Naomi Jackson - The Star Side of Bird Hill

Eventually, Dionne came to be soothed by her grandmother’s heavy snores, which rose above the walls that stopped just short of the ceiling to let the breeze pass through. It was a comforting layer of sound alongside the frogs that chirped and croaked and occasionally made the nights in Bird Hill seem louder than the nights in Brooklyn. Soon, Dionne enjoyed having her own room, which was impossible in Brooklyn, where everything that was hers was also Phaedra’s.

Now, Dionne nudged her sister again, pressing her bony knee into Phaedra’s rib cage, which was puffed up with sleep.

“What?” Phaedra moaned. She felt for her grandmother in the bed bedside her, but her spot on the bed was cool. Phaedra was startled at first, and then she remembered that she’d sometimes stir in the middle of the night and find Hyacinth gone, or wake in the morning to find her grandmother deep in sleep well past sunrise.

“Get up. Don’t you want to see Chris?”

“What time is it?”

“Don’t worry about the time. Just come.”

Phaedra took in the time on the digital alarm clock, 3:05, and looked up again at Dionne, whose figure she could make out better as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She pulled on her favorite pair of black jeans, an indigo t-shirt, and a sweater she’d brought for chilly nights, but hadn’t yet worn.

They walked to the back of the house. Dionne undid the locks on the door that led to the backyard. Once they were outside, the chickens started to rustle their feathers, but stopped when Dionne sprinkled feed for them. The girls skirted the edge of their grandmother’s garden, wetting their ankles with hydrangea dew. And then they found the road.

The night was brighter than Phaedra expected, brilliantly lit by the full moon and stars that seemed close enough to pluck from the sky. Phaedra stuck close to her sister as they rounded the first ring of the hill road. She wanted to reach for Dionne’s hand, but she knew she was too big for that now.

The girls passed a pink chattel house that Phaedra knew was the halfway point between her grandmother’s house and the church. The hairs on Phaedra’s arms stood up. Suddenly, she felt a hand grab her right elbow. She yelped and her sister stopped a few strides ahead.

“What kind of time you looking tonight?” the voice rasped in Phaedra’s ear.

Phaedra could feel the man and his breath and then his grasp as he ground his hips against her.

“Let me go,” Phaedra said in a voice that was half whisper, half scream.

Dionne stepped between her sister and the stranger and said, “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“I just want a dance,” the stranger said. Dionne could see the man’s glassy eyes and smell the liquor on his breath.

“Does she look like she wants to dance with you?” Dionne asked.

“All right, all right, all right. No need to get upset. I was just trying to have a good time.”

Mr. Jeremiah let Phaedra go and stumbled down the hill, in the opposite direction of his house. He sang, his voice rising above the cricket chorus, “Long time we no have no nice time. Do you, do you, do yah think about that?” He punched the air for emphasis on “that” and Phaedra and Dionne stood watching his retreat until he was too far gone for their eyes to follow or their ears to hear.

“Next time walk closer to me,” Dionne said.

Phaedra nodded. She was too focused on the damp rings of sweat Mr. Jeremiah’s hands had left on her wrists to speak.

The front steps of the church at the top of the hill were always lit for travelers on their way home. Phaedra felt some of her fear drop away as they approached it, her heartbeat descend back to her chest from where it had taken residence inside her eardrums. When they came closer to the Lovings’ house, the rectory next to the church, Phaedra felt her heart quicken again. Trevor leaned against the metal gate and Chris did the same, imitating his older brother’s ease. The girls met up with the boys and then split off into their usual pairs, Dionne and Trevor holding hands, Phaedra’s and Chris’s arms grazing.

Phaedra and Chris climbed over the railing that enclosed Phaedra’s great-aunt’s grave. Chris pulled out a flashlight and a handkerchief to wipe the dusty wet. Then, he indicated that Phaedra should sit down. Phaedra, suspicious of this extra attention, chose to stand.

“It’s cold,” Phaedra said. She felt the cool of the night’s small hours travel beneath her layers and make contact with her clammy skin.

“You want my jersey?” Chris asked.

“No, I do not want your sweater, Christopher. What I do want is a reason why you thought it would be a good idea to try and kill me with the biggest rock you could find.”

“I just wanted to know.”

“Know what? Know what I looked like lying unconscious? What exactly is so interesting about that?”

“I’m not saying that. I just was curious about… you know.”

“No, I do not know. What are you talking about?”

“I wanted to know if it’s true what people say about your family. If it’s true that you can’t die.”

“Who told you that?” Phaedra grabbed the flesh on Chris’s arm and pulled, wringing it until she felt his skin grow hot.

“Nobody. Nobody told me,” Chris said, trying to wrestle out of her hold.

“Besides, how could you even believe that when we’re sitting on the very real grave of my very dead great-aunt? How stupid could you be?”

Phaedra waited for Chris to say something. When she heard nothing, she turned to step out of the grave, which was enclosed by a knee-high ring of intricately wrought iron. She tripped and Chris caught her before she fell.

“You all right?”

“I’m fine. Glad that it was my own two feet that tripped me this time and not you.”

“Come on, Phaedra. You’re fine now.”

“Tell me who told you.”

“It’s not just one person. Everybody knows.”

Phaedra felt the weight of this truth as another blow to her already fragile sense of belonging. She shook her head, not wanting to believe that she was as much an outsider here as in Brooklyn.

“I’m leaving.”

“Wait. I wanted to give you these,” Chris said. He pressed three blue marbles into her palm.

“Why?”

“I wanted you to have something of mine… something almost as beautiful as you.”

Phaedra grunted, a sound that was halfway between dismissal and thanks. Then she closed her fingers around the marbles.

Phaedra and Chris used the beams from Chris’s flashlight and the murmurs of Dionne’s and Trevor’s voices to lead them to their siblings’ hiding place. Chris cleared his throat as they approached, giving Dionne and Trevor a chance to untangle themselves from each other. If she’d been on the hill longer, Dionne would have known that years of experience had taught Chris not to interrupt his brother’s flow with girls who let him touch them. But Dionne was new to the hill, and her relationship with Trevor depended on her believing that she was his first or, at least for this summer, his only.

“Yes?” Dionne said from the cocoon of Trevor’s arms.

“I’m going to walk Phaedra home,” Chris said.

“You know the way?” Dionne asked, although she was unlikely to leave the comfort of Trevor’s embrace to give directions or lead them anywhere.

“Of course,” Chris said.

“I’m only letting him walk me because he asked,” Phaedra said.

“That’s my boy,” Trevor said. He went to give his little brother a high five, but their palms missed each other in the dark.

“That’s my sister, you ass,” Dionne said, and then started play-punching Trevor.

Phaedra, who knew that, for Dionne, anger was often a prelude to affection, understood that they’d been dismissed. She tugged at Chris’s elbow to indicate it was time to go.