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Chapter Five: Four and Twenty Blackbirds…
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By Saturday, Nat was thrust back into that unpleasant realm of exhaustion and anxiety. She was up into the early morning before finally collapsing into a dreamless sleep that seemed like a blessing, only to awake a mere two hours later with her back kinked. The sun was barely creeping up over the cliffs and her eyes felt as if they were plastered with rubber cement, but she was far too tense and jittery to even seriously consider going back to sleep. Her fingers lay like narrow logs on the edge of her blanket, clutching the quilt like a lifeline.
For the past two days, she had tried to be as cheerful as possible. She laughed at corny jokes and played board games late into the evening when the weather made any outdoor activity impossible. She helped Hank with the cooking and even followed Moira on her daily visit to Kevin's room. The boy seemed pleased to hear that Xavier was coming to meet Nat, which left Nat feeling even more fretful, but she pulled off a moderate smile nonetheless. There was no reason to make anyone angry or make them feel bad, and especially no reason to give Moira an excuse to get rid of her. Even with her most concentrated attempts at optimism and good spirits, she'd been waking in the night with horrid nightmares and left the table in tears again on more than one occasion. Hank had taken to making her small origami animals that to cheer her up, his ability to create tiny works of art out of paper napkins surprising considering the size of his meaty hands.
Now, she remained in bed for nearly an hour, savoring the feeling of security that trickled into her bones from the cool linen sheets and heavy quilts around her legs. At five minutes to six she rose and made her way to the kitchen, keeping one hand on the wall and the other on the banister all the way down the stairs. She even took the squeaky ninth step, stepping slowly so it would make an even longer groan of protest than usual, drenching herself in the feeling and sounds of the old building.
The warm smells of frying sausage and cooking farina wafted up to her nose upon entering the kitchen. Hank was seated at the table, tapping noisily at his laptop and scowling at the idiocy of someone in a chatroom, and Moira was scrambling about over the stove. It was a strange, entirely too domestic scene, and Nat felt a pang of regret that these people weren't her parents. Of course, Hank was only three years older than she was and Moira was the mother of the most frightening mutant that Nat had ever even heard of, but it still seemed rather familial, and painfully reminded her of her own lack of relations.
She cleared her throat, and Moira swung around, looking startled. Her face lit up into a nervous smile, and she approached Nat with a determined shimmer in her eye.
"I'm so glad ye're up, dear! Hank's busy with tha' damned machine o' his again—" Hank swatted the air in their general direction, but didn't look up from the little flashing screen. "—but I got up early t' make ye a nice, hot breakfast."
Moira grasped Nat's shoulder in an almost painful grip and steered her to a chair. Nat was plopped down and pushed up to the table, and Moira was back to the stove in a twinkle, piling a plate with cereal and sausage. She slapped the plate down on the table in front of Nat with a happy little flourish of her hips, and Nat got the impression that Moira, too, was enjoying this little display of maternalism. It wasn't often that Kevin came to the table, and it was even more rare that Moira took to cooking.
Once Moira had gotten herself a plate, she sat directly opposite Nat's chair. Hank looked up, roused by the smell of hot food, but Moira shook her head around a bite of toast. "Ye kin git yuir own, sir."
Hank gave his customary grin and went to the stove, tossing the rest of the food onto a large ceramic plate that Nat assumed only he ever used. It was large enough to feed two, maybe three, ordinary men. Then again, Hank McCoy was hardly ordinary.
Nat stared down at her plate, not at all hungry. She picked lightly at her toast to keep Moira from feeling insulted and rolled a sausage link around on the edge of the plate. She kept her eyes carefully averted, but made quiet conversation, joining in when she felt it was necessary and blandly answering any questions that were asked of her.
As the plates were being cleared, Nat raised up the courage to ask the question that had been lingering in her chest since she awoke.
"So, when…when are they going to, um, get here?"
Moira paused for a moment, and the glance that passed between her and Hank was brief, almost imperceptible.
"They're scheduled to arrive round noon, I think. Is tha' right, Hank?"
"I'm quite sure."
Nat glanced at the clock above the mantel. Five and a half hours until…what? Just what was she dreading with such a heavy heart? Even she wasn't sure anymore. "Okay. I think…I think I'd like to walk down to the beach for a bit, if you don't mind."
Moira let out a sigh of relief and dropped a dirty plate into the sink. "O' course, dear. 'Tis a fine mornin' for a stroll. Care for company?"
