A long line of pelicans played follow-the-leader nearly skimming the waves, one after the other diving into the chop not thirty yards from shore. Her father pointed excitedly each time they buzzed the surf, hunting for fish. And later that evening over dinner, face red with wine and sun, he scraped back his chair on the wooden deck of their rented house and recited:
“A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.”
“Oh, John,” her mother chided him, and he gave her a look that begged an indulgence, and Diane and Margaret watched the unspoken signals seesaw between them until the tension was broken by their mother's mischievous laugh that signaled all was well and permitted the children to clamor for more. Listening to the girl sing through the bathroom door, Margaret felt complete satisfaction of the moment. What must they have been like, not as parents, but as a grown man and woman with two daughters sunbrown as nuts, a bottle of wine, the dying of another summer? Her father would have loved the singing nymph in the bathtub and understood, and her mother would have silently acknowledged the need to lie on Norahs behalf even when the child could not be believed.
The singing stopped, and she could hear the girl dripping in the tub as she reached for the towel. Margaret hurried away, cantered downstairs on stiff legs, and took up her book under the lamplight. She scanned for her place in the story, read again the page abandoned, and had just remembered the passage when Norah arrived bedraggled as a storm-drenched kitten, her ragged hair plastered against her skull, yet new again and clean and fresh, wrapped in Erica's thick robe. Margaret wished the girl would sing again. She longed to pull her close but feared the bone-ache of an embrace. “Norah, sit down beside me.” The child wiggled round the coffee table, hopped onto the cushion, and squeezed into the corner between the woman's body and the arm of the sofa. She pressed against Margaret's side, all heartbeat and wet heat. “I had another phone call today from your principal, Mr. Taylor. I thought that was all over last week. He said your teacher had reports from some of the other children that you were pretending again in the lunchroom.”
“Oh, that? Just a cheap trick.”
Margaret sighed. “That's three times in two weeks, Norah. I can't have all this trouble from the school.”
“I'm sorry. It won't happen again.”
“People will talk, are talking. Parents fussing. I do not like to be the subject of so much gossip, so many questions.”
Norah snuggled closer. “It won't happen again.”
Hearing the sincerity of the child's apology, Margaret regretted the tone of voice she had taken with her, wishing instead that she could affect her father's disposition at the times when his wit disarmed ill feelings or burst like an explosion to cause them all to laugh when the situation called for sobriety. She longed for a way to bring about a consolation, and finally wrenched free her pinned arm and laid her hand upon the girl's shoulder. “So you're ready for bed now? Brushed your teeth?”
Close enough to kiss, Norah lifted her face. “Here, smell.”
Margaret turned her head and nearly caught her ear in the girl's open mouth. Like listening to a seashell, she could hear the roar of waves and, more disturbingly, the wind blow across the sand, the laughing cry of gulls, as though the girl had swallowed the sea. The sound lasted no longer than the time it took Margaret to recover and position her nose to catch the scent of peppermint, but in that fraction, her mind reeled. Perhaps her senses had conflated the memory with the moment. But she was not certain, as she sent Norah to bed, not certain of any distinction between what she had heard and what she had chosen to believe.
5
Sean loved the panther best and nearly leapt with joy when he found one tensed for the attack. He was surprised by the bear—not the sitting circus bear, but the grizzly on the prowl. The zebra and the camel were acceptable, though one or both sets of legs frequently were missing. The broken ones disappointed, left him feeling somehow cheated. An elephant without a trunk was a catastrophe. Once in a while they came out misshapen altogether, a walrus glued to a kangaroo or the features of a moose puddled in horror. These he almost could not eat. But more than the crackers, the box fascinated him with its vibrant colors, the caged animals poised wild against the bars, the reclining gorilla, the snarling tiger, the mystery of the musk ox. On the bottom panel, instructions, lines to cut and fold, enabled the construction of the wheeled circus wagon and a top-hatted ringmaster holding a megaphone. Or, on alternate designs, a lion tamer with a whip. He never bothered to make the train of wagons, knew of nobody who actually destroyed one illusion to create another. Most appealing of all was the thin red cloth string along the top edge of the box. A handle, of course, that made the emptied carton a purse or a treasure chest for any collection of small valuables. One was filled with plastic army men and molded wild animals. Another held marbles, smooth stones, and a discarded jack. A third contained feathers from jays and robins, sparrows and wrens, the black ace of the crow, the white of some unknown flying thing. And nested nearby, the pale blue teacup Norah had given him.
