15. Blackbird
15
BLACKBIRD
A blackbird leads the loud song;
Above my pen-lined booklet
I hear a fluting bird-throng.
— ANONYMOUS NINTH-CENTURY POET, “THE SCRIBE IN THE WOODS”
I t didn’t strike me odd until much later that Lynch knew exactly how to get to Gran’s house, address or not. It wasn’t the easiest place to locate, and most people would have needed directions to get there, even with the help of GPS. It wasn’t until we had already turned down the windy gravel path that I turned to question him.
He smiled. It unexpectedly lit up the interior of his rental.
“I’d already driven by looking for you yesterday,” he told me. “You weren’t here yet.”
“I was at the morgue. I had to claim her body.”
The smile disappeared. Lynch opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again.
“How did you find me in Portland, then?” I wondered.
He steered around an old-growth cedar. “Your friend, Reina West. Penny provided her information long ago. I stopped by the house, and by some luck, saw the two of you walking to the pub.”
I frowned. “Gran didn’t give out people’s information. She was incredibly private.”
“Then the fact that she gave me yours as well as your friends should tell you something about how much she trusted me.”
The car stopped, and Lynch waited until I was out before following me to the front door, where I fished the house key out of my shorts pocket. The thick wooden door creaked as I let us in, and I felt the house draw back into itself as a new person crossed its threshold. I stood there for a moment, sensing it. No, the house definitely didn’t remember Jonathan Lynch, particle physicist and sometimes attorney-at-law.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked as Lynch followed me into the kitchen.
“Tea would be lovely if you have it.”
“Make yourself comfortable,” I said as I went into the kitchen to put on the hot water.
Lynch paced slowly around the living room, eyes shining as if they were catching the sunlight, though none of the crystals were catching anything was now that the rain had started again. His gingery brows were furrowed, and every now and then, his nose twitched, like he could smell something wrong. I didn’t have to touch him to know that he also sensed something had happened here.
I set out a tray with Gran’s chipped Coronado pot, some cream and sugar, and some of the strong oolong she favored in the mornings.
“I’m just going to wash up,” I said, eager to be rid of my sweaty running clothes. Particularly when my company was so impeccably neat.
Lynch nodded and took a careful seat on the faded couch, from which he could look out the windows and watch the surf. I forgot, sometimes, how hypnotic the view could be.
Fifteen minutes later, I was showered and changed into a clean pair of jeans and one of Gran’s old sweaters. The familiar wool made me feel closer to her as I was briefly blessed with an image of her knitting the thing when she was pregnant with my mother. I tied back my wet hair and pulled a pair of Gran’s silver hoops through my earlobes. Though she hadn’t worn them in a very long time, tiny pulses of her energy and grit sparked.
I considered what she might do if she were in my shoes. She was always suspicious of strangers and private to the extreme. Even if Lynch’s story were true—along with his argument that his very knowledge of me and my friends demonstrated Gran’s trust—she would still have been careful. So would I be.
When I returned, Lynch was crouched by the fireplace, running a finger through the ashes that had drifted onto the hearth.
“Would you like to start a fire?” I asked. “It is a bit chilly in here, and that will warm it right up.”
When he looked up, his eyes shone in that strange, iridescent way as before, then faded as he shook his head.
“I was just…looking,” he said as he tugged a linen handkerchief from his jacket pocket to clean his fingers. “It’s a unique large fireplace. Much bigger than the standard size. Wood-burning, I see?” He replaced the handkerchief with a grim smile.
I nodded on my way back to the kitchen. The water had boiled, I poured it into the pot and watched the tea leaves swirl, their deep brown essence seeping into the water. I placed two cups and saucers onto the tray and brought them to the coffee table in front of the couch. Lynch took a seat next to me while I poured out.
“The house was designed to accommodate it,” I said. “It was before I came, but Gran told me the story. Apparently, she insisted on having that stone cut from the local quarry and carted down here for the hearth, then found a metalworker in Eugene to forge the hood out of pure copper. She loved this fireplace.”
Lynch seemed lost in thought for a moment, and when his hand brushed mine again as he took his cup of tea, a snatch of fondness for a woman with dark eyes and bright red hair snuck through his defenses. A very young version of Gran, whom I only recognized from brief memories I had caught from her clothes over the years. She ran down the beach, collecting rounded stones from the rocky gray shoreline, and playing tag with her playmate, the viewer. Come on, lovey, darlin’ Jonny, catch me if you can! For a brief moment, I scampered after her with a grace unusual for one so small. Jonny.
Lynch took his cup, and the memory ceased. He grimaced as if slightly embarrassed, then opened his briefcase and removed the will.
“Let’s get down to business, then. Now, one of Ms. Monroe’s conditions for hiring me was the requirement that I would make absolutely sure that you were indeed the person receiving the estate before escorting you through the steps required to inherit. If you don’t mind.”
He held out his hand, which I examined blankly.
