He cocked his head. “Since your mom left?”
Rachael shivered. How did he always seem to pick up on her thoughts?
He propped himself up on his elbow and stroked her arm with his other hand. “Will you tell me about your mom? She was so important to you. I want to know her, too.”
No one ever asked Rachael about her mother. She was something to be ashamed of, to hide away. Whenever Linda Deal’s name came up, it was in whispers, gossiped about. And yet, Rachael never hated or resented her for leaving. Mom had loved her daughter too much for that to happen. Rachael swore she’d find her mom once she got away, tell her she didn’t resent her for anything, that she understood why she had to leave. That Rachael herself needed to leave for the same dark reasons. How could she make Jake understand that? And could she tell him about the biggest blackbird of all? The night of dark fields, of cicadas shrieking, and her daddy forcing her to do something that trapped her in Nebraska as completely as any wall.
Rachael took a deep breath. “My mom used to take me for walks. She’d get cabin fever easily, you know?”
Jake kissed her brow. “I can imagine, with your father there.”
She shivered and Jake held her tighter, reassuring her that he was there, that nothing could touch her. “She’d say, ‘Rachael, let’s you and me go look for treasure.’ And I’d run for my coat and my backpack, and she’d put together a little picnic, and out the door we’d go.”
“That sounds idyllic.”
“It was. Do you like movies?”
Jake’s smile was extra-wide. “As much as I love music. You have no idea.”
“I loved old Disney movies. Pocahontas was my favorite princess, because she reminded me of my mom. We’d go out into the fields, get away from the house, and she’d start to sing, and the wind would blow her long hair around. She has such a beautiful voice.”
“Like yours.” Jake ran his finger down Rachael’s cheek.
Rachael shook her head. “Better than mine. I swear, it would get quiet, like everything was listening to her. The only thing she couldn’t silence were the late-summer cicadas. Those things just droned on, so she’d sing over them, or make up songs that incorporated their humming. It was…kinda magical.”
“That sounds amazing.”
Jake’s soft voice encouraged her. “I looked up to her like all kids look up to their parents and think that they’re somehow superhuman. But, even now when I look back, those memories haven’t changed or dimmed. I can still hear her sing, still feel the way the world just…stopped to listen.”
“Everything but the cicadas. Rotten bugs.”
Rachael laughed. “Right? I hate cicadas. They’re creepy fat things that crawl out of the ground and climb trees. Well, my mom didn’t want me to be scared of anything, especially something so small that couldn’t hurt me. So, one day we went up to a tree that was humming with them. They clung all up and down the trunk.” Rachael’s skin crawled with the memory.
Jake stroked her back. “Did they scare you?”
“At first. But my mom stayed calm, showed no fear, so I copied her. And it worked. I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“You aren’t afraid of them to this day?”
“Nope,” Rachael lied. She didn’t tell Jake that the fear came back the night her Daddy took her out to bury something that was not treasure, was diametrically opposite of treasure. “Not afraid of cicadas.”Why not just continue the lie? “Or of blackbirds. At least not the real ones.”
“But you were, once?” His fingers trailed through her hair, encouraging her to go on.
“Yeah. It was the same day. Late summer, when they start to flock. Walking back home, we startled a whole treeful of birds right by an old barn and they flew out all at once. I was very little, and I think it was the suddenness of it—a clear sky, then the cacophony of voices, of wings, of shapes swooping and darting. I remember screaming and my mom dropped to her knees and put her arms around me and told me to keep watching them. I did, and they found their way into a flock. Then it was like poetry, the way that they twisted around in the sky, moving as one.
“That became our favorite picnic place, that big tree by the barn. My mom told me, ‘The blackbirds come when the harvest is ready. They come to steal the corn. The more of them you see, the more there is for you to protect. Blackbirds are a sign that you’ve got a lot going for you, but you’ve got to protect it. Don’t you let those blackbirds steal what’s yours, what nourishes you, Rachael.’”
Jake nuzzled in her hair. “That’s good advice.”
“But hard to follow sometimes. For a long time, I fantasized that my mom would return in the night and snatch me away from Daddy’s house and we’d go someplace warm and beautiful where we’d live happy and free, no more fear or pain.”
“No more bad blackbirds,” Jake whispered.
Rachael startled. “I feel like I’m made of clear glass. That you can see right through me.”
Jake grinned and shook his head. “That’s so not true, Rachael Deal. You are a puzzle. A riddle I need to solve.”
Rachael tilted her head. “How so?”
