(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)
© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
13
Sometimes I wonder what kind of thing I am.
NOW SOMETHING new came about. Something new was happening to the black bird, which had been Falco before his stepmother murdered him.
He could hear a rough sound from far away. It was almost lost in the emptiness. And he listened for that sound with everything he could. The sound got closer, clearer. It seemed like he knew that sound. Then he did.
It was the sound of tires crunching over the gravel driveway.
He heard the sound of the motor of the car, too. The tires stopped crunching and the motor switched off. Two car doors opened and shut and there were footsteps in the gravel. One step was heavy and hasty and the other was light and slow.
The steps sounded on the front porch. He heard the front door open and close. Voices came from inside the house but they were too far for him to make out what they said.
Then he heard the glass doors slide open. The two pairs of steps crossed the terrace and walked onto the grass.
The little steps dragged the big steps along. Then the big steps stumbled and stopped.
‘Look, Papa,’ said a little girl’s voice.
And a man’s deep voice answered, ‘No…’
He knew the voices somehow. He knew those two.
He opened his eyes and looked at them. But they were strangers. He didn’t know them after all.
He turned his head and looked up at the sky. The sky was so big and terrible and far away. But it threatened to fall down on him, on the house and on the Beak. His head rolled farther back. And then he saw something dark in between him and the sky, something comforting and strong.
It was the Juniper Tree. He looked at it.
It was as big and broad as ever. Not a branch was burned, not even singed. But he couldn’t feel it any more, the thing that lived inside the Juniper Tree, the thing that spoke to him and watched over him since forever. It was only a tree, an old dry tree on a cliff looking out over the water.
He looked back to the house and saw Dad and Greta standing there.
They looked on him with empty faces. It was clear that they didn’t know what to say. He didn’t either.
It was Bjorn and Greta and Falco. Yes it was Falco all right and he wasn’t any ghost.
‘Falco,’ Bjorn whispered. He stared at his son standing under the Juniper Tree. ‘But you’re dead. Aren’t you?’
Falco pointed down to the water beyond the cliff.
‘No. She is.’
Far out to sea, something was washing in the waves. It looked like a woman in a sea-green dress, face down in the foam. Her arm twisted out and a trail of blood trickled in her wake. The carcass of a white dog washed alongside her.
His father watched with horror in his eyes.
‘Rayn… You killed her.’
‘Poor Mama!’ Greta said.
He shook his head. ‘She only got what she deserved.’
‘Falco,’ Greta sighed.
He lifted his foot and took a step forward. The grass under his foot felt cool and springy and weird. No. It was the foot that felt weird. It was flat and squishy and soft, not like talons at all.
He held up his right hand and gave Dad the note and the bonds from Mr Hodgkiss. His dad stared at them.
He held up his left hand and gave Greta the bracelet from Mary-Louise. Greta smiled at it.
Inside the house the oven bell went off. Thanksgiving Feast was ready.
‘Ah, what is that smell,’ asked Dad.
Greta sniffed. ‘Yummy.’
‘I feel better than I have in years,’ said Dad. ‘Come inside, Falco. Come and sit in the chair for the Thanksgiving King. It’s what your Mother would have wanted.’ His eyes were bright with tears.
‘It’s your chair,’ said Greta. She was beaming. Her smile reminded him of Giorgio.
He took them by the hands. ‘Yes,’ he said.
They went in and ate.
