Dead Birds: The Dark Orphans Collection Read online

  DEAD BIRDS

  William Patrick

  *

  CONTENTS

  Entry.

  Partners.

  Exit.

  Outside.

  Birds.

  Orphans.

  Candlelight.

  The Drive.

  The Edge.

  Graves.

  Grotesques.

  Blood.

  Wonderworking (Pt. 1)

  Wonderworking (Pt. 2)

  The Square.

  Poisons.

  The Corridor.

  Tribute (Pt. 1)

  Tribute (Pt. 2)

  Flesh.

  Pelts.

  Fast.

  Run.

  Burns.

  Mothers.

  Cull.

  *

  More by William Patrick available for Amazon Kindle:

  THE COLLECTOR (preview)

  DAMAGE (preview)

  *

  Copyright © 2013 by William Patrick.

  "This is courage in a man; to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends."

  Euripides.

  Entry.

  The taxi, an East European carton that should have retired to a scrapyard two decades ago, took Burns and Elsie over the compact road. They wound between the green hills in silence, Burns thinking that from a distance, the town of Rodenje looked like a miniature replica carved from dusty white rock. An intricate wheel-maze, it glowed under the sun while the countryside around it idled like a vast reptile. Burns had the window beside him rolled down to breath the warmed perfume of the hills.

  After the hills, the taxi drove under an old arch that looked ready to topple. Birds scattered from the road, among them the largest crows Burns ever saw. He sniffed something burning, bitter grasses or leaves, and rolled up the window. The notion that the town was carved from stone remained as it grew around him. Rodenje had no suburbs. It huddled together.

  Elsie kept her camera on her lap, ready to catch hurried shots of locals or glimpses of colourful enticements set on the street stalls (towels, dresses, shoulder bags, paintings, alcohol; each stall seemed intent on offering an unreasonable amount of items, making it impossible to categorise any business). The taxi was the only vehicle on the street.

  When the taxi paused at a junction, Burns leant to see if a traffic light halted them (it would be the first they faced in Rodenje); instead, among a road populated with people, he saw a stout woman near the curb turn to deliver a soft but thick fist to the side of a man's head. The man wobbled over the footpath, while the woman strode on. Her bearing suggested satisfaction. Burns heard Elsie's camera click, and wondered if she'd taken a picture of the abuse.

  Pedestrians criss-crossed the road and men pulled rickshaw-like carts piled with dusty sacks. A few donkeys hauled larger carts. Burns wondered if the taxi-driver delayed them to increase the charge. The dashboard had no fares meter, only a speedometer that never shifted from thirty regardless of their speed. Beside it, tangled wires dangled like withered muscle from a hollow that once stored a radio.

  Burns was ready to press the driver on, when a woman at the crossroad sang at a throat-scratching wail. She strutted across the junction with steps that were almost jumps. Her hands spun white ribbons through the air. Swathes of cloth bandaged her from neck to ankles, with twigs hanging from the wrapping, as well as flowers and weeds -- anything she could pick from the split rocks of Rodenje's streets and its walls, it seemed; even moss smudged the bandaged torso. She was such a startling event that Burns hardly noticed she was no more than eighteen until he noticed the swollen stomach on an otherwise thin frame. Whenever her feet struck the road, the bulge sagged and bobbed unconvincingly -- an imitation of pregnancy.

  Burns heard the door beside him unlock and knew Elsie was out and aiming her camera at the dancing woman. Dozens more women followed through the crossroad, the aged among the young and the middle-aged. They jabbed scythes, pitchforks, and shovels at the sky. Shredded red cloth flapped from the farm tools, representing blood, Burns supposed. This was a merging of two myths. The swathed young woman called out to an old earth goddess (or a rain goddess) for assistance during the farming season; the other women, her congregation, re-enacted the fervour of starving and despairing wives hoping to restore favour with their agricultural gods by murdering men with their own farm tools.

  Myth and folklore, converging. Precisely what Burns hoped to study in Rodenje.

  He pushed open his door, and almost swung it against a child standing beside the taxi. The child was too young and bedraggled for Burns to tell if it was a girl or a boy. The eyes had the blank frowning expression of a statue; the eyelids were too sharp, as if etched. The bluish-purple birthmark staining the child's forehead and running down over the nose to the upper lip kept Burns from noticing outright the cotton-like green fibres that nestled around the nostrils and the corners of the eyelids.

  He tugged the door back. When the child's lips parted as if to release a soft breath, or a secret, Burns saw more green fibres inside the socket of the mouth, over the gums and tongue, and for a moment -- before he corrected his imagination, before Elsie flopped back into the car and gave him cause to look aside -- he thought the fibres were leafy, like moss. He thought they moved.

  He wanted to say something to Elsie -- he wasn't sure what, just words to allow him to shift his attention from the child -- but imagined leafy fibres crowding his own mouth, peeking from his lips.

  Elsie smiled at him, smiled past him, at the child. She waved. Burns looked back to the child (who watched him and took no notice of Elsie), and heard little metallic fingers beside his ear. Elsie' camera. It was digital, but imitated the sound of a mechanical shutter. He had no idea why she needed to photograph the sick child. He almost turned to challenge her -- it would be better than having to watch that sickly androgynous face.

