Magic of the Loons
A Short Story
by Paula Cappa
Copyright © 2014 by Paula Cappa
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction.
This short story was originally published in Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Fall Issue 2014.
Story cover designed by Gina Casey. GinaCaseyDesign.com
Magic of the Loons
A Short Story
The lovely loons are well-known symbols of old hope and wishes.
Their voices echo across the waters, wild and free,
inspiring human spirits to new consciousness.
-- Native American Mythology
DEEP FLAPPING SOUNDS sailed in with the crisp mountain air. Jackson didn’t hear them at first. Then the beats penetrated into his forehead like a piercing call. They might have struck all thoughts from his mind—they were that intense. He resisted the force, kept his head down and searched for a kiss. Lovemaking on the cabin floor was not his style but Kai was a woman who created her own little dramas to seduce, and at the moment she was playing wanton, begging for more. Like dogs they were, rolling over each other on a faded green carpet with the lines of a poem woven in When Women Were Birds. Images of sirens and sea-nymphs, harpies and firebirds dotted the border. Jackson struggled to sweep those images out of his mind.
The first time Kai had invited him to her vacation cabin, she trimmed her naked body with soft willow branches and greeted him on the grass outside the cabin; the wind fluttered the leaves apart like little peep shows. Kai had insisted on making love near the lake that day among the wild wood violets with the dragonflies throwing shadows across their bodies. Jackson had no problem indulging in the forbidden fruit of her pretend Paradise—playing Adam to her Eve fantasies only enhanced his attraction. The fact that she was married made it all the more naughty. Kai claimed to love being married but clearly monogamy begat monotony. Why else would she be here with him?
This day Kai dressed up as his Loon Woman with a string of black and white shells coiled about her neck, silvery veils twisted skin-tight on her arms and legs. She pinned back her hair into a long twisted tail, all blue-black and lustrous. Feathers framed her face with eyes elaborately painted smoky red. Absolutely ravishing. What man could resist her spells and tricks? What man wouldn’t thrill under her bewitching attention?
“Like my costume?” Kai said with a whip of her feathers. “I designed it just for you.”
“Love it.” But the half dozen loon skulls surrounding her bed hardly made for a titillating scene. Dark faces with pointed boney beaks, their hollow eye sockets like cold gray stones sent shivers through him. Are they watching?
Only a bioarchaeologist would keep such wacky objects. Kai once showed him her trunk full of animal skulls. Rattlesnake jaws for strength, broken arrows for peace, daggers and warheads for courage, flutes, pipes—Kai’s museum work overlapped into everything, even sex.
And he didn’t much care for her ornately carved mahogany bed either: wolf heads with fixed stares and hawks with splayed claws like crooked hands. Even when he closed his eyes, he could see them.
Jackson had known within minutes of first meeting Kai, he had to sleep with her. They were guests at a destination wedding where Jackson knew no one except the father of the bride, a business associate. She walked into the reception with her husband Blix who wore her on his arm like a trophy—Blix with his cocky smile, and Kai in a slinky red dress that exposed the sexiest bare shoulder Jackson had ever seen.
Jackson chose a seat next to her at the table and drew his own fantasy. Kai sensed it immediately by responding with her knee rubbing his thigh and cocking her head as if she might dive on him any second. Kai was clearly one of those wives who couldn’t resist the playground, but still liked to have a loyal pal waiting in the sandbox for her. Blix didn’t appear to notice her flirtations; the guy was a gray suit from the world of dulled investment bankers. In fact, he paid her little attention all night, preferring to hang at the bar scene.
Weddings can make for seductive conversation and Kai clearly enjoyed cracking jokes about wedding nights. She insisted that most couples didn’t play-act enough in bed, revealing that her husband had no interest in her fantasies. Blix had grown up poverty-stricken near the old tobacco fields of Tennessee, doomed to dead-end jobs on poultry farms. The allure of Midwestern hospitality and big city lights drew him to Chicago where he gleaned college boxing championships, numerous scholarships, a bright future in finance—and Kai.
Kai confessed that Blix was a dash clumsy with women and failed to achieve the art of lovepanky. This wasn’t a complaint about him—oddly, she praised their marriage: they were comfortable companions, matched in goals and style, had separate but equal IRA accounts, blah, blah, blah. Jackson had seen those marital signposts before. Marriage is currency. An exchange he never desired.
