Thornbird

Chapter Forty His Pretty Sparrows

forty

His Pretty Sparrows

Scrambling to my knees on the bed, I reach underneath to pull out my suitcase, clawing inside it until I find my mother’s scrapbook.

I turn the pages until I find one photograph.

It’s of me and the first birdhouse my dad and I built together.

I’m holding it with a giant grin on my face, so proud of my handiwork.

On the opposite page is the map.

I stare at the large piece of blue paper, at my seven-year-old scrawl that I used to mark wherever my father would hang a new birdhouse, along with his handwriting.

He marked which birds had taken up residence in which house.

There are dozens and dozens of names on the map, but only three stick out to me.

Indigo bunting.

Magnolia warbler.

Purple finch.

The same ones he mentioned in his suicide note. As I expected, they’re listed in a small grouping at an area located in the very back of the property. I’m pretty sure I remember those houses. The zebra-striped one, the purple with black polka dots, the one with a giant sun painted on the roof…

I grab a pencil from my bag. With the scrapbook in my lap, I draw a line between the first two birdhouses—indigo bunting and magnolia warbler. Another line from magnolia warbler to purple finch. I complete the triangle by connecting purple finch to indigo bunting.

And there, directly in the center of a triangle, is one birdhouse.

Red cardinal.

Hello, Mr. Red.

I jump out of bed and quickly get dressed, then creep out of the bedroom with the map in my pocket and my phone in hand.

Maggie and Dan are heavy sleepers, so I don’t worry about waking them, and it’s too early for their alarm.

They won’t be up for another thirty minutes or so, which gives me just enough time to sneak out.

But I’ve forgotten something. Jasmine is sleeping in the living room. And without my nightmares to wake her up, she’s not wearing her earplugs, which means she stirs the moment I walk past the couch.

“Ryan?” she mumbles.

Shit.

“Go back to sleep,” I tell her. “I’m getting some air.”

The couch cushions squeak as she rolls over. Relief flickers through me. She bought it.

I lace my boots in the mudroom and head outside through the back door, pulling up Chase’s number on my phone.

He sounds drowsy when he answers. “Ryan?”

“Hey. I know it’s disgustingly early and I’m so sorry to wake you, but can you come pick me up? I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. Please just come?”

He pauses. Then “All right. I’ll be there in ten.”

“Can you call Everett and ask him to come too? Tell him it’s really important. Beg him if you need to.”

Another beat of silence.

“Yeah, cool. Sure,” Chase finally answers. “I can do that.”

“Thanks. I’ll meet you at the end of my driveway.”

I end the call and go to the detached garage, which Dan always leaves open. Inside I locate a couple of shovels. As I’m looking around, trying to decide what else I need, a figure steps into the garage. Connor appears in a pair of sweatpants and an old Titans jersey, his boots unlaced.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demands.

I notice movement and turn to find Jasmine standing there too. I guess she didn’t buy my fresh air excuse.

“Nothing,” I lie. “You should go back to bed.”

Jasmine snorts. She’s wearing plaid pants and a camisole with a hoodie over it, sneakers on her feet. “I don’t think so. You’re bringing shovels out at the crack of dawn. Suspicious much?”

“Just forget you saw me.” I try to move past them.

“Nope,” Connor says, grabbing my wrist. “Jazzy told me what happened the night y’all went to the lumberyard. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

“And me,” she says, albeit reluctantly.

I look between them. The fortitude in their eyes tells me they’re not budging.

“Fine,” I grumble, giving Connor a shovel. “Let’s go.”

We walk up the driveway and stop at the mailbox. My cousins eye me, waiting for an explanation. But I don’t provide one. It isn’t long before I hear the faint rumble of an engine, and then Chase arrives on his bike. A moment later, Everett’s truck pulls up.

Jasmine swings her gaze to me. “What’s going on?”

Everett hops out of the truck and walks over to us, eyes narrowing with suspicion when he notices the shovels. “What is this?” he asks.

I take a breath, glancing around the small group. “This could be nothing, and I swear, I’m not trying to get anyone’s hopes up—especially you, Everett.” I exhale in a rush. “But I think I know where the bodies are.”

A half hour later, we’re standing in the woods at the back of my old property, examining the triangle of space created by the three birdhouses.

After I told them about my father’s suicide note and showed them the birdhouse map, everyone agreed this was a promising guess.

The red cardinal house hangs directly above our heads, but I have no idea if that means we need to dig right where we stand. Still, it’s the best place to start.