His collection of animal cracker boxes was situated artfully among the books and magazines in the rough-hewn case of shelves his father had made when Sean was a baby. Hidden carefully within the books, tucked between the covers and title pages, were all the birthday cards from his parents, first signed jointly and later two separate notes. Norahs valentine he secreted, like a pressed wildflower, in the pages of Birds of North America, the volume missing a score of clipped illustrations. He stared at the spines of his library, hoping for the distraction of a good book, but every title left him slightly dissatisfied. He could not shake the image of Norah's deceit in the lunchroom earlier that day.
She had promised to be good. Ten days had passed uneventfully since Valentine's, for with Diane gone, there was no subterfuge to carry out. They played together like normal children, once going round to the Rosa Rossa Flower Shop to marvel at the finches. Another afternoon was spent drawing side by side, arguing over who was better—pirates or knights. Checkers and hot chocolate. Sunday on a sled. At first, Norah waved off any discussion of her confession in private or in school, content to bask in newfound admiration and popularity, but one by one, the temporary friends drifted away, bored by her ordinariness. The memory of the spectacle gave way to prayer conspiracies to conjure another snow day's vacation and to a general colloquy on the horrors of finding common denominators when confronted by more than one fraction. She was being forgotten. Matthew Mansur began taunting her at lunch, the ridicule pathetic and absurd. “If you are an angel, show us a miracle. Faker.” And then the bully picked up Sharon's animal crackers and spilled them onto the cafeteria table. Without fuss, Norah brushed them to her with both hands, and the children watched intently as she lined the animals nose to tail along the surface and then held the open circus box in her lap.
“Happy are they who believe but need not see,” she said. The table began to vibrate slightly as if from the shock of a faraway rumbling earthquake or lifted by a séance and an unseen force beneath the surface, and into the box the hippos and rhinos and giraffes fell one by one to the very last cracker. Nobody said a word during the entire performance, and soon after the finale, the bell rang. The children packed their bags and lunchboxes to hurry back to the classroom, murmuring among themselves. Sean walked three steps behind her and looked at the tiles between his feet when she glanced over her shoulder, wondering, if she was an angel was she also a girl, also his true friend?
At home in his room, waiting alone till the order came for lights-out, he replayed the scene on the stage of his memory but could not discover a secondary explanation no matter how many times he stopped or slowed the action. No wires or engines or wind. No evidence of tampering with the laws of nature. “You promised,” he said aloud to the imagined space he had cleared for her. Y
ou scared the crap out of them, did you see the look on their faces? You promised no more angels, no miracles, nothing seen that cannot be believed. How could you, Norah? You promised that no one would be harmed.
He fought to stay awake. From the bookshelves, the animals paraded out of the circus wagon boxes, the panther and polar bear, the fox and the bison marched across the carpet trumpeting and roaring and out through his bedroom window into the snow-filled yard, leaving tracks so small as to be almost invisible. No proof at all of their existence, much less their travels through this lonely spot on the world. He groaned in his sleep, opened his eyes to darkness, the threat of the shelves cluttered with books and circuses, and wished he could have his father come to offer comfort, or his mother surprise him by checking in, or Norah drop by to say goodnight, before sliding under the dream again.
