Disclaimer: I forget how old Swallow is supposed to be in the musical, but I'm making her at least seventeen here. If you're a fan of the musical, and just ALW in general, then you can probably guess already you're in for an older/younger dynamic. Reader discretion is advised!
Night Bird
It was a change for Swallow to enter the tumbledown chapel of the barn, even this late at night, and find the man standing in full view. More often a whistle; a song; a hushed solicitation of his sweet name was necessary to draw him forth. Those first nights, when he had been weakened by his wounds and more reluctant to appear, the possibility that he might have completed his earthly business and gone already had filled Swallow with dread.
But he always came at her call eventually, and she learned to steel herself against the old apprehension that had come after her mother's death: the fear of being left behind. Perhaps that had been his first test laid for her, and she had passed. Perhaps that was why he appeared this way to her now.
She slid the barn door shut behind her and lingered momentarily in the shadows, watching him. He stood in a pale shaft of moonlight, face upturned toward the rafters. His stubble grew more pronounced with each passing day, filling out and simultaneously softening the bitterly clenched jaw she had come to recognize. Not even Amos' jawline was that severe, that devoid of childhood's softness. She didn't know why she should think about that now.
"… what would your mother say." His greeting was a soft echo of the words he had often spoken.
Swallow, much like her mother, said nothing now. Nights in the barn, in his presence, felt like something out of a divine dream… and tonight already felt more dream-like than most.
"She'd say the same thing as me. She'd say you need to get out of this dang barn," she responded, eventually. She tiptoed deeper into the barn, then untucked the bundle she carried from beneath her arm and began laying out his meal. She didn't have much to offer him this time, but she knew that Jesus wouldn't mind. If anyone knew how to thrive amidst scarcity, it was Him.
She could feel his eyes on her back. They felt nothing like the eyes of his portrait hanging inside the church. Swallow had once thought them full of warmth and acceptance; now, she could see how mistaken she had been. The eyes of picture Jesus were flat and lifeless, and conveyed nothing of the true vitality and passion that the real Jesus embodied. It almost ashamed her to think of how mistaken she had been.
" 'Dang'," he echoed, making her blush as red as the bottle of wine she withdrew in front of him. "You know you can curse in front of me."
"No I can't." Either he teased her, or this was a test. She wasn't sure which she preferred and was determined to be resilient in either case.
"You can steal your father's wine, but you can't swear?"
Swallow stood abruptly, clutching the neck of the bottle, her heart pumping for something to say. She startled to find the man beside her. He took the bottle from her unresisting fingers. "You're blushing." He sounded like he approved of the development.
"No I ain't."
"What's the filthiest word you know, little girl?"
"You know my name," she reminded him patiently. "And I haven't been a little girl for a while—not since my mother's death, at least."
It didn't pain her to talk about it around him. Because he knew already. He was the son of God, risen again, proof that death didn't have to be so terrible and final an end as all that.
The man eyed her, considering. "No? You could prove it to me by cursing like a woman. Even old Annie Christmas had a mouth on her. All that and she still went to Heaven."
Swallow shook her head. "I'm keeping my lips sealed tight as this here jar." She lifted the jar of fireflies, moving aside as the man hauled himself up to sit next to her. They bumped shoulders, the stalking panther giving her a toothless kiss that made her flush all over again. She had never felt a man's tattoo before. She had almost supposed the texture would be raised, or coarse, or at least somehow different… but it wasn't. It dwarfed her own thin arm and felt hard as a river rock, and he wasn't even flexing.
Not that she had ever felt a man's bicep before, either. Except for when her Pa used to lift her up and swing her on his when she was just a kid. But she wasn't a kid anymore.
Swallow watched the fireflies bob and wink on beneath her fingers like little Christmas lights. They alighted on the side of the glass and crawled along the outlines of her fingers. She watched them, aware that the man watched her. He took a leisurely pull from the bottle as he studied. "They like you," he concluded. "They don't light up that way. Not for me."
"Doesn't mean nothing." If she were Poor Baby's age, she would have liked that thought. But she was older now, and trying to shed most fanciful thinking. "Doesn't mean nothing, except that they want to be flyin' off and bein' free." She looked up, contemplating the high roof of the barn, and the panel that Ed had removed so he could work on the parts he needed in a sheltered space. A patch of midnight sky with innumerable gleaming stars hung suspended overhead. It was the like the stars were twinkling in invitation, like a billion distant fireflies calling their family home.
