Where Bluebirds Fly

Where Bluebirds Fly - By Brynn Chapman

Chapter 1



19th January 1692

Salem, Massachusetts



Some sounds you cannot forget.

They stay with you always, becoming part of you. They are as familiar as the creases lining your palms.

Some say what the eyes see, imbeds forever in our memories.

But sounds fill my head, late in the night, in my mourning hours-three refuse to die.

The sound of my mother’s laugh. Low and resonant, like the church bell’s peal on Sunday morn. To think on it too much would call madness into my soul. How that voice could lift me out of the blackness in my head and heart, threatening now to snuff the dwindling light of my hope.

The sound of my mother’s screaming. It follows me down the path to sleep. Stays with me. My mother’s hair, in blond waves, hangs loose from the Indian’s pouch alongside my father’s black and white locks. The gurgling, drowning sound in her throat tells me she’s going, where I cannot follow.

The crunching snap of Goody Bishop’s neck on the gallows’ noose. The first to die under the charges of witchcraft.

No other visions of her remain, my eyes clamped shut at the sound.

My mother’s tight grip and wild eyes plead with me to ease her pain. The blood from her scalped head floods her eyes. She doesn’t blink it away. I think she knows she has only moments.

My little brother’s chest heaves up and down as he clings to my legs. He’s beyond horror—he’s mad with it. His guttural childish-moaning splits my attention, ever so slightly. I must pay full attention to mother.

“My Verity,” she croons. A crimson bubble of blood forms on her lips at the end of my name, and pops. “Do not forsake your brother, dear one. It shall not be easy. I love—”

John squeals like the devil himself has eaten his heart. Perhaps he has. My eyes flick up to behold the Indian. For a moment, compassion steals across his eyes, then they harden. He raises his tomahawk.

I reel at the revelry. My mind closes, my eyes slamming shut, refusing to relive the last seconds of my mother’s life.

The memory is so vivid I feel the world twirl. I step forward, shaking my head back to life.

Sounds of the Salem Streets rush back like a crushing ocean wave.

Something strikes my shoulder, and I open my eyes, blinking against the sun.

“Verity Montague, one cannot stop in the middle of the fairway, child.”

The goodwife’s eyes say what her mouth won’t allow. You’re mad. Your brother is mad. The rumpled lips betray her fear, and her pity.

My present world rushes back with such alacrity, I drop the apple I’ve so carefully chosen. It rolls away into the milling crowd, and I give chase.

There’s a tautness to the villagers; a thread of tension weaving through them. I see it in the hunch of my mistress’s shoulders, the squint of my master’s eyes.

My present, my responsibility, presses in. I hear my breaths, coming too quickly. Another woman notices, but her eyes quickly shift from mine.

A low drone of fret rises from my gut. Not now. Go away.

I know my brother John be somewhere in the crowd; late again, and likely in trouble.

Ever since the day of the Indian raid, a thick panicked sound thrums—embedded in my thoughts, like a swarm of hornets. I battle it, so I can try to live my life.

For me, the panic is a living, breathing creature. A second self.

It’s hot, unrelenting fingers flick across my cheeks, as if my childhood memories are making a mad dash to escape, seeping out the back of my brain.

“Witch!”

My stomach leaps.

I spin toward the crowd, eyes darting, searching.

Somewhere a bell tolls.

My heartbeat matches my breath; two warring children, competing for my attention. My clammy hands grasp my bundle closer.

Where is John? Why can he never do as he is told?

You know why.

Because he is different from anyone I know. I am different, but I hide it. I must hide it.

I walk faster, dropping my eyes to the stares.

I mimic their countenance and cares, but inside, my heart throbs to its own abnormal cadence.

I do not love as they love—and what they deem important makes me laugh. If I dare to allow these thoughts to slip from my tongue, it shall be I swinging on the gallows. Followed by John.

A thick crowd gathers in the town square. I rush forward, scattering a flock of crows.

I weave in between the bodies, searching, listening.

My fear grows, and I feel my sanity tilting; tugging me to the edge of a deep, wide precipice. Awaiting in its depths, be madness.