The cabin grew cooler with the hard autumn breezes blowing in. With that drowsy mouth, Kai murmured between his kisses. “I love that you fly jet planes every day.” She pulled on his lower lip. “There you are,” she nibbled, “up there on steel wings,” she teased with a bite, “speeding through the sky.”
Jackson dove in and smothered her with deep kisses to halt her annoying habit of chatting during sex.
Flap. Flap. Flap. He lifted his head. A long cry trembled nearby. “What was that?”
“The loons over the lake. Oldest bird family on the planet. Very territorial.” She rocked, enhancing the friction. “I love my loons. Their voices are so hypnotic.”
“Noisy little buggers.”
“That’s the female that wails so loud. The male calls her. He whistles, ‘are you there?’ And she opens her throat and responds, ‘I’m heeeeere.’ You can hear the rhythmic lilt in her pitch that she desires to join him.” Kai whispered dramatically into his ear, “They’re love songs, Jackson, love songs.”
He almost laughed. “You should’ve been an actress, Kai. You belong in a theatre not a museum.”
She made a throaty laugh, skimming her tongue over his. Her breath was so sweet and she tasted salty; he wanted to devour her. “Loons mate for life, you know. Odd, isn’t it? So unnatural in the animal kingdom. Even lovebirds cheat.”
Throbbing, shuddering with pleasure, he didn’t much care who mated for life. He soared through life fiercely independent, without compromise, preferring one toothbrush in the sink holder.
“Penguins mate only for one year and then move on. Now that’s admirable.” Kai suddenly seized command, rolled on top, and he surged into a quivering wreck. “Mmm, my birdman, that’s what you are. My very own birdman.”
My birdman? He’d been called all sorts of names by lots of women, but never anything as benign as birdman. Didn’t like the my part though.
“Do you know the legend of Achilles Lake?”
“I don’t care. You want it faster?”
“Yes! The original loons here had no wings. Can you imagine?”
The rocking sprung him up, panting, shuddering.
“Once they mated,” she lost her breath for a moment, “they grew fantastic gleaming wings. Loon magic.”
He accelerated when she swung into slow pauses to suspend him.
“Their magic can seize you, in a blink. ”
“Yeah?” He pumped harder.
“Loons draw their magic from earth spirits. Big Water and White Squall Wind.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” he murmured. “I believe in you, Kai, right now, just you. Don’t stop.”
She gave him a little swoon and threw her arms up. “Believe in me. Yes! Ohh sacred powers … wind … water … sky and land … wise ones, unleash your might upon my birdman.”
What a lunatic, she has to chant now?
“My great-great grandfather was a shaman. Swift Bird.”
His back arched, the pleasures deepening.
“Tell me about your family, Jackson.”
He filled her mouth with his and she shut up.
Maybe Kai could trace her ancestry back, but Jackson didn’t have a clue about his grandparents or even his mother. She was only eighteen when she gave birth to him, and she had no interest in raising a child. She never called, never sent him a birthday card—just gone. Jackson had wanted to name her Angela because his dad refused to tell her real name. The two of them struggled alone like two prairie cowboys in Cody, Nebraska, until the old guy’s heart suddenly gave out one Sunday afternoon … just gone. After that, Jackson’s career choice of joining the Air Force was easy; then he turned sky gypsy for the private corporate rich.
“No family,” he murmured.
“Oh, you’re the lost lamb. What a sweetheart.” Her hair came loose and fell across his face. Everything went dark. Flap! He squeezed shut his eyes to press the pain away. Nearly dazed, his heart raced making his body throb so wickedly that even his eyes pulsed.
Flap! Flap! Flap! He went rigid.
“What?” she said, halting their momentum.
He slid her hair off his face. “Listen.”
A ghostly high-pitched wail stretched the air. Jackson looked up, half expecting wings of dead loons to materialize on the ceiling. “Christ, are they in this cabin?”
“Oh calm down. The flocks gather over the lake. Eerie calls, I know. My loons fly all day, just like you do, Jackson.” She ran her fingers through his black wavy hair. “Your hair is just like my loons’ black feathers and just as soft. And your eyes are as blue as their sky. My birdman.”
