Decorating the windows of the elementary school were third-grade collages of the parable of the Lion and the Lamb. The lambs were done with way too much glue and cotton balls; yarn created the manes for the lions. The children learned that if at the beginning of March the weather in Mackerel Sky bit at the window frames and the doors and shutters, if it roared like a lion, then sometimes at the end of the month the weather teased more fine, more gentle, like a lamb.
Either way, at the end of that March Myra Kelley turned her back on winter. She did not do this blindly; she was well aware winter would melt and refreeze for weeks or possibly months yet, but during the sunny days she refused to wear her winter coat and began to thaw her blood, crunching the heavy snow with her boots so it melted faster in the weak sunlight, walking around like she could warm the weather with will.
Today the lambs were basking. It was one of the few lucky days at the end of March where the month itself changed its mind about being winter; it simply shed its coats and skin and scales and walked naked through the streets boldly, briefly, deciding today it was spring, and all marveled at its sweetness. Today, Myra wore no coat.
She thought a lot about the boy, little, skinny, puking Leo, wondered if he even had a winter coat, wondered if he would return, wondered how much skinnier he would be. She worried about what kind of bed he slept in at night and if his house smelled like cat piss and what he ate for dinner. She worried and wondered so much she tripped over one of the stupid chickens. One of the posts of the chicken coop was splintered and broken from the crash, and Myra had tried to wrap more chicken wire around the holes so at least the annoying little cretins were contained and wouldn’t wander into the street and get run over. Myra gave her DIY job a nine out of ten, because only one of the chickens managed to escape besides the one that was still missing. Leo would do the real work of mending the coop, she thought as she dropped the hen back in the cage. If, of course, he returned.
Dog barked. He had found the missing chicken. Wounded, it had frozen to death in the snow. Myra cried four tears for it. The first tear escaped; the second she tried to brush away; but the third and fourth she accepted and let come.
Myra was a good griever. She looked death in the face and nodded in mutual respect. At little Nimue Perle’s funeral she had walked right up to Manon and wrapped her in a bear hug.
“This is right shit,” she’d said.
Myra had buried her whole family and her heart, her husband of fifty-five years, Bernie, in the soil of Mackerel Sky, and had made more ham-salad sandwiches for wakes at church halls for drowned fishermen than she cared to remember. Death was a part of life. But this morning, on the sparkling snow in the pale light of spring, the sounds of drips and lapping water and chickadees, the flowing feathers on the frozen chicken carcass were a blight on the landscape, like a cigarette burn on a bedsheet.
Then Leo came shuffling up the hill, two months early, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his Pats sweatshirt.
“You lost, kid? Or ain’t got a calendar?”
Leo shrugged and scuffed. “Just walking.”
He saw the dead chicken. “Aw shit, Miss Myra. I’m fu—I’m sorry.” The catch in his voice was like a lone church bell.
Myra looked at him then, his hollow, shadowed eyes, grimy sweatshirt, dirt under his fingernails, lingering at her stoop like Dog had done years ago.
She nodded, once. “Today seems as decent a day as any to fix a chicken coop. Let’s eat, then. Come on, Dog is barking his fool head off.”
Some kids at the IGA spending allowance money on chips and candy said that Myra Kelley was a witch. No one said crazy; she had too much damn sense. Her witch label was mostly circumstantial: she was old; she lived alone; she had a big scruffy dog and probably secrets and definitely a pantry that sometimes smelled of rotten garbage in the summer.
“But she gives out good candy at Halloween” was usually the solid counterargument.
“There’s her book” was always the trump card, the definitive smirk, mic drop, King of the Mountain, definitive proof that old Mrs. Kelley by the duck pond was a witch.
Myra kept a great brocaded book, supposedly an artifact from the Bellaforte itself. What was contained within was and had been anyone’s and everyone’s guess. Some gossiped that it was Captain Burrbank’s ledger and perhaps his notes on the founding of Mackerel Sky, while others whispered that it was full of spells and traps for catching mermaids. Everyone knew about it, because one year during the Mermaid Festival a tourist in a suit from the city came with a briefcase and a thick wallet asking around about it at the Mermaid’s Tail Tavern.
