Chapter 1~Sparrow
I look at the lyrics to the lullaby, so beautifully written in cursive across the lined paper, and try to imagine her soft voice humming them into my ear. Her voice flows in the back of my mind with the mixture of harmonics and nature's soft whistle. Birds spread their wings on a current and carry themselves from tree to tree overhead; the canopy dances with the wind to the measures I play out with my vocal chords, adding a new element to nature's beauty. Beside me, my bare feet dangle into a lazy stream, and tadpoles kiss my ruby toes. The water trickles against rocks, creating a beautiful bass to settle my song onto. I lean back against the rough bark of a tree and swirl my toes on top of the water.
She loved nature.
I come out here and sit by the river every day, trying to think of where she may have gone to. Sometimes I contemplate whether she committed suicide somewhere. I always try to push that thought out of my mind. But she was so broken inside; it's a huge possibility that she may have done it. I don't like to think of her hanging from a tree somewhere in the middle of a forest or floating on her back down a river with a bullet hole in her head. But then again, no one wants to picture their best friend lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I close my eyes and allow the sounds of nature to surround me again, calming my unruly thoughts. Lately, all I've thought about is whether or not she is going to be found alive. I've been having nightmares. I'm not sure if they're about her or about me or maybe about someone completely off topic, but I always wake screaming and crying.
I'm always standing in the middle of a forest, but I'm not me. It's like I'm out of my body, a camera following the action in a movie. It's dark, but the full moon sneaks through the canopy and casts eerie shadows all around me. I get the feeling I'm being watched, but no matter where I look, all I see is darkness. I try to call out to anyone who may answer, but my lips won't move. When I walk forward, it's like I'm a ghost floating through space. There are no crunching leaves when I put my foot down. Nothing is disturbed. I reach down to pick up a leaf, but it's flat and smooth like a painting. All around me crickets play their evil chants, warning me something's coming. Owl's in the distance howl back at snarling wolves. Something pulls at my hair and my head slams into a rock, not a part of this blurry painting. I'm dragged along the ground into denser forest, where the moon doesn't break through the canopy. Sticks and rocks break through the painting and scrape across my back as I'm pulled along the forest floor. The specks of light pull away from me and I'm surrounded by nothing but staring shadows.
Pain grips at the back of my neck as I'm jerked into a tree. Through blurry vision, I see a girl, maybe Isabella's size, maybe not- I'm always too far way to tell, come running through the darkness. The moon illuminates the hooded girl as she runs through the splotches of light. She trips on a tree stump and turns to look behind her as she pushes herself up. Our eyes meet momentarily in her hast to check her flank. In that moment I catch the sparkle in her ocean-blue eyes, and blonde eyelashes. Her face is small, almost child-like. I take her in like I've known her for years. Sharp, defined features, chapped lips, and strands of golden hair that fall from under her grey hood. I store her face like a photo in the back of my mind, safe from evil hands who would want to tamper with my memories. My head is jerked again by something pulling my hair. This time I'm yanked into the air and thrown. Fierce wind whips my hair against my face as I soar through the air. Shades of black and dark grey speed past me until my face slams into a tree. My vision is hazy for a moment and I believe that I'm going to black out, but I don't. There's a painful throb in the back of my head, and I reach my hand around to touch it. Unexpectedly, a hand grabs mine.
"Come on! We have to go!" It's a familiar voice. One I've grown used to hearing, but also to hate. I turn to face the person yanking on my hand and stare into a set of deep brown eyes. They flare like the sun around the pupil, laced with long black lashes that blink rapidly at me. I'm amazed at what I'm seeing, and pull away from the eyes. "What's the matter? Let's go!" I can't go. Not with you. "Fine. Stay here and mope. I don't care!" she says, running off without me. She pulls a grey hood up over her silky brown hair and takes off in a dead sprint.
"Wait!" I call after her. Is this the girl I just made eye contact with only moments ago? Why, it couldn't be? She was blonde and had gorgeous blue eyes! "Wait for me!" I have to find out who this girl is. For a moment I thought she was me. I must find some answers. I pick myself up and go to take a step after her, but I fall to my face and am grabbed around the ankles. I kick, but whoever it is has a solid grip. I'm pulled back and my chin scrapes across the grounded roots of the tree I slammed into. My body is lifted off the ground and thrown into another tree. But it's not a tree. It's a wall painted to look like a tree, just like the leaves on the ground. I can hear all of the bones in my back pop as I smash into the stiff wall and fall to the ground on my hands and knees. I scrape my hand across the ground, but the roots are real? I look up into the eyes of my enemy. They are a pale shade of green, etched with a soft teal and covered by sweat soaked brown bangs. The pupil is dilated in the dark, searching for a light. I feel like I'm staring into his heart as I gaze into his eyes. He snarls and slaps me across the face, forcing my gaze down. When I look back up, I see myself in the reflection of his eyes, but it's not me. I shriek and back up into the tree. I'm looking into the blue eyes of the blonde girl who fell in the light. But how can that be? The man rears back and brings his fist into my face.