“Witch! Where is the constable?’

I cannot breathe. Please, please, no.

The acccusations, again. They be after someone. I smooth out my face.

They must not know you fear. Show no fear.

“Witch!”

Fingers invade the air. Old hens and young children, all assuming the same accusatory pose. Each point at the cowering old woman in the center of the mob.

A bedlam of emotions crosses old Rebecca Nurse’s face. Incredulity, anger, panic; then her twitching mouth finally chooses horror.

“Seize her! Examine her for the witch’s mark!” Constable Corwin arrives, along with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I cover my ears in pain. The screams and shouts are deafening. Urging from all sorts; young and old, rich and poor. Once the condemning-frenzy begins, the enchantment will remain, till at least one be accused.

“She be a witch!”

“I saw ’er familiar the other night in the barnyard!”

Goody Nurse’s tired, watery eyes open wide as the men approach. She freezes in mid-shuffle on the cobblestones. My stray, forgotten red apple rolls to a stop at her feet.

Her shaking hands pluck it from the earth.

Something clicks in my mind, like a rifle’s cock. John is near. My head swivels all around, searching for him. I must protect him, they hate him.

The sides of my mouth spasm, breaking free of my mask.

I hear my mother’s voice. Save him, Verity.

I must keep my wits, it means our lives.

I push my way through the crowd, hovering about the circle surrounding Rebecca Nurse. But my eyes keep returning to her.

I’m sick with helplessness. She doesn’t deserve what they are about to do. Her wizened, healing hands cured John last winter, when no one else could touch his fever.

“I am not a witch!” The old woman’s voice warbles, somehow drowning out the shouts.

The morbid fascination wins and I stand, transfixed, unable to look away. I command my feet to shuffle backward, but like some horrid enchantment, I am rapt.

Rebecca’s crooked body trembles as Constable Corwin yanks her arm.

She cocks her head to the side. The old dear is hard of hearing, and is most likely only catching snippets of the hurled accusations. Their superstitious eyes fixate on her.

My heart weeps to protect her, but what can I do? An eighteen-year-old servant girl?

Who will speak for her? Would they listen anyway?

“Your spectral self is accused of tormenting Anne Putnam, Jr., appearing by her bedside at night, beseeching her to sign the dark man’s book! How plead you, woman?”

“Not guilty.” Rebecca’s eyes are bold, but her old voice cracks on the final word.

Corwin’s eyes narrow.

“Oh, Goody Nurse,” I whisper.

The whirrs of whispered voices are like a conspiratorial swarm of bees, closing the circle on her. Tighter. Tighter.

My skin itches with panic, I ball my dress into my sweaty, shaking hands; restraining myself.

The panic flows through the mob and I picture a beating heart—infusing the townsfolk with hysteria, powering the obsessive light in their eyes.

My mind rhymes, as it sometimes does, when I’m afraid.

Or insane. It’s hard to tell.

The word drips from everyone’s lips, the single condemnation…witch.

Witch.

Witch. Then, like a chant, the whole frenzied mob murmurs as one.

“Witch.”

Two young women prattle beside me, shifting my gaze from Rebecca.

“Remember the old woman’s dispute with Reverend Allen? Over where his land ended and hers began? Do you think this be why she is accused?”

The girl looks to be about my age. She wobbles on her tiptoes, her cheeks flushing with effort as she peers over the thick crowd.

“What do you think is Goody Nurse’s familiar?” the other girl responds, too eagerly. Her greedy eyes shine with mischief, not fear.

Disgust rises in my nose.

“What is a familiar?” the terrified one asks, her gaze never leaving the mob.

“Why, it is how the witches travel. They take an animal’s form, and force it to do their bidding.” Her voice lowers, “One visited me last eve, a night bird peck, peck, pecking at my window. I think it was Goody Proctor.” She stifles the giggle with the back of her hand.

“Are you mad?” I cannot stay my tongue. “This be not a game. Townsfolk are dying! Swinging on gallows hill from lesser whispers! Did you not see Goody Bishop hang?”

