Where Bluebirds Fly

Chapter 20



Truman took one long bracing look at the orphanage.

Possibly his last.

Guilt at leaving Ram and Sunshine burdened with his responsibilities chaffed his conscience.

“Are you ready, love?”

“I am. Truman, remember all the rules. I work for the Putnams, I am a servant. People do not acknowledge me, or touch me.”

He stopped her at the entrance to the cornfield and spun her to face him. He gave her a quick kiss. “I hope we aren’t there long. I’m quite used to doing that now.”

Verity stepped back, eyes roving over his attire one last time. She nodded her approval.

They walked into the corn, winding deeper with every step.

“You are a gentleman, just arrived from Scotland—as we can’t change your accent very much, can we?” She brushed his shoulders compulsively, like a servant would her master. “I’ve heard your attempts at American, they’re pathetic. You’re arrived in the colonies to start anew and want to employ me, after finding me wandering alone in the fields.”

“Yes. Show me one more time where the witch dungeon will be.”

He pulled out a 1692 map he’d found online, and it correlated perfectly with Verity’s memories of landmarks and homes in Salem Village and Town.

“Here.” She pointed several miles away. “The cornfield is close to the Putnam homestead.”

“Let’s go.” He grasped her hand and they trotted through the corn.

Music leached in and around them from another row. And the whispers.

“Do you hear it?” Verity asked. Her mouth screwed up in fear and revulsion.

“Yes. I think the corn personifies your fears, gives them life. It showed me mine.” His mind shot back images of his younger self, alone and abandoned.

Something grave passed through her eyes and she gave a little shudder. “Yes, definitely.”

He cocked his head. “But the whispers, those are new. Perhaps voices from another time?”

A deep rumble shook the ground beneath their feet, rising like a dog’s growl before the bark. Verity froze in place, staring at the dirt.

The ground shook and a fissure erupted, sending Verity’s arms pin-wheeling as she grappled for her footing. Her boot-tips jutted half over the edge as she tottered, staring down into a deep crevice in the earth.

Truman lurched forward. His fingers closed on her elbow, yanking her backwards. She tumbled into him, chest heaving. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her.

Around them, the cornstalks twitched to life. With a deafening thunderclap, a tempest erupted, the howling wind providing a harmony to the background melody of the corn.

The stalks bowed in half, parting like a stage curtain.

He pushed her behind him. Her hand trembled on his back. He could feel her clutching fingers through his shirt.

She whispered in his ear, “Oh my love, what now?”

One image blurred to life on the corn-stage. Verity appeared in a long, elegant white dress; her red hair spiraled to perfection on top of her head. A tiny crown glittered with faux jewels.

“I’m a bride.” Her voice was breathless. “Or a princess.”

He turned to meet her gaze. “That’s a modern dress.”

A crack of thunder scolded him and his attention shot back to the weird stage-show in the corn. The second scene appeared through a filmy mist between the rows. The stalks rattled like skeleton bones.

Verity in her colonial garb, John at her side-as they hastened down a muddy dirt road, toward the corn.

Truman shivered. “It’s choices. It’s showing you choices.”

“As much as I want you—more than anything, ever…my heart will turn to dead stone in my chest without you in my life—I must and shall choose John.”

“Of course you must, he needs you. I would do the same. Perhaps they aren’t either-or.” He squeezed her hand.

The tempest blazed throughout the scenes, cutting a trough down the center of the rows. The dirt flew up on either side of it—as it fell—it suspended. The dirt shimmered madly, changing to deep red flakes. It passed within inches of their feet, and Verity grasped his arm. Snips of sound flew in every direction, making them feel surrounded.

A lion’s roar, an elephant’s trumpet…a growling—for which he had no name. It seemed to be the conductor of the orchestral timepiece.

“The corn is judge and jury, too. I feel it, thrumming through the air, a vibration. Like my lying sense.” His head swung around wildly, his breath quickening with the realizations. “I see spiral colors wrapped around the corn, like a kaleidoscope. It’s every color, Verity.” He squinted, shielding his eyes; the intensity was splitting his head.

“I’m not afraid.” Verity said, incredulous. Her face proclaimed her own epiphany. “I think it’s a guardian. I was always terrified of the storms back home. This place…gives fear a body. That cyclone’s a living fear.”

She laughed. It was a disturbed sound, devoid of humor. “And now that I’ve heard the rest of that song…it makes sense.”

Something she said sparked a moment of déjà vu. It was on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. A thunderclap erupted.

“We have to go. It’s open, I knew it would be.” Truman pointed to the bright blue sky.

The bluebirds appeared, trilling and weaving between them. They ran down the row, toward the bridge. A second moon was visible at the end of the cornrows.

He grasped her hand. “We have to go.”

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