carl and became Miranda of the gunnysack dresses. She adopted his beliefs and devoted herself to raising a family on the outskirts of Slades Creek. A safe place to raise a family. A mountain paradise. Now, some burg in North Carolina was being advertised as a better paradise, but it could be hell on earth.

When they emerged from the woods and started across the grassy clearing, Martha glanced over her shoulder. Jack followed suit. The sun hadn’t set, but beyond the first few feet of brush and dogwoods, the woods were dark and spooky. He could understand her fear of wolves.

She dropped his hand and ran ahead. Over the crest of the hill, the roof of the house came into view, the chimney puffing smoke.

Martha waited for him to catch up and took his hand again. “Our house is a strong house,” she said fiercely. “We’re safe there.”

“Yes. So help me God, I’ll keep you safe.” Safe from her own mother. There was something terribly wrong with that concept.

He needed a plan. He needed to talk to somebody local. Somebody who knew Mason.

Jack pulled his phone out of his pocket, thinking of Yvonne or even Dean, the deputy, then decided to wait. Martha couldn’t hear a conversation like that.

A high-pitched, faraway scream chilled his blood. He stopped in the path to listen.

Miranda.

twenty-three

P
anicked young voices joined Miranda’s, crying Martha’s name like Jack had called for the archangels that day in Chattanooga.

He uttered a pungent phrase, not quite loud enough for her to catch. “Let’s run, sweetie. Your mama thinks you’ve gone missing. She’ll want my head on a platter.”

“The turkey platter? The big one?”

He couldn’t even laugh. If Miranda dragged Martha off to the hills, he couldn’t teach her about figures of speech. Or read stories to her. Or protect her from wolves in shepherds’ clothing.

Her cape billowed as she raced through the tall grass of the clearing. Jack stayed right behind her. He imagined stuffing the kids into the van and driving off somewhere, anywhere. But he wasn’t the official guardian as long as Miranda lived and breathed, and kidnapping was a felony.

If it saved them, it would be worth it.

Timothy and Rebekah barreled across the clearing and shouted in unison as they spotted Martha. Timothy picked up speed, beating Rebekah by yards.

He slid on to his knees, nearly knocking Martha over when he grabbed her. “Mother thought you went to the cliffs,” he said, panting. “You’re in deep trouble.”

She let out a howl and started rubbing her eyes with her fists. Timothy hugged her, hard, but she was beyond consolation.

“It’s my fault.” Jack tried to make himself heard over Martha’s caterwauling. “I’m sorry.”

Timothy shot him a look of unadulterated hatred. “No, you’re not. You’re just an interfering bully. You’re always bullying my mother. All the time.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, then remembered talking over Miranda, being blind to her tears, deaf to her protests. Trying to control her. He’d been acting like—

He wheeled around, feeling as if he’d received a physical blow to the gut. He was no better than Mason, that manipulative, self-righteous misogynist. A tyrant.

When Jack faced Timothy again, the boy had scooped Martha into his arms. He jogged away, her head bouncing against his shoulder. Sick inside, Jack followed at a slower pace.

He pulled out his phone, endured Yvonne’s interminable recording, and left a terse “Call me” at the beep. By then, he was a few yards from the barn, where Miranda had just hit her knees in the straw-colored weeds to embrace Martha.

Timothy watched, his arms locked across his skinny chest. Rebekah stood beside him, her cheeks wet and her shoulders heaving.

Still wrapping herself around Martha, Miranda glared up at Jack. She’d had the cuddle-quilt around her shoulders like a shawl, but it had fallen. The stiff stalks of the weeds held it up in peaks and valleys.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told somebody she was with me.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that a mother needs to know where her four-year-old is? Especially when there are cliffs?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed anyone noticed she went with me.”

“There are a number of things you shouldn’t have assumed.” Miranda cupped a hand around Martha’s chin and gave her a tremulous smile. “Sweetheart, go back to the house with Rebekah and Timothy. Uncle Jack and I have some talking to do. Rebekah, if everyone’s hungry, go ahead and eat. We’ll be a while.”