The giggly girl’s gaze narrows; her eyes are black and beady. Dead, like a doll’s.

“You seem a likely witch, Verity. Your looks are so odd! What be wrong with your eyes? One green as the sea, and one brown as dirt. Why don’t they match?”

Heat floods my cheeks as rage reddens my sight. I suck in a breath. “You—”

The crowd roars, and we all three turn, transfixed once again.

“I said, examine her for the witch’s mark, man!”

Constable Corwin spins Rebecca Nurse ’round, and with one practiced slash, rips open her dress. Goody Nurse’s spine, curved and bent with age, is visible through the gaping fabric. I jam my eyes shut, cringing in mortification.

“Look there! It is the suckling mark!” The constable’s finger juts at her lower back.

I spin back to giggly girl. “What be his meaning? The black freckle?”

She stares, eyes narrowing.

“Why, I have one here.” I lift my sleeve.

“That is not unexpected, Verity.”

Giggly girl’s eyes darken with malice, her expression turning grave. “That be where the familiars come to suckle.”

I yank down my sleeve. “Surely, you do not believe that claim?”

But it’s certain from her rapt expression, she does. As does the daft one beside her. Not only do they believe it, they revel in it.

“I have seen evil in this world, but I do not think it takes the form of that kind, old woman? Who heals the sick?”

A more horrible revelation hits my ears.

“That boy be a witch, too!”

John.

The fear trickles down my thighs, pooling in my knees, buckling them. My heart trips in irregular patterns, knocking against my ribs.

I search the crowd for his face.

No fear. Show no fear.

I shove my way through the gape-mouthed throng. My eyes dart frantically from one grouping to the next. Finally, I see him and an exhale of relief escapes my lips.

He’s easy to pick out. Every now and again, his arms and legs startle as if he’s frightened. His limbs twitch as if each has an individual mind lodged inside.

He’s like a puppet on a string, really. No control.

The familiar pain mutilates my heart; I press my lips tight and they tingle with the pressure.

They hate my brother, because his body disobeys his mind.

John tries unsuccessfully to blend with the crowd-his gangly arms and legs sprawling out like a newborn colt. He is all awkwardness as he sits alongside his painting and his liquid brown eyes widen in fear as the fat goodwife barrels down on him.

“I ask you, is it normal for the village imbecile to sketch like an Italian master? He’s in league with the dark one, who grants him talent! The black master who afflicts the Parris children!”

My legs tense, yearning to seize him and run.

Fate suffocates me. Where would we go? We are captives to Salem Town.

I meet the fat Goodwife’s gaze headlong.

She sees it as a challenge. Her meaty hands wring together, like a pugilist ready to brawl.

“And you! You have always been odd, I care not that you work for the Putnams!” She spits the name like a malediction. “Have the two of you been witches since your poor parents died in the Maine raids? They would be so ashamed, Verity Montague! You shame your father’s house!”

White-hot fury incinerates my self-control at the invocation of my parent’s name.

“Goodwife Churchill, you well-know my brother is sane as you. He is as innocent as the child unborn.”

“Yes, that be what every accused proclaims.”

The crowd’s whispers rise. Snippets pop in and out around my ears.

“She is odd.”

“Her eyes don’t match.”

“Why do his hands shake, so?”

Panic threatens. I long for my father.

The crowd is shifting from Rebecca Nurse, toward us, the new theatrical spectacle.

I search the crowd for support from someone, anyone, but I only find faces of fear or spite. All stare at John’s drawing of Ingersoll’s Ordinary. They wrongly assume the painting of the town watering hole is the source of the ruckus.

It’s because he’s damaged. I’m damaged.

“G-goody Churchill,” John says, brown eyes filling. “I was only drawing, as I do every day when my chores are complete for the Putnams. M-might I gift you this one?”

“See! The imbecile tries to bribe me, to silence my accusations! I’ll be having none of your tainted wares! Who knows what darkness lurks inside that painting? I’d sooner burn it than hang it on me wall. Call Corwin. Examine both of them for the witch’s mark!”