My loons. My birdman. Why do women have to possess everything? The air rippled. Something hovered. Right above his head. A shadow? A tail? Then a soft rattle. Like tires grinding on gravel.
Kai blinked. She jumped and dashed to the window. “Shit, it’s Blix!”
“Blix! You said he was away.”
“He was. Cleveland.”
Jackson barely had time to pull on his jeans. His stomach clenched, his fingers reduced to jelly, he couldn’t even zip up.
“Get out. The window. Go!”
“The window?”
“I’m not hiding you in the closet. Get out of here.”
“How are you going to explain this room and your—”
“Get out, Jackson. I’ll handle Blix.”
“Suppose he—“
“Go! Right now.”
The front door of the cabin squeaked open.
In a blur, Jackson tumbled out the window, his shirt and jacket zooming past him. Running barefoot with a harvest of nuts rolling underfoot like a cripple, he took the longer path through the cover of trees. Once he was beyond sight of the cabin, he stopped to put on his shoes. Good thing he had the sense to park his car down the road in a dense pine cove.
Achilles Lake shimmered while a flock of black and white loons soared above the gold and orange leaves. Their frantic whistles alarmed him. What’s Blix doing at the cabin in the middle of the afternoon? Does he suspect? Breathless and shaking, at last Jackson spotted his car. He dug into his pocket for the keys. Gone. “God damn it!”
Had he dropped them on the ground? He glanced back to his trail with a quick search. Had he left them on the bedroom dresser? Shit. How would Kai explain if Blix found them? She was a clever girl; she’d think of something.
He took a minute to figure out what to do once he was safe inside the car. Should he retrace his steps in search of the car keys? Maybe jump-start the ignition? Yeah, jump it and bolt.
He searched for a jumping-wire or a screwdriver in the messy glove compartment. As he threw objects to the floor, shadows dashed by the front window. Crazy loons. Get out of here. The sun vanished behind a cloud. When the side window rattled, he lifted his head.
Keys jangled in mid air.
“Looking for these?” Blix yanked open the door, held a baseball bat ready to strike.
A gush of raw adrenaline shot through Jackson. He gripped the steering wheel when the bat came down, shattering the front windshield. “Christ, Blix!”
“You want blood all over your genuine leather seats? Get out, Jackson.”
Blix was a beefy Dane, spiked blond hair, muscles bulging like balloons. Kai wasn’t afraid of him—she had boasted that for all his brio, he was full of kindness—but all Jackson could see was a former boxing champ in a rage.
Blix grabbed Jackson by the throat and hurled him to the ground.
Crack. Jackson’s rib exploded. His scream intensified the pain. “Blix!” he struggled for a breath. “Stop … please.”
“You like sleeping with other men’s wives, do you? Sheila in Dallas? Flying those corporate jets to L.A. for what’s-her-name, Freeman’s wife? Pilot-for-hire, that’s all you do is fly the world and screw women. You vain son-of-a-bitch, scum-bag, ass! Kai is my wife. Eight years we have together.” Blix hauled him up. “Start walking, you little prick.”
Jackson stumbled, clutching his side. If he yelled for help, no one would hear in the far scatter of cabins or on the deserted dirt roads. His shoulder clotted with sharp pain; his head ached; the wine inside his stomach rose to his throat like acid.
“What, you think I didn’t know? You’re an easy hunt, Jackson. You leave tracks a mile wide. Keep walking. To the lake. Move!”
Jackson tripped over his feet as the bat kept skimming his hair with every swing. Keep calm. He’s just trying to scare me. Who said he wasn’t any good at play-acting? Stay calm. Blix isn’t a killer. Ahead, a short rocky cliff hung over the water. Jackson’s eyes went wide. “Blix, take it easy, you—”
“Shut up. I don’t what to hear your voice. I’m going to do the whole world a big fat favor by getting rid of you.”
Jackson searched the perimeter of the woods for a hiker, scanned the lake for a boater, a teen, somebody, anybody, not a single person in sight—just those damn loons whizzing over the water. “Blix, listen, please, I—”
Blix jabbed the bat into Jackson’s back. “You’re going under. A smack on the head. Accidents happen. They’ll all think, poor dumb ass hit his head and drowned.”
“Don’t do this! What do you want, man?” Jackson held his searing rib with both hands.
