Boy's Life (73 page)

     He did not know the Demon. I never found out for sure, but I assumed she must’ve had the glue bottle hanging from a string outside the window and had reeled it in while the rest of us were eating lunch. Then, when she was through smearing all the necessary surfaces, the glue bottle had gone out the window again to be collected after school. I’d never heard of such a strong glue before. I learned later that the Demon had concocted it herself, using ingredients that included Tecumseh riverbottom mud, Poulter Hill dirt, and her mother’s recipe for angel food cake. If that were so, I would’ve hated to taste Mrs. Sutley’s devil’s food. She called it Super Stuff, which made perfect sense.

     I knew there had to be a reason the Demon had skipped a grade. I’d had no idea her real talent lay in the realm of chemistry.

     Dad and I ventured out into the woods on a chilly afternoon. We found a small pine that would do. We took it home with us, and that night Mom popped corn and we strung the tree with popcorn, gold and silver tinsel, and the scuffed decorations that nestled in a box in the closet except for one week of the year.

     Ben was learning his Christmas songs. I asked him whether Miss Green Glass had a parrot, but he didn’t know. He’d never seen one, he said. But they might have a green parrot in the back somewhere. Dad and I went in together and bought Mom a new cake cookbook and a baking pan, and Mom and I went in together and bought Dad some socks and underwear. Dad made a solitary purchase of a small bottle of perfume from Woolworth’s for Mom while she bought him a plaid muffler. I liked knowing what was inside those brightly wrapped packages under the tree. Two packages were also there, though, that had my name on them and I had no idea what they contained. One was small and one was larger: two mysteries, waiting to be revealed.

     I was snakebit about picking up the phone and calling the Glass sisters. The last time I’d intended to, tragedy had struck. The green feather was never far from my hand, though. One morning I woke up, after a dream of the four black girls calling my name, and I rubbed my eyes in the winter sunlight and I picked up the feather from where I’d left it on the bedside table and I knew I had to. Not call them, but go see for myself.

     Bundled up, I rode Rocket under the Zephyr tinsel to the gingerbread house on Shantuck Street. I knocked at the door, the feather in my pocket.

     Miss Blue Glass opened the door. It was still early, just past nine. Miss Blue Glass wore an azure robe and quilted cyan slippers. Her whitish-blond hair was piled high as usual, which must’ve been her first labor of the morning. I was reminded of pictures I’d seen of the Matterhorn. She regarded me through her thick black-framed glasses, dark hollows beneath her eyes. “Cory Mackenson,” she said. Her voice was listless. “What can I do for you?”

     “May I come in for a minute?”

     “I am alone,” she said.

     “Uh… I won’t take but a minute.”

     “I am alone,” she repeated, and tears welled up behind her glasses. She turned away from the door, leaving it open. I walked into the house, which was the same museum of chintzy art it had been the night I was here for Ben’s lesson. Still… something was missing.

     “I am alone.” Miss Blue Glass crumpled down onto the spindly-legged sofa, lowered her head, and began to sob.

     I closed the door to keep out the cold. “Where’s Miss Gre—the other Miss Glass?”

     “No longer
Miss
Glass,” she said with the trace of a hurt sneer.

      “Isn’t she here?”

     “No. She’s in… heaven knows where she is by now.” She took off her glasses to blot the tears with a blue lace hanky. I saw that without those glasses and with her hair let down an altitude or two, she might not look nearly so… I guess
frightful
’s the word.

     “What’s wrong?” I asked.

     “What’s wrong,” she said, “is that my heart has been ripped out and
stomped!
Just utterly
stomped!
” Fresh tears streaked down her face. “Oh, I can hardly even think about it!”

     “Did somebody do somethin’ bad?”

     “I have been
betrayed!
” she said. “By my own flesh and blood!” She picked up a piece of pale green paper from beside her and held it out to me. “Read this for yourself!”

     I took it. The words, a graceful script, were written in dark green ink.

