All morning I was in a sour mood. Seemed just about every little thing that could go wrong did. First I’d tried making fried eggs by myself before Opal got to our house. All I’d managed to do was to get three eggs stuck to the bottom of one of Mama’s best pans and fill the house with a nasty burnt smell that I was just sure would take the better part of the year to clear out.
It all seemed to roll on downhill from there. My warmest stockings had a hole in the toe and I couldn’t manage to get my bedsheets tucked in the way Mama’d taught me. My hair was full of snarls and Opal’d threatened to wash my mouth out for the cuss I said as she pulled a brush through them.
To top all that off, Bert’d asked Ray to go along with him to get whatever it was his dad had traded the Litchfields for when he got the pea out of their kid’s nose. I knew very well there was plenty of room in Doctor Barnett’s car for me. But I also knew that there were some things boys wanted to do without girls around to pester them.
“You just need to make a few friends of your own,” Opal told me. “There has to be somebody.”
I shook my head and told her I’d rather drink castor oil than be friends with any of the girls in Bliss. She just told me I was being difficult and went back to scraping egg off her pan.
It seemed the only reasonable thing to do was stomp up the stairs and pout in my room for the rest of the morning.
Ray knocked on my door not an hour later, calling for me to come on out and see what Bert got. I tried ignoring him, but my darn curiosity got the better of me and I bolted out the room and down the steps. Opal had my coat laid out on the couch for me with my scarf in hand to wrap around my face. Out to the porch and down the steps, Ray and I went.
“Button up all the way,” Opal called.
I hollered back that I would, then we crossed the street to Bert’s house.
Bert was out back, standing in the doorway of a little shed where his father kept his tools. Big as Bert’s smile was, I could tell he was happy.
“Hey there, Pearl,” he said, hardly able to stand still for all his excitement.
“How do, Bert?” I said back. “What you got in there?”
“You got a guess?” Ray asked.
“It’s a pigeon,” Bert blurted out before I had the chance to even think on it. “It’s a girl pigeon.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Mr. Litchfield told me.” His eyes were round as dinner plates and near as wide. “Wanna see her?”
I shrugged, hoping not to seem too eager even though I was.
“All right. You just can’t let her outta her cage,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Course I do.” I put out my hand and shook on the promise so he’d know I meant to keep my word.
A brass birdcage sat on the workbench along the back wall of the shed. The bird made a warbling coo, her throat puffing out. The way her feathers caught what little light came in through the door made them look green and purple and blue. I never would have thought a pigeon was so pretty.
Right away I regretted promising not to open the cage. I’d have liked to hold her in my hand and feel of her feathers.
“What would happen if she got out?” I asked, taking a step toward her.
“She’d fly off,” Bert said, standing between me and the cage as if he worried I’d lift the latch and set her loose. “Dad said she’d fly all the way back to the Litchfield farm.”
“Nah, she wouldn’t,” I said. “How would she know the way?”
Bert shrugged. “Guess she just does.”
I looked at him sideways, figuring he was pulling my leg. But Bert never was one for kidding. I didn’t know that he was clever enough for something like that.
“Mr. Litchfield said that’s her way,” Ray said. “Said if you took her five hundred miles away she’d end up right back at their place.”
“You aren’t teasing?” I asked.
“I ain’t.” Ray leaned a hip into the workbench beside me and stuck a finger in through the cage to feel the bird’s feathers. “You can go on and ask Mr. Litchfield hisself.”
“How does she know the way, though?” I asked.
“Beats me,” he said.
“What’s her name?”
“Sassy,” Bert said. “You like it?”
“Sure I do,” I said, wishing I had the courage to touch her the way Ray had.
We stood there just a couple minutes more. I wondered if that bird was upset about being taken away from where she’d lived all her life. I wondered if she even knew enough to miss her home.
Since Ray and I were already bundled up, we decided we might as well go on to the farm to visit Uncle Gus and Aunt Carrie. Mama would’ve worried that we were imposing on them, going over without an invitation. She’d have told us we were fixing to wear out our welcome.
But Aunt Carrie’d told us more than once that we were welcome whenever we wanted to come. I knew she meant it by how she’d smile when she first saw us. If there was one place in all of Bliss where I felt at home it was on the farm with Uncle Gus and Aunt Carrie.
We found Uncle Gus and Noah Jackson out by the chicken coop mending a bit of fence. Uncle Gus held the chicken wire to the post while Noah drove the nails in. They stood up straight as Ray and I got closer, Uncle Gus waving us over and hollering out a howdy.
“Bet I can guess what’s new,” Uncle Gus said. “Bert got himself a bird, didn’t he?”
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“It’s a small town.” Uncle Gus rubbed his nose with the back of his gloved hand. “Word gets round fast.”
“What do you think of that pigeon?” Noah asked, pulling a couple nails from between his front teeth. “It’s something, ain’t it?”
“Would it really go back home?” I asked. “If it got out?”
“Yes, miss,” Uncle Gus answered. “It sure would.”
“Didn’t they use them birds in the war?” Noah asked.
“Sure did,” Uncle Gus said. “I seen them when I was over in France. English fella had a couple in the trenches with him. He’d put a little message into a capsule and tie it to one of the pigeon’s legs. Then he’d let the bird go and it’d fly right back to where the generals were. Always found its way, I hear. Every single time. Even with the Germans shootin’ at them. See? Smart birds.”
“Can they find anyplace they want to go?” I asked.
Noah shook his head. “Nope. They can only find home, right Gus?”
“That’s right,” Uncle Gus answered. “Only place they go is back home.”
Aunt Carrie had a hot cup of milk in the kitchen for me once I went inside. I was sure grateful for the warm drink and that she let me take it in what she sometimes called the parlor. She told me to curl up on the davenport and then tucked a soft afghan around my legs. I hadn’t realized how sleepy I was until I’d gotten comfortable.
