“You can wait till she’s dead if that makes you feel better,” said the raven. “But then you’ve gotta get out of the way.”
Malcolm reached out both hands and wrapped his fists in the gray wool of the raven’s coat, stepped in closer.
He didn’t see the raven move his hands, but suddenly, the tip of that cigarette glowed just an inch away from Malcolm’s left eye.
“Don’t,” the man rasped, with that rotting-meat stink on his breath.
The wind gusted, carrying a voice to them. Malcolm stiffened, realized whose voice it had been.
Violet, calling for him.
Malcolm stared at the raven mask one last moment. Through the eyeholes, he saw a glint of blue that told him nothing. Whoever this son of a bitch might be, dealing with him would have to wait. His mother was dying, and Malcolm needed to be with her. Tonight, Maggie Wise had nobody but him and Violet to rely on. It had been that way for so long.
“I’m coming!” he called. Then to the shape beneath the willow tree: “I’d better not see you again.”
“What will you do, call the police?” the man asked, almost as if he knew the answer.
“I solve my own problems. Don’t make yourself one of them.”
Malcolm raced back up the flagstones to the open front door, where Violet beckoned urgently, tears in her eyes. If the raven replied to his warning, only the night and the willow tree heard him.
3
The wind fought back as Malcolm forced the door closed and threw the dead bolt. Hundreds of leaves had blown across the threshold. Violet stood in his mother’s bedroom doorway.
“I almost wish that guy would try something, so I’d have a reason to…” He faltered when he understood the impatience in Violet’s eyes.
“Hurry,” she whispered, as if they were trying to keep his mother from learning her death was imminent, though Maggie knew better than anyone.
Malcolm squeezed Violet’s hand as he passed her, heading into the bedroom. “Thank you.”
He expected to find that his mother had taken a turn for the worse, or woken up with the gift of clarity and strength that the dying sometimes received in their final hours. Instead, Maggie lay on the floor of her bedroom, tangled in her blankets, reaching toward him as he entered. Her eyes were yellowed and pleading, her skin so gray she looked almost bloodless.
“Momma!” Malcolm called, rushing to kneel on the floor beside her.
Maggie chided him with her eyes and clucked her tongue. “You’re a grown man, been to war, killed your enemies. You’d better not need a ‘momma’ now.”
He couldn’t help but smile. Her voice might be a thin, reedy version of itself, but it still held the pride of her life. Maggie had always told her children that she loved being their mother, butwanted to be a person to them first and a mother to them second. Thus, she was always “Maggie.” Other kids were amazed by this, and their parents found it disrespectful, but she stuck to her guns.
“Crazy old bat,” he said, and slid his hands beneath her. Maggie groaned in pain as he lifted her and settled her into her bed. “What were you thinking?”
Her eyelids were heavy. The effort of getting out of bed had drained the last of her.
“Maggie,” he said, clapping his hands to bring her around. “What happened?”
When she spoke, she had a raspy echo in her throat, as if there were open doorways deep inside her, letting in a draft.
“I needed you in here,” she said. “There are things you have to know.”
Malcolm sat on the edge of the bed, sheets crinkling beneath his weight. “Maybe start with who the hell is out there watching our house. I don’t think he’s going to leave unless I get the police to drag him off, or I get violent, in which case they’ll drag me off instead.”
Her eyelids drooped. Her breathing softened.
“Maggie?”
No reply. Still alive, but no longer with him.
He swore.