Rebekah sniffled. “Yes ma’am.” She took Martha’s hand. The girls started back with Timothy close behind them.

Miranda stayed in her awkward crouch. “You cannot imagine how terrifying that was.”

“No, I can’t. May I help you up?”

“I don’t need your help.” She straightened, biting her lip. “And don’t assume that you know my plans.” She shivered and swayed, the wind almost blowing her over.

He picked up the quilt and draped it around her shoulders. She sagged beneath its weight as if it were chain mail instead of soft cotton.

“Tell me your plans, then,” he said. “Please, talk to me.”

She grasped the corners of the quilt, holding it tight under her chin. Her face was tense, her shoulders stiff. A gust of wind hit hard, and she lurched sideways.

“I’ll talk,” she said, “but not in front of the children. The barn.”

She led him through the sturdy old structure’s yawning entrance. The thick timbers above them exploded with flapping wings as roosting birds fled the intrusion. Then the birds were gone, and he and Miranda stood in a sudden calm, the wind reduced to a faint whistling in the cracks between the wide planks. Shafts of sunlight slanted onto a broken wheelbarrow, a pile of rotten lumber, and a rusty harrow. The residue of long-ago animal residents filled the place with the age-old smell of farming.

Miranda wheeled to face him. “I’m not moving. Do you hear me? I’m not moving.”

“You’re not? Thank God!” Relief boomed through his blood. He started toward her, but the look in her eye brought him to a halt. “What’s going on?”

“When Mason said he was moving the whole church, I told him I didn’t
want to go. He put so much pressure on me that I pretended to back down. He thinks I’m going along with the idea—or at least he thought so until I started dragging my heels.”

“Why don’t you tell him to take a hike?”

She returned to the doorway and looked toward the mountains. The sun, low in the sky, blazed into the barn, touching her hair, her cheek, her right shoulder swathed in the quilt.

“For now, I need to lie low.”

“Why? Are you afraid of Mason? He’s nothing but a two-bit preacher from a two-bit town. He’s not some all-knowing prophet of God.”

“You’re right, he isn’t,” she said. “But I have to think about the children.”

Jack moved to the doorway. Leaning against the massive timbers, he studied her profile. Her lower lip trembled.

“What about the children?” he asked, assailed by vague fears. “Why do you mention them and Mason in the same breath?”

She faced into the gloom of the barn again, silhouetted against the sunset. “It’s nothing sordid.”

“What is it?” He moved closer, wishing physical proximity could help him drag the truth out of her. “Tell me.”

Breathing fast and shallow, she said nothing.

He realized he was framing her, as if he were the photographer now. Memorizing her. In case she sent him away for being a bully. In case he never saw her again.

The sun caught the quilt on her shoulder in a golden spotlight. The fabrics in the wide border of the quilt didn’t quite match the worn and faded fabrics in the center section. In one corner of the center piece, the sun highlighted small holes where someone had pulled out stitches that must have been made with thick thread. The stitches had left ghosts of themselves, perhaps the remnants of lettering. Like the names she’d embroidered on crib quilts.

Drawn closer still, Jack traced the ghost stitches with one finger. Seven or eight letters, maybe.

He stopped breathing.

Everywhere, sets of seven. Seven dried roses in the wreath on the door. Sets of seven drawn on the cover of the attendance book. Six angels in the Christmas cupboard and one more hidden in the kitchen. Six baby quilts, and this one—but only six children.

“Dear God,” he said.

Miranda said nothing.

“I have a strange little habit,” he said. “I count things, all the time. Can’t stop myself. I’ve counted sets of seven all around your house. In quilt patterns. Needlework. Flower arrangements. Even in the doodles on your attendance book.”

He stopped. Was he crazy? Or was she?

“There are five baby quilts hanging on the kids’ walls,” he said. “Jonah still sleeps with his. That makes six.” He touched her shoulder. “And this one—the center portion of your cuddle-quilt—makes seven.”

She inhaled a quick breath, then another one. And then it seemed as if she was the one who’d stopped breathing.

“Miranda, how many children have you had?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. She turned to face him, and his hand skimmed lightly over her as she moved.