“Could you please tell me a story?” I asked before sipping at my milk.
“I’d be happy to.” She took a seat at the other end of the davenport, turned so she was facing me. “What kind of story?”
“A fairy tale,” I said. “Maybe one with birds?”
“Hmm. I think I know one like that.” She smiled before she began. “Once upon a time there was a young man named Wilhelm and a young woman named Marta. They were deeply in love and planning to get married, but don’t worry, this isn’t a story with too much kissing in it.”
Aunt Carrie gave me a wink before going on.
“One day, in their joy at being young and in love, they went for a long walk in the woods,” she said. “You know nothing good can come from fairy-tale characters wandering in the woods, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Suddenly, Marta felt a sinking feeling, like her heart was breaking,” Aunt Carrie went on. “She cried, but didn’t know why or what could make her so sad. Wilhelm tried to comfort her, but it was no good. Marta’s heart had broken, shattered like glass inside her chest.”
“Did she die?” I asked.
“No. But something else happened.” Aunt Carrie took another sip of coffee. “As soon as her heart was in too many pieces to ever have a hope of being mended, she turned into a bird.”
I put a hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t be tempted to talk and interrupt the story.
“Just a tiny sparrow of a bird, she sat in Wilhelm’s hand, singing the saddest song ever sung in all the history of the world.” Aunt Carrie let the room grow quiet and I thought she was every bit as good at telling stories as Daddy and Uncle Gus. “But then, from deep in the woods came another voice, one not so beautiful as that of the sparrow Marta. The voice was shrill and horrible, calling for Marta to follow it away from Wilhelm. He tried to wrap his fingers around the small bird, but it was hopeless. The voice from the woods was more powerful, too strong. Marta had to fly away.”
Aunt Carrie told of how Wilhelm tried to follow her, but the woods were too thick and the night growing too dark. He’d trudged through the woods, never resting and never stopping to eat even, searching for his beloved Marta.
“Was she lost to him?” I asked.
“Ah, but one can never be too lost to be found by true love.”
Wilhelm climbed mountains and crossed streams, calling for his Marta by day and by night until he found a cabin, deeper in the woods than he’d ever been.
“An old hag hobbled out of the cabin. Wilhelm asked if she had his Marta and the witch nodded her crone’s head and told him the only way to get her back was to mend her broken heart.”
“How could he?”
“The witch told him it would take something precious made of sand.” She smiled at me. “Would you like to guess what that is?”
“A pearl?” I whispered.
“Of course. A pearl,” she answered. “Wilhelm was wise enough to know that, too.”
He traveled all the way to the edge of the land where it touched the sea, and there he found a pearl to give to the witch to heal Marta’s heart. It took him so long, though, he feared his love was lost. Still, he went on.
“His love was stronger than fear,” Aunt Carrie said. “He showed the pearl to the witch, begging her to release his Marta and restore her to the young lady she’d been. The witch tried to take the pearl in her gnarled and veiny hand and cackled at him when he closed his fingers over it. He demanded to see Marta before letting go of the pearl. The hag snarled at him, but then invited him into the cabin.”
Once inside Wilhelm saw cages hung from every inch of the rafters and resting on shelves along all of the walls. Cages sat on every inch of the floor and bench and table in the cabin. Each of them with a different bird. Just by looking, he couldn’t tell one from another.
The witch laughed with her ugly voice and I imagined it sounded more like a battle cry than anything.
“She told him he’d never find the right bird,” Aunt Carrie said. “She said he could only have one guess which one was Marta. If he was wrong, he’d be sent into the sea where he’d found the pearl, never to return.”
“What would happen if he didn’t try?” I asked.
“He could go back to his life,” she said. “He wouldn’t have Marta, but he would live.”
“He stepped closer to the cages and shut his eyes.” Aunt Carrie squeezed her own eyes closed and put a hand to her chest. “He began to sing. It was a song he had sung to her by the river when they’d sat watching the rolling current or when they’d sat together in the sunshine, feeling its warmth on their faces. It was a song only the two of them knew.”
I imagined him singing a line then waiting. One little bird trilled out the tune in echo. He sang a second and a third, a fourth and a fifth. The little bird repeated every note back at him. He kept on singing and listening for her calling back to him until he found her in a cage all the way to the back of the cabin.
“He reached her cage, knowing it was her by their shared song,” Aunt Carrie said. “The witch screamed in fury, but she was powerless to stop him from freeing Marta. He held the pearl out in the palm of his hand and the bird picked it up with her beak, hopping out to the dirt floor of the cabin. As soon as she was free of the cage and her heart mended, she turned back into her human form.”
“What about the other birds?” I asked.
“The witch warned them, saying they ought not release any more.” Aunt Carrie smiled. “But it little mattered what she threatened or how she warned. One by one, Wilhelm and Marta released those birds. With each one the witch grew weaker and weaker until she herself was nothing more than a chirping bird in a cage all her own.”
“Did they live happily ever after?” I asked.
“Yes, dear,” she said. “They most certainly did.”
That night I dreamed of Mama. She’d gotten herself five hundred miles away from us in a place I’d never seen before. I dreamed that tall buildings grew out of the ground all around her and that cars zoomed from here to there past her, making her skirts rustle around her legs.
She didn’t notice all the hustle and bustle. Didn’t hear a bit of it. She kept her eyes closed and lifted both hands over her head. Slow and gentle and graceful in the middle of the wild city, Mama rose up off the ground, her toes pointed until her whole body stretched out, like she was lying on the air.
She opened her eyes, but not because she needed to see. Every bit of her knew the way.
She knew the way home.