  The climate here was so dry. Dust from the streets filled the taxi. Burns tasted it. It moved invisibly around him. It was between his shirt and his body, where it clung to his sweat and made a new watery skin.

  The songs and cries of the performing man-slayers moved from the junction. The taxi-driver had taken to fiddling with the wires hanging inside the still mouth of the dashboard, as if each strand were a puzzle to scrutinise. He dropped the wires to start the taxi with a jerk like a shrug against the preceding parade. Burns was relieved when the child slid behind the taxi.

  *

  The hotel was the only building on the street with a second and third floor. Burns asked the driver if he was sure this was the place, since the stark building wore no indication of its trade. The driver pointed impatiently at his wrist to suggest Burns was wasting his time, though the man wore no jewellery. They took their baggage from the taxi and Burns paid the forty-five deri the driver demanded. Only now did Burns read the name of the taxi company, stencilled across the side: Savigrad Taksi Servis. Savigrad was Rodenje's nearest neighbour, forty miles east.

  When Elsie offered to help him carry a few of his bags, Burns turned from her and made his way into the hotel lobby. He couldn't understand why she had joined him in Rodenje.

  The lobby reminded Burns of the vestibule of a church -- which church, he couldn't recall; it lay buried somewhere in his subconscious, but it encouraged him to look to either side of the door for fonts. Across the cracked stone floor, a narrow stairs wound upward, as if to a platform where a choir would sing. There were no pews, and the reception desk beside the stairway was too utilitarian and several metres too long for an altar. A figure in a baggy shirt and nondescript dark hair behind the desk kept his or her back to the new arrivals.

  Unbalanced by the baggage under h
is arms and hanging from his hands, Burns waddled with the grace of a toddler. His laptop case bulged with notes for the book he'd come to Rodenje to research. It tapped his hip with the rhythm of a rundown pendulum. Elsie took her time behind him.

  The receptionist turned, and had a man's face. His wide brow and lips, thick eyelids, shaggy hair, and a nose that looked kneaded in clay by unskilled hands, made Burns think of a Neanderthal.

  The receptionist said, "Dobrodoli." The welcome sounded close to how Burns had read it in his Idiot's Guide. The receptionist tried to widen his smile, but his crude lips fought the expression, raising the upper lip to a snarl. He asked, "Amerikanac?"

  Burns shook his head.

  A waxy hand touched the compact chest. "Izvinite."

  Burns waved to dismiss the apology.

  The receptionist nodded as if they had touched on an agreement, and waved a finger as if it were a wand. "Evropski? European?"

  "Bingo," Burns said, ignoring the receptionist's heavy, questioning brows.

  The receptionist looked at the wrinkled pages of a ledger on the desk, the guestbook. He looked perplexed. "There is no Bingo."

  "No -- it's Doherty, Bernard Doherty."

  "You come from the univerzitet?"

  "The university? They left a message?" He tried to not seem anxious, but wondered if the university already realised Elsie had come with him. They could not; they had no way of knowing, not yet. But if they knew, if Elsie had sabotaged his book before he began in earnest--

  The receptionist's face grew another crude smile. "No. But I will bring you any komunikacija, message." He pulled a drawer from the counter and took out an old brass key. He handed it to Burns and made numbers using raised fingers on both hands. "Dvadeset-cetiri."

  Burns asked, "Twenty-four?"

  "Okay," the receptionist said.

  "The room number is--"

  "Da, okay." Then he said, "You are here," causing Burns to wonder if the man was mentally deficient, before he nodded to Elsie and asked, "And she is here too?"

  "Yes." Burns borrowed the receptionist's method and displayed a number using both hands. "For six dani. Days?"

  "Okay, days, but she is not here." He turned the guestbook to Burns and pushed it across, tapping a pencil on the page where Burns read his own name in block letters. There were no other guests listed. "She can stay if she is here." He offered the pencil to Burns, who faltered over the page, as if unable to recall Elsie's name.

  Elsie put her bags on the floor and stepped forward to pluck the pencil from Burns hands. She smiled at the receptionist. "I'll pay separate," she said. "The same room, but divided bills. Is that okay?"

  The receptionist made a face of twitching brows and pulled lips. It was impossible to read. "You can say this to the boss later." His hands hovered above the guestbook, reminding Burns of a priest about to read mass. "You must still be in here."

  Elsie nodded, and pulled the book toward her to write her name.

  Partners.

  The receptionist pointed them to a door open to a narrow winding staircase, made no effort to help, and turned from them as soon as they left the counter. The staircase was barely wide enough to allow Burns to carry the luggage. The cramped landings, which came every fifth step, made for an awkwardly winding ascent.

  "That receptionist was odd," Elsie said from behind him, drawing him from his thoughts. Once again, he wished she had stayed home. "Doesn't he look like Roman Polanski?"

  "You're kidding? Not in the least. He looks like a shaved caveman."