“If I don’t mind what?”
Lynch sighed impatiently, thrusting his hand out further. “You know what I am, Ms. Whelan. And you’ve already read some of my thoughts, access to which you were not explicitly granted. That’s considered very poor manners, by the way. Now I need some of yours in order to ascertain that you are, in fact, Cassandra Whelan, and not simply a very good imitation.”
My jaw dropped. “You can…do that?”
“I’ve been doing that,” he said through his teeth. “Rather against my will, as it were. My mind is quite occupied enough without all of your thoughts and feelings thrust upon me every time we touch.”
My mouth fell even further. “You…know?”
I’d suspected as much, but I hadn’t realized he had known what was happening. To start, it was unheard of for a dall to be able to See that way. Secondly, even other seers weren’t affected by my touch the way I was. They Saw in their own ways—not through mine.
Lynch only shrugged, though he did look slightly uncomfortable. “We could do it another way, but based on our interactions, this will be simplest, I believe. You’ll see.”
“But I’m not—how could I—are you suggesting I’m some kind of shifter? Someone pretending to be Cassandra Whelan?” I’d heard of such things, though I’d never met anyone with that kind of ability.
He shook his head. “I know you’re not. But one can’t be too certain. Look, there are other more invasive methods I can use to get the information, but a simple touch and a brief spell will suffice. All you need to do is grant me permission. Now, shall we waste any more time arguing or will you answer a few questions?”
Perhaps this was why my grandmother had put her estate into the hands of a sorcerer instead of one of us. Because they were generally so cold and calculating, maybe she had thought their objectivity would be an asset. But for her to be so upfront about our identities with another being was a shock—secrecy was the premier virtue she had touted my entire life.
In that case, I realized I couldn’t simply allow him to search my identity by whatever magic Jonathan Lynch possessed in his elegant fingers. Nor could I allow him to plumb through my talents either if that was indeed what he could do.
“I don’t think so,” I said, regaining my voice. “You may be the executor, but my grandmother would never have wanted me to divulge my identity and memories to a complete stranger. You’ll have to accept some other form of identification.”
To my surprise, Lynch smiled and withdrew his hand. Once again, the expression changed his entire face from attractively stern to outright gorgeous. Full-on, it was blinding.
I looked away. Gran knew how to pick them.
“Good girl,” he murmured and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “That’s one.”
I frowned. “That was a test?”
“Which you passed. And just so you know, I can’t actually See anything without your…desire.” His eyes flickered to mine. And, unless I imagined it, to my mouth.
I shivered. What was that supposed to mean?
“All right, then. Place your hand on the will.”
I looked down at the document in front of me, only then noticing that the letters on the pages were quickly fading away into nothing. “Why? What’s going to happen?”
“It’s memory-locked,” Lynch said. “You were able to See there was a will, but not long enough to read it. Penny bound it with a spell that requires the beneficiary—that’s you—to share the exact same memory with her. When you touch it, the memories in the document should reach your own and verify the truth of what you See to everyone present. It’s a complicated spell that needs both a seer and a sorcerer to work. That would be me.”
“I see now why you wanted to go somewhere private.” I eyed the now-blank paper suspiciously.
“Yes. Now, if it’s not precisely the same thing she invested in the spell, you’ll See nothing—not the memory nor the will.”
“But how can we share the same memory? Even if we were both looking at the ocean, we would have seen it from slightly different angles.”
“It’ll be a memory of your own you’ve shared with her,” Lynch clarified. “Or perhaps one she shared with you. Penny was uncommonly good at extracting, if you recall. A gift you appear to have inherited.” He didn’t seem to want to admit it.
“Yes, I do recall.” I couldn’t have hidden anything from her if I tried. It made it nearly impossible to get away with anything.
“So, then. Set your hand on the paper to unlock it.”
Somewhat reluctantly, I hovered my palm over the blank document. Part of me still wondered if this was all an elaborate trap. Was he actually working for Gran, or in league with that terrible shadowed man, perhaps sent to finish me off? The thought of her murder set my teeth together. There was no real choice here. I needed to find out more, and Lynch was providing one way—maybe the only way—of doing it.
I set my hand on the paper and was transported to another time and place.
Lynch and I stood at the bus stop on the 101, where cars sped around the hairpin turn south toward Nehalem or north Seaside. There was a video rental shop and gas station next to a carved wooden sign that read Welcome to Manzanita alongside painted white gulls, and we watched as a family walked to the small parking lot.
The family was one I knew well. A lithe, black-haired girl stood between a tall man in cammies and a bright eyed woman with curly red hair. The man smiled at the girl, and the memory struck a chord deep in my chest.
Jimmy Whelan, smiling at his daughter. Smiling at me, around twelve years old. Then turning to say goodbye to his wife. My mother, Sybil.
“Daddy,” I croaked, but my voice was stuck in my throat.
