Four and Twenty Blackbirds

He's coming, baby. You get yourself gone. Get yourself gone.



It was coming from the woods, just beyond where I could see through the foliage. The voice was almost normal, almost a fearful warning. But not quite. No living throat made that sad cry. These were ghosts I knew and loved.



I took a last look at Malachi, dribbling blood and saliva into the grass. He wouldn't be coming after me, not anytime soon. And I had his gun. The weight of the weapon pressed between my belt and my skin made me feel more secure, as though I could defend myself against the dead, or against those who had the power to raise them. I crouched down, tied my shoes tight, and stomped through the grass and mud, and between the tall old trunks. In a matter of seconds, I'd lost sight of the car behind me.



Get yourself gone, girl.



"Mae, where are you?"



Underneath the high, leafy canopy, the world was even darker than out by the road. Although most of the ground was solid enough, I had a hard time seeing where the forest floor was dirt and where it was mulch. My shoes squished as my feet sucked at the mud.



One sneaker sank at least two inches into the muck.



I lurched forward, grabbing a tree for support. A slick salamander, red and black and brown and a little bit gold, scurried up the trunk, away from my falling hand. I watched with relief as it shimmied higher, hiding itself on a low branch. For a dozen reasons, I was glad I hadn't crushed it.



I looked back towards the road. With a twinge of alarm, I realized I wasn't sure which direction I should be checking. The disorientation was dizzying, and my inner panic button was dangerously near to being pushed; but they wouldn't leave me here. The women had never proved anything but helpful before. They wouldn't let me die out there in the woods.



I hoped. I prayed. I even asked it aloud. "Mae? Willa? Luanna? I know you're here. You have to be. Oh my God, don't leave me out here. I don't know where I'm going." And I'm sore, and I'm tired, and I have no idea what I'm doing,I thought, but I didn't add that part. They probably knew it already. I clung to the trunk with one hand while the salamander's oil-black eyes stared down.



Yes—there, through the trees. A flash of color. A smudge of light or motion.



Then again, very distinctly, I saw yellow, a tall streak.



I staggered towards it. "Mae?"



But this was no ghost. And it was not Mae. A woman in a corn-colored dress knelt at the foot of a tree, the trunk of which was as big around as a toolshed. She was using a dull knife to scrape greenish-brown moss from the trunk, collecting it in a cloth bag in her lap. Patches of sweat dampened her dress from her shoulders to the small of her back, and her feet were bare, sticking out from underneath her thighs and twitching as her arm worked the blade.



"Hello?"



She didn't answer.



"Hello?"



The woman's head lifted, and cocked to the right. She'd heard something, but it wasn't me. I was staring down at Willa. Not the ghost Willa, who had come to my dreams, but the living, breathing woman Willa. Her flesh did not hang loose off her cheekbones, and her lips were full and firm. Her eyes and skin were not the pasty, postmortem gray I'd always seen. She was the color of black tea with a small spoonful of cream, and her eyes were olive-brown. A sudden swelling in my throat reminded me of the obvious—she looked a great deal like Lulu.



But her eyes were not looking for me. They were searching for something else, a different presence. One I'd not detected.



Who's there? she asked, and only then was she betrayed as a figment. Although this apparition looked as solid as the woods around us, her voice remained the hollow echo that marked the speech of all the ghosts I've ever heard. Avery, is that you?



Yes, ma'am.



He stepped from behind another large tree. He was wickedly handsome, as dark as European chocolate, with ivory white teeth. A cream undershirt showed from beneath the cotton plaid button-up he'd half tucked into a pair of dirty black pants. It would have been easy for me to say he resembled Dave, but he was so much bigger, and he walked with a sense of masculine aggression that my uncle generally lacked. This was a man accustomed to being obeyed.



It's just me. His words had no more volume than Willa's, but I heard each precise letter when he spoke them. He walked up close to her then, and picked at the moss on the tree. What are you doing getting this? We don't need any. It ain't the right kind.



Willa lowered her eyes to the bag sitting across her knees. I thought I saw fear beneath her lids before she averted her eyes. Fear and something else . . . guilt. Sure it is, she nodded, but Avery didn't believe her and neither did I.



No, it ain't. This is good for some things, but not for what we need tonight. You know this isn't what I asked for.



She looked up at him. Honest I don't. I thought this was what you said.



Well, it ain't.



What kind do we need, then?



Never mind, he said. I got it already. I got almost everything I need to make it work.