"No, thanks. There's no sense making everyone bundle up. I'll only be a bit."
Outside, the morning air was cold and biting. Everything was wet and smelled briny-cool, with a gusty wind picking up on the cliffs and whistling slightly through gaps in the rock. This was how she had known Muir Island over the past few weeks, a crisp-aired, brackish-scented stone in the cold of the Atlantic, and this was exactly the way she loved it. Beaches of white sand and palm trees held little appeal for her now, with their warm green water and tourists scattered about. The shrieking of seagulls and whipping winds of Muir were the way she loved the ocean.
Wrapping Moira's woolen shawl around her shoulders, Nat folded her legs beneath her body and took a seat on the edge of her favorite cliff, watching a flock of gulls squawk and scatter several meters below. Moss had crept up between the reddish gray stone, and she poked at it distractedly with the point of a stick. She watched in a trance as her hair twisted and flew in the wind, twining together and dancing like serpents.
Her gaze went out to the sky, a solid blue-gray wall of clouds. There were birds there, too, in the distance and above her head. Something else caught her eye and she caught her breath. The "something" was shining and black and entirely unnatural in the softness of the island sky, too angular to blend with the curves of the heavens and the straight line of the horizon. It was small in the distance, but as it neared Nat could see that it was quite large up close, a fierce metal beast stalking up toward the island on silent feet.
Nat's vision blurred with fear and anger. There was no longer just one of these things in the sky, hovering over the landing pad on the southern end of Muir Island. There were a dozen, two dozen perhaps, with great black wings bared and windows glinting. Her tears multiplied the one flying beast to a small army and she bit her lip in irritation. With an angry shout, Nat raced back to the building, dropping the shawl behind her on the moss.
She flung the back door open wide and stalked irately into the kitchen, where Hank was helping Moira scrub pans.
"Back so soon, dear?" Moira turned and faced Nat, who's face was red with cold and fury.
"Well, I had to come back to tell you that your friends are here, didn't I?"
"They're here? Hank, go git the landin' pad ready f'r the Blackbird! I didnae know they'd be here so soon!"
As Hank hurried from the room, Moira came to Nat's side, brushing her tangled hair out of her eyes. Nat dropped into a chair, looking shapeless and defeated.
"What's worryin' ye, lass? I might be joost a new friend, but I know ye're not takin' this well." She chuckled softly.
Nat's hands came up to her eyes, and she buried her face in the crook of her arm. "Of course I'm not! They weren't supposed to get here for another five hours! It's rude, that's what it is!"
"'Tis nae what's botherin' ye, or ye wouldnae hae been carryin' on so these past few nights."
Nat was silent, rubbing her palms together as if she were cold. A familiar tingling had begun there, a burning that she was determined to snuff. "Maybe I just don't feel like having weird people running around looking at me like a circus animal."
"Och, Natty, they'd hae come to see Hank an' I whether or nae ye'd been here, so don' feel like they've come all this way just to poke and prod about yuir life. An' they're nae all that strange, if ye know them."
Nat sniffled and wiped her nose on a napkin. "Well I don't know them, and they are strange to me."
"Don't ye worry now, lass. Charles—that's Professor Xavier t' ye, missy—is a decent man. He'd nae want you to be troubled by his visit." Moira's gaze met Nat's, and her eyes were warm. "Trust me here, lass, an' help me greet my friends."
Bubbling inside with emotions of every name and more, Nat collapsed against Moira's side, with her head in her hands again. "Oh, I'm being such a child!"
Moira chuckled and patted Nat's shoulder. "'Tis because ye are a child, lass, despite the sound of yuir voice or the shape of yuir bosom. Ye'r far from bein' a woman in many respects, but that's nothin' t' be ashamed of."
Nat sighed and got to her feet, blushing slightly but resolute in her resolve not to embarrass herself or Moira in the eyes of these newcomers. She let Moira hug her, not much feeling like returning the gesture, and tried to straighten her hair in her reflection on the refrigerator door. Her hand in Moira's, Nat followed the older woman out of the kitchen and out of the building, across the island to the landing pad where hugs were being exchanged between Hank and his old friends.
Nat stiffened her jaw and tried to force a smile, but Moira squeezed her hand and laughed quietly, whispering under her breath, "Ye look like ye've swallowed a lemon."
Nat laughed out loud despite herself, and allowed herself to be led to the Blackbird, where a small crowd was waiting to meet her.