"You wouldn't mind, would you?" She turned to the man. "I mean, you wouldn't mind it if I let them go?"
"It'd be wrong to keep them," he said quietly. "There isn't a living creature on this earth that doesn't want to be free."
Swallow liked the sound of that too. The man didn't always make statements like that, but when he did, she printed them on her heart for all eternity. Kind of like a tattoo. She smiled, still holding the jar between them. The faint, throbbing light flickered on and off, and lit the furthest corners of his dark face. It swam in his eyes as he took another pull of the bottle, never taking his eyes from her. Confirmed in his permission, her smile broadened. "Well come on, then."
She tucked the jar beneath her arm and started up the ladder. When she turned to check his progress, the man was standing beneath her, but he was looking off with a peculiar, almost shy expression on his face Swallow couldn't account for. Almost as if he was ashamed of something, but what? It didn't occur to her, in that moment, that the hem of her nightgown fluttered around her knees, and that a pair of earthbound eyes didn't have to wander much further to see what she wore beneath it.
"Here." She removed and tossed him down her father's jacket, which he snagged out of the air with one hand, and she continued her climb up the rungs. "You'll need it. Don't think we'll ever have a white Christmas like they say in the songs, but it's still chilly out there tonight."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he called up after her.
"You'll be fine," she enthused. "Nobody else's liable to be up this late." She turned her head again to look down at him, silky hair spilling over one shoulder. His face was in shadow again, the furrows of his brow casting him in grim darkness. "I won't let anything happen to you," she vowed.
"You keep making that promise," he intoned. "How do you know you can keep your word?"
"I just know," she said. Hand over hand, balancing the jar precariously, she climbed on.
The ladder let her out onto the roof. Truth be told, Ed had forbidden the children from climbing up here. A part of Swallow feared her trespass, but it wasn't as strong as the part of her that thrilled at the rebellion. What was the matter with her these days? Her father often asked the same question, seemingly rhetorically… although Brat was all too happy to provide him answers, and Poor Baby would chime in until Swallow snapped at them to hush.
Quiet as a shadow, quiet as his panther, the man joined her. Her daddy's jacket looked good on him. She should steal more clothes for him, if she could.
It took some convincing as soon as the lid was off for the fireflies to get the message, but as soon as Swallow turned the jar right-side up and gave it a little shake, they were crawling out the lip of it and taking wind. They trailed up and away like tiny luminous rising stars, like scattered embers from a bonfire, to join with their mid-winter brethren in the sky above.
Swallow sealed the empty jar with a smile of satisfaction. She turned to see the man also watching, although his gaze seemed to extend far beyond their jailbreak to the heavens above. Of course. That was his home up there, wasn't it? And it's where Swallow's mother resided now. She likewise turned her eyes to the sky, as she often did, and wished with all her might that her mother would send her a sign. Then again, maybe she already had.
"It's beautiful," she said. She meant it as a compliment, but felt in the next instant how modest, how inadequate, it was.
"You have no idea," the man whispered. "It's been five years since I really looked at it." Swallow turned to him, puzzled, but his eyes were fixed raptly on the horizon beyond. She had the funniest feeling that, a second ago, he hadn't been looking at the horizon at all. "I was in such a hurry to get here that I…"
She waited.
"... guess it doesn't matter now." He raked a hand through his filthy hair. She snuck him a basin for washing, when she could, but had caught him using the old trough enough to know he wasn't picky. And it hurt her to see. She wanted so much more for him, all the fine things in the world that she couldn't provide. The others felt that way, too.
"We could stay up here for a bit," she mentioned. The man cast a doubtful look at her nightdress. "Please?" She quickly changed course.
"Then get over here."
For a moment, something instinctive gripped Swallow, and held her in place; something like shyness stole over her, deep and molten, almost like fear. She was no longer conscious of her savior, but of the tall, shadowed figure of a man, and his gruff invitation.
But she went. Trusting, dutiful, though her heart kicked and beat in her chest, and she didn't know what to expect when she arrived. She moved across the slope of the roof to him, crouched for balance, and he dropped down to meet her; and when he opened her daddy's old coat to invite her beneath it, to shelter with him, Swallow thought she might just soar off that there roof. She tucked herself in close next to his radiating heat, and her pensiveness vanished as he finished settling a fold around her shoulders. She thought he would wrap his steely arm around her, but he didn't; he leaned it back between them, and settled his weight instead as they sat. The jacket smelled like her father. The man beneath it smelled like the barn, but she didn't hold it against him. It was a comforting smell. It made her relax closer, and he didn't draw away as a consequence.