    
Dearest Sonia
, it began.
When two hearts call to each other, what else can one do but answer? I can no longer deny my feelings. My emotions burn. I long to be joined in the raptures of true passion. Music is fine, dearest sister, but the notes must fade. Love is a song that lives on. I must give myself to that finer, deeper symphony. That is why I must go with him, Sonia. I have no choice but to give myself to him, body and soul. By the time you read this, we shall be…

     “
Married?
” I must’ve shouted it, because Miss Blue Glass jumped.

     “Married,” she said grimly.

     …
married, and we hope in time you will understand that we do not conduct our own chorale in this life, but are conducted by the hand of the Master Maestro. Love and Fond Farewell, Your Sister, Katharina.

     “Isn’t that the damnedest thing?” Miss Blue Glass asked me. Her lower lip began to tremble.

     “Who did your sister run off with?”

     Miss Blue Glass spoke the name, though speaking it seemed to crush her all the more.

     “You mean… your sister married…
Mr. Cathcoate?
”

     “Owen,” Miss Blue Glass sobbed, “oh, my sweet Owen ran off with my own sister!”

     I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only had Mr. Cathcoate gone off and married Miss Green Glass, but he’d been catting with Miss Blue Glass, too! I’d known he had parts of the Wild West in him, but I hadn’t imagined his south parts were just as wild. I said, “Isn’t Mr. Cathcoate kind of
old
for you ladies?” I put the letter back on the sofa beside her.

     “Mr. Cathcoate has the heart of a boy,” she said, and her eyes got dreamy. “Oh Lord, I’ll miss that man!”

     “I have to ask you about somethin’,” I told her before her faucets turned on again. “Does your sister have a parrot?”

     Now it was her turn to look at me as if my senses had flown. “A
parrot?
”

     “Yes ma’am. You had a blue parrot. Does your sister have a green one?”

     “No,” Miss Blue Glass said. “I’m tellin’ you how my heart has been broken, and you want to talk about parrots?”

     “I’m sorry. I just had to ask.” I sighed and looked around the room. Some of the knickknacks in the curio cabinet were gone. I didn’t think Miss Green Glass was ever coming back, and I supposed that Miss Blue Glass knew it. A bird, it seemed, had left its cage. I slid my right hand into my pocket and put my fingers around the feather. “I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said, and I walked to the door.

     “Even my parrot has left me,” Miss Blue Glass moaned. “And my parrot was so sweet and gentle…”

     “Yes ma’am. I was sorry to hear about—”

     “…not like that filthy, greedy parrot of Katharina’s!” she plowed on. “Well, I should’ve known her true nature, shouldn’t I? I should’ve known she had her cap set for Owen, all along!”

     “Wait,” I said. “I thought you just told me your sister didn’t have a parrot.”

     “That’s not what I said. I said Katharina
doesn’t
have a parrot. When it died, the devil ate a drumstick!”

     I walked back to her, and as I did I brought my hand out of my pocket and opened the fingers. My heart was going ninety miles a minute. “Was that the color of your sister’s parrot, Miss Glass?”

     She gave it one sniffy glance. “That’s it. Lord knows I’d recognize one of his feathers, he was always flyin’ against his cage and flingin’ ’em out. He was about bald when he died.” She caught herself. “Just a minute. What are
you
doin’ with one of his feathers?”

     “I found it. Somewhere.”

     “That bird died back in… oh, when was it?”

     I knew. “March,” I said.

     “Yes, it
was
March. The buds were startin’ to show, and we were choosin’ our Easter music. But…” She frowned, her stomped heart forgotten for the moment. “How did you know, Cory?”

     “A little bird told me,” I said. “What did the parrot die of, Miss Glass?”

     “A brain fever. Same as my parrot. Dr. Lezander says it’s common among tropical birds and when it happens there’s not much can be done.”

     “Dr. Lezander.” The name left my lips like frozen breath.