Since there are only two shovels and five of us, the boys do most of the digging, trading off whenever one of them gets too tired. When the dirt at our feet yields nothing, we extend the dig area, and in a short period we’ve dug holes all over the place and have nothing to show for it.

When it’s Everett’s turn to rest, he collapses beside me. “I think this is a lost cause.”

I gnaw on my lip. “I’m sorry. I dragged everyone out here for nothing.”

“No,” he says, leaning back against the soft earth. “I wanted to come. I wanted to talk to you. And to tell you that Chase and I, we’re solid. There’s nothing anyone can do to make me throw away that friendship.”

Relief trickles through me. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.

And for what it’s worth, I never meant to lie to you.

About who I am. My aunt and uncle thought it was best to keep it a secret.

” I swallow. “And I didn’t know who you were.

Not until the night my father committed suicide, and I saw how Nikki reacted.

When I learned the truth, I knew I had to put the brakes on. ”

He’s about to say something, when Chase holds out the shovel and calls, “Trade, man. I’m beat.”

Everett gets up and grins at him. “You gotta quit smoking. Your endurance will thank you.”

Grinning back, Chase reaches into his pocket, taps a cigarette out of a pack of Marlboros, and sticks it between his lips. “I’ve got endurance where it matters.”

He sits beside me and lights his cigarette. I watch him blow out a cloud of smoke.

“Thanks for coming when I called,” I murmur.

“Always,” he murmurs back, and something warm and gooey spreads through my chest.

A few minutes later, Connor throws the shovel down and stretches his arms over his head. “Forget this. This is a waste of time.”

Everyone nods, myself included. This digging expedition was a big bust, and I feel like a total idiot.

“Sorry, guys.” I stand up with a sigh. “I really thought we’d find something here.”

“All good,” drawls Chase. “I didn’t have anything better to do.” He stands too and tosses his cigarette on the ground.

“Chase!” Jasmine shrieks. “You trying to start a forest fire? Stamp that out!”

She points a stern finger at the cigarette butt. It’s starting to smolder. Rolling his eyes, Chase brings his boot down on it.

And there’s a resulting metallic clank.

We all stare at the ground, then at each other.

“What the fuck?” Jasmine demands.

My heartbeat takes off as I watch Chase kick the ground again.

Clank.

“Hey. Give me that shovel,” he says, motioning to Everett.

Everett hands it over, and the two guys start to clear the dirt and dried leaves away until, finally, a black metal panel is revealed. It’s about two feet square, with a latch on one side and a handle.

My breath hitches. “Is that a hatch?”

Chase flips the latch and pulls on the handle, and it opens with a metallic groan, revealing a dark cavern underneath.

“Holy shit,” Connor breathes.

My feelings exactly. I shine my phone flashlight inside to find a solid-walled passage, with a ladder leading down at least fifteen feet.

“What is that?” Everett says over my shoulder. “Some kind of fallout shelter?”

“I don’t care,” Jasmine says, inching away. “I’m not going down there.”

“Well, I am.” Chase pushes the hatch all the way open and starts to descend without a backward look.

After a beat of trepidation, I follow him, with Connor behind me.

I’m not sure if Everett and Jasmine follow.

I’m too focused on what’s ahead of us. When I reach the last rung, Chase extends a hand and helps me to the ground, then arcs his phone light down the corridor.

It’s so narrow that he needs to turn sideways to fit through, but it seems to go on beyond the beam of the flashlight.

I’m right at Chase’s back as he walks on. The passageway is constructed of rough-hewn stone and earth, and soon we come across papers nailed to the walls.

Drawings.

Of women.

I’ve seen my father’s artwork before, and I recognize it now.

These are Gabriel Thorn’s.

“Oh God,” I whisper, freezing. “Oh my God. This is it. This is his place.”

My feet refuse to move. Chase must sense it, because he reaches behind him, his hand seeking out mine. He entwines our fingers and squeezes.

“It’s okay,” he says gruffly, waiting for me to give him a signal that I’m ready to go on.

After several deep breaths, I nod. “I’m good. Let’s keep walking.”

He moves slowly, and I follow, dust and cobwebs clouding my vision. Before long, Chase stops. I peek over his shoulder and see a solid metal door.

A loud creak reverberates through the cramped corridor as he opens the door, and then a burst of humid, foul-smelling air hits me like a wall.

“Fuck,” Chase mutters, shining the flashlight inside.

I feel his body tense before he turns to me.