This is usually the part where I wake up.
She used to have nightmares, too. She used to tell me about them all the time. She'd watch as, one by one, all of her friends slowly and painfully died around her, and there was never anything she could do about it. She always just watched. I can't imagine myself watching all of my friends die slow, painful deaths in front of me. It's as bad as thinking about her committing suicide. It's not right. It's not something that should be thought about. It's not something that should be dreamt about. It's not something she should have to deal with every night while I sleep comfortably in a loving bed every night. She had pain. She had worries. She had a life planned out solely to listen to and comfort others while she endured pain and misery and a load of bullshit. I had nothing. No worries, no cares, and not a damn thing to stop me from wanting to come home and see my mother every day. But what did I ever do about it? Write about how I wish I could help her in my stupid fucking journal. That's what I did. I did nothing to help her. And when she needed me most, I ignored her because I found other friends with no worries and no cares just like me. Because I wanted to 'fit in.' Because I wanted to be 'cool.' Well, being 'cool' put a lot of worries and a lot of cares in my head. I don't want to go home to my mom now. I just want to stay out here and enjoy nature like she did. I want to think like she did. So open minded and accepting of everything and everyone worth the acceptance.
I lean my head back against the tree and stare up at the canopy. Orange sky peeks through the swaying trees, still dancing to the song in the back of their minds. The sun's starting to go down over the horizon. I stare at it out over the water. It's beautiful. Isabella would've loved it. There wasn't much about nature that she didn't love. She even accepted death. She faced a lot of it. Her grandmother, her best friend, and her pet sparrow. God, how she loved that damn bird. Her mother wouldn't let her keep it, but her grandmother had told her, "If he wants you as bad as you want him, he'll never leave you." Isabella hadn't understood her grandmother's words until he came to her again. She was sitting on top of a hill in the woods behind her house swinging high into the air. It was her favorite thing to do. Swinging was an escape for her. It also gave her a place to think about other people's problems that she was posed to fix.
The bird came to her.
"You're a beautiful creature; aren't you?" she said to the bird flying around the swing-set. She stopped swinging and just sat there watching the beautiful bird soar all around her. She stood up and did circles, following it with her body. She began to dance beneath the sparrow, a childish dance composed merely of spinning in circles and moving her arms about her, but a dance all the same. When she fell to the ground laughing and panting, the bird swooped down and perched itself on her chest. Amazed, she held her finger up to the bird who happily jumped onto it. When she held her finger up to pet the bird, he flew away. "Wait! Sparrow come back!" she called out to the bird. When he flew back to her shoulder she said to him, "You like that; don't you, boy? Sparrow." After that, all she talked about was how she cooed a bird to be her friend. He was always there, waiting for her when she went to swing. She never saw him anywhere else.
"How are you today, Sparrow?" she'd greet him whenever she arrived. He'd sing her a happy tune as he flew down to perch on her shoulder. She'd swing for hours, talking to him about her day and all the shit she had to put up with at school that day. If she was ever having trouble at home, she'd leave in the middle of the night and go swing with Sparrow. That sparrow became her best friend. She'd built a shelter for him to live in during winter. It's not like it ever snowed, but she didn't want him freezing. She spent most of her next seven summers swinging or reading on the hill with Sparrow. Eight years later, on the first warm day of the year, she went to see Sparrow. She walked up the hill in her usual pants and grey jacket carrying a tiny red lunch box with a jelly sandwich, Sunny-D, a packet of crackers, and her book for the day in it. "Sparrow! I'm here, boy!" she whistled out to him because sometimes he wandered off away from the swings. She waited for a moment before whistling again. Oh well, he'll show up soon. In the mean time… She took her jacket off and laid it down on the ground, sprawled out on top of it, and cracked open her book. After about an hour or so of reading, she put her book down and picked up the jelly sandwich. She had started to get worried about Sparrow. He should be here by now.