Jimmy Whelan looked just as I had last seen him: young and vibrant, with close-cropped blond hair and a wide, open smile tinged with knowledge far beyond his twenty-nine years. His bright blue eyes twinkled like a robin’s eggs with the kind of charisma that would make any woman, daughters included, fall completely in love with him.
They were only seventeen when I was conceived.
“Oh,” I whispered, suddenly aware of what I was about to See.
It wasn’t my memory after all, but Gran’s. She had stood in this exact space, giving us space for what was about to happen. But there to witness it all before sharing what she saw later, after we lost my dad.
Jimmy pulled Sybil into his side. “I’m gonna miss you, baby. More than you know.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. A gust of wind blew through the cedars and firs lining the highway, whistling at the couple.
“‘Love that knows not death, love that grows from breath, love that must shortly slay me,’” I recited to myself while my younger self looked away, unable to stand her parents’ intimacy.
Beside me, Lynch startled and sent me a sharp look. Then he nodded back at the couple. “Watch.”
Sybil’s pale arms wrapped around my father, and they stayed like that while the little girl looked on awkwardly. Jealousy, I could remember well. I hadn’t changed yet, but it was coming. At that age, I hadn’t yet started pushing people away because of the chaos their minds would show me. Then I was still curious enough to know exactly what it was that made my parents so devoted to each other from such a young age, even twelve years after having a child when they were practically still children themselves. Through deployments, erratic military lifestyle, and the constant disapproval of both of their parents, their love had never wavered.
Finally, Jimmy released Sybil, and he turned to his daughter. To me.
“Well, blackbird, this is it,” he said, his slight Oregon drawl more pronounced in the sadness he was trying to mask. “You promise to write, honey?”
The girl nodded.
“Every day?”
Another nod.
“And will you sing your song every day so you don’t forget your daddy?”
Another nod.
“Let’s sing it so I know you remember.”
Together they crooned the famous Beatles lyrics softly to each other, Jimmy’s buzzed blond head bent to touch his daughter’s messy, jet-black waves. She looked nothing like him, I realized. I looked nothing like him, except for the ocean-blue eyes. A seer’s eyes, somehow inherited from a plain man.
After they finished the song, Jimmy pressed his lips to his daughter’s head, his brow furrowed as if in pain. He was scared but trying to hide it, having no idea that his daughter could feel that fear coursing through his touch, though she herself didn’t understand why or how or that it was happening at all.
“Sing that for me every day,” he told her. “And take care of your mother. It’ll be just like I’m there with you.”
“Daddy, don’t go,” she said, reaching her arms around his neck and pulling him close.
He picked her up and she tucked her legs around her waist like a small child, though she was nearly grown.
“Stay,” she begged. “I’ll protect you. Mama and Gran and I will protect you when they come to take you away.”
Jimmy just pressed his face into his daughter’s neck, teary eyes clenched shut, unaware that his daughter could feel every emotion he fought to master. Soon both of them were crying. When he put her down, she said nothing as he kissed her again on the forehead.
A Greyhound bus pulled up at the stop with a roaring engine and a screech of brakes. The doors opened with a huff, waiting for the Marine to step on.
“I love you, blackbird.” His voice caught as he picked his ruck off the sidewalk. “Don’t forget. Every day.”
Before stepping on the bus, he blew Sybil and the girl a kiss, then waved solemnly to Lynch and me. To where Gran would have stood, watching everything.
The bus pulled away while Sybil waved. The girl wrapped her arms around her waist, sobbing alone and into herself.
“Daddy!” I called with her as my voice returned.
But the bus kept going, and the girl and I cried together as we watched it disappear around the bend that would lead through the mountain and beyond.
The memory faded away. I was back on the couch with Lynch while he waited with a surprisingly sympathetic expression for my tears to abate.
A child’s tears, of course. Ones I had managed so easily for my father, but hadn’t been able to conjure once for the woman who had raised me from that moment on. Apparently, I could only cry that way in the past.
I never listened to that song again after he died.
Just one more broken promise to him.
What kind of monster was I?
“Thanks for that,” I mumbled, angrily swiping my cheeks. “Because I wasn’t heartbroken enough right now.”
“I didn’t know.” Lynch’s voice was quiet and somber. “It was never my memory to See, just one you shared with Penny. One she knew well enough that no one would be able to replicate. I apologize for the…pain…it must have caused.”
A handkerchief materialized in front of my face, which I decided to accept. His sympathy whispered through my cheeks, although with the tears of another woman he’d offered it to once—a pretty, dark-haired girl with lips the color of cherries.
“It’s okay.” I dried my eyes and handed it back to him. “He died about a year after. That was the last time we saw him.”
Lynch tucked the handkerchief into his breast pocket, then turned to the will on the table. The words had all reappeared across the top. “Do you need a moment more? I’m in no hurry.”
I shook my head. “No. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Well, it’s fairly simple. I’m just here to answer any questions and ensure that her will is executed as she wished.”
He handed me the document and waited for me to read it.