“Ryan,” he grinds out, gripping my arm. “I think you should go back.”

He’s protecting me from something. And as much as I want to let him, there’s a pull, a morbid curiosity mixed with dread, that has me shaking my head. “No. I want to see.”

Behind me, Connor says, “What is it, dude?”

Chase remains focused on me. “Are you sure?”

I gulp, already knowing that whatever’s beyond that door, it’s something I’ll never be able to forget. That frightens me, but I tell myself it’s better than not knowing, better than all these years I’ve spent wondering.

“Let’s go,” I say firmly.

We step inside the room, and I have to cover my mouth to keep from inhaling the stench—it’s old and moldy and thick. The first things I see are the giant birdcages. Larger versions of the ones I saw him making all those years ago.

In each one, there is a skeleton.

All of them are nothing but bones. Some are wearing jewelry. Their hair is long and scraggly, their eye sockets gaping. The fingers of some are still wrapped around the bars.

They were trapped down here, my father’s sick collection. His pretty sparrows.

As I bear witness to the grotesque display, I suddenly remember what he said to me when I was seven, watching him construct one of his mini cages.

“Oh, little sparrow. Why shouldn’t these pretty creatures have a place to stay?”

“But, Daddy, with the cages, they can’t come and go. They’re trapped.”

“That’s because some birds are so pretty, they have to belong to someone. Otherwise, everyone would want them. They’d be in danger.”

My father thought these women were too pretty, too precious, so they had to belong to someone.

Him.

In his twisted mind, he thought he was protecting them.

Instead, he killed them.

I stare in revulsion, taking in all the cages suspended from the ceiling by hooks. One, two, three…Oh my God, there are so many. They languished here. Maybe he fed them, took care of them, his own little sparrows. But eventually…

“Jesus,” Connor moans. “Jesus, holy shit.”

I bring a hand to my mouth as I walk from one cage to another. I don’t know how to feel. A tiny part of me always held out hope that maybe it was some big misunderstanding, maybe he was innocent, protecting someone else. But this glaring proof snuffs out all hope.

My father truly was a monster.

We all jerk in alarm when a gasp sounds from the door.

“What the fuck,” Jasmine cries out, her wild gaze darting around the small, musty space.

A stricken Everett stands beside her. He’s rooted in place, not budging from the doorway, while Jasmine stumbles toward us.

“Look,” Chase says roughly. “The cages all have plaques on the bottom.”

He’s right. There’s a name engraved on a plaque at the base of each cage. Connor dusts one off with his fingertip, reading the name out loud.

“Sparrow Lydia.”

Lydia Singh. My father’s first victim.

One by one, Connor reads the names of these pour souls, these women who died at the hands of my father.

Sparrow Violet. Sparrow Joanna. Sparrow—

God, I’m going to be sick.

I wrench my gaze off the cages, unable to stomach it any longer.

My father did this. He preserved them, trapped them here in his underground aviary. There’s no shred of humanity in what he did. None. It’s a gallery of death, a horrific shrine to his obsession.

I study the walls instead, all the photographs and drawings he posted around the bunker, perhaps to make it pretty for his little sparrows. Pictures of birds, pictures of the women themselves. In his mind, they were one and the same. All, beautiful. All, he wanted to keep for himself.

I notice a small wood table pressed up against the wall and walk toward it. It’s covered in dust and piled with more drawings, stacks of them, along with a leather-bound journal. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t stop myself. I pick it up, my hands trembling as I flip through the pages.

Lydia is melancholy today. She doesn’t understand yet. Why she can’t fly. I’ve explained it to her, that she’s being caged for her own good. Because I love her. Because I want her to be safe.

My skin is crawling. He saw them as birds to trap, to hold, to own. He believed he was preserving them. He thought he was doing something noble. My vision blurs as I realize he never saw them as people at all.

I can’t read another word. I drop the journal, stepping back as if it’s something vile.

“We can’t touch anything else,” I tell the group, my voice cracking. “We need to leave and call the police. Now.”

“There are only five.”

Chase’s grim observation jolts my gaze back to the birdcages.

“Shit,” Connor says. “Yeah. You’re right. One is missing.”

I was so focused on the nightmare in front of me that I hadn’t counted, but now that I’m paying attention, I know it immediately. I’ve lived the past decade knowing the names of the victims, beating them through my head so that I could recite them in my sleep.

With my pulse thudding in my ears, I look over at Everett. “Your mother isn’t here.”