“I’m getting what I want. You, gone! Keep walking. See those rocks? Get up there.”
A few more steps and the cliff would be just one push away. Jackson turned back slightly, hands fisting, legs stiffening, feet ready. Blix’s gargoyle head hung over him. Could he manage this hulk? With a howl, Jackson lurched, faking a fall.
The sudden turn threw Blix’s footing off. He veered just enough for Jackson to make a swipe at the bat. Blix pitched to the side as Jackson thrust his body forward. Both men clenched the bat between them. Eye to eye, they twisted and pulled. A poor match against Blix’s strength, Jackson reversed directions. When Blix pulled on the bat, he pushed with all his strength. In one violent thrust, he power-slammed the top of the bat into Blix’s head.
Whack!
Blix twisted, spun, dropped to the ground, arms spread out.
Jackson hunched over, half in shock, half holding his side that throbbed like a burning knife. He expelled his breath in deep huffs and wheezed to take in some oxygen.
Blix lay face up, blood streaming the grass.
The loons flew by, their off-key wails circling his head. “Blix? Come on. Blix? Blix!” After a second, he stooped down and placed his hand over Blix’s nose. No air moving at all. He tried for a pulse on Blix’s thick neck. Nothing. Christ, almighty. Breathe, will you!
“Jackson!” Kai ran through the pines, her hair streaming out like
black tails. She had changed into jeans and a shirt, no longer his Loon Woman in veils and feathers. Even from the distance he could see she had been crying. Her face stiffened when she saw Blix splayed on the grass. She stopped just a dozen feet away. Her gaze lowered to the bat hanging from Jackson’s hand.
She screamed and then covered her mouth with both hands and screamed again. If Jackson hadn’t seen her open her mouth, he’d have sworn it was one of those stupid loons shrieking from the lake. He looked down: blood and hair stuck to the bat.
“What happened, Jackson? You didn’t—?”
“Blix … he … came at me,” he managed, wiping spittle from his lips.
Kai threw herself on Blix. “Blix, can you hear me? Blix!” His head lolled back, blood pooled out, mouth slung open. She grew hysterical, kissing his lips, his eyelids, his head. “Blix, please, open your eyes. I’m here. Blix!”
“He’s okay. I think. Just knocked out is all.”
“He’s not okay!” She tried to resuscitate him, giving him her air, but his limp body gave no response. She placed an ear against his chest, petting his face, begging him to breathe, the whole time her hands stained with his blood. “I’m sorry, my darling Blix, I’m sorry. Please! Look at me. Blix!”
Jackson could barely stand to watch her begging. The woods around grew dark with trees that looked suddenly burnt. But that was just the autumn colors filling his eyes. All the deep reds and purples swirled before him. It’s shock, that’s all. And this wretched pain.
With her face raised up, both palms spread on Blix’s chest, Kai released a string of grieving shrills so primitive they might have torn open the sky. She lifted her hands and shouted, “White Wind rescind. Big Water rise. Wings upon me, be ever wise. Wings upon me, be ever wise.”
Slow-moving shadows crossed above. Flap. Flap. Flap.
Kai fixed her eyes hard on Jackson. “He’s not breathing. I can’t find a heartbeat!”
Jackson placed two fingers against Blix’s neck. Nothing. Then on his wrist. Nothing again. No air flowed from his nose. His chest held perfectly still, nearly caved in as if the lungs had collapsed. No heartbeat. No heartbeat!
“He’s dead, Jackson. You killed him!”
No. No. This was just a stupid fight. Testosterone. Just like those goofy loons claiming territory on the lake. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t! Please, no, I didn’t kill him.
Kai surged at Jackson and beat her fists at his face and chest. She wailed words he couldn’t understand. He grabbed both her hands and held her tight. “Kai! We have to call 911. Do you hear me? Where’s your cell?”
She sobbed through hiccups and choking. “He can’t be dead. He can’t. He’s my husband! I belong to him. I can’t lose Blix.”
I can’t lose Blix. The words astonished him. Did Kai really love this man after all? He searched for words to comfort her, something to say that he understood her pain. He wanted to say, I know. But he didn’t know her pain. What did he know about love or about losing love for that matter? He was just a wanderer flying from city to city, belonging to no one. In that moment, all he could do was observe Kai while Blix lay breathless and dead at their feet.
