On Little Wings Page 12

  By my sixth day in Smithport, despite its best plans to organize and conquer, the tropical storm hit the cold water streaming down from the frozen lands of Canada and the growling, African winds shrieked and disbanded as the wet rain began its descent. One week after my arrival, Sarah closed and locked the black shutters of Shelter Cove (I didn’t know that shutters actually functioned. In Nebraska they are only for decoration) and turned on the weather radio. Nathan’s predicted storm didn’t “hit” land - it straggled from the ocean, panting and gusting and above all, crying a torrential rain. Just when I thought it was petering out after a long, bleak day, the reinforcements arrived. And I tasted in a small, bitter bite the dark undercurrent of the sea.

  The monotonous drone of the beating rain and the close, huddled feel of the shuttered house didn’t remind me of cozy Nebraska storms where I curled up by the sliding glass doors and watched the electric lightning show. I felt imprisoned in Shelter Cove, the air wet and heavy and smelling particularly old after a day without open windows. I had already called my father and Cleo. My mother even took the phone for the first time, pointedly avoiding any discussion of her sister and asking the mundane questions about weather and the clothes I packed and, of course, when I would come home. I told her I would look at flights. I just didn’t tell her that I wasn’t considering any flights in the very near future.

  Sarah’s dinner of stew and homemade bread dispelled some of the day’s dreariness, but by eight o’clock that night I was doing what I hadn’t done since arriving at Shelter Cove- flipping from one mindless television show to the next. It bothered me how disappointed I was that lines were rained out. Without that to look forward to, I found myself getting ready to excuse myself for bed when a thunderclap slapped the house so hard that it shuddered. Before the walls stopped shaking the lights popped off along with the television, followed by the eerie stillness as all electronics shut down. No hums, no buzzes, no fans – just the beating rain.

  “Hold on, Jennifer. I’ll grab lights,” Sarah’s voice came from behind me. I looked around me, trying to find a break in the darkness. Some lighter grey shone around the edges of the windows, but that was all. I heard a drawer slide open and the sound of a hand groping blindly through the contents while Charlie’s toenails clicked on the floor as he circled Sarah.

  “I got it. Don’t worry,” Sarah called and a ring of light appeared, bobbing in front of her. “You okay?” she asked, aiming the light at my feet and not my face. The wind howled and pulled the rain sideways; making it sound like someone slopped a bucket of water against the window.

  “Is it getting worse?” I asked.

  “Sounds like it. And my generator broke last winter. I haven’t had Nathan fix it yet, which is brilliant, I know. I think we are down to candles tonight. We could have some fun with it, though. Do you know any ghost stories?”

  “I hate ghost stories,” I told her. “Unless they are sweet and romantic like a ghost leaving a note for his true love or something. But please do not mention chainsaws or bodies,” I shivered, too scared by my own choice of images to continue.

  “Deal. Sweet and fluffy. No ghosts. I can do that,” Sarah set the flashlight on the table, letting the circles of light shimmer on the walls. “I could tell you about how my mom and dad met. I didn’t tell you all of that, did I? Let me light some emergency candles in case these batteries give out …” Sarah hopped off the couch and pulled out a lighter and some metal cans from a drawer.

  I took a nervous breath before saying, “There is another story I’ve been wanting to hear.” Sarah tipped her chin in curiosity and waited. My words wobbled coming out of my mouth. “I was actually wondering about your trip to South Africa.”

  “Really?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yes. I just wondered whatever happened to John? The one you went to tell when you found out grandma died.”

  Sarah sat down on the sofa, pushing Chester to the side.

  “Things didn’t work out,” she said with a shrug.

  “Oh.” Then mustering more courage, “You usually have more to say than that.”

  She studied me, the candlelight picking up green and blue waves in her eyes. “Usually I do. But that is a storybook that we shouldn’t get off the shelf. Let’s just say some of them don’t end happily ever after.”

  “I know that, obviously, but…” I stopped abruptly when someone pounded on the door. Charlie jumped up from his spot under the arm chair and raced across the room.