He turned his back to me and offered her his hand, as if to help her rise. But in the other hand, behind the small of his back, he held a long, serrated knife with a wooden handle. I only need one more thing, and you can help me with it.



Oka—



The knife cut her word short.



She tried to move backwards but he held her by the shoulder, at the crook of her neck, and he would not let her fall. Blood gushed over his hands, and down the front of her dress in dark orange streaks where it wet the yellow fabric. She clawed at his arms, and pushed at his chest, and kicked weakly at his legs . . . and then went slack.



Her knees unlocked and she folded to the ground, still sucking at air through her slashed throat.



While she lay there soaking the grass around her, not completely unconscious, Avery took the big knife to her wrist and began sawing. I clapped my hand over my mouth and turned away, but I could not escape the sound of splintering bone and snapping veins, accompanied by the woman's gasps of astonished agony.



Avery was strong, and he worked quickly. When I dared to look again, he was dumping out the contents of Willa's little bag, and replacing them with the gory trophy of her right hand. He stood and tied the bag onto his belt. Then he hoisted her up, slinging her over his shoulders and carrying her away. One of those naked, calloused feet still jerked faintly against his back.



Go on, girl, Get yourself gone.



I heard it again, more urgently. I followed Avery's gruesomely laden form anyway, staring fixedly at the knife he'd shoved down the back of his pants, just like I was toting my gun.



Someone had to know. Someone had to see. I owed them this much.



I must have said that last part aloud, for a response came unbidden from the trees.



No, you owe us much more.



II



Avery carried Willa to the edge of a fetid pool that reeked of rot and disease. He dropped her in, splashing his ankles with the smelly black liquid. She didn't sink fast enough for his liking so he put his foot on her back and pushed. Bubbles gurgled up from her dress, from her lungs, and from her hair. And then she was gone. She did not rise.



Avery shook his leg, driving the worst of the water away. Somewhere, not far off, I heard the low plop and ripple of something quite large entering the pool. Soon after, a second plop, and more ripples. Then came the yellow periscope eyes and the long, scaly heads. I marveled to see how quickly the forest had given way to wetlands.



He left the pond purposefully, striding almost happily between the trees, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Sometimes when he turned or shifted I could see the bag at his side, and I could see how the bottom grew damp and deeply red.



He nearly ran into Luanna, who threw her hand to her chest and gasped when he came charging at her between the trees. She too was perfect and alive as far as I could tell, but when she spoke it was the same tinny, faraway sound I knew and recognized from my childhood.



There you are. I was just coming for you.



He smiled. Were you, now?



Oh yes. I got the last of the roots to grind down for tonight.



Let me see.



She hesitated. I told you I got them. Let's go back home and get this started.



Let me see them, Lu.



All right, then. No need to be that way. She handed him a bag much like Willa's, lumpy with its contents.



He opened it up. This ain't what I said for you to get.



It is so.



I said it ain't.



She shrugged, but her shoulders trembled with it. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought that's what you told me.



Avery threw the bag down and cuffed her with the back of his hand. She clutched her face and wavered, but didn't fall. A pinch of this would throw off the whole batch! You were gonna go on back home and mix it up before I could see it, weren't you? That's what you were gonna do. You women are out to get me, that's what it is. Either that or you're all stump stupid, and I know that ain't right. What's this turned into now, Lu? Why are you three trying to interfere with what you know I mean to do?



Ain't no one interfering, Ave. I just made a mistake, that's all. She was just beginning to notice that the filth on his clothes wasn't entirely made of swamp scum and mud, and she was getting nervous, though she did her best not to show it. Only the quick twitch of her eyes betrayed her fear. Left to right they went, and right to left, intuitively seeking some exit even before the danger.



He took her quickly, though not so quickly as Willa, for Luanna was not taken off guard. She screamed and tried to run when she saw the knife, but he caught her hair in one huge fist and yanked her head back to be beaten and sliced. She didn't go down without a fight. Once, twice, even a third time she nearly got loose, only to be drawn back into his sharp embrace. I wanted to applaud her for it, but my stomach was turning, wanting it to end.



Luanna fought back like a jungle animal, and although Avery eventually took her down it was not without losing a handful of hair and flesh of his own. Towards the end I turned away, unable to watch another moment of ripping fabric and shearing skin. God, I hated myself for my revulsion. I hated myself for wishing she'd quit struggling and just give up already, so he wouldn't have to mangle her any more.