Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

“Was I infected in the gut?”

“No. But stabbed through.”

“I knew that part.”

“I suppose you did.”

“Am I safe?”

“As safe as any of us are.”

“Is that safe?”

“You’re safe, yes. There were three of us, and now four.”

Bird was able to take one step, and then several before buckling and falling to one knee.

“Or three and a half,” said John.

Just outside of the room Bird found himself in, there was a table set with silver and porcelain and several candles. Corroded copper hung from metal hooks. Stirred butter sat in a bowl. A woman sat at the piano in the living room, just beyond the half-wall hedging in the table. Next to her stood a short girl in a white bit of clothing.

The girl lowered her violin and turned to greet Bird with bright excitement. Her mother played a few resolving notes on the piano, then closed the cover over the keys and scolded her daughter.

“Mary, it’s important each time to play the measure through.”

“He’s awake,” said Mary, pointing to Bird, who was using the dinner table to keep himself from swaying, leaning his right hip into it in a way he figured to be subtle.

“Did you sleep well?” asked Mary’s mother. She was stiff, turned at the waist with her knees still pointing forward, her foot still on the piano’s pedal, sustaining the note.

“I had nightmares,” offered Bird. The urge to lean and the weakness in his legs was finally too much, and he sank into the chair at the head of the table.

“O you kind gods, cure this great breach in his abused nature! The untuned and jarring senses,” said John.

“He’s hungry,” said Mary, placing her violin in its case on the floor and coming to join Bird at the table. “Can we eat?”

“Play something, Martha, to ease us into meal time,” said John, and his wife happily obliged.

Bird knew nothing before like the sound of that piano resonating within the wooden walls of this new home.

“What did you dream about?” said Mary.

John wrapped a towel around the handle of the iron pot boiling on the stove. He lifted it and settled it onto a piece of carved wood between his daughter and the young boy.

“We could start with his name,” said her father, “maybe where he comes from, before we settle into exploring the hells of a tortured mind.”

“What’s your name?” said Mary.

“Bird,” he said.

John stirred the pot and set a biscuit on Bird’s plate.

“You have to wait until it cools,” said John. “You’re eyeing it like a hound.”

“Sorry,” said Bird. He tried to reach for the biscuit with an arm that wasn’t there, then blushed and tears came and he went at the biscuit with his other.

“There’s no shame in hunger,” said John.

“Where do you come from?” said Mary, pulling her legs up into her chair to pad her seat.

She wasn’t a pretty girl. Her eyes bulged like a victim’s. Her hair was in a tight braid, narrowing down the back of her dress. She had a high forehead and an unclean complexion. But she was genuine in her interest and kind in her phrasing.

“A farm just beyond the mountains,” said Bird. He pushed the biscuit against his plate to break it into fourths, but it was buttery and slick. It slid from his hand and would not steady.

“Which one is that?” said John. “You’re not Tully’s boy?”

“No,” said Bird, “but I… I think we knew a Tully.”

“Tully’s fine to do business with,” said John, “but not much for company. That’s good playing, Martha.”

Martha nodded with her chin and body toward the piano, leaning into something slow and practical. It blended neutrally with the atmosphere of the room and caused neither a foot to tap nor an ear to lose its conversational footing.

“I didn’t know him well,” said Bird.

“Well, you’re young,” said John. He came up behind Bird and reached to his plate with a spoon in order to break the biscuit in half. He then sat in the seat beside his daughter and lifted her braid with one hand. “You think we’re any closer to cutting this?”

She shook it free from her father’s casual grip.

“Thank you,” said Bird.

“Did you see any fighting?” she asked.

“Some,” said Bird.

“Did you see any men die?”

“If he did,” said John, “is it something he would want to talk about immediately after waking up as he did? Let him breathe a little. Let him eat. His stories will come out with time.”

“I… I don’t have any stories,” said Bird. “I grew up on a very normal farm and my parents were very casual people who did not bother much with towns or neighbors.”

“Well there’s no company like kin,” said John, “although I’m sure your folks did a lot more than you knew at the time. It’s the way of parents and children. You’ll understand it when you’re older.”

Bird nodded.

“It’s about as unpleasant a segue as I could have mustered, but I do wonder some about how you wound up in the cave and what might have happened to your parents. Can we take you to them? Can you guide us from the main road?”

“They’re dead,” said Bird, finally accepting a bit of the warm biscuit into his mouth.

“Oh, no,” said Mary.

“Oh,” said John, “how? Martha, can you stop for a second?”

Martha nodded without turning, shut up the piano, and rose to join them at the table.

“Bird’s got some heavy news and I couldn’t make light of it with your lovely playing,” said John. “You were excellent, my dear.”

“What’s the heavy news?” said Martha. She loaded her plate with slop from the pot, then she loaded Mary’s. John served himself, then offered a full ladle out to Bird.

“You were saying, Bud?”

“Bird,” said Bird.

“You were saying, Bird?”

“They died, my parents. They were killed. Two men killed them. For money. They were killers, the men. They stabbed me and left me for dead and I wandered until I wound up here.”

Martha shook her head. She closed her eyes.

“The evils in this world abound,” she said.

She tilted her chin toward her lap. When she opened her eyes, there was a softness to them that hadn’t been there before. She reached across the table and took Bird’s hand. He flinched at first, then accepted the gesture. “Child, you’ll live with us until they find and punish the men who did this.”

John nodded.

“Do you know anything about them? Their names? Why they hurt your family? What they looked like? Where they were from or where they were headed?”

“No.”

“It’s okay,” said Mary.

“One of them had a handkerchief, I guess. He was slightly round about the waist. Soft features. A hanging chin. He was the younger of the two.”

“The other?” said John.

“He was much bigger. Muscular. He had… a rough look to him.”

“Oh,” said Mary.

“He had stubble, like you,” Bird pointed to John.

“It’s been a long weekend,” said John.

“And they carried knives in their boots.”

“You said they did it for money?” said John.

Bird nodded.

“How did you know?”

“They… brought parts back. They were planning to make some sort of trade, I guess. I heard them. They… they put my mom’s head in a gunny sack and my dad’s hung from the side of the saddle.”

“Whoa,” said Mary.

“Now Bird,” said Martha, “I know you’ve been through some kind of hell, but you’ve got to do your best to keep this thing civil. I won’t have Mary waking up with nightmares for weeks to come.”

“Sorry,” said Bird.

“Sorry?” said Martha. “Sorry what?”

“Don’t mess with him, Martha. He’s telling a story.”