Banshee

Chapter Thirteen

The old man sat in the redwood chair beside the koi pond, his face almost hidden by a battered straw hat. It was his favorite hat. He’d found it in the avocado grove where it had been dropped by one of the Mexican pickers, and it was so big it bent the tops of his ears over. But it had convenient holes in the crown which allowed air to circulate. And he had not, in spite of Chizzy’s repeated warnings, contracted any scalp disorders from it, head lice or scabies or mites.

Under its wide brim he alternately dozed, listened to the gentle waterfall, watched the brilliant koi moving back and forth and round and round like a painting in progress.

Only the giant black magoi was not part of this moving picture. He lay motionless at the bottom of the pond. The gold piece on his forehead seemed to have tarnished and his diamond scales looked dusty. When the other fish came to the surface to feed on the pellets Mr. Hyatt threw in for them the magoi didn’t stir.

He may be sick, the old man thought. Perhaps we should call the Japanese man who doctors koi, gives them antibiotics, even operates after slowing their metabolism with sedatives.

He knew the magoi couldn’t hear him from way down at the bottom of the pond, and certainly was too stupid to understand him, but he couldn’t stop himself from talking to him, calling him by name.

“Are you sick, Hikari? Do you want me to call the fish doctor? Or do you want to be left alone like me? I have only a few years left but you have possibly a hundred. Does that prospect depress you?”

He watched for signs the magoi had heard him. There were none. Fish remembered no past, anticipated no future. Yet in his native habitat the magoi struggled with great courage to survive, fighting his way up rivers and over waterfalls like a salmon. Here, in this quiet pond, there was nothing to fight, no rivers with rushing currents, no waterfalls except the small man-made one with nothing at the top but clumps of ferns hiding an electric pump. And even if he were taken to a stream and given his freedom he wouldn’t know what to do with it. He would swim round and round as if he were still in the pond, and wait for someone to throw him pellets of food.

Like me, the old man thought. My boundaries are more extensive but they are just as inflexible as the concrete and tile ones of the pond. And I wait for Chizzy to throw me pellets of food and for Howard to tell me what to do, and for Kay to look after me when I’m sick. Kay is my fish doctor.

His shoulders and belly began to shake with silent laughter as he pictured the look on Kay’s face if he told her she was his fish doctor. She would probably call Howard and Chizzy, perhaps Michael too, and the four of them would decide that he had finally gone over the hill.

He laughed until the tears came to his eyes, blurring his vision so he didn’t see Michael approaching from the other side of the pond.

“Mr. Hyatt, may I bother you for a minute?”

“Why Michael, I was just… just sort of thinking of you.”

“Have you seen Dru?”

“No. I wasn’t expecting her. She doesn’t come to visit me anymore. We had what you might call a misunderstanding.”

“I went to her house to ask her some questions,” Michael said. “She wasn’t there. She didn’t come home from school.”

“It’s still fairly early in the day.” He took out his pocket watch. “Oh dear, it’s not, is it? Now and then I lose track of time.”

“She always takes the same bus home. She was on it when it left the school but she didn’t get off. Or if she did, she vanished right afterward.”

“Vanished, that’s an ugly word. You mustn’t use that word, Michael.”

“I have to. Her parents are searching the neighborhood around her house, and Howard and Kay have gone to question the driver of the school bus and the children who were on it.”

“Have they called the police?”

“They’re waiting for some scrap of information. She’s an independent child who often goes off on her own. I thought she might have come here and we’d find her in the palace.”

Mr. Hyatt shook his head. “No. She doesn’t come here anymore. We had words.”

“What about?”

“I said something cruel to her, not meaning to be cruel, only to help her. She kept talking about Annamay not really being dead, how she had gotten up and walked away and the bones that were buried were animal bones. She was so convincing and I wanted so terribly to believe it that I became angry. I was too harsh with her. I called her a deluded little girl. And she… she called me a crazy old man. Tell me truthfully, Michael. Do you think I’m a crazy old man?”

“No.”

“I’m forgetful. That worries me. Is it possible that I did something shameful and then completely forgot about it? Do you consider that possible?”

“No.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’m not,” Mr. Hyatt said slowly. “I’ll never be sure. It is a terrifying thing to doubt one’s own mind. But from now on I always will.”

“Doubts are a part of living.”

“Not ones like this. She accused me—”

“Don’t dwell on it, Mr. Hyatt. It was the talk of a troubled child.” He helped the old man to his feet. “Come on, we’d better search the palace.”

“We won’t find her.”

“We have to try. I need you to open the door for me.”