"Did you enjoy the wine?" she wondered.
"Yes, and I intend to enjoy it more." He shifted a little beside her. "You should have some with me."
"I couldn't."
"No. Of course not." She thought she heard a teasing smile in his voice, like it was something at her expense. It made her feel irrationally. Like she wanted to press him on it, or maybe even prove him wrong—but she knew what the preacher taught her. And this was likely one of Jesus's tests.
"Look out over there." She leaned into him excitedly to point, so he could follow the length of her arm out past the trailer and the trees. She felt the jacket slip down, and he shifted it back over her shoulder. "Do you see that? There's the church spire."
"I see it."
"That's where we first met," she reminded him. "Well, not met. But that's where I learned all about you. But you knew me even before then, didn't you? You've always known me, even before I knew myself."
"It's strange to think about." They sat so close that when the man spoke, his breath was a warm gust against her cheek, painting it pink.
"Oh, I wish I could show you more," Swallow lamented. "If you look further out, you can see the train trestle. But livin' all the way out here, the rest of the town is completely hidden by them trees."
"And is it enough for you?" he asked abruptly. "This small town, with its small people?"
She let her arm drop. Surely she must have imagined the derision in his voice. "Well, yes," she agreed, surprised at his question. But the answer came too readily, because suddenly she realized she wasn't sure.
"You could go anywhere."
"I couldn't."
"Stop sayin' that. You're not a prisoner. But this town could become a prison if you aren't careful."
Swallow drew into herself, and leaned away, and the man cut his own words off before she could cut herself off from him further. But he didn't take them back, and they hung in the air between them.
"Where's that smoke comin' from?" he asked finally. A peace offering for her to resume her tour.
"Smoke?" It was hard to tell in the gathering dusk, but of course Jesus's eyes were probably far keener than hers. She did see it eventually, an evil column rising up from near the church. "Must be the revival meetin'," she speculated. "Wonder what they need a fire for?"
"I'm guessing all that snake dancing ain't enough to keep them warm," the man mentioned, and Swallow shivered. "You sure you're all right stayin' out here?"
"Ain't nowhere else I'd rather be," she whispered. The hand behind her moved, pulled her a little closer, and her heart climbed her throat like it was a barn ladder. Then the man guided her back, gently, laying himself out likewise beside her, and cushioned by her daddy's jacket, they both gazed up at the night. "Is this what it's like to be in Heaven?" she asked him in another hushed whisper. "All those stars, so close it's like they're in reach?"
"It's like Heaven," he confirmed. "Because in Heaven, you're always gazing at the most beautiful thing you can imagine."
"How can you know?" She puzzled on this. "If everything's beautiful in Heaven, then what do you compare it with, to know it's beautiful?"
"You just know."
Swallow turned to him, but started to find that he was looking at her. She felt like if she parted her lips to respond, to so much as breathe, her fool heart might just finally climb out her mouth. With all the Louisiana beauty before them, they looked at each other.
"You'll catch a cold," she whispered.
"I'm warm all of a sudden."
"I promised to take care of you," she insisted.
"You care for me," the man said, "like I'm one of those kittens in the barn."
When Swallow half rose up on one elbow to protest, he mirrored her, laying a bandaged hand on the cool skin of her arm as if to steady her, like he expected her to pitch over the side of the roof. "I don't!" Came her fierce, whispered protest. "I don't care for you like you're one of them kittens in the barn!"
"Then what do you care for me like?" His eyes held the starlight, trapped, even as they held and trapped her. Again, Swallow found she couldn't draw the right amount of breath into her lungs to reply. And she needed to say something, because her silence was answering for her now, and she couldn't tell what that answer may be—and the man, hunting her face in the darkness for a reply, seemed close to a conclusion.
"I don't bring the kittens wine, anyhow," Swallow said as she stood from her daddy's jacket and took the empty jar with her.
"Will you bring me a dish of cream next time?" the man asked wryly and he didn't move a muscle to follow.
"If that's what you wanted," she agreed, willing enough. "But now I know you're only teasin' me."