My mind hums. We must escape before the shackles go on.

Fat Sarah Churchill whirls toward me again, as if sensing my plan. “Behold the girl’s eyes! I have never seen eyes as opposite as day and night.”

She sticks out her bosom and paces before us, relishing the attention.

“Look at her—an orphan, no one to speak for her! No prospects, her life be doomed. And her i-idiot brother to care for!” Goody Churchill mocks John’s stutter. “Of course she’s taken up with the Dark Man. What other choice has she?”

A protective inferno rages. My fists ball, begging to pummel sense and bloody the nose of this cruel, stupid woman, who dares to taunt a soul like John.

“I did not take up with anyone! Or sign any book. I can’t help the way I look.” I shake my red, spiraling locks at them. “I was born this way!”

She shrugs and mocks, “Perhaps you were cursed from birth, Verity.”

I force my hands down, twitching against my sides. The result is a shaking as wild as Johns.

John’s hand squeezes around mine and I rally.

His eyes flick up and remind. Do not show weakness; they smell it, like timber-wolves.

I raise my voice, but it cracks, betraying me. “You are an orphan as well, Goody Churchill. Have you no compassion?”

John searches my face. A twitch flutters his eye. I smile at him. “As for my brother, I daresay this boy has more integrity in his big toe, than you possess in your entire person!”

The crowd rumbles at my challenge. A few laugh—anxious for a fight.

And then I see it.

My condemnation, flying toward me through the air.

A bright bluebird.

The creatures will not leave me alone. They find me, wherever I am. It is completely against nature.

I’ve not done magic; I know not why they come. I am no spell-caster.

They shall be our undoing.

The bluebird circles, dipping into the crowd, trying to land on my shoulder. I duck and it misses.

People gasp, lurching out of its way as it swoops and dives. I hear more of them, calling to their comrade from the cornfield.

The circle tightens. I cannot breathe. The colors of their clothes blur, and I smell the man next to me. It’s a musty, dank odor; like rotting greenery…or the prelude to death.

My mind screams and I crush my lips together to keep the terror in.

I hear footsteps. They are come. Corwin.

The bird manages to land before me, pecking the ground, hopping onto my boot.

Another goodwife speaks. “It’s a bluebird. You know they be a symbol of goodness. Of hope; perhaps all is not lost?”

“Ha!” Goodwife Churchill scoffs.

This be our chance.

With one hand I grasp John’s painting, flipping it under my arm, the other grabs him by the scruff.

“Goodwife Putnam is expecting us. Come John.”

The bluebird leaves my boot, but hovers above, too close to be natural.

I avert my eyes and push John through the crowd. No one moves to stop us, but the murmuring recommences.

“Keep moving,” I whisper into his ear. After a few, long minutes, I glance back. My breath whistles out. No one has followed us. They are too focused on poor Goody Nurse.

She’s saved us once again. A lump forms in my throat.

The raised voices are fading as we move out of the town limits. The bird takes flight, across the cornfield. I know it will be back, though.

I whirl on John. “Do you not remember what I told thee last night? That queer times are afoot in the village? That only yesterday the little Parris girl was acting oddly, as was her cousin Abigail. People are twisted tight as overwrought mattress cords, what with the smallpox, taxes, land disputes….”

John’s eyes squint as his attention dims. His gaze flicks to the forest and my patience wanes.

I know his mind recoils to a kinder, gentler place. But today…today he must listen. I understand his need to escape.

I often wish I could live in the stories I tell myself. Nevertheless, this world…is all we have.

“Are ye listening to me?”

“Hmm, yes. Smallpox. Dreadful.”

I grip his shoulders, spinning him more roughly than I intend. It has the desired effect, however. His eyes focus, staring at me; his concentration renewed.

“You need to draw somewhere alone. Do not call attention to yourself in any way. And our secret—”

“Yes, you mean—”

My hand shoots over his mouth. “Speak of it to no-one. Since the girls have been working mischief with Tituba—”

“The Parris’s slave girl from Barbados?”