  “Sarah?” Nathan’s voice called from the downpour.

  “Nathan?” she cried as she jumped up. “Come in, what are…”

  The door opened, his saturated outline illuminated as a bright flare of lightning lit the sky. “Everything okay?” he asked as he scanned the dim room. His eyes stopped on me and he gave me an unfathomable look as he blinked water off his eyelashes.

  “We’re fine,” Sarah answered, a puzzled look mingling with concern as she watched him dripping. “What are you doing out in this? Jennifer, get him a towel.”

  I rushed into her bathroom, listening intently while he explained how he had run over to a summer home to try to save some expensive bushes he’d planted the week before. Apparently someone had stopped him in town and told him that a boat radioed in a report of a girl outside on the cove. I hurried back into the room, extinguishing one candle as the towel flapped behind me. I handed it to him and he rubbed his face halfheartedly as he kept talking. “I called Judith, she said all the girls are accounted for at home, so I thought maybe… I just wanted to check.” His eyes flicked almost angrily to me.

  “You thought Sarah would let me out in that?” I joked, trying to lighten his mood.

  He shrugged in annoyance, but when he looked back up his mouth raised minutely on one side.

  “Maybe they saw wrong. Or had the wrong spot,” Sarah guessed.

  “Not Harvey,” Nathan argued. “He knows this cove like his backyard.”

  “So do we have a genuine ghost?” I asked, smiling.

  Nathan’s face grew grave again. “I better go check. Just to be sure no one else is out there. Will you call Judith again and make sure they all stay inside?”

  “Of course. But the phones are out. I hope she has her cell on.” Sarah started walking to her purse as Nathan headed for the back door in the kitchen.

  “I’ll go with you,” I cried, ignoring the way they both froze and stared at me in disbelief.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Nathan’s brisk words dismissed the idea.

  “Jennifer, he can handle it. You stay here,” Sarah said. I walked past both of them and grasped the door handle.

  Nathan followed me and grabbed my hand off the knob, dropping it fast like it burned him. “I’ve got it. I’m sure there’s no one out there.”

  In defiance I reached up and opened the door, which let in the battering rain, and gave him my best Cleo glower before I dodged into the storm. I heard Sarah call after me again, so I sped up. For reasons unknown to me I wanted to race to the cove with him, not in spite of the weather, but because of it. The driving rain hit so cold and fast that I felt as electrified as the flashing sky. Nathan caught up easily and ordered me to go back but I shook my head stubbornly. I followed the shaking beam of his flashlight to the ridge where the lower beach comes into view.

  He swept the light across the sand where it caught the shocking picture of a woman standing at the water’s edge. For a moment my joke about a ghost didn’t seem very funny anymore. She wore a white dress and her pale skin stood in strange relief against the boiling, black ocean. And since I was evidently seeing ghosts it makes sense that I nearly believed in Greek gods the moment I saw that water. Only divine beings could wage such a war. The waves stood up, their chests thrust out, roaring as they charged the shore, slamming the rocks and scraping the broken shells from the ground and dragging them back to the sea. Wind fought tide. Land fought ocean. As the waves crested the gale shoved them backward, breaking the water, while lightnin
g broke the sky. And in the middle of it all, the tiny woman, her thin arms raised toward the black clouds.

  “Come on,” Nathan yelled and gave my arm a nudge as he ran toward her. “Little!” He called, as if he were saying her name. “Little!” I pulled myself out of my reverie and forced myself to follow. In the flashlight’s beam I saw that it wasn’t a white dress she wore, but a nightgown, shamefully sheer in its wetness. And as the wind whipped her white hair I realized that it wasn’t a girl, but an old woman. She turned her wrinkled face on me and her expression went from anger to interest.