When they rounded the last bend in the path they could both see that the door was already open. Without a word the old man turned and began walking back toward the koi pond.

The first time Michael had seen the palace it had an abandoned look, with leaves and dust scattered over the floor and furniture, the cushions in disarray on the davenport, a teacup in the sink, the closet filled with toys and old clothes and the fateful pair of sandals. The sandals were gone now and so were the clothes. The closet contained only a neat row of Annamay’s dolls and stuffed toys. The leaves and dirt had been swept away, the cushions rearranged on the davenport, the teacup washed and put in the cupboard. Instead of looking abandoned the room appeared ready to receive a new royal princess or perhaps a visitor like the short fat woman who sat at the dining table. She wore an apron and a tea towel wrapped around her head to protect her hair from dust. She stared at Michael, unsmiling.

“Miss Kay and I were cleaning,” she said, as though an explanation had been demanded from her. “She took a box of clothes over to the house and I haven’t seen her since. I went ahead with the cleaning, thinking she’d be coming back any minute.”

“She and Howard went to search for Dru,” Michael said. “Dru didn’t arrive home from school. Has she been here?”

“Not for a long time. She doesn’t stop in for cookies anymore.”

“I think you should go back to the house now, Chizzy.”

Chizzy spread her plump little hands on the table in front of her as if she were counting her fingers to make sure they were all there. “Something’s happened.”

“I don’t know.”

“Something’s happened,” she repeated, and it was not a question but a simple statement of fact. She had ten fingers, something had happened.

Michael walked quickly through the avocado grove down to the creek. Here, civilization seemed miles away. Yet its sounds reverberated up and down the canyon, the insistent whine and roar of a power saw, the rhythmic tap of a hammer, a plane heading for the airport, the shouts of children playing in the distance.

Children, Michael thought. Firenze hated children. They were out to get her. They blew down at her from trees, they floated through the air like kites.

He began picking his way upstream as fast as he could, crossing and recrossing the creek to avoid barbed shrubs and poison oak. The wind, which had been brisk in the morning, then died down during the day, was coming up again as the afternoon wore on. The eucalyptus trees shook their tousled heads in frenzy and pelted the intruder with pods as hard as rocks. Jays swooped in front of him, squawking, and when he called Dru’s name the acorn woodpeckers answered, correcting him.

“Dru! Dru!”

“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.”

“Dru.”

“Jacob.”

The sycamore trees were the commonest along the creek, their leaves the gaudiest and noisiest, their mottled gray bark the most compelling to the eye. But the live oak trees were the most ancient and durable natives. Their massive trunks were studded with acorns fitted into holes pecked out by the woodpeckers. During fall and winter a few leaves dropped to the ground but most of them remained on the tree to shelter hundreds of small birds at night and during storms.

It was under one of the largest of these oaks that Annamay had been found in a patch of poison oak covered with debris. The area was easy to find now because it had been cleared, the poison oak sprayed with herbicide and hauled away along with all the other dead and dying vegetation.

He stood in the clearing and looked up into the oak tree and saw what he had hoped and prayed he would not see. About thirty-five or forty feet above the ground Dru was clinging facedown to one of the limbs. She was as motionless as if she had grown out of the bark like a new kind of fungus.

He called to her. “Dru, don’t look down. It’s a friend of yours, Michael. I’ve come to help you. Do you hear me?”

She did not respond and he realized she was frozen with fear and that even if he succeeded in reaching her he probably couldn’t loosen her grip and bring her down safely. He would need the assistance of experts.

“Listen to me, Dru. I’m going for help. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t panic and don’t look down.”

He kept yelling at her as he scrambled up the hillside to the nearest house.

“I’m bringing help… Don’t look down… I’ll be right back.”

When he reached the house at the top of the hill he pounded on the back door with his fist. The door remained closed but a woman’s voice spoke to him through a partly opened window.

“Go away.”

“I must use your phone to call Emergency.”

“Boss lady say no open door, no talk strangers.”

He couldn’t identify her exact nationality from her voice, but she was of Hispanic origin. He used the only Spanish he knew, the street language he’d picked up at his old parish in East Los Angeles:

“Llame a emergencia, nueve-uno-uno, y digales que una niña está strapada en un árbol al fondo de una zanja. Y deles su dirección. ¿Entendio? Llame al nueve-uno-uno.”

He didn’t wait for her response. He had to assume she would do as she was told because he knew he must hurry back to the child in the oak tree.

Dru had not moved.

