Chapter 7 One Little Bird
Phainopepla… Phainopepla… Phainopepla… He just loved to hear mommy say the word. "My little phainopepla."
"Do it again." He said.
She raised her hands over his head and the world changed. His perspective changed. She was above him, then he leaped and he was above her, flitting through the boughs, soaring, swooping, and diving, then curving upward and around, back to the oak branch. British birders would have been amazed to see the medium-sized black bird with a ragged crown. Most striking are the iridescent bluish-greenish-purplish black feathers, the red eyes and white wing patches that flash during flight. This is a new-world species from the American southwest and Mexico. Mommy lived in Mexico after school, working with muggle ornithologists. The phainopepla was her favorite. The silky flycatcher
Daddy was an American ornithologist and loved the fact that mommy could do all sorts of amazing things. They met while they were working in Copper Canyon in Chihuahua. Daddy drew the birds and Mommy could turn people into birds.
When Ben tried to explain how wonderful his mommy was to his American cousins, though, his parents laughed and talked with his aunts and uncles about how wonderful, little Ben's imagination was. They would attribute it to the things he learned hanging around college classrooms, where Daddy worked, that were so interesting and let his creativity go go go.
When he was with his cousins on Mommy's side, there would be no commotion about how magical things just sort of happened out in the open and in plain sight. People came and went with a bang and then there was that way the dinner would "appear" on the table in a flourish, as if it had gotten itself ready. This was a very questionable circumstance when it came to a four-year-old. There were clearly ethical issues about eating food that was apparently somewhat animated. Nobody else at the table, however, seemed to be bothered by it. Ben tried to explain how when he was at his other cousins' house, food was food. He lived in two alternate realities that were apparently, just plain unaware, or intentionally unaware of one another.
What he hated about those visits to Mommy's family was the way his relatives would talk about Ben right in front of him as if he weren't there. They would use words like "squib" or "muggle" in ways that didn't sound very nice. Ben knew they were talking about him. When he tried to explain how wonderful his Daddy was because of his wonderful drawings and the books he wrote, his aunts and uncles looked at him with pity in their eyes. The wan smiles betrayed their sadness that Mommy had moved so far away from them. Ben didn't think Cambridge was so very far away. After all, they had to travel all the way across the Atlantic to see Daddy's family.
His English aunts and uncles would always tell his cousins to be careful with poor little Ben and his siblings because they were such fragile only-little-half-wizards. When they were left alone, the cousins would not play with them, or they would always make Ben be the sickly patient that would eventually only be able to be a school janitor. This would then lead to yelling, kicking, screaming and finally parents rushing into the room to tell them they were having tantrums for naught.
When his cousins got mad and started calling him a squib, Ben was confused. He was getting old enough to understand the magic going on around him, but… they couldn't do anything magical either. There was no tangible difference between them in any way that mattered. And even the fact that daddy was a muggle shouldn't matter. His American family was perfectly happy. His mother's family had assumed that since his father was not a wizard, then Ben would not be. At one point when the kids were all left alone and had tied Ben to a chair because he wanted to be professor of potions in their game, things started to get really mean and unpleasant. They forced him to drink the concoction that he had created, and he vomited all over his cousin Graham. A doctor had to be called to make sure Ben wasn't going to die of poisoning. There was nothing inedible in the potion. Ben knew it. They made him swallow a bezoar anyways.
Little Graham had broken the gravy pot during dinner the next night. He made it fly across the room and smash against the wall. Instead of getting in trouble, though, he was fawned over. It was like he was the greatest thing to exist ever since the invention of the Cornish pasty. The adults even cleaned up the mess for him. He was so proud.
Graham thought that he should now, as a real wizard, be in charge of everything. While the band of kids was preparing for a mock battle, with Ben being assigned as the eventual loser of the battle, things again got a bit out of hand. Two kids ended up with concussions and Ben got the wind knocked out of him. But what was even worse, was that when they came at him to finish the trouncing, his eyes suddenly flashed blue.
As the kids came into focus for him, he began to utter a horrible scream and told Graham how he would be caught for stealing the locket from the old woman that lived next door, another one of them, Lizbeth, would be paralyzed before sunset, and grandma and the dog would die tomorrow. Nobody would play with him after that. They told on him and he was sent to his bed without dinner for scaring the other children.
The next day, Graham was being punished for stealing a locket from the elderly neighbor lady. The locket was gold, and covered with jewels. It had the pictures of her dead husband and one of her children that passed away at a young age. The old lady had asked Graham's mother to help her find it, thinking it only misplaced. When she had used a spell of location, she found it hidden in Graham's sock drawer.