  After they had climbed what seemed like two landings worth of stairs without passing a door, Burns saw one ahead. He grasped the door's chunky handle, and managed to push it aside while struggling with his multiple burdens. He stumbled through.

  The hotel was larger than he'd assumed. The corridor, much wider than the stairway, had six well-spaced suite doors on either side. When Elsie came through, she raised her browse in surprise.

  Old couches squatted against the walls between each suite. Tall narrow tables stood between each couch. Rather than exhibiting the air of antics, the furnishings looked like well-maintained leftovers.

  The calls of various animals -- chickens, cows, horses, and dogs -- dribbled into the corridor through the open window at the corner. The animals sounded as if they were bickering inanely and pettily.

  Burns manoeuvred his luggage between the couches and around the corner to find door 24, and wondered why the suites were numbered in reverse -- room 20 was at the far end of the corridor, a dead end.

  He ignored another offer from Elsie to help, and eased the luggage in his left hand to the floor to open the door with the old key. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a hotel that had used keys instead of swipe cards.

  "Balls," he said. He picked up the luggage and pushed the door from his way using a foot. "I should have asked for another key for you."

  The suite was small -- the Fellowship allowed a very limited fund -- with a lounge and another door to the bedroom. The sun through the wide window spread over the table and the plump chairs. It was cramped, but it managed to feel inviting enough for Burns to think about a shower and a nap. He'd worked late the last several nights, and this morning's early start, the flight, and his worries, suddenly made him weary.

  He took his cases through the peculiarly narrow double doors to the bedroom. The doors had no handle, and nothing like a bolt. He wondered why this irritated him. Maybe he felt it undid the privacy of the bedroom.

  Elsie set down her bags in the lounge while he dropped his beside the bed. A narrow bed, he noted, but then the arrangement was for one occupant. He couldn't upgrade the size of their room -- if the university found out, if they realised his partner was holidaying with him while he was here at their expense... He wished Elsie would think of him occasionally, of what he needed.

  When she stepped to the doorway, she asked, "So, what will we do for the evening?"

  He could see the glimmer in her eyes suggesting she already had an idea or two -- probably recommendations from an online search she'd made before they left home.

  He said, "You mean, what you will do for the evening?" She frowned, trying to look confused instead of hurt. His stomach tensed. She was going to make this difficult. "You invited yourself along, Elsie. This isn't a holiday for me. I came here to work."

  Her brows stitched and then sunk. She looked to points in the bedroom as if she would find a reply among the bare and strange furnishings, words for her uncertain lips to form. It made Burns feel lousy, but it also made him angrier with her. Why did she have to look so damn wounded?

  "I can't go off and play tourist with you," he insisted, while trying and failing to make his voice softer. "I'm not even paying for this trip, the Keating Foundation is." It occurred to him to wonder if she was paying for her own trip, or if this was another of her father's generous gifts, something her old man did when his princess hinted about travelling, or when she intended to make an expensive purchase, or --

  -- her old man would probably reimburse her after she bought a toothbrush, Burns thought darkly, before he caught himself.

  Was he so jealous of Elsie’s family? Professor Kingston had done more for Burns by convincing the Keating Foundation to fund research into Rodenje's mythic past, than Burns’ parents had managed for him in their doubly failed lives; he should be angry with his family, with their failed business and their failed marriage, not with Elsie, and not with her family. Yet the animosity pooled in him like tar.

  He and Elsie were partners, for Christ's sake. They had shared the same apartment back home for over two years. He might be better off alone in Rodenje, but it didn't mean he had to ruin every minute of her stay. Besides, he was here for a month (with a possible extension hinging on the quality of his findings), but in six days Elsie would return to her job as a solicitor's receptionist. Couldn't he just put up with her?

  Burns felt his body shrug as if to release itself of a more cumbersome weigh
t than his luggage, and said, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm tired, and I'm worried. I don't know how much of my theories I can substantiate, and if I find nothing -- well, forget my teaching career, I doubt the university will even have me back as a tutor, never mind agreeing to fund more of my book."

  "Their tight-assed funds. Isn't that what you said?"

  Great. Now that he apologised, she was on the offensive. And if he recalled correctly, he had said tight-fisted. "It still costs a lot to me. I mean, to send me here." He silently cursed his slip of the tongue. "Just staying in this hotel, keeping me fed for a month, renting a car--"

  "I get it, Bernard." Did her tone suggest something severe, as if it coated an insult? "I'm sorry. I won't get in your way."

  The air between them had developed its own negative force; he could feel it swell between them, as if to prise them apart. Her apology meant another attempt by him would sound hollow, so he just looked at her, willing her to forget this, or at the least to stop looking at him with such a perplexing mixture of expectation and disappointment -- what did she want? It was an expression she'd recently adopted and perfected. He didn't care for it.

  To say something (he knew it would be the wrong thing, but he hadn't a clue how to correct this now, and figured it best to get on and let this blow over), he said, "I have to unpack my gear."

  She nodded and backed from the room, catching both of the narrow doors. Before she pushed them together, she said, "Sometimes, I don't know how to feel about you."

  Exit.