"You know that now, huh?" And it was a strange thing, but the more they continued their conversation tonight, the warmer Swallow herself grew beneath her thin nightgown, and even beneath her moon-kissed skin. She turned, offering her hand to help him up. He reached out to take hold over her fingers, and for a moment in time, seemed lost in contemplation, as if considering pulling her down again. Swallow realized how much she had put herself at his mercy. Then he rose, more by his own exertion than hers, carrying Boone's coat with him as he came. They proceeded back down the ladder in the same order they had come: the man descending first, Swallow following gingerly behind, the empty jar once more nestled against her chest. She was focused more on cradling the jar, conscious of the man beneath her; presently he was returned to earth, poised atop the hay bales with his arms upraised to catch her should she fall. He takes care of me, too, Swallow thought, and didn't know why it came with faint surprise—because she had known it in her soul her whole life.
When she came within reach he took hold of her waist, surprising her enough that she dropped the empty jar, which rolled harmlessly to the very edge of the hay stack. "Oh," she said, and meant to say, oh, you mustn't, thinking of his injured hands, and thinking how she had seen him struggle in the early days of their acquaintance to lift anything. But his grip was strong, assured now, as he pulled her off the last few rungs and helped her back to earth.
Swallow turned, the thin cotton of her nightdress slipping through his fingers like silk as she faced him. They had been this close before, but she was oddly bewildered to find them close again—and so was he, for all appearances. Her eyes found his so easily in the dark now, visible to her through a curtain of shaggy hair.
She didn't know what possessed her. Maybe, like every lonesome night to come before him, she was missing her mother. But after a moment, she reached up to brush his hair back tenderly from his forehead. Because it's what her mother would do. His gaze clouded over, and she saw a terrible ache like sadness in his eyes; and she wanted to banish that, too. He looked at her like tomorrow night, she might not exist for him. She wanted to reassure that she would always exist for him, but she didn't know how.
That was when the man drew her against him. The blades of Swallow's wrists, then her unsteady hands, came up to brace against his chest, trapped, as his mouth sank, and introduced its warm inevitability against her own in a kiss.
Swallow's heart took flight, even as her body was held prisoner against his. For a moment in time, she had not been able to think past where their hips connected; now she could think only of her lips, and how the shape of her own mouth was introduced to her anew beneath the hard press of his.
He wasn't gentle. There was nothing gentle about any hard surface of him, and now she could feel it for herself. No one outside her own family had ever kissed her on her lips before, and never this way. Even her secret, guilty fantasies about Amos—a recent strange late-night conjuring, and subsequent daily inspiration to pray—could compare to the sensation of the man now. There was nothing chaste, nothing hopeless nor apologetic, about a trespass Swallow could never have imagined happening between them.
The man tasted like wine. Better than even the sacramental wine, he tasted like the crush of some sweet, dark fruit she didn't even know the name of yet. The bitter, hard line of his mouth, didn't taste bitter at all—it fit to hers, and lost its old shape, its anger, when she hesitantly sought to know it herself. He could not hold onto it, and at last let it fall away in surrender to what bloomed between them. His lips moved, once, redistributed. A second kiss, without ever breaking the first, and Swallow might have gasped, only the man took it into him, breaking from her only to meet her again with his third insistence, hands sliding behind her back, fingers fanning out and digging in as they climbed her shoulders, dragging too much of her dress with them—
Swallow shoved away from him, and the cage of his arms broke seconds before it could be reinforced. The man stared at her as they drew in breath. A new shadow clouded his expression, and he was elegiac, a picture of remorse before she had even made her decision to flee. As if he knew the outcome before she did.
"Swallow—"
Swallow escaped down the tower of hay and fled, taking her sinful mouth with her. Outside, she worried it with her fingers, then hid it in an elbow crook as she flew back to the trailer. It throbbed like a bruise. It held a memory she couldn't scrub nor pray away again, and worse, she didn't want to. She was bound for Hell in her white dress, and its wrinkles still held the imprint of his hands.
The man watched her go, and he waited there minutes after the barn door had been pulled hastily shut, as if he expected her to steal back in. But she would not return that night, and once he had accepted that reality, he turned, and again climbed the ladder, leaving the borrowed jacket and empty behind. He stood out on the roof, alone, braced against the world, and gazed with a longing now irrepressible across the property at the trailer. He saw that one light remained on for hours, burning in the night, like a star out of reach.