Lizbeth was being attended by the doctor to see if the misfire of a spell could be reversed. It had been intended to stop the dog from attacking the neighbor lady's cat while her mother was over trying to help the old lady find her locket. The dog made it through the fence when the gate was briefly opened. Lizbeth spotted the dog making its escape. When she saw the dog leap onto the cat that was not used to the dog being able to get past the fence, she jumped into action. She ran over and ended up in the becoming involved in quite a scuffle while trying to rescue the cat. She was bitten, scratched, and bleeding and, because of a spell that went wrong that had been aimed at the fighting animals while she had been interceding… paralyzed.
The next morning, everyone was frantic, because the dog died during the night from the lingering effects of the misfired spell. Uncle Bilius, who had been the one to cast the spell, was miserable. He sat silent in the dining room by himself. He was shaking, looked quite ill, and was pale as a ghost. For a while, it looked like her condition was pretty similar to the condition of the dog just prior to its demise. To everyone's great relief, Lizbeth was eventually cured and was pronounced all right. Later that evening, Grandma died.
Nobody congratulated or fawned over Ben for showing such promise. In fact, Uncle Bilius, even after his own embarrassing screw-up, commented on how disappointing to have a sister in law with such a powerful and fantastic talent of transfiguration could end up having a "freak seer." Ben was never very fond of Uncle Billy.
"To heck with him…" Ben muttered in his sleep.
The next moment, Ben found himself transported to a scene many years later with his father, in the nursing home where his dad had been living during the last few years of his life. His mother had recently passed away. Dad's mind was going. He couldn't read any more and did his best to cope. His problem had been developing over the last few previous years, but he had covered his decline, and Ben had seen him too frequently to notice any great change. His sisters had spotted it first because they lived farther away and didn't get to see him as frequently. Ben finally relented and had to admit that his parents had to be moved into a place where they could be comfortable and cared for.
Ben tried to get his father to the house frequently to see the grandkids and get some stimulation, but he never felt it was enough. They were all lucky just to have gotten his parents out of the house in which they had been living… the one in which Ben grew up. The family had finally managed to get the two parents into a place that would take good care of them. Dad would have never gone if Mom's health wouldn't have been so poor. Once they moved, though, it was clear that they were no longer capable of living independently. Their deterioration, however, both mental and physical, continued steadily after the move. Even knowing and seeing this continued decline, it was still difficult to finally move them out of what had always been "home." There was still some guilt of having to be the one to end their freedom.
His father spent his time paging through some of his ornithological books, looking at the pictures, and tending the birdfeeder outside his bedroom window. He could remember things that happened seventy years previously, but had trouble remembering things beyond a conversation a few minutes ago.
Although his father was alone now in his small apartment since his mother had died just a couple of months before, his spirits were up… especially since he didn't have the stress of keeping a house and taking care of everything. Meals were served to him, so he didn't have to eat his own not-quite-so competent cooking. What was more was that he wasn't totally alone since he lived alongside dozens of other elderly people that ate together and met frequently for activities. He just couldn't remember any of their names or faces. That would have made it easier to make some friends to make life more interesting. Now he just had to live with a bit of boredom and a few odd bills to pay. At least Ben didn't have to travel far now to check on things… and his father was in safe hands.
Dad always tended to bring up the fact that he felt responsible for Mom getting into the condition she ended up with before she passed away. He thought or felt he could have done something. Ben always tried to assure him that there was nothing that could have been done for the strokes. Dad always insisted that he, himself was at fault, and should have done something and gotten her to hospital sooner after her first fall when she bumped her head.
Although it was painful for all of them, they had to realize that she was ready to go in the end. She was miserable in the state to which she had declined. Ben pondered that with all the fantastic abilities in the magical world, the human body still ran down, and at some point passed away. He couldn't see or do anything that would heal his mom.
This time, months after her death, Dad was sitting in his couch in his small living area next to his bed and Ben had come to take him out for some shopping and stimulation. Dad waved him over and said "I wanted to ask you some things about what happened."
"About what?" Ben asked as he moved over and sat on the edge of the bed.
His father sat back and put his hand on his forehead. The other still holding a pile of mail that he had to give to Ben. "About your mother and how she died… and when she died." His father answered.
Ben sat and looked curiously at his father. "OK, I'll try to do my best." He replied.
"I wanted to know if you could tell me… When was it that mother died the first time?"
Ben stared at his father for several second, trying to understand the question. He looked around the room at the jewelry boxes and brushes and mirrors on the dresser that still sat there, long after the person that used them had left them behind. He looked back at his father. "Do you mean my mother or your mother?" Ben asked with a quizzical expression. "What do you mean… first time?"
"I think I mean your mother… my wife. I want to know when she died. Didn't your sister come to visit or something? When was that? When did that happen?"