“Yes, her,” I say impatiently. “The girls have been having fits. Convulsions, contortions—seeing visions of people flying, perched on the beams of the church, and a man in black, urging them to sign his book. Mercy Lewis vexes me constantly for not going to meet with Tituba—but I refuse. She supposedly predicts the future. It’s playing with fire, that is, in more than one way.”

John’s eyebrows dip in question, as they always do when I ‘speak doubly’.

“You know that vexes me. At times, I can’t discern plain speech, let alone when your thoughts have two meanings, side by side.”

A wintry gust blasts our faces, and I shiver. I glance down, noting that John needs new boots.

Old man winter has come early this year. Redness glimmers in the night sky as the sun descends to bed. Spots of snow glisten in its amber cast, and a blustery crosswind from the north arrives with a cold that cuts to my marrow.

We automatically pick up our pace. We will catch it for being out so late. I see the Putnam’s cornfield, now. The house is just on the other side.

A sound to my left. I stop dead, listening.

The corn rustles again; like a dog shaking off water.

The silky tops quiver as something picks its way through the rows. An animal? The something is large.

“What be that?” I step closer to the stalks.

“What? I did not see anything.”

“Something moved in the corn. It was for but a moment.” My legs halt as if my feet have rooted in the soil.

An overpowering urge hits. Like a compulsive hook behind my navel, tugging me forward. “Let us go see.”

John’s eyebrows rise in vexation and surprise. “Verity, we might catch a switch already, we are so late? What’s come over you? Keep walking. I be the troublemaker, not you.”

I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to fend off the feeling. The tyrannical urge grips my throat, and it tightens. Like needing a drink when you are parched.

The Something in there wants me. Is it the infernal birds?

“What were you saying about the girls and Tituba-the witch slave?”

I start at his voice and rip my eyes from the field. “Witchcraft be not a game. I care not who I will marry, for I know the answer already.”

John takes my hand, hauling me away from the rows.

The urge weakens with every step away from the cornfield. I suddenly feel the cold seeping above my boots and shiver.

John shakes my hand.

“Who will you marry, Verity. How can you know?”

I sigh. “I shall never marry. Too many women, not enough men. And I’m…different. And we’re so very poor, John. What have I to offer? I’m already eighteen. Many girls my age have two children already.”

John’s expression is wistful, his eyes churning with turmoil. He quickly brightens. “Momma always said you were special, not odd. I believe Momma.”

I spare John the retort hanging on my lips; that being special, might grant me a special walk directly up gallows hill.

My eye twitches as the noose’s snap echoes through my head. The awful angle of Bridget Bishop’s neck.

My whole body quakes.

“I think your eyes are pretty, Verity. No one else has them.”

“If everyone could be like you, brother, the world would be kinder.”

* * *

Anne Putnam Sr. glowers, her hands on her hips, as we stomp through the door. My mistress looks drawn and tired, the lines about her eyes just starting to show.

“Verity. Very presumptive of you and John to leave Mercy with all the evening chores.”

Mercy Lewis, the other maid, smirks behind Goodwife Putnam’s back. She pokes out the tip of her pink tongue.

Goody Putnam speaks again. “For punishment, John and ye shall do supper without Mercy, for three days.”

“Yes, Goody Putnam.”

I wait till the mistress departs, and set to my routine.

I steal a glance in the living room. Mercy whirls in a circle, dancing with her broomstick. Lost in one of her fantasies.

I don’t blame her, I have my own. But they don’t involve dancing with a broom.

I duck back in before she sees me.

Mercy is pleased, no doubt. This will leave her extra time with Tituba, dreaming about her future husband.

I snort.

I carefully dip the bottoms of my skirt hem in the bucket water so as not to catch fire, just as my mother before me. Out the window, I see John’s slim back lumbering toward the barn.

I tell myself a story as I shovel some coals from the fire’s embers into the master’s foot warmers.

“Ouch.”

My fingertip sears with pain and I pop it in my mouth. I pull it out, half-afraid to look.

A small, angry boil rises on my index finger; my punishment for daydreaming.

