New Decameron Forty-Six: Derryl Murphy (Patreon)

Unquiet Sky

by Derryl Murphy

Across the low rolling hills but far-reaching expanse of northern farmland, a distant rumble sounded inside the dark clouds piling higher than the tallest mountains Hanna had seen when she and Lilly and Mother had traveled here with Father from their old home in Washington two years before. Flashes of light worked to pierce the grey and black boundaries of the clouds, and many seconds later more muffled explosions of thunder sounded from within. She knew these thunderstorms now, knew how bone-jarring and oppressive and so very very loud they could be, but right now all Hanna could think was of the promise the clouds offered, relief from a heat she’d never known before, the unending sticky burden of an almost liquid sunshine, humidity in the air so thick Mother said they could plant crops in it. Hanna would have already been inclined to compare the heat of the day to what she imagined Hell must be, and the taste of brimstone on her tongue and the smell of it in her nostrils made the comparison even more apt.

She stood by the old sod-roofed cabin, back rigid and straight, for a moment glancing at the farmhouse across the yard. Pots of sulphur and alcohol sat inside each room of that house, their infernal fumes forming a sickly yellow mirror of the distant storm clouds and hopefully putting an end to the plague of bedbugs that had infested the last family to live there and, when her new stepfather had taken back the farm, caused the house to be quarantined.

More than anything, though, Hanna’s thoughts were of Hell because of Sergeant Hanson and the metal milk pail dangling from his right hand. He stopped a respectful distance from Hanna and Mother and Lilly, both of them standing behind her, and set the bucket down on the uneven ground, wiped away the sweat from his forehead with a grimy handkerchief he pulled from his shirt pocket, then tilted back his hat at a precarious angle on his head. “No sign of a body,” he said. He leaned over and rearranged the straw sticking out of the top of the bucket, and Hanna couldn’t resist leaning forward just a bit to see if she could get a peek at its contents.

Happily, the head of her friend Joe Thostenson stayed hidden.

Ivan, her stepfather, whom everybody except Mother called Wash, walked over and peered down into the bucket, his weather-lined face wrinkling in a mixture of disgust and anger. “So what’re you gonna do?” he asked.

The Mountie placed the handkerchief on the back of his neck and turned around to look at the approaching storm. Rolling thunder continued to spill across the horizon, still so quiet and distant it was no more than a bass whisper. Teasing its advent, announcing it would pay no heed to anxiety, would arrive when it was good and ready. “I’ll need to go into Waterhole to get this poor young fella’s head on ice to preserve the evidence as best I can, and round up a crew to come back out and dredge the pond. Neither this heat or that coming storm,” he flicked his thumb at the tall thunderheads, “lend themselves to that particular task right now. So maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”

It had been over a day since they’d found a neighbor to get word to Sergeant Hanson; the only working vehicle on the farm was an giant ornery steam-powered tractor, and Wash hadn’t wanted to ride his horse into town and leave his wife and two stepdaughters behind. In that time Hanna had thought she’d cried herself right out, but the thought of Joe’s body still lying hidden somewhere in that pond down the hill got to her all over again, and she turned and buried her face against her mother’s shoulder, fighting hard to keep the sobs buried deep inside, feeling them climbing up from a distance, like the thunder in the clouds still so far away.

Wash took the bucket and handed it to Sergeant Hanson after he’d climbed up onto his horse. He looked around, lifted the pail in one hand and then the other, then finally tied it to the saddle, let it dangle behind him. “I’m told I may get an automobile up here sometime soon,” he said. “Can’t say that’ll do a lot of good on days when that sort of rain comes.” He gestured again towards the storm. “Almost all the roads hereabouts turn to mud pits after a big one rolls through.”

“Suppose I’m gonna need something myself,” said Wash, and he turned to look at Hanna and Lilly and their mother. “Now that I got myself a family and got my farm back, mud or not, I’m gonna need to get into town every now and again.”