As good, loyal fisherman do, everyone clammed up, and the suit left empty-handed.
The tome was so famous the townies had a saying about it: “Go put it in Myra Kelley’s damn book if it’s that important to ya.”
It wasn’t a great saying, but Mackerel Sky was known for its mermaids, not its orators.
Leo wondered if it was real. Leo wondered if he would get to see it.
Leo liked books, a lot of times they were the healthiest alternative to the life around him.
The boy followed Myra followed by Dog followed by the screech and slam of a screen door through the pantry into the kitchen, and he saw bagged Cheerios and onions and dog food and felt a shift in the air from sharp spring snow to pantry and homestead. The kitchen was small, bookended by a coffee pot and an electric water heater, morning and afternoon rituals, respectively. Myra began taking out crabmeat and mayonnaise and white bread and shooed Leo along to the living room with a glass of lemonade.
The living room was slit with long windows, and all Leo could see was ocean, the ocean on all sides, the surface where water met sky a blur of one evaporating into the other, an impressionist painting. Glass cabinets full of stark seashells collected from over seventy years of walking multitudes of beaches reflected the spring light. The walls were full of books.
On a lone stand sat a thick maroon book, heavy and closed. Leo stepped toward the stand, holding the empty glass of lemonade. Some said that that man in his fancy car and his fancy suit had once offered Mrs. Kelley five thousand dollars for the book, and she had said it wasn’t for sale.
“It was ten thousand,” Myra said, suddenly behind the boy. “And I swept him off my porch with my broom. It’s just a really old scrapbook, of sorts.”
She had surprised Leo; he jumped and was happy he had guzzled his lemonade so he had nothing to spill. He pointed to the book.
“So is this it, then? Your book? The book? The one with Burrbank’s notes, and drawings of the mermaids? And spells?” Leo had speculated about what spells the book contained, of course, maybe even the Mermaid’s curse, the words that she spoke when she cursed the town of Mackerel Sky on Torch Night and all those inhabitants drowned. Variations of this spell had been repeated for generations, mostly drunkenly, many times over graves in the oldest part of the cemetery, and most recently over the mermaid statue on Nimue Perle’s cenotaph.
“Spells, huh,” Myra responded vaguely. “Eat up, kid.”
He followed her into the kitchen and did, three crabmeat sandwiches and two glasses of lemonade, Dog’s shaggy head resting on his feet, eyes begging forlornly.
“They say, Miss Myra, that no one can see spells in the book except at certain times. It’s magic. Mermaid magic.” He nodded, eyes big, punctuation on his points. Kids sometimes said pretend spells, drunk over Mrs. Perle’s baby’s grave, he wanted to tell Myra that too, but didn’t. He didn’t think that was appropriate, plus he didn’t even want to talk about alcohol, because he was never drinking again.
“Lunar magic,” Myra said softly, her voice easing into the cadence of the tides, a storyteller’s voice. She pushed her last half of sandwich toward Leo, who grabbed it and ate it mindlessly, harnessed by the subject. “Blood magic. Salt circles, the like. Horseshit.” She slammed her fist down on the table and laughed. Leo couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or making fun of him. She didn’t clarify. Dog put his big head in Leo’s lap, and the warmth and weight was wonderful. Leo petted his head. Dog closed his eyes.
“Dog says it’s time to fix the coop.”
Leo looked at Dog, who was clearly falling asleep, but Mrs. Kelley had been so nice and made good sandwiches, so to Dog’s dismay, Leo stood up, at attention.
“Tools and wood are in the barn. If the coop turns out nice and I don’t have to do much, I might just feed you again.”
Leo did solid, silent work, Dog dogging his heels. Myra tried to shoo Dog into the house, but neither the boy nor the dog would have it so she let it be. Leo got three solid hours in and stopped for nothing except to chug two glasses of lemonade and eat some banana bread Myra made. The chickens were contained, and Myra was satisfied with the work. She called him back to the house just as the wind was picking up and the fog rolling in.
“Leo boy, come in out of the storm.”
Myra had a big wraparound porch hung with singing eccentricities—wind chimes, mobiles, bird feeders, buoys. They were dancing marionettes in the wind.
“Your bird feeders are empty,” Leo said, pointing. “You got any birdseed?”