She put her sandwich back in the baggie and decided to go looking for him with the crackers. He always came when he heard the rustling of the packet. She started at the house she'd built for him first, but all that was in there was a nest, perfectly spun to fill the entire house, but keep him warm in the winter. She'd helped him make it, searching for twigs and pine needles and sprawling them around the hill so he could pick them up like he had been the one to find them. She reached in to feel, but it wasn't warm. Where could he have been so long that his nest had gone cold? She called out to him as she walked around the woods, searching for her friend. "Sparrow! Sparrow, where are you, boy? I brought you a snack!" she whistled, and called, and rustled the packet until the clouds grew dark. She gave up her search and headed back to the hill. By the time she got there, it had started to sprinkle. She dashed home as the rain poured down on her. Her mother yelled at her for being wet when she ran inside, but she ignored her and went to her room to change. She sat in the living room staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking her backyard. She lived out near the country and had a lot of land, so the look extended down to a child's swing-set she'd swung on when she was a toddler, and steep hill, and a creek that flooded every winter, but went dry in the summer. Rain pelted against the glass, the sound drumming into her head. It was pouring so hard, she could barely see the railing that only stretched out fifteen feet from the glass.
Every day after that, when she went to the swings, Sparrow wasn't there. For the first two months, she spent the entire day calling out to him, looking in new locations, and leaving him snacks everywhere, but she knew other birds would eat them before he got the chance. She eventually stopped looking and spent her days sulkily swinging, just like she used to. The last month of her summer, she blocked everyone out and stayed on the hill all day, hoping Sparrow would just show up. On the day before school started back, she couldn't sleep, so she went to the swings. She wasn't even disappointed when Sparrow wasn't there to greet her. She sat on the swing and dragged her toes across the dirt, thinking about Sparrow. In the back of her mind she could hear the tune he'd sing her whenever she first arrived on the hill. She whistled out her reply and allowed the tear to roll down her cheek. She felt something heavy hit her shoulder and Sparrow's tune echoed back to her. She jumped with joy that her friend was finally back with her. She stayed on the swings all night whistling back and forth to him, not even bothering to go back home when the sun rose. She skipped the first day, spending it with Sparrow.
She came home as though she had gotten off the bus, greeting her mother as she walked in the door. She came back to her room and started yelling at her for being in her pajamas when she needed to stay in her school clothes so she could get a picture. She ignored everything her mom was saying, popped the tags off her 'first day' clothes, and pulled them on over her head. Zombi-afied, she stood for the picture, changed out of her clothes, and went back to the swings. Sparrow wasn't there. She searched frantically until it got dark and she could hear her mom calling for her in the distance. Reluctantly, she trudged home. When she got there, she found her mom tending to a small black bird with a broken wing.
"Poor thing just slammed right into the glass. Second one this week," her mom said.
Isabella pushed her mom out of the way and held Sparrow in her arms. Aside from the wing, he was fine, but none of the birds Isabella and her mom saved from hitting the windows ever lived. She held the bird against her chest and a tear threatened to run down her cheek. Sparrow tried to call out his song for her, but went limp before he could sing the last note. Isabella held the tears back as best she could, but she broke out in a full sob in front of her mom.
"Now you stop that crying right here, right now. And I mean it. I won't have my daughter crying over some stupid bird that ran into the window. You've never cried over one before. Stop that. Now, I said stop that damn it!"
"Shut up, Mom! Just shut up! You don't know the half of it and you never will!"
She slapped her across the face, causing her to look down at the floor. She didn't move her hand to cover the wound that would leave a welt, but she looked up at her mother. She stared her deep in the eyes and told her she was a monster. She ran out of the house with Sparrow before her mother had a chance to say anything to her. She ran all the way to the swings before her knees buckled underneath her, and she cried. She wailed until the sun started to brighten the sky. She skipped the second day of school and buried Sparrow in the side of the hill by the house she'd made him. She left him there and walked away from the hill without turning back.
I think about how Isabella is such a strong person. Nobody can put up a front like she can. But if you're as good as I am at seeing past fronts, then Isabella is an open book to you. You can see every emotion she wants to tell you just by looking into her eyes. If she doesn't want anyone to know, even her eyes will lie to you. She always tries to act crestfallen, so when she truly is upset, nobody questions her. But her eyes tell me everything. They used to scream for me to help her, but I'd always turn away because I was too weak to look into her eyes, and I was to cowardice to do anything to soothe them. Those daggers that drove deeper into my heart every time she realized that her pleading stares were to the chorus of broken hearts, not the hero she lost to war. I was never the friend she wanted me to be, yet she still accepted me for the bitch I was. I've always thanked her for that, but I never got a chance to tell her.
I silently thank her as I walk home in the moon's lighted path, hoping she'll come back safe.