“I’m coming up to get you, Dru. Don’t be afraid. The fire department will be here in a few minutes with ladders that will reach all the way up to where you are.” I hope. I don’t know how far their ladders extend.

He began to climb the tree. He had never had time for athletics in his high school years and he couldn’t remember climbing a tree even when he was Dru’s age. But he kept on trying, talking as he moved.

“You know how the fire department rescues kittens when they’re caught up trees or telephone poles? That’s what they’re coming to do for you. All you have to do is stay cool and not look down.”

The bark of the tree was rough and his hands were the soft hands of a man who’d lived by brain not brawn. They were bleeding before he was ten feet off the ground.

“Pretend you are a kitten, Dru. Kittens are curious, they like to explore like little girls, and sometimes they get into trouble and have to be rescued. Pretend you are a kitten, Dru. Do you like kittens?”

He was still too far away to tell for sure whether his words were having any effect or not, but he felt she was listening. She had moved her head slightly in his direction.

“I bet you like kittens Maybe you even have one of your own. Do you?”

She spoke for the first time, a single word that seemed to have no connection with what he’d been saying. He wondered if she had really flipped. The word sounded like marmalade.

If she had flipped she might be incapable of obeying instructions from either him or the firemen. She might lose her grip on the limb involuntarily or make a sudden decision to jump.

He needed something to keep her securely fastened to the limb until she could be reached. He wasn’t wearing a belt which probably wouldn’t have been long enough anyway. But he was wearing the wool sweater Lorna’s aunt had knitted for him one Christmas. Like all her gifts the sweater had a basic flaw originating with the giver. It had apparently been designed for a much taller man (the kind she probably thought Lorna should have married). The sleeves were several inches too long. From the end of one to the end of the other it measured at least six feet, and the woolen fibers were as strong as hemp.

As soon as he took the sweater off he realized it had more potential than he’d thought. For the rest of his ascent he used it as a combination security blanket and rope, throwing it over each successive limb and pulling himself up. When he reached the level of the child he saw that her lips were moving.

“Are you trying to tell me something, Dru? I can’t understand you.”

“Marmalady.”

“All right, you can have some marmalade as soon as we get you down.”

She opened her eyes briefly, then closed them again. Her school uniform was torn, her knees scraped and her cheeks bleeding where she had pressed her face against the rough bark.

“I saw her,” she said. “I saw her down there.”

“There’s no one down there, Dru.”

“There was before. I saw Annamay.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“She got up and walked away.”

“She made sounds when she was falling?”

“They were happy sounds, like she was learning to fly.”

She screamed, Michael thought. She screamed like a banshee and Firenze heard her, and saw her falling out of the tree.

“I didn’t want her to come along,” Dru said. “I was going to practice mountain climbing so I could go with my boyfriend Kevin when we grow up. She was a nuisance. I told her to go home. You’re such a baby, I told her, and you’re never going to be a mountain climber like me and Kevin because you’re scared of things.”

Her words were interspersed with sobs. He kept edging along the limb toward her. He could hear in the distance the sounds of a siren and a whelper. A flood of relief and of gratitude swept over him, gratitude to Lorna’s aunt for the sweater, to the oak tree for its strength, to the maid who’d called the emergency number and to the firemen who were responding.

“Can you hear the sirens, Dru? Those are the men who are coming to rescue you. You’re going to be fine. All you have to do is keep from looking down and I think you can.”

“I don’t know.”

“Listen to me now, Dru. Do you know what mountain climbers do when they’re caught in a dangerous situation? They secure themselves with ropes. You and I don’t have any ropes so we’ll use this sweater. I’m going to tie it around your waist. Like this.”

She offered no resistance as he put the sweater around the limb and under her arms, then tied it at the back with a square knot. “You’re going to be all right now, Dru. The firemen will bring you down the ladder and take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home. They’ll blame me for letting her climb the tree. They’ll blame me because Annamay’s younger and prettier than me. I’m not going home. Never. I’m going to wait here for Annamay to come back.”

“Dru—”

“I won’t listen to you.”

“Yes, you will,” Michael said. “She’s not coming back. She died when she hit the ground.”

“But she got up and walked away, laughing.” The child repeated the words over and over like a magic spell she used to defeat the truth.

But the power of the spell was gone, and each time she said it sounded weaker like a fading echo.

I’ve been chasing a monster, Michael thought, and come up with a mouse, this mouse of a child who watched her friend die and was so shocked and terrified she had to pretend it never happened.

“She isn’t coming back?” Dru said.

“No.”

Tears started rolling down her cheeks, washing away the blood and dirt, leaving clean little paths.