  Nathan signaled me over to him and handed me the slippery flashlight as he took her arm. “Follow me. We’re taking her home. It isn’t far.” I wanted to ask what she was doing outside, but not in front of her. I trained the flashlight on the slick, uneven ground and listened to Nathan’s growling voice remonstrate her like a child. Her defensive body language and fierce scowl made it clear that only her need to grope his arms kept her from slapping Nathan about the head. When I blinked enough to clear the thick rain from my eyes I noticed her sneak a meaningful look at me, but I didn’t try to speak above the noise of the storm. Nathan led us across the cove, down another path through the trees until a small, shingled house came into view.

  Through the lit windows I could see a miniature kitchen, gleaming yellow against the dark night. Nathan opened the back door, steered the woman inside first and then stepped aside for me. Once in the bright, cramped kitchen we all looked at each other, half drowned and panting. “Jennifer,” Nathan said quietly, “this is Little.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I gaped at the wet woman, struggling to make her name fit. She leered at me with a strange grin and I shook my head, trying to settle my thoughts.

  “I need to go tell Sarah you’re all right before she goes running out in this. And there are still lights here, so you might as well enjoy the electricity for a bit. Darcy nearly burns the house down playing with candles whenever the power goes out. I should run over there, too.” He threw a speedy glance at Little and then turned away, blushing. “Could you please help her clean up and I’ll come back in just a few minutes.” He waved his hand at Little in all her sopping glory. I nodded, largely because I didn’t want to push his annoyance any farther.

  “I’ll grab a towel.” Nathan exited the room, but reappeared quickly and dropped a blue towel into her hands. He gave me a quick once over, looked back at Little and sighed as if he didn’t trust God himself to keep us out of trouble. And then, reluctantly, he left.

  Little draped the towel around her shoulders and stared at the tiny yellow kitchen as if she needed to remember where she was. Her pale blue eyes grabbed mine - that is the only way to describe it - grabbed. She yanked my eyeballs straight at her and held them hostage.

  “There’s a robe on the back of the bathroom door. No need to drip.” Her voice broke the spell and I nodded awkwardly, realizing that I was shivering. I had no idea where the bathroom was but the house was so tiny I knew it wouldn’t take long to find. I left her as she lowered herself into a kitchen chair, slowly rubbing the water off her arms. I stepped from the kitchen to the living room and saw only two doors. The first one I opened was the bathroom covered in peach tiles and sea shell wallpaper. On the door hung a thin, pink robe and I slipped it on, wondering how long Nathan wanted me to sit here with her.

  The lady’s eyes tracked me as I shuffled back to the kitchen. Her body was old and soft, but her sharp eyes made me hold my breath when she stared. “You Hazel’s granddaughter?” she barked. I nodded again, scared stiff. “Claire’s girl?”

  “Yes.” I almost said ‘yes, ma’am’ but I had never used that term in my life and the ma’am stuck like a bone in my throat.

  “You turned out pretty. You’re all drowned right now, but you look like Sarah.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, lowering myself into the chair farthest from her.

  “Not as pretty as me, but that’s a rare curse, anyhow.” She mumbled. “I knew your grandma. And your great grandma, for that matter. My name is Little. Little Fairborn.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” The lights flickered and I jumped, looking up at the ceiling. The sunny colors of the walls and cabinets clashed strangely with the howling storm.

  Little took the towel from her shoulders and started to mop up her ancient legs. I diverted my eyes so swiftly that my head started to hurt. Her thin white housedress was clinging to her skin, barely blurring her breasts. I heard her laugh, another bark, just like her questions, and I forgot not to look.

  “That ain’t nothing you haven’t seen!” she said with no trace of embarrassment. “Ain’t nothing a lot o’ people haven’t seen.” The color boiled up in my face and my throat constricted tightly. Was I going to cry? Here in this tiny, sunshiny room with a disturbed old woman who might as well be naked?

  “But I got something that not everyone has seen. I know you can keep a secret. There’s no one in your family who wouldn’t be born knowing how to keep a secret. Hazel had a hundred and your aunt… she takes the prize.” I couldn’t begin to decipher what she meant when she began unbuttoning her housedress. I skidded back in my chair, making a jarring, scraping sound as I stood. Storm or not, there was only so much I could take. Before I could form my excuse for goodbye her deep voice boomed out in command. “Settle yourself!” I froze, my teeth chattering wildly. I could not disobey a direct order from an old woman. She stood on tottering legs and turned her back to me, letting the dress slip over her shoulders, halfway down her back. “Eh?” she asked in a tone of pride. I took in the wrinkles first; Her entire body falling into itself. But just in the middle of her shoulder blades a strange black stain. She tugged her shoulders forward under her chin, pulling her loose skin tighter.

