And now, somehow they were here again. His humanity would be his downfall, the reason she’d cite later if she left him. The same one she’d cite if she stayed.
“Jimmy. He came back. He loved her, in his own way,” Bridget said suddenly, her voice rasping, almost urgent. She was right, it was the only reason he came back. Alecia thought of what Nate had told her that night, with the Chinese food in living room that had felt like a cocoon. He had a house, why did he stay in the woods? She imagined the fish, shimmering and bouncing on his knee, the blood on his hands. They had thought it weird, suspicious even. Now, with everything that had happened, only one thing made sense: he was in the woods, looking for his daughter.
Outside the first-floor window, Nate locked his Honda, the beep-beep audible through the hospital window. Alecia watched him lope across the parking lot, back to her, back to his old life, like nothing had happened, a bump in his step that hadn’t been there for weeks. She watched his long legs, his noticeably bigger paunch, the puff of his face. He might have been whistling.
She’d never know, that’s the thing. She’d never know the whole truth, not only what he did but how he felt, what he thought. She’d never know, for sure, whom or even why he’d loved. She knew now, and didn’t know before, that there were gradients to love. That sometimes saving someone requires giving up everything, including yourself, and some people need that to feel whole.
You never know the deep down truth about anybody, except yourself. And sometimes, not even then.
I’m not a witch, of course not. But anyone can make things happen. It’s called magical thinking. The baseball team with their mismatched socks. The way Taylor’s grandmother never walked under a ladder or opened an umbrella in the house. The idea that these small rituals keep bad things from happening: a lost game, lost love, lost money. Superstition. The avoidance of bad luck. But what about making things actually happen? It’s harder, but possible. And it’s not witchcraft. I should know.
No one pays for anything in this town. The mill closes up, everyone out of a job. Good people, or at least people on the razor edge of goodness.
The game will go on, no matter what the coach or his players have done.
I can’t be responsible for everyone. I’m nothing if not practical.
But Andrew. Mr. Winters. Taylor. Jimmy, even.
I can make them all pay, even just a little.
It wasn’t hard. A tip to the reporter, she was just hanging around anyway. Her phone glued to her hands at the Bean Café, waiting for the birds. Waiting for the DEP. Bored.
Sex for grades. He takes them to Deannie’s Motel, up the river.
The part about being in love? That day in Bachman’s office? That might have been true. I ask you, how would I know?
The rest was unplanned, see? I’ll go back one day. Maybe. It might be fun to just fly away. People around here would talk about that their whole lives.
Remember the witch, they’d say. She just—poof—disappeared. Later the story would change because it sounded better: she disappeared the same day the birds fell.
There’s poetry in that. Or magic.