"Dad, that was two months ago at the beginning of January. She died right here in this room, on this bed."
"What did she die of? They never told me." He asked. Still looking confused and at a loss for any answers. The frustration was palpable.
Ben had an answer for that, that came straight from the death certificate. This was not the first time that he had to answer the question. "Pneumonia resulting from complications of the strokes she had been having." Ben replied, concerned that he had to answer this question for the umpteenth time.
"Ardea had been in London on business and arrived the next day and spent several weeks with us before returning home to Boston." He finished.
"Could you tell me something?" His dad went on. "How many times has your mother died?"
This conversation was starting to get more odd and disturbing. "What do you mean, how many times has she died? People only die once." Ben responded. "She died two months ago and that was the only time." He looked at his father with concern, and tried to respond with a not-insensitive tone. "I hope we don't have to go through it again. We already thought she was going to leave us back in September. Somehow she rallied and we got another birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year before she passed in January."
His father pondered this for a few seconds. Then he started to explain, "The other day after lunch, a day or two after I saw you last, I came back to my room. Standing here, just inside the door, was a crowd of people including doctors and nurses and other staff. They were standing around your mother. She was lying on a gurney. They were counting down the seconds until she died. I stood there and watched. After she died, the doctor handed me a small bag that had her rings and a jewel, and they took her away."
Ben sat there trying to understand what had just been said for a few seconds, taking in this new story. "Dad, I'm not sure what that was. It must have either been a dream… or could you have walked into the wrong room? Are you remembering what happened two months ago?" He was hoping for some explanation that he could wrap his mind around.
"No. It was this room, and all those people were around. It could have been a dream, but it seemed real as I remember it, just the day before yesterday." He insisted.
They spent a few minutes searching for the bag with the rings and jewel. They only found the bag that had his mother's wedding rings and watch that was returned to them when she had passed away two months ago. No jewel and no other bag.
Ben went down the hallway to the nurse's station and asked to speak to one of the nurses. He explained the story, out of earshot of his father… although he wouldn't have been able to hear anyways. The nurse explained that it must have been a dream since she was not aware of anyone else passing away last week. Ben explained he was most worried that he had accidentally gotten someone else's belongings, but she reassured him that it was only a dream. "Bless his heart." She ended their conversation. He went back to the bedroom to find his father still rummaging. Ben stopped him and explained that it must have been a dream.
As his dad sat back down, he looked up and started to talk. "You know, she was the most extraordinary person. Not only was she an amazing ornithologist… she was also a superbly competent and creative witch. She could call the birds into the trees around us so I could see them more closely. I didn't have to shoot and stuff them to draw them. What's more, she could turn people into birds with just a wave of her hand. Apparently that's quite a talent, even in the wizarding world. Not that I would know, except that's what her sister told me. They were so proud of her. I was too. She was also a very astute ornithologist. One of the top in our field. It is a shame that the people in our field would not respect a woman. She should have been made a member of the Royal Society and given the accolades she deserved. She was as good as if not much better than any other worker in the field. What most people didn't know…" He got a far off gaze in his eyes. "was that she could also turn herself into a bird."
Ben looked up, surprised. "She could? She was an animagus? What kind of bird…" The question was never finished or answered in real life because of a sudden interruption by the nursing staff and Ben being called away back to his job at the Ministry.
Ben began to realize that this conversation could not have been taking place. It was, however his father's birthday, April 29, 1930, but his father was dead. The question did not get answered in the dream, because at that moment, Ben woke up from his dream. His eyes were glowing blue and it took him a few moments to realize he was in the middle of receiving a premonition. He had had a busy evening the night before and had foiled a plot. At least he thought he had. How could it be happening again so soon? Alcor, the leader of this attack, should still be standing in Hyde Park, waiting for the aurors, he thought. He must have missed something. Perhaps there was more to the plot and Alcor was just a small actor that could be replaced.
As he rested there in bed, several alternative events came to him and he sat there motionless, absorbing the gravity of the situation. He had to make some decisions, and quick. This was going to be tricky and very demanding. There was a possibility that he and some others would end their journey. Alas, he had committed to the fight and would have to do what he could to stave off a critical event that could cascade into other events that would lead to more instability and a collapse of the current order.
Half an hour later, he was in the middle of Victoria Station, busy with thousands of commuters trying to make their way through to their early morning trains and buses. Some of his adversaries were already there, not suspecting that someone was aware of and watching them. Ben raised his arms and began a chant. He probed with his feelings and extraordinary senses to the greatest extent of his abilities. As he began to draw the outmost fringes of his world inward toward him, very deliberately, slowly. He faded from view to all onlookers.