The Mountie nodded, then cast his gaze all around. “The lot of you keep an eye out for Elijah Nylund. I don’t know for sure if he’s the fellow who killed this young lad, but better safe than sorry.” He held up a hand when he saw the look of panic descend on Mother’s face. “Chances are better than good that he’s long gone runnin’, Mrs., um, Waschuk, so don’t fret. Wash’ll keep a good watch on things, but the worst you’re gonna have to deal with is this confounded heat, which I’m willing to bet that incoming storm will soon abate.” He looked over to the house, where the roiling fumes of Hell were emanating from every possible crevice, nose wrinkling. “Well, that and that wretched smell.” With that he tipped his hat and kicked his horse into tepid action.

They all watched him head on down the road until it dipped down towards the river, and as he fell from sight a slight wind picked up, sent the still-green wheat to waving. Wash walked over and put a gentle hand on Hanna’s shoulder. “You okay, kid?”

She nodded. “Still a little spooked, I guess, and sad.” She blinked her eyes, forcing back a new batch of tears. “I liked Joe. Why did this happen?”

“The way Hanson tells it, Elijah Nylund had some awful score to settle with Joe’s dad, something from before, when they both still lived in the old country. Don’t see why that means he should pick young Joe, but Nylund was always a coward.”

“Ivan,” said Hanna’s mother, voice tight. “The Nylunds were living here until you made them move out. Is he going to be angry with you as well?”

Wash’s mouth was a thin line, and after a few seconds he said, “He knew I was going to move back in once I had a family of my own, Molly. And you know as well as I do I did him a favor getting him and his family out of that bug-infested mess.” He waved his arm at the house. “Once we kill all them bugs it’s going to take all season, maybe more, to get the place liveable again, and if we didn’t do this I would’ve had to tear the place down.” He lifted his hand from Hanna’s shoulder, scratched his head. “Shouldn’t be any problem. And if it is, I have my thirty-ought-six. He won’t come anywhere near you and yours. Or me and mine.”

#

Hanna managed to half fill a basket with eggs, listlessly moving from lazy hen to lazy hen as Lilly sat and watched her with a piercing and discomfiting stare, but between the oppressive heat and the grief at losing her friend, pretty soon Mother and Wash let Hanna off from doing any more chores for the day. “Don’t leave the farm,” said Wash, “and keep an eye on your sister. Your mother and I are gonna be busy separating the cream.”

Mother looked more than worried. “I don’t like it, Ivan,” she said. “Suppose—”

“Suppose nothing,” he said. “Nylund’s hightailed it outta here by now, and they’ll probably nab him trying to catch a train outta Peace River or something in the next couple of days. But still, stay in range, kids.”

They both nodded and wandered off, Hanna unsure of what to do or where to go. The farm was still pretty new to them; Father had worked here for Wash for a season on the quarter-section of crops he had alongside what the Nylunds had planted, before the Spanish flu had run through the countryside like a wildfire, taking him quick as the distant lightning and almost killing Mother as well. Not long after Wash asked Mother to marry him, and sensible woman that she was, she had accepted. Just like that they had a new father, and already the only sense of her father Hanna had in her mind was of the grim-faced young man from the one wedding photo of her parents, stiff and straight and serious, plus one crumpled photograph of him baling hay, shirt partly unbuttoned, pitchfork in hand, standing proud and happy in the sunshine of the farm, hat shading his eyes. She couldn’t remember what color they were.

Lilly tugged at her hand. “We need to go to the pond, Hanna,” she whispered.

“What? No, Lilly, we can’t go there.” Hanna looked down at her sister with a frown. “It’s too dangerous.”

Lilly pulled on her hand again. “You don’t understand, Hanna. We need to go to the pond. And we have to get the bones to bring with us.”

“Oh.”

That was that, then. If Lilly said they needed to go, then they needed to go.

#

Even though her sister was young and didn’t necessarily understand everything about what made her special, she had a certain affinity for water. Hanna had her own affinity, but it was for land. And Joe had had his own affinity, but he had said his was for time, and even with her own special ability it was something Hanna had trouble understanding some days. These affinities were how they had first found Joe, and he had found them.