6
The road to Madrid rose past Sandia and twisted into the high country, bare and stark, dotted with sage and rock. The sky changed around every bend and corner, sunlit to heavily overcast threatening torrents, and back again to puffy cumulus against indigo. The rental car chugged over the mountains, and without any warning, she was there, so early in the day that nobody stirred, no cars, no people, only a stray yellow dog crossing her path, looking back over its shoulder before trotting away. Diane pulled off the highway just as it curved westward, and parked on the gravel in front of the Mine Shaft Tavern. Bits of broken glass clotted in the gutter along the wooden foundation, green and brown blasted smooth by the sun and wind. Off to the east, a short row of storefronts offered arts and crafts, jewelry in silver and turquoise, a dressmaker's dummy draped in handwoven wool and muslin dyed in muted earth tones. The cold air was thinner here, and she tired easily, resting on a wooden porch of a vacant building with a faded FOR SALE sign in the window. A hank of tumbleweed lay caught between the wooden slats and the ground, and she kicked and tried to set it free, unaware that she was not alone.
From over the eastern hills came a wraith. Or so she appeared at first, her elongated shadow stretched out in front of her, a corona glowing around her body before passing into the mountains shade as she neared. Diane stood to greet her but lost her balance and tumbled off the porch. The woman hurried over, presented a bangled wrist for support, and with unexpected strength stopped her from falling. They stood close enough to dance, and Diane lowered her chin to thank her. A crown of curls, blonde fading to ash, spilled beyond the woman's shoulders, and her pale skin shone translucent at the sharp curve of her jawline and high cheekbones faintly speckled. Round glasses in rose-colored frames heightened the contrast with her pale blue eyes. Even in her plaid winter coat, too poor against the February morning, her body could not hide its birdlike form, spare and taut, both fragile and strong. A vision of Norah grown and matured.
“Are you all right?” the woman asked. “That was quite a stumble.” Her voice was a strange mix of tones and rhythms, flat and broad as the East with an unexpectedly childlike earnestness in the slow cadence of the West, as if she, too, had been blown across the country. Diane muttered a solitary thank-you.
“You're out and about awfully early. Come on over to the Mine Shaft, and I'll make you an omelet.”
“I've already had my breakfast, thanks.”
“Then a cup of coffee. Can't say no to a free coffee. Everyone always has room for another cup this time of day. My name is Maya.” She offered to shake again, and they sealed the deal.
Maya molded her hand into a megaphone and hollered back to the horizon: “Come on, boys. Breakfast.”
From the lip of the world, two iron gray long-leggety wolfhounds trotted, big as ponies, fearsome as los lobos, and ambled straight for the women. The one on the left loped to greet Maya, and the one on the right hastened to Diane, tail circling with excitement, and sprang on her, its great flat forepaws heavy as fists which punched her shoulders and knocked her sprawling backward. She looked up to see the large square head staring back at her, thick tongue lolling, teeth worn as arrowheads. Maya scolded once, barked a command, and the dog retreated, its head bowed in repentance.
“Ah, you're a bad boy, bad dog. Don't mind Finn, he's just a pup and doesn't know his own strength. But that's a dog for you. Can't never hide its true feelings. I think he likes you.”
They walked toward the tavern, the dogs jostling at their sides, with Diane watchful every few steps when one brushed against her leg. As Maya fished for the keys, the dogs stared at the doorknob, waiting for the magic, and then in they scooted like toddlers through the opening and moved through the dark table-cluttered room without so much as a single bump or scrape. The lights buzzed and flickered on, revealing a great mirror behind a bar that ran the length of the room. She was surprised by her own reflection and fixed her hair as Maya puttered behind the bar.
“I got the first dog twenty years ago when this was truly the Wild West. There were coyotes in the parlors in a couple tumbledown houses. Thought a wolfhound would be great protection, you know, they're bred to chase out the wolves. Called my first fella Cuchulainn after the great hero of Ulster, and he was a lamb. Never had a one since then, and I've had seven altogether, that's so much as snapped at a person drunk or sober, though Micky here will chase jackrabbits, flush a pheasant or quail, and Finn will tag along behind it. But he doesn't know what he'd do if he ever managed to catch one, isn't that right, you great Irish doofus?” With both hands she ruffled the wiry scruff of his big head. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Black.” The inside of the Mine Shaft Tavern was nearly as dark as the real thing, wood discolored by age and abuse, the walls littered with broadsides for old and new plays and variety shows, a John Ford Film Festival, a buffalo's head, whimsical signs and notices to the customers: Ladies, mind your purses; No Expectorating; a painting of coal miners greeted by an angel holding a banner which, in Latin, read, “It is better to drink than to work.” At the far end of the building a small stage had been set, props of wagon wheels and beer barrels, and a sepia-toned photograph of a woman in whiteface with ragged sheets, a theatrical ghost, announcing the upcoming melodrama. Through the window, morning cut the dimness, threw lines upon the floor. The dogs sought out the warm patches near her feet, the older hound curled into a compact ball of fur.
