The door opened and Greta came in, wearing a smile and a yellow dress with big front pockets. She did not push the door shut, but stood in the center of the room and put her hands on her hips. The friends moved quickly to their circle spots.
“A new lesson and a new friend today!” Greta said. She smiled individually at each friend on the floor. Her hair was in yellow ribbons. “First the new friend! Michael!”
The friends looked at the partially ajar door. They saw tentative movement, and then a small boy was standing in the doorway. He was no more than five. His dark eyes huge and numbed.
“He was to go with his mother, but my father brought him to me! My father is a good man to do this for us. Michael, sit with the others. We have many lessons in the circle. Susanne, make room there for Michael.”
The little boy did not move. Greta’s smile faltered.
Margarette said, “Michael, come sit with me.” She patted the floor. Michael shuffled to her, and she eased him down. Margarette touched his hair as if in apology.
“I have a new lesson today,” said Greta. She sat on her chair. “The selfishness yesterday was a surprise to me, though father would say I shouldn’t be surprised. And so today the lesson is learning to give. I have given to you many things, and unselfishly so. Today you will learn to give to me.”
No one spoke. The bird outside the window, far away in its tree beneath the rain, changed tunes from bluebird to wren to starling.
Greta pulled a revolver from one deep dress pocket. She made a sweeping circle, pointing it in turn at each of the friends. Then she trained it on Joseph. “You were very selfish yesterday. Ah, such a bad boy you were, Joseph. I could have my father take you away but I’ve decided there is still a chance for you to become good. Today you will learn to be good. You will learn to be unselfish. I want you to give me something you treasure.”
Joseph’s good eye blinked at the revolver.
Greta then took a small white-handled pistol from her other pocket. She smiled and held it out to Joseph.
“Take it,” said Greta.
Joseph’s lips twisted into a silent, numbed grimace.
“Take it,” Greta said.
Joseph took the pistol.
Greta said, “Give me who you love most, and I will forgive your selfishness.”
Joseph stared at the pistol. His hand did not shake. “Give me who you love most,” said Greta. She nodded at the revolver in her own hand. “And if I think you want to turn it on me, if it even looks as if you are thinking of turning it on me, I will use this on everyone here. Now, give me your treasure.”
Joseph turned the gun toward his face and lowered his mouth to the barrel.
“Ha!” Greta barked, leaning over and smacking Joseph on the side of his head. “You don’t love yourself! Look again. I know your silly little heart, boy, and know what you love. You cannot fool me. And if you act incorrectly, all here will suffer for your stupidity.”
Joseph looked around the room. His good eye batted crazily, as if a gnat had gotten inside. Then, he raised the gun to Margarette, across from him in the circle.
Greta clapped her free hand to her cheek. “Yes! Give me who you love most.”
Joseph did not pull the trigger.
Greta said, “If you don’t give her to me, I will kill her and then Anna and William and Susanne and you. My father sees hundreds just like you every day. I can watch from my bedroom window what goes on beyond our house, beyond the high fence. Many silly, weeping children are sent off with their parents, passed over by my father and gone in the blink of an eye. There are more friends if I need them. More than would fit here in the attic. I can have as many as I want. There are always more of you to be found under any stone.”
Joseph slipped his finger into the trigger loop. Anna put her hands to her ears, her face into her knees. There was a crack, and a squeal of delight. Anna drove her face into the hairs on her legs; her jaws ground together. Then Greta said, “Cleanliness! Haven’t you learned? Clean up this mess and I’ll teach you some new ballads and you can clap with me.”
Anna lifted her face. She went with Susanne and William to the chest where the rags were kept. They wrapped up the mess and put it outside the attic door. Joseph spit on the floor to wash up the red stains. It was futile, but the effort seemed to please Greta.
Back in the circle, Greta sang new songs to the friends; Michael threw up and cried, but Greta, for the moment, was too happy with her songs to notice. She would see it after the music was done. For the moment, however, she was the magnanimous queen in a pretty dress and the friends the willing servants of her humid court.
Even William clapped, his enthusiasm almost masking his inability to keep a beat.
And Anna sang her heart out. Her voice was forceful and clear. And her song rode the damp air and sailed out to the yard among the flies and the gnats and the smoke. Her melodies skipped effortlessly from one to another, and the mockingbird had met its match.
Fisherman Joe
Katie Flory had gone on ahead, her Toyota’s backseat crammed full with groceries, lighter fluid, matches, and target pistols. She knew where they had planned on camping, and by the time Bill Flory and friends Joshua and Melinda Asterton had finished packing the van and caught up with her, she had promised cleared tent spots, gathered wood, and a cozy campfire blazing. It was obvious to Melinda that Katie needed to do this to prove she was okay, that she was at least on the road to becoming okay.
“Just wait ’til you see it,” Katie had said. “I wasn’t a Girl Scout for nothing.”
She left a full hour before the other three had found the lanterns hiding behind the Easter baskets in their garage. By the time all was secured in the van and ready to roll, it was past two o’clock.
The camping spot was isolated, a good forty-five-minute drive from the city, back in the mountains where roads no longer qualified for paving and there could be a mile or more between houses. Most of the homes along the steep, graveled roads were small and colorless, sitting inside wire-fenced yards with cows and goats grazing nearby.
“It’s Americana,” I said Melinda with a chuckle to Bill and Josh as the van groaned into another gear. “I wonder how many of these people all look mysteriously like each other.” Bill glanced in the rearview mirror at Melinda in the backseat. His eyes, nervous and twitching, blinked several times before he spoke. “Quite a few, I’d bet,” he said. “I’ve seen them come out of the mountains to the emergency room, and the resemblance to each other is amazing.”
Josh, seated in the front passenger’s seat, took a bite out of the Hostess cupcake he’d bought at the service station.
The two couples had discovered the camping spot on a Sunday afternoon drive just weeks before. Just inside the boundary of the National Forest, it was off the road several hundred feet, down a dirt path in the dense trees. There was a creek, a canopy of sycamores and oaks, and across from the creek, a sheer cliff of rock that seemed to beg to be climbed by weekend vacationers. Large patches of humus would make great spots to pitch tents. A central dirt area could be honed into quite the place for a fire.
“Turn here,” said Josh, his mouth full of cupcake. Bill steered from the main road onto the unpaved stretch. Melinda settled against the door as the van began its climb up the foothill. Sunlight winked through the branches of the tall pines and deciduous trees. It was a beautiful afternoon, just as Melinda had hoped. They all needed a beautiful afternoon, but for Katie and Bill, it was more a necessity than a luxury. Katie was managing, it seemed. But Bill, sweet little chubby Bill, a nurse at St. John’s Memorial Hospital, was still struggling to keep his sanity.