Hoisting the warmer off the floor, I stomp up the stairs toward the children’s rooms.

Tuesdays have always been red, but today the word blisters in my mind like brimstone. Monday is black, Wednesday-blue, and so on, through all the rainbow’s colors.

My mother was terrified when I told her. “Speak of it to no-one.”

Father later convinced her it was nothing infernal. Just another odd trait on my very long list.

Months, words, and individual letters illuminate in my head, all with individual hues. Like a fire made of driftwood.

As a result, my memory is extraordinary. I learned to read by four.

I have too many secrets. They weigh around my neck like a heavy millstone. I long to confess them. But it would condemn me.

I am alone.

I am different from girls my age, different from my masters. Different from everyone.

It’s as if I’m a foreigner, incapable of speaking the language.

The loneliness is ever-present. An unwanted shadow, present both day and night.

I confessed once, when I was ten, to a houseful of children.

My eyes blink back the tears that threaten.

Time hasn’t dulled their expressions, chanting, “Li-ar. Li-ar.”

If I dared confess now, the name would be witch.

My colors are a memory aid; as much a part of me as my beating heart.

Echoes of mother’s voice whisper, “Tell no one, Verity. Others will not understand.”

I long for her.

The ache is unbearable. For her to look into my eyes and hear me.

No one sees me here. To some, I am a mere shadow, flitting about the edges of their conversations. To others, I am worth less than livestock. Something to be bought or traded.

Mother’s voice again, reiterating, Nothing good will come from it.

This new country is set on uniformity, in Puritan thought and deeds. Calling attention to oneself is not merely discouraged, it’s a sin.

I hear a knock on the door, downstairs.

I freeze instantly, the foot warmer banging against my leg.

I yank my skirt away from the flying sparks and recognize the harsh tones of Constable Corwin. The hornets revive, buzzing in my head.

My heart turns to granite, hardening with fear. “Mr. Putnam, we’d like to speak with you about one of your servants. The boy.”

* * *



Present day

Clarion County, Pennsylvania

Penn’s Orphanage for Exceptional Boys



“What? What’s that bloody—?”

The landline beside Truman’s bed was ringing. His eyes shot to the clock beside it, the digital numbers bathed the phone in a greenish hue.

Three a.m.

He wrenched the box off the nightstand, blinking stupidly at the caller I.D.

His teeth ground together in recognition. “Another emergency placement. Can’t these people cut us a bloody break?”

A dog’s shrill bark cut the night, startling him awake.

A chill walked down Truman’s neck, blazing a trail of raised hairs. A crisp fall breeze blew in the open window, surreally swirling his dark curtains like an illusionist’s cape.

Another bark.

Truman froze, hand poised above the phone receiver; his head alternating between the phone and the frantic dog outside. “Wot is he on about?”

He kicked off the down comforter and padded to the window. The phone silenced as the machine picked up and his assistant’s southern drawl began.

“You have reached Penn’s Home for exceptional boys…”

He hit the mute button and thrust his head out the old window frame. The familiar smells of barn animals, hay and half-finished apple cider wafted to his nose. A partially-stuffed scarecrow lay slumped over a bale of hay directly below his window; its yellow innards sailed up toward him in the rising storm wind.

Scanning the orphanage grounds, his mind ticked off potential hiding spots-the pumpkin patch, the cornfield, the barn? It’d be all-too-easy for someone to hide on the ten acres surrounding the orphanage.

He ducked his head back in, his eyes narrowed, checking the security monitor on the wall; its green blinking light reiterating the quiet scene outside…no breach in the orphanage’s security system.

Anxiety twisted his gut. He sighed, looking around for his jacket. He learned never to ignore his gut.

He felt so tired. Too young to feel this tired.

Did I bite off too much with this job? I mean, what other twenty-three-year-old has this responsibility?

His adoptive father’s voice retorted irritably in his mind, How many people are a wunderkind, boy? Tapping his crooked finger against his temple. Will you use that mind for good or evil?

