Read Online In the Land of Birdfishes by Rebecca Silver Slayter - Free Book Online Page B

realized she was scarcely a woman at all; her face was still round and girlish and almost too large for her slightly plump but delicate frame. And then I realized that some of the words she sang weren’t English. She had light brownskin and black hair. Maybe she was Native Canadian. Or were they Inuit here?
    An old man seated beside me put two fingers in his mouth and whistled when the song ended. The singer said she would take a short break. I heard again the scrape of our front door against the floorboards as he closed it behind him. The sound, still in my ears, was getting louder.
    I suddenly realized that Stephan didn’t know where I was. If he were to try to reach me. I pictured my kitchen, yellow in the afternoon light. I pictured the phone on the wall, ringing.
    “Mara?”
    A young woman, maybe ten years younger than me, stood before me. She had a broad face and long black hair. An Indian woman—no,
Inuit
, I thought. The woman stared at me, and I stared back.
    “You aren’t Mara,” said the woman slowly.
    I was confused, and then I understood.
    “Who the hell are you?”
    “Mara’s my sister,” I said. “She’s my sister. You know her? You know where she is?”
    There was no need for the woman to look at me with such mistrust. Like she thought I was a liar or dangerous. The woman stepped back and looked over at the singer, who was holding her guitar by the neck and leaning against the gazebo, talking to a dark-haired man. The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lit it with her face down.
    “Okay,” she said. “How come I’ve never seen you before?”
    “I haven’t seen Mara since we were children. I came here to find her. Is she here? Can you tell me where to find her?”
    The woman exhaled smoke in two columns through her nostrils. “Okay,” she said again. “I think you better talk to Jason.”
    I felt myself get angry. “Who’s Jason? Where’s Mara?”
    The woman narrowed her eyes and said, “Jason’s her son. You stay here and I’ll get him. You stay here.”
    As the woman walked away, turning once to look back at me, I was suspicious. My father had not said anything about Mara having a son. Why should I have to speak to this child instead of to my sister? I was tempted to leave. Then I wondered, And go where? I thought again of my kitchen.
    The singer was staring at me. The woman who’d spoken to me approached her, and I saw the singer put her hand over her sweet, pretty mouth and nod.
    “Who are you,” said a man’s voice.
    I turned around and saw the man who’d been talking to the singer. He was maybe in his twenties. He had dark, narrow eyes. His face was angry, but as I looked at him something loosened in his mouth and eyes.
    “You aren’t her son,” I said. He was too old. He did not look like her. He was a liar.
    “Ma,” he said. “Who are you. Who the hell are you,” He looked younger now than I’d thought. Maybe just twenty or even a teenager. He stepped toward me and then he was in my arms. I didn’t know who opened whose arms first.
    “I told you she looked just like her,” said the first woman to the singer, who now stood beside us.
    As fast as he was in my arms, he was out of them. “What are you doing here,” he said. “Why’d you come here.”
    “I wanted to see Mara. I wanted to see my sister.”
    “I told you,” said the woman. “But older, right? And those yellowy streaks in her hair. Mara never dyed her hair.”
    I spoke to the boy. “Can you take me to—”
    “She’s dead,” he said and turned his back to me. “Which one of you wants to buy me a beer.”
    The sweet-faced singer answered quietly, “I will. Let’s go, Jason.”
    The air was hot and dry, and the sun was burning the back of my neck and the part of my hair.
    “You’re a liar,” I said softly.
    The boy didn’t turn around, but the woman who had brought him there watched me. “He’s telling you the truth,” she said.
    “What’s his name?” I