Affinity was the word Mother used. She said if they used magic, then Wash might not understand.

Sometimes when they were together, Joe would tell them stories of all the people who had lived on the land so long before they had come, and of the animals before, animals that he said didn’t live anymore, some of them giants. Like Gertie the Dinosaur, the movie they’d seen one time in town, said Lilly, and Joe had nodded with excitement. Soon after that they had discovered their affinities could work together, and with Joe feeling through time and Hanna peering into the earth they’d found bones. More like stones, really, and Joe had told them they were called fossils, from a giant flying reptile called a pterosaur, and he’d had to spell it for them. When Hanna held it she had a vision of where there were more like it, had led Joe and Lilly straight there and together they dug out two more bones. 

They’d left the bones there, hidden away, Joe hoping to come back very soon and find more, Hanna hoping to hear more of Joe’s stories of a time when impossible monsters ruled the land. And now Lilly was leading Hanna back to that hiding spot, very near the pond where Joe’s body likely now lay, just down the hill from the old cabin, the roof of which you could make out when down there.

Thunder was louder now, but still distant, and the wind swept up gravel and dust from the path, swirled it around their faces and threw it into their eyes and ears and mouths. None of it was a relief from the heat. Hanna wiped at her eyes and saw the small ridge where they had dug up the bones. Up high near the top there was a fresh gash in the ground, and she imagined Joe had been there recently without then digging to find more bones. “You stay down here,” she said, and, taking her dress up in one hand to keep the wind from blowing it all over, scrambled up until she reached the spot, then ran over to look underneath the fallen tree where they’d hidden the bones they’d found together.

Nothing. She looked down and shook her head at Lilly, who just held out her arms and lifted her shoulders. Just do what you do.

Hanna sighed and thrust her hands into the dirt, closed her eyes and felt the soil, the earth, found herself falling into the deep time of the land where she stood, although without Joe there to interpret it there was so little she could ever hope to understand. But she found the bones calling to her, still not too far away, tucked behind some scrub. She even thought she found some more, but knew they were too deep to get out right now, especially not with the storm approaching. She ran the short distance to a patch of scrub and bushes, pushed aside some dry leaves and branches, and there was the stash of bones. More than she’d seen the last time; Joe certainly had been here digging them up on his own.

She gathered them up in her arms like a load of firewood and slipped and slid down the hill. They were heavy, but she managed, not wanting to make an extra trip. When she got to the bottom, Lilly reached up and grabbed one, then walked to the pond, leaving a bewildered Hanna following in her wake. “Why are we doing this, Lilly?”

Her little sister, barely 8 but suddenly seeming the older of the two of them, turned and looked at Hanna, squinting into the wind. “This storm,” she said, lifting her voice to make sure she was heard. “If you try real hard you can smell it. It’s not coming from somewhere, it’s coming from somewhen. So we’re going to use these,” she held up the bone she was carrying and pointed with it at the armful Hanna held, not giving her older sister a chance to question just what she meant, “to help give him a little peace.”

Overhead, there was a brilliant flash of light followed by an almost immediate blast of thunder, blinding and deafening Hanna for a fraction of a second. She screamed a little and looked up to the sky. The tall dark thunderheads had somehow managed to sneak up on them; once still far across the expanse of land, now they were piling up atop one another in their hurry to reach where she and Lilly were standing, black and grey and angry in their constant motion. More lightning flashed, this time staying buried inside the clouds, and the rolling thunder, while almost as instant as the last crash, nonetheless seemed muffled, further away. Up the hill, the farmhouse and surrounding buildings had almost disappeared in the gloom of the clouds.

There was a tug at her dress. “Hurry, Hanna! He’s angry!”