He smiled wryly and shook his head. Despite being a million miles away, the man was still a force to be reckoned with.

The research paper on his nightstand reoriented him, its title glaring.

‘Empaths and Synesthesia; A Case Study of T’

“Or alternate title, Truman Johnstone, The Modern-day Freak show.”

He stared at the signatures beneath the title and squared his shoulders.

Ram Usman.

Soon to be head-shrinker and his very best friend. He must be, for convincing him to take this job at the orphange.

And below it, Dr. David Linkler; the aging pediatrician who’d opened the home, back in the 70’s.

The paper, written about him, was to be Linkler’s final scientific contribution.

The old man’s visits were becoming less and less frequent as his legs weren’t what they used to be, and slogging through the Clarion County mud took its toll on his rheumatoid arthritis.

Depressing the intercom button, he took a deep breath.

“Ram? Ram, are you up?”

“I am now.” His friend’s voice was thick, a little slurred. “What’s up?”

“I heard something outside, the dog was going mental. Just wanted you to know I’m going to check it out. Better do the rounds—make sure they’re all in.”

“That dog is always mental. Truman, honestly, you’re overreacting.”

Though twenty-eight, Truman was convinced Ram had popped out of his mother’s womb with a clipboard in his hands.

Born to psychoanalyze.

Truman grinned in the dark. He’d have to use that one in the morning, when Ram wouldn’t rip his head off.

Pippin, the house Border collie, growled, her hackles rising into a furry black and white Mohawk down her back. She stood on her hind legs; her front paws clicking against the window frame.

Furry ears shot up, listening, and then lay flat against her head in disapproval as she stared out into the corn. Her upper lip retracted as she let out another low growl.

“Shh, quiet! I know, I’m going. I don’t want every kid up and wailing.”

He squinted and followed the dog’s gaze as he stooped to snatch his scrubs from the floor.

A stark-white slip flashed in his peripheral vision and his head jerked back to the window.

What was that?

He jammed his head out, pushing the dog out of the way in time to see a sliver of white disappear into the cornfield.

He bolted— simultaneously wrestling a sweatshirt over his Occupational Therapy scrubs and took the back staircase two at a time till he reached the kitchen.

Flinging open the door, he sprinted, legs pumping, across the barnyard. A herd of cats scattered, mewling their protests.

A powerful tempest exhaled from the sky, blowing across the cornrows to shake their satiny heads.

He shivered as a prelude of lightning flickered overhead.

“Perfect. Hitchcockian, even.”

Maybe I should’ve waited for Ram.

Intuition prickled and he chewed his upper lip, but forged ahead, ducking in and out of the sharp green leaves.

Thunder erupted in a deep baritone rumble. So close his insides vibrated.

He froze and cocked his head, listening.

He knew he was still safe; the crickets and cicadas sang in a round; their final summer sonata before the curtain call of fall weather. If danger was near, all would fall quiet, including the bugs.

He kept his eyes fixed on where the slip had disappeared. He ploughed through the stalks, not bothering to be quiet.

He flew, bobbing and weaving, deeper into the heart of the corn.

“Wish the maze were done. Watch me get lost in me own crop.” He turned, checking his position with the farmhouse to get his bearings.

“Ridiculous. I shoulda grabbed the rifle.”

He started as a high keening erupted—cutting the cicada’s cut off, mid-note.

His heartbeat doubled.

A wail; then sobbing. It was definitely a woman, not a child.

His breath whistled out through his clenched teeth as his stomach unclenched a fraction.

It wasn’t one of the kids. And Sunshine, well—he knew his assistant was the crying and, or, hiding type of girl.

Another sob and a hiccup. He tilted his head.

Where was she?

A woman stepped into the row ahead, barely visible through the maze of thick, green leaves.

Her head whipped around wildly as if confused. Her eyes were glazed as if she took no notice he was there.

She wore only a plain white slip. The wind gusted to reveal long, alabaster legs. Model legs.

“Wait, Miss? Are you ill?”

She slid back into the sea of green.

Domestic dispute? Runaway?