     “He loved my parrot. He said my parrot was the gentlest bird he’d ever seen.” Her lips curled into a snarl. “But he
hated
that green one of Katharina’s! I think he could’ve killed it the same as me, if I could’ve gotten away with it!”

     “He almost got away with it,” I said quietly.

     “Got away with what?” she asked.

     I let her question slide. “What happened to the green parrot after it died? Did Dr. Lezander come get it?”

     “No. It was sick, wouldn’t touch a grain of seed, and Katharina took it to Dr. Lezander’s office. It died the next night.”

     “Brain fever,” I said.

     “That’s right, brain fever. Why are you askin’ all these strange questions, Cory? And I still don’t understand why you have that feather.”

     “I… can’t tell you yet. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

     She leaned forward, smelling a secret. “What is it, Cory? I swear I won’t breathe it to a soul!”

     “I can’t say. Honest.” I returned the feather to my pocket, and Miss Blue Glass’s face slowly dropped again. “I’d better be goin’. I hated to bother you, but it was important.” I glanced at the piano as I went to the door, and a thought struck me like the arrowhead of Chief Five Thunders lodging right between my eyes. I remembered the Lady saying she’d dreamed of hearing piano music, and seeing hands holding piano wire and a “crackerknocker.” I recalled the piano in the room where all the ceramic birds were, at Dr. Lezander’s house. “Did you ever teach Dr. Lezander to play the piano?” I asked.

     “Dr. Lezander? No, but his wife took lessons.”

     His wife. Big, horse-faced Veronica. “Was this real recently?”

     “No, it was four or five years ago, when I was teachin’ full-time.
Before
Katharina had me knockin’ at the poor-house door,” she said icily. “Mrs. Lezander won several gold stars, as I recall.”

     “Gold stars?”

     “I give gold stars for excellence. Mrs. Lezander could’ve been a professional pianist in my opinion. She has the hands for it. And she loved my song.” Her face brightened.

     “What song?”

     Miss Blue Glass got up and situated herself at the piano. She began to play the song she’d been playing that night her parrot had started squawking in German. “‘Beautiful Dreamer,’” she said, and she closed her eyes as the melody filled the room. “It’s all I have left now, isn’t it? My beautiful, beautiful dreams.”

     I listened to the music. What had made the blue parrot go so crazy that night?

     I remembered the voice of Miss Green Glass:
It’s that song, I’m tellin’ you! He goes insane every time you play it!

     And Miss Blue Glass, answering:
I used to play it for him all the time and he loved it!

     A small glimmer began to cut through the darkness. It was like a single shard of sunlight, as seen from the bottom of murky water. I couldn’t make out anything by it yet, but I knew it was there.

     “Miss Glass?” I said. A little louder, because she’d increased the volume and was starting to hammer the keys as if she were playing with Ben’s fingers: “
Miss Glass?
”

     She stopped on a bitter note. Tears had streamed down all the way to her chin. “What is it?”

      “That song right there. Did it make your parrot act strange?”

     “No! That was a vile lie of Katharina’s, because she hated my favorite song herself!” But the way she said it, I knew it wasn’t true.

     “You’ve just started givin’ piano lessons again, haven’t you? Have you played that song very much since… oh… the green parrot died?”

     She thought about it. “I don’t know. I guess… I played it at church rehearsal some, to warm up. But because I wasn’t givin’ lessons, I didn’t play the piano much at home. Not that I didn’t want to, but Katharina”—she couldn’t help but sneer the name—“said my playin’ hurt her sensitive ears, that vicious man-stealer!”

     The light was still there. Something was taking shape, but it was still a long way off.

     “It was Katharina this and Katharina that!” Miss Blue Glass suddenly slammed her hands down on the keyboard with such force the entire piano shook. “I was always bendin’ over backward to appease almighty Katharina! And I loathe and despise
green!
” She stood up, a skinny, seething thing. “I’m gonna take everythin’ green in this house and burn it, and if that means parts of the house, the very walls, well, I’ll burn those, too! If I never see green again, I’ll smile in my grave!”