Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Magic Feather

The phone rings.

And for the second time today, Gwendy almost faints.

“RYAN! I’M SO GLAD you called.”

“I’ve been trying to get a… for days, sweetheart,” he says, his voice momentarily gone amidst a blast of static. “Stupid phones here are worthless.”

“Here” is the small island of Timor, located off the southern end of Southeast Asia. Ryan’s been there since the first week of December with a Time magazine crew covering government unrest.

“Are you okay?” Gwendy asks. “Are you safe?”

“I stink like I’ve been living… barn the last couple weeks but I’m fine.”

Gwendy laughs. Happy tears stream down her cheeks. She gets up from the sofa and starts pacing back and forth. “Are you going to make it home in time for Christmas?”

“I don’t know, honey. I hope so but… are heating up here.”

“I understand.” Gwendy nods her head. “I hope you’re wrong, but I understand.”

“How’s… doing?” he says, cutting out again.

“What? I didn’t hear you, baby.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

Gwendy smiles—and then stops in her tracks.

She stares at the curtained window that occupies the upper half of the kitchen door, unsure if it’s her imagination. A few seconds pass and she’s just about convinced she’s seeing things, when a shadow moves again. Someone’s outside on the deck.

“…hear me?” Ryan says, startling her.

“Oh, she’s doing fine,” Gwendy says, inching into the kitchen and pulling open a drawer. “Gaining weight and going to her appointments.” She takes out a steak knife and holds it against her leg.

“I’ll have to make her… secret recipe pancakes when I… home.”

“Just get your butt home in one piece, will you?”

He laughs and starts to say something else, and then there’s an ear-piercing jolt of static—and dead air.

“Hello? Hello?” she says, pulling the phone away from her ear so she can look at the screen. “Shit.” He’s gone.

Gwendy places the cellphone on the counter, crouches, and edges closer to the door. When she reaches the end of the row of cabinets, she crab-walks the last couple of feet into position directly behind the door. Before she can lose her nerve, she lets out a banshee cry and springs to her feet, flipping on the outside light with one hand and using the other hand to flick aside the flowered curtains with the tip of the steak knife.

Whoever was standing outside of the door is gone. All that’s left is her wide-eyed reflection staring back at her.

THE FIRST THING GWENDY does after retrieving her cellphone from the kitchen counter (even before she walks to the front door and double-checks the deadbolt) is to make sure nothing has happened to the button box. For one terrible, breathless moment, while she’s crossing from the kitchen into the family room, she imagines that the figure at the back door was a diversionary tactic, and while she was busy conducting her counterattack, an accomplice was breaking into the front of the house and stealing away with the box.

Her entire body sags with relief when she sees the button box sitting on the sofa right where she’d left it.

A short time later, as she makes her way upstairs carrying the box, it occurs to her that she never once considered telling Ryan about it. At first, she tries to use the severed connection as an excuse, but she knows better. The button box came back to her and only her. Nobody else.

“It’s mine,” she says as she enters the bedroom.

And shivers at the intensity of her voice.

GWENDY SLEEPWALKS HER WAY through December 17, 1999, her final day at the office before Congress begins its three-week holiday break. She spends the first fifteen minutes convincing Bea that she feels well enough to be at work (the day before, the panicked receptionist was ready to call the paramedics when she found Gwendy vomiting into her trash can; luckily, Gwendy was able to convince her that it must’ve been something bad she ate for breakfast, and after agreeing to go home forty minutes early, the older woman finally relented) and the next eight-and-a-half hours resisting the urge to rush home and check on the button box.

She hated to leave the box back at the townhouse, especially after the scare at her kitchen door the night before, but she didn’t have much of a choice. No telling how the X-ray machines at the security checkpoints would react to the box, and perhaps even more worrisome, no telling how the box would react to being X-rayed. Gwendy didn’t have a clue what the inside of the button box looked like, or what its innards were made of, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Before she left for her two-block walk to the Capitol Building, she hid the box at the back of a narrow crawlspace underneath the staircase. She stacked cardboard boxes full of books on each side and in front of it, and laid a pile of winter coats on top of it all. Once she was satisfied, she closed the crawlspace’s small door, locked up the townhouse, and started for work. She managed only to return home to check on the box twice before finally making it into the office.

Gwendy’s last day passes in a blur of faceless voices and background noise. Several phone conferences in the morning and a pair of brief committee meetings in the afternoon. She doesn’t remember much of what was said in any of them, or even what she ate for lunch.

When five o’clock rolls around, she locks her office and sets off to deliver Christmas gifts to a handful of co-workers—a set of scented candles and bath salts for Patsy, a cashmere sweater and bracelet for Bea, and a stack of signed books for Bea’s children. After well-wishes and hugs goodbye, she heads for the lobby.

“I’M SURE GONNA MISS your smiling face these next few weeks, Congresswoman.”

“I’m going to miss you, too,” Gwendy says, stopping at the security desk. She reaches into her tote bag and pulls out a small box covered in snowman wrapping paper. She hands it across the barrier to the barrel-chested guard. “Merry Christmas, Harold.”

Harold’s mouth drops open. He slowly reaches out and takes the gift. “You got me… this is really for me?”

Gwendy smiles and nods her head. “Of course. I would never forget my favorite head of security.”

He looks at her in confusion. “Head of—?” And then he grins and those gold teeth of his wink at her in the fluorescent lights. “Oh, you’re joking with me.”

“Open your present, silly man.”

His meaty fingers attack the wrapping paper and uncover a shiny black box with Bulova printed in gold lettering across the top of it. He opens the box and looks up in disbelief. “You bought me a watch?”

“I saw you admiring Congressman Anderson’s last week,” Gwendy says. “I thought you deserved one of your own.”

Harold opens his mouth but no words come out. Gwendy is surprised to see that the guard’s eyes have gone shiny and his chin is trembling. “I… this is the nicest present anyone has ever given me,” he finally says. “Thank you.”

For the first time today, Gwendy feels like maybe everything will be okay. “You’re very welcome, Harold. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.” She pats his arm affectionately and turns to leave.

“Not so fast,” Harold says, raising a hand. He ducks behind the desk and comes back up with a wrapped gift of his own. He hands it to Gwendy.

She looks at him in surprise, and then reads the gift tag: To Congresswoman Gwendy Peterson; From Harold & Beth . “Thank you,” she says, genuinely touched. “Both of you.” She opens the present. It’s a thick hardcover book with a bright orange dust jacket. She turns it over so she can see the front cover—and the room shifts, up, down, and up again, like she just sat down on a teeter-totter at the playground.