“You did this!” Kai slapped him with the strength of a man.
The blow sent him down hard, his rib practically bursting through his flesh. He curled in a spasm of white-hot pain and let out a howl. Grass, trees, and sky swirled around him with black and white streaks flapping in every direction. He could barely keep his eyes open from the vertigo.
“White Wind rescind. Big Water rise. Wings upon me, be ever wise.” Kai chanted.
The words swam in his head until something glided noiselessly forth. He felt it. Pulsing. Drumming. The dizziness cleared. From the pines beyond, a long mournful whistle emerged.
Among the fallen leaves, a magnificent loon perched. Jackson steadied his vision on the creature, its blue-black feathers abnormally flat as it rested on a patch of dry soil. Why didn’t it fly away with the other loons? The curved hollows on its sides illuminated.
Kai knelt with arms stretched to the sky, a sudden breeze looping her hair as she chanted to the ancient wind. The sound of clamorous wings broke the air, but the single wingless loon remained ever present.
“Wings upon me, be ever wise. For my Blix.” With her fists, she pounded her chest, her voice echoing with power. Under the web of the trees, that single loon faded into the shadows.
A flock of loons passed closely above, near hitting their heads. With their swell of air, they zoomed in circles as if Kai herself were directing them over Blix’s body.
Before Jackson could blink, Blix rolled to his side in the grass. He struggled to raise a weak hand, coughed in anxious breaths, his eyes rolling. Kai was on him instantly. She blotted his wounded head with her shirt and helped him sit up, kissed him and cooed, held him like a found treasure, calling thanks to Father Sky and White Squall Wind.
“He’s breathing?” Jackson could hardly believe it. “Is he okay? Oh God, what a relief. But … how did …?”
Kai helped Blix stand on wobbly legs as he managed one foot in front of the other. She propelled him forward, her arms around his waist, his arms around hers. Embraced, the two walked toward the cabin—husband and wife.
Kai was Blix’s Loon Woman now.
Jackson watched them for a moment. A suffusion of light streamed from Kai’s head and shoulders like two white ribbons. What was this loon magic she possessed from Father Sky and White Squall Wind? From the deepest recess of his mind, he called out to Kai. She must have heard his silent plea because she turned and paused. With those flashing black eyes inside the streaming light around her, and with a snarl upon her lips, she gave him his answer. “Yes, you have lost me, Jackson. Go! Begone, now and forever from Achilles Lake. From my loons. I want you gone!”
Gone. That word would haunt him still.
Sudden muffled gusts beat out of the sky. Two loons on the lake snagged his vision. Their magnificent bodies held him there, inviting him to come closer. Jackson limped toward the water’s edge, planted both feet firmly on the rocky ledge. One bird dove under, grabbed its prey and swallowed in one gulp of momentary pleasure. The other, cooing and preening, spread her wings and danced upright on top of the water. They ran the surface of the water. Running … running … running …. building speed until finally, liftoff. The splendor of it nearly snatched his breath away. He knew that thrilling moment when he soared the sky, engines roaring, steel wings tipping, sunward, absolutely weightless and free.
Jackson got a whiff of the sweet-smoky tail winds off their feathers. Their eerie wails flooded him now. Tremulous whistles struck chords into his head and chest, into that broken rib, softly piercing the flesh clean into his heart. Love songs.
The two loons glided up, flying so close they melted into one swift bird. The rhythmic communion of their calls waved like gentle humming. All vain desires quelled, wanting only to possess the beauty of those two loons illuminating the sky, he reached out. If he could just touch their great gleaming wings, if he could just feel the warm light on his fingertips, if he could have that joy. With both arms stretched up, he returned the calls of the loons, pitching his own voice to swing out into a silvery whistle.
Glassy light burst forth as the rocky ledge shifted beneath his feet.
Flap! Flap!
Kai hung onto Blix as they walked to the cabin. She thought she heard Jackson’s voice echo behind her.
The lake’s wind seemed to charge her eyes with tears and an ache. My birdman. She couldn’t resist a look back. Inside her dark pause, she skimmed the water’s edge and rocky cliffs to find him.
All she could see was one glorious loon high above the trees, his black wavy feathers shining against the blue of sky, his hot laughing song lifting over Achilles Lake.
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