Dust danced in the sunbeams, shifting as the clouds outside sailed across the sky. The interplay of light and shadow reminded Diane of the August shore with her parents and Margaret, lolling away the afternoon, watching the light cross the beach-worn rugs and pine floors. Her parents napping on the deck, the heat-stricken house seemed to drowse, and they were quite alone, a quiet yearning, safe with her parents nearby. The rise and fall of the ocean, the breeze off the veranda, the quiet and unplanned time all leading to daydreaming of the future. They shared their big plans for husbands and travel, to see the world, take a turn on the stage, Sunday paintings, a book to write. And children of their own to take to this same place, to give to those imagined sons and daughters what they had been given. Now, Diane wanted desperately to bring back her sister's child.
Maya set a mug in front of her and joined her at the rail. Finn snored from below.
“How many people live here in town?” Diane tried to feign a disinterested air.
“Madrid proper, or up in the hills? Not many. Fifty-sixty households, many hermits and evacuees from reality. Maybe ninety souls in all. It was a ghost town or nearly so when I came here in the Sixties. Seemed like a good place to escape the madness.”
“Crazy times. Vietnam.”
“The whole thing, sister. JFK, Malcolm, Bobby, Martin. Water hoses and beatings on the bridge. Riots in the streets. Tune in, turn on, drop out. Some of us dropped pretty far.” Maya set her elbows on the counter, leaned across to Diane. “If they live in these parts, I know ‘em.”
“Then you'll know my granddaughter.” The lie possessed its own life. “Norah Quinn.”
Maya frowned and tried to bring life to the name. “I don't think I know a Norah Quinn. There's not
that many kids in these parts, barely enough to keep the school going.”
“She's about nine. Blonde hair, glasses. Lives with her mother here, or at least, up until this past January.” She leaned forward and whispered. “There was a fight. My daughter and her husband.”
From the floor, Mick whined, shook his head, then shimmied from haunches to tail and paced to the front door as quiet as a cat.
“Quinn, you say?”
“Erica is her name. My daughter.”
Mick barked at the door, having heard something stir outside. For a moment, Diane expected a knock and a visitor: Erica, Norah, legions of heavenly hosts. But the dog lost interest and retreated to his hot spot on the floor.
“I'm sorry to say, there's no Erica Quinn in this town.”
Diane's hand rummaged through the purse, found the photograph. “Are you certain you haven't seen this girl? It's an old photo from high school but—”
Delight crossed Maya's face as she scrutinized the photograph. “Not Erica,” she said, and tapped the image with her fingernail. “Different hair, but same eyes, that same look if I'm not mistaken. She lives out in the hills.” A little belly laugh from a little belly. “That's Mary Gavin.”
7
Word of the marching animal crackers spread through the Friendship School, and the children began to invent and circulate new accounts of similar miracles to heighten the lore of Norah Quinn. There were whispers that whenever she visited the library and passed the aquarium kept there, the little fishes would school and swim as one, following her movements from glass corner to glass corner. Another story asserted that she could divide a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich into enough portions to feed the entire student body. Rumors escalated: that she could walk upon the surface of the snow without leaving footprints, that in certain aspects of light a halo could be spied, that she bore on her back stubs of wings at the shoulder blades, that she had been seen flying over her rooftop in the moonlight, that you could put your hand right through her like a ghost, that she was no angel but a devil in disguise.