Bewildered though she was, Hanna knew better than to question her sister in moments like this. The two of them rushed to the edge of the pond, and she watched as Lilly heaved the bone in her hand out into the water; it was heavy and large, and Lilly’s arms were small, so at best it traveled no more than five feet. After a moment’s hesitation, Hanna threw in the armload of bones she carried, and Lilly immediately squatted down and put her hands in the water. The ripples from where the bones had splashed in rose up and out, unsettled perhaps because of the wind blowing all around them, although Hanna was willing to believe it was more to do with Lilly’s presence. And perhaps Joe’s as well.

“We should go back, Lilly,” she said. More lightning, more thunder, this time close and loud enough she couldn’t hear herself saying her sister’s name. The land and water around them lit up, as ferocious as the the edge of the sun, and fat drops of rain began to fall. The first few to hit Hanna’s bare arms seemed to evaporate immediately, cloud and rain and wind unable for the moment to ease the weight of the heat.

Lilly understood, though, and reached up to take her hand. The two of them started back up the hill to the farm, were almost to the chicken coop when the rain truly began to fall. At first a few more drops, then within seconds a steady downpour, and only seconds after that a deluge dropped down on their heads, rain heavy and angry enough to make her think of how Emzara would have felt, standing at her husband Noah’s side when the heavens had finally opened for God’s wrath. More lightning and more thunder crashed down, with the rain heavy enough they couldn’t see much more than an arm’s-length away. Hanna’s dress clung to her skinny frame, her hair was plastered to her head, rivulets of water running into her eyes and making it even harder to see.

Lightning and thunder exploded again, and an afterimage burned itself into her eyes, a man between them and the chicken coop, heavy axe held in his hands, head down to keep the rain running off the brim of his hat and down onto the ground instead of into his eyes. Dancing a strange, threatening dance, a jig of sorts to welcome the violence of the storm.

Elijah Nylund.

Lilly screamed, a curiously muffled sound in the pounding rain, and gripped Hanna’s hand even tighter. Nylund stopped his dance and walked towards them, slowly, his footing unsure in the new muddy soup of the path.

Where was Wash? Where was Mother?

Lilly pulled, and Hanna turned and pulled in return. They had to get away, and right now the only way she figured was safe to run was back down the hill towards the pond. Perhaps they could hide in the scrub up on the ridge, provided the rain hadn’t turned it to gumbo and made it slump, impossible to climb. Already running as fast as she could down the hill, Lilly’s hand in hers and the two of them slipping and sliding and somehow managing to stay on their feet, Hanna realized too late the ridge could only be in that condition. The rain still fell from the sky in an unending, overwhelming waterfall, and little rivers ran downhill around their feet. Looking down, Hanna realized that somewhere along the way she had lost both of her shoes, and her socks were no longer white.

They reached the pond and Hanna risked turning around to look, saw that Elijah Nylund was coming down the hill, axe still in hand, not at all very far away from them. She squealed in terror and gripped Lilly’s hand even tighter, but her little sister wriggled out of her grasp, then reached up and grabbed her forearm, pulled her down so her head was level with Lilly’s.

“Find the bones!” she yelled.

Find the bones? The bones were in the pond, certainly lost with all this rain. And any more in the ridge would be impossible to find in this storm, even without a man with an axe looking to kill them. She shook her head, wiped away rain, or maybe tears.

Lilly shook her head angrily. “Like this!” she yelled, and pushed Hanna so hard she stumbled, then fell flat on her face, hands outstretched and embedded in the muck that had slid down from the ridge. Then her little sister turned and splashed down onto her knees, stuck both of her hands deep into the steadily-rising pond.

Find the bones.

Through all the cacophony and numbing fear, Hanna felt the presence of the rest of the bones. Felt them calling to her.

No, not calling to her. Calling through time. Calling to Joe.

She turned her head to look at Lilly, at the same time pushing her hands even deeper into the muddy soil. As she watched her little sister slid into the pond, keeping only her head above the water. Ripples became waves, waves broke and crashed over her face, soaking her no more than the onslaught of rain from above, the ridges of the waves now tinted with white foam. 

The wind picked up speed then, and more lightning flashed, and into the middle of it all, now directly between Hanna and Lilly, stepped Elijah Nylund, axe hanging from his right hand, left hand wiping rain from his eyes.