“Have. Do you have any birdseed? Yes, in the pantry.”
“Birds are hungry. I’ll fill it.”
“Blue bucket in the pantry. Spill some when you fill the feeders—there’s a big ole turkey that pecks around here sometimes. He likes the east corner, under that skinny feeder there. He hasn’t been around much lately, since he got caught in the woodchuck trap and got mighty mad.” Myra caught a smile and made sandwiches again while Leo filled the feeders.
“What’s that?” Leo asked later, his mouth full of sandwich. He was pointing to a piece of furniture, a wooden monstrosity that encroached on passersby in the hallway—a cabinet of sorts, a jumble of chests, bookshelves, drawers, and small doors, fat in the middle and curved upward like a grin, two cabinets with glinting glass like eyes. Some drawers were thin and long and wide, some perfectly square, all with keyholes.
“My Christmas cabinet. Is that your second sandwich? Chew with your mouth closed.”
“Third,” said Leo with open-mouthed chews. “What’s a Christmas cabinet? It looks old.”
“Ayuh. My great-grandmother used to store her Christmas decorations in those three drawers there, so growing up we called it the Christmas cabinet. Sometimes names just stick.”
Leo understood. He had been branded with the nickname Clipper by kids at school swiftly after his infamous car accident. He took it in stride; he had been dealt fiercer blows. The only thing that bothered him about it was that it reminded him of the chicken and the barn and what he did to Mrs. Myra, and she seemed like a nicer old lady than everybody guessed.
Myra waved him forward, and welcomed him, so Leo began rifling through the Christmas cabinet.
“What do you keep in it?” Some of the drawers and doors in the jigsaw jumble of wood were locked and some weren’t, some were empty and some weren’t. One chest, a bit bigger than a shoebox, didn’t open and looked really old to Leo. He discovered skeleton keys, baubles, folded pages of letters, maps, coins, and a compass.
“Oh, this and that. Things that don’t have homes, things I can’t find a proper place for. Stories. Histories. Magic. You know, witch stuff.” Leo’s eyes shot up, and Myra laughed. “That was Bernie and I the morning of our senior beach party.” Leo was holding a photograph with scalloped edges of a smiling young couple in bathing suits. She wore high shorts like sailor pants, with buttons up the front, and had dark lips and soft curls, her head tilted toward his chest. He leaned against the boulder behind him, his bare feet crossed, short-sleeved button-down open to the sun, big eyebrows and full smile.
“The Book Burner. That’s what we call the senior beach party now. Holy shit!”
“Mouth, boy.”
“Sorry.” He swallowed the rest of his sandwich. “How tall was your husband?” He was gaping at a yellowed newspaper article, a photo of Bernie and his sternman flanking a giant hanging halibut. The fish towered over them.
“Six foot six. That fish was nine feet long.”
“Wow,” he said reverently. “That’s so cool, Miss Myra.”
“I’ll admit, it was something to see that day on the docks,” Myra reflected. She remembered that Bernie’s smile that day ignited her blood. “All right, deah, you are all done working for the day.”
Leo, who had been busily rummaging through drawers and opening cabinet doors, suddenly stood really still. It looked to Myra as though he might cry. She didn’t miss a beat.
“You any hand at cribbage?” Myra asked.
“Dunno how to play.”
“Come learn, then.”
The gray light of the incoming storm highlighted their hands and the cards as they shuffled and dealt. It illuminated their faces, Leo’s brows drawn, biting his lip as he pondered the new rules and his next move. As the light faded, and the rain came and left, Myra’s hand stuck the final peg.
“If you want, kid, you can come back tomorrow after school to continue the work.”
Leo did want to come back; in fact, he found at the door frame he didn’t want to leave the warm light and garlicky smell of the old woman’s old kitchen.
Long after Leo said goodbye, Dog whined at the door. Myra called Sheriff Badger and gave him what-for regarding the boy’s situation. She then got out of her rocking chair and walked to the Paths directly out her gate. Her stepping stones connected to the great crescent footpath that forked to High and Low Cliffs. Myra headed toward High Cliffs, toward the water, carrying the dead chicken, Dog her shadow, the sunset setting her back aflame.