  I gasped. “Wings!”

  “That’s right.” She crooned as she replaced her housedress and wrapped herself back in the towel. “Wings. Been there for more than sixty years. Jus’ in case I need a little extra lift gettin’ to heaven.” Now you have your own secret. Nathan don’t know. Your aunt don’t know. Your mother don’t know. Jus’ you and me know. Makes you a bit special don’t it? I guess I decided you’re special so you must be.” Her wispy white hair was drying slowly, making a fine cloud above her pink scalp, and hanging in a thin tail down her neck. “Back then not many girls got tattoos. I was different. I was different like your mama. But I didn’t stay gone.”

  “How is my mother different?” I asked. Of anyone in the world, anyone at all, that I could have chosen to have an air of mystery about them, my mother would have been solidly, dead last. Other than not getting along with my Aunt there was not one thing about her that seemed out of the ordinary.

  “She left. Nobody leaves. Well, everybody leaves, but she stayed gone. Burned her bridges flat! She was one of the toughest little girls I ever saw. Had her own mind. Different than your aunt. You’ll figure that out, though” Little held me with her blue eyes, gripping tightly, but stroking at the same time. Her eyes were caressing some part of the inside of me as if she knew I would need the comfort. “But tougher don’t mean better. It just means tougher. I could see it because I am the only person I know who’s tougher. So I can see it.”

  “Is your name really Little?” My tongue slowly unglued and the question popped out.

  “If it’s what you let people call you, it’s your name.”

  “But what is your real name?” I persisted.

  Thunder cracked violently outside and I moaned when the house shook and the lights wavered. Little’s mouth opened into half-crazed smile of glee and she clapped her hands together. “Now that’s more like it!” She cried. “I hate a half-hearted storm. Show us what you’ve got!” She called up as if she could see through the roof to the churning sky. She caught sight of me in her pink robe and her thoughts came back inside the kitchen, which was fine with me because I, unlike she, did not want the house to blow down on top of us. “What are you doing here?” she asked me. “Your mam
a coming back?” At first I thought she had dementia and couldn’t remember why I was in her kitchen. Then I realized she meant Smithport, not her house.

  “I found out about Sarah last month. I came to meet her. My Mother’s not coming. Just me.”

  Little looked at me long and hard and then said, “My brother named me Little. My Mother named me Lillian. She called me Lil. When Joe was three he thought she was saying Little and that was that.”

  “Did that bother you? You never changed it back?”

  “No. No.” Recollections ran through her smoky blue grey eyes. “Little fit me fine. It seemed right somehow. Mostly because there was nothing little about me,” she slid her eyes slyly back to her breasts and raised her eyebrows at me. “So,” she said loudly, changing the subject, “do you have a love story?”

  “Me?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I knew I was growing increasingly scared and intrigued by every word she said. “What do you mean?”

  She gave me a pitying, disgusted look as if she were dealing with a very simple person. “A love story. No matter what anyone says the best loves belong to the young. By the time I was your age I had the start of a love story that could rival anyone. But I tell no one. No one except those that can give me a love story first. It’s a trade. But mine is always better.”

  “I…I… don’t have one,” and for the first time I felt ashamed of my boring, routine life. I wished I could have gone toe to toe with that old woman, put her love story to shame, whatever it might be, but all I had was a lifelong determination not to get stuck in a sappy love story.

  Little dismissed me with a glance, and I flinched. “Then come back when you have one and I’ll tell you mine.” She nursed a cup of water in her hand, peering into it like it would show her the past in its depths. “I’ll get dressed before the boy comes back,” she mumbled and shuffled into her bedroom.