“That son of a bitch Wash will pay for sending me and my family from our home!” he yelled. He was looking right at Hanna, didn’t seem to see Lilly deep in the pond.

More wind. More lightning, more thunder, and from deep in the ground Hanna could feel the call of the bones. In the pond, the waves splashed higher and higher, and now the rain was driving at them almost parallel to the ground, pushing Nylund back away from Hanna.

He cursed the storm and, leaning forward to push his way back to her, he raised his axe. Hanna squealed, about to jump and run, but the bones called to her one more time, and at the very same moment the very air seemed to call her name. There was another flash of lightning, but this time it wasn’t a forked trail across the sky, was rather a wide sheet that lasted and lasted and impossibly lasted, at first high above their heads, falling towards the ground like a leaf on a light breeze. Or like a bird circling on a down draft.

The booming, crashing roar of the thunder wouldn’t end, reached down to envelop them all as the lightning approached and resolved itself into the shape of a monstrous, angry bird. No, not a bird: a pterosaur, just like Joe had so excitedly described. A bolt shot from its left wing to the ground at Hanna’s hands, stayed focused there at the same time another bolt shot down from its right wing and focused on the pond where Lilly must have been, and then yet another from the crest on top of its head, further out into the pond. Where Joe’s body was, she somehow knew.

Elijah Nylund looked up in fear and awe, axe hanging forgotten from limp fingers. The pterosaur finished its downward journey, swooped in a hideous flash of light onto him, its giant wings folding around him, his screams drowned out by the radiant bedlam of the apocalypse.

Overwhelmed by the sight, Hanna turned her head, and although it could have been a trick of her mind, she swore she saw Joe, in the rain and wind and intense flickering light, doing his own dance, a celebration of the storm, dancing through time and to welcome the storm it had brought. To welcome the giant extinct reptile all three of them had brought.

And with that the storm abated. First the pterosaur, changing to one last crackle of ordinary lightning, retreated back up into the dark sky, one last terrific boom of thunder accompanying it. Then the wind settled down, and only a moment or two later the rain changed from deluge to a simple downpour. Of Elijah Nylund there was no sign. His axe lay on the ground, caked in mud.

Hanna pulled her hands from the wet ground; they were deeper than she’d realized, and it took a real effort. Then she stood and stumbled over to the pond, reached down and took Lilly’s offered hand, pulled her out of the now quiet water.

As Mother and Wash ran down the hill, calling and crying out to them, Hanna and Lilly hugged each other tight. At their feet the body of Joe Thostenson had come ashore, and even the hideous and devastating sight of his headless body couldn’t quell the sensation Hanna’s friend was finally at peace. She closed her eyes and promised Joe, promised herself, that soon she would come back and find more stories of the past in his memory.

************************************************************************

"No food!" he says. "We're going to starve to death surrounded by books."

"Oh come on, we'll be all right. We're sure to find some soon. And that was a scary story, but I like how they saved themselves. I loved the pterosaur! I wish I had a pterosaur. And magic. And a sister," She pets the cat's ears, and he purrs.

"Yes, those would defintiely all be good things to have," he agrees. "Especially the pterosaur. I love stories that do folk magic that way."

Maya picks up a book from the top of the stack. "Lauren Schiller, Admired Miranda."

He jumps.

"What's wrong?" Maya asks, looking at him in concern.

"Oh, just a coincidence I suppose. I know somebody called Miranda."

'Lots of people are called Miranda," she says.

"Maybe. It's very unlikely to be my Miranda. But Shakespeare made it up, you know, the name."

"Did he?" The cat is purring loudly.

"There are a bunch of names like that. Perdita in the Winter's Tale. Jessica in Merchant. And J.M. Barrie made up the name Wendy for Peter Pan!"

"I see," Maya says, looking down at the book. "That's interesting. But you think this might be about somebody you know called Miranda?"

"No, probably not," he says, too casually. "Just hungry, that's all."

"Let's read it then," Maya says, frowning a little.

And they read.