“I haven’t,” the bartender said, then turned to his coworker at the register. “Hey, April. You seen Nora tonight?”
The woman shook her head. “Sorry.”
A sickening feeling rose in Zadie’s throat as she hurried back toher car. “What have I done?” she whispered to herself. She’d watched her mom leave. She’d watched her leave and had said nothing.
It was her stupid premonition’s fault. It hadn’t said:Stop your mom before she leaves forever!No, it had told her toclose the window.And she had. She’d closed the goddamn window.What’s the point of having a psychic ability if you can’t prevent bad things from happening?
There was no point, she decided, and swore never to use her gift again.
TWENTY-FIVETHE SKY IS FULL OF BIRDS
Zadie had turned down what felt like every street, every alley of the little seaside town, but the only sign of life her headlights caught were the glowing eyes of a raccoon glancing up from its roadside dinner of discarded hot dog. She even drove down the sand for a mile or so, looking for figures in the water, but saw no one. When she returned to the stretch of beach they had camped at the night before, she put her car into park and pulled out her phone. No missed calls. She tried Finn’s number again, but it went straight to voice mail. Either the battery had died or she’d shut off her phone. “Finn, please call me back. I’m serious. You’re scaring me.” That was the fifth voice mail she’d left. She would have to try another tactic.
Nora’s box of cassettes was still sitting in the back seat. Zadie reached back, fished out a tape, and fed it into the player. As the opening melody of “A Song About a Bird” filled the car, she closed her eyes and softly hummed along.It worked before. It will work again,she told herself, and waited for a message that would lead her to her sister.
But as the last bittersweet piano chord faded out, it was clear that no premonition was coming. She rewound the tape and started over, but she didn’t have any luck the second time, either. By the end of the third listen, Zadie yanked the tape out of the deck, unraveled itsreel until she had a nest of ribbon balled up in her fist, then hurled it out the car window.
Joel was right,she thought, dismayed.I should have taken her home.
Zadie opened her contacts. At the very top of the list wasAnderson, Kathy.Her thumb hovered over the icon for a moment before she put her phone to sleep. Twenty-four hours, that’s how long she would give herself to find Finn. If her sister was still missing by tomorrow evening, she would call the police.
Dawn was breaking when Zadie first saw the small fishing village nestled at the bottom of the hill. The clapboard houses, the church steeple, the boats in the harbor were all bathed in a rosy half-light. As she drove into town, a quaint wooden sign on the side of the road certified that she was in the right place:
EARNEST, WASHINGTON
Where it’s important to be…!
Cute,she thought. If Finn were here, she’d have made them stop and take a picture with the sign.Maybe we can take one on our way out of town.That was, of course, assuming that Finn was here and not, as Kathy would say, “lying in a ditch somewhere.”
Stay calm,she told herself, slowing her breathing. She needed to think about this logically. If Finn in fact had hitched a ride to Earnest, she would be looking for their mom. So it stood to reason that Zadie should be doing the same. Two birds, one stone.
She parked her car in a public lot and was surprised to find she was not the only person on the beach at this early hour. A group of people in rubber boots carrying buckets and shovels was milling about, occasionally bending over to dig things out of the sand.Clam diggers,Zadie guessed as she stepped onto the beach herself. Afaint peeping pulled her attention away from the diggers to the sand dunes on her right. She turned toward the sound and caught herself right before she stepped on a nest of plover chicks. Zadie backed away so as not to scare the tiny birds and watched as their mother swooped down to their rescue. She eyed Zadie warily before turning back to her brood and feeding them from her beak.I’d give them the clothes off my backis an expression that is supposed to communicate selflessness, but Zadie thoughtI’d give them the food right out of my mouthhad more weight to it. She would be as good a mother as this bird, she decided. When her Star, Ladybug,childwas born, she would give it all the food and love she could provide.
Suddenly a wave of vertigo overtook her. She stumbled away from the nest and onto her knees.
The sky is full of birds.
The premonition was back. Rather than fight it, Zadie looked up. As she did, a dark blue starling flitted through her field of vision and perched on a stem of beach grass that bowed under its weight. Starlings weren’t seabirds, so what it was doing so close to the ocean, Zadie wasn’t sure.
The sky is full of birds.
A burst of wingbeats drew Zadie’s gaze skyward again. A whole flock of starlings briefly blackened the sky before joining their cousin on the dunes. They were a noisy bunch, chittering and screeching with no regard for all the non-birds that were probably still asleep at this early hour. For some inexplicable reason, Zadie got the impression that the chittering was meant for her, that they were trying to tell her something.
The sky is full of birds.
The first bird to land was also the first to take off. The other starlings followed its lead and flocked toward the parking lot, many of them settling on the roof of Zadie’s car. It was either a sign she needed to follow these birds, or merely a suggestion that she take the station wagon through a car wash.
Feeling like Tippi Hedren inThe Birds,Zadie inched throughthe flock to get to her driver’s-side door. Hopefully, these weren’t the kind of birds that liked to peck people’s eyes out. Once she was safely inside the car, she locked eyes with a starling perched on her windshield wiper. It seemed to be waiting for something.
The sky is full of birds.
“Yeah, I know. So is my car. Now what?”Maybe they want me to follow them.It was a ridiculous thought, but Zadie was desperate enough to try anything. When she started her engine, the birds took off in one giant indigo cloud. “This is crazy,” she muttered as she threw the car into drive and took off after the flock.
The starlings lead Zadie away from town, toward the mountains, zigging and zagging across wooded roads, vanishing into the canopy only to burst forth moments later like a great winged beast. Even when she couldn’t see them, their constant chittering let her know they were nearby.
As she drove, Zadie began to second-guess her decision. “What am I doing?” she admonished herself. Here she was, chasing a flock of birds when her sister was still missing. If the old Zadie had been here, she would have splashed cold water on her face and told her to “get a grip.”
The sky is full of birds.