He hurried after her. His eye caught and locked on a snow-white calf.

His stomach contracted as if sucker-punched as he hurried toward her—ignoring the tiny slits of heat where the corn cut his cheeks.

The freakshow inside him began.

Emotive pulses rose off the woman’s skin like steam escaping hot asphalt. Her emotions rode the waves, traveling to him and dousing him in their desperation; they slipped under his skin, making her pulse, his pulse. Her heartbeat, his heartbeat.

He swallowed. It was like a child’s feelings, innocent and pure.

A color surrounded her body, as if a celestial being outlined her shape with an ethereal highlighter.

She was lavender, with a jagged red fear, seeping and pulsing in the center.

“What are you?”

Escaped mental patient? An ex-communicated Amish lass? Hallucination?

His mind tripped over the last one.

She doubled her speed, perhaps finally sensing him.

“Wait, miss! Do you need help?”

He’d grown used to his peculiarities: the way his instincts could discern a person’s personality.

His mind worked, computer-like, to analyze a person’s minute facial expressions, comparing them. He always knew when someone was lying. He was never wrong.

Ram informed him this was due to an over-wired limbic system in his brain.

He wondered what her name was…how did it taste?

His own was like mint. Ram had informed him the ability was termed synesthesia, or a mixing of the senses.

“Please, I won’t harm you! Are you hurt? Just—wait!” Her foot slipped into the green. The sole was bleeding.

Hurdling a patch of flattened stalks, he reached the first circle of the corn maze. His woman in white, and she was indeed, a young woman, was now clearly visible.

Her chest heaved and the mystery girl bolted again, barreling down the path as if the devil were chasing her. Her old-fashioned ivory nightdress flowed behind her like she’d leapt from the pages of Wuthering Heights.

“Miss, stop! I won’t hurt you! Please, you’re bleeding!”

The figure reached the bridge, one of four placed in the cardinal directions in the maze. Lady in white sprinted up the northern-most bridge, leaving her bloody footprints in her wake.

Thick, auburn hair, in old-fashioned ringlets, bounced as she ran. The woman paused at the apex, and swiveled, with a slow, deliberate turn.

Their eyes locked.

His chest contracted like a knee to the ribs.

Her eyes were like…an open window. His emotions roller-coastered with fear—pain—longing and yearning.

He shook his head, refocusing. Now, they only looked terrified. And old—ninety year old eyes in a nineteen year old face.

He swallowed reflexively. They reminded him of holocaust photographs.

“Who are you?”

The tip of his trainer touched the first board of the bridge as her head shot to the right, breaking their eye contact.

Truman rushed her.

A low moan cut out of the corn’s depths followed by a rhythmic, creaking sound—repeating in metronome-fashion. Like an auditory pendulum.

Her head whirled toward the sound and her fingers clawed her face.

“No!” she screamed.

Her thighs tensed and she bolted, tearing down the other end of the bridge. She leapt—and was airborne. And evaporated. Into nothing.

Truman stopped as the world shuddered.

How? His mind pleaded.

The air liquefied before him; it quivered, thickened, like heat on a summer’s day. Poking it with his index finger resulted in a feeling reminiscent of thick treacle. He blinked. He couldn’t see his fingertips.

He wrenched them out with a gnawing sensation chewing up his gut.

Unnatural, was the only word for it. The sticky feeling melted, along with the optical illusion of thickened air.

His insides quivered. His hand covered his mouth. He couldn’t move.

Did I imagine it? A woman? One I created?

His pulse surged; its pounding and gurgling drowned out the windstorm.

His daily fear whispered. Am I losing it? Is my childhood finally catching up with me?

He’d done a psych rotation. He so didn’t want to end up on the locked side of a ward. 302’ed. Incarcerated against his will. Because he was a threat to himself, or others.

Stooping, he touched the crimson outline of her footprint with his finger. A droplet briefly clung to the tip before dripping onto his trousers. If not for her bloody footprints, he’d have no evidence of her reality. Staring at her tiny feet, he felt…loss.

“I’m catching my patient’s mental illness.”

* * *