Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (32 page)

“You said I'm not like you,” Ben said, holding my arm. “But I am.”

I smiled at him. The butterflies struggled free of their nets.

 
 

I skipped one step for every three I walked on the way home. The sidewalk was like creamy slabs of oatmeal that strangely sparkled in the light of the streetlamps.
Ben. When. Then. Again
.

He still wasn't part of the Family and would probably never be a Believer, but he did draw pictures of my name and lift a thirty-pound pumpkin with each arm. I put my hand on the place where he touched me. Just hours before, all I could think about was Indus. Maybe the Family was right all along. Maybe it was possible to love more than one person.

It had gotten chillier in the hour since the café closed, and I pulled up the collar on my eagle jacket, thinking I would soon need the wool coat I had left packed away on the Farm. Or maybe Io could find me a new one to wear to school. School, where I would see
Ben, men, amen
.

I was still several blocks from home when I first saw the shadow flit between two trees near a house.
A dog
, I thought,
or someone taking out the trash.
I picked up my pace, putting my hands in my pockets.

One block later on the same side of the street, I noticed another one, a dark mass passing behind a truck parked in someone's driveway. Definitely not a dog, a little taller than me. I heard Io saying,
Don't walk alone at night. It's not like the Farm, there are more dangerous things than raccoons
. I crossed to the other side of the street, taking my time in the middle of the road, and keeping an eye on the truck behind me.

A few cars passed and their lights made my shadow stretch and then collapse. I was only five blocks from Beacon House when I saw it the third time. It was definitely a person, running across the street ahead of me, in a dark patch where the streetlights didn't touch. I remembered the homeless man yelling about God. This person had on a dark sweatshirt, the hood pulled up. Now it was on my side of the street.

I crossed again, considered going back the way I came, but didn't want to walk away from Beacon House. If I had a cell phone, I would have used it.
Can I shout loud enough for V to hear me? She's not even at Beacon House; she's with Devin
. There were fenced yards on my left side. I couldn't leave the street until the next intersection, and I didn't know the neighborhood well. I broke into a light jog.

I made it safely to the next cross street, now just two blocks from home. I wasn't close enough to see the porch light, but close enough to imagine that I could almost see it. I shouldn't have gone to Ben's house alone. I should have called V to come get me.
If I scream as loud as I can, they might be able to hear me. Would the Outsiders in these houses help me?
Just two more blocks to go.

That's when the shadow stepped right out of the bushes, a large form blocking my way, making me stop suddenly and gasp for air. I inhaled, preparing to curdle every house's milk on the block with my scream. But the shadow pulled down the hood of its sweatshirt and stepped into the light in front of me, and it wasn't a shadow. It was my brother, Douglas Fir.

 28 

“I
thought it was you, but I had to make sure.” My brother's voice was gruff. He put his hands on his head and said, “It's really you.”

He took a step toward me and I stepped back. The man in front of me had oily hair hanging down to the collar of his limp and dirty sweatshirt. There were days of unshaven growth on his face, and he had a ratty pack strapped to his back. I was certain this man was my brother, but he felt like a stranger. I kept a square of concrete sidewalk between us.

“What are you doing?” I said. I might have meant,
What are you doing here?
or
Why did you leave? Why are you back?
or
Why are you coming toward me?
I meant all of those things at once.

“I was trying to make it to the Farm, but I hitched to Seattle first. I didn't even know you were here until I walked by the café today.” Doug's voice was raspy, the way it used to get when he had a cold.

He took another step toward me and I stepped back again.

“Are you afraid of me?” Astonishment colored each of his words.

“No. I'm just . . . surprised. You look so different.” But I did feel afraid. My heart was pounding in my ears.

“Yeah, I've changed a little.” He gave a strained laugh.

“You abandoned us,” I surprised myself by saying. “In the middle of the night, you ran away.”

“You think I abandoned you? That's why nobody looked for me?”

“We did look. EARTH looked. Fern went to the Outside police. Where were you?”

“Fern went to the police? Did EARTH know that?”

“No, she did it behind his back. Where were you?”

“Did the cops come to the Farm? Did they investigate?”

“I never saw them. You're not answering me.”

He looked up and down the street. There were headlights approaching each way. “We can't talk here. Come with me.”

“No.” I balled my hands into fists. “Tell me where you went.”

“I will, but not here.” One set of headlights reached us, panning their white light over Doug's grayish skin.

“You're going to creep up on me in the middle of the night and scare the life out of me and not tell me why you ran away, and expect me to follow you?” I stepped back again, feeling the heat in my belly. I always thought I would be ecstatic to see my brother. But I wasn't ecstatic. I was furious.

Doug threw up his hands. “He drove me to Oregon in the middle of the night saying it was a Mission, and then he said that if I came back or called, he would kill you and Fern. Homeless shelters and migrant worker camps, that's where I
ran away
to. Are you pissed I didn't send a postcard?”

“What are you saying? Who drove you there? Are you saying that EARTH did this?”

“Of course not. It was Mars Wolf. He left me in Eugene with no food or money, yelling after his truck in the street.”

 
 

A streetlight near us flickered once and went out. Another one, closer to Beacon House, came on. I looked at Doug's outline, afraid he would disappear again in the dark. He was bigger than he was at sixteen, more bulk under his sweatshirt, and we were the same height now. Growing up I was always a head shorter.

“EARTH said you abandoned the Family.”

“I don't know what EARTH knew. Trust me, I've had plenty of time to wonder.”

“Mars said he would kill us?” No one in the Family even killed animals, unless they were sick or dying, unless it was a mercy kill. I was finding it hard to stand.

“Do you trust your brother enough to walk two blocks?” he asked.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if I trusted the man in front of me. But when he motioned for me to follow him through the intersection, I did. I walked a few paces behind him for half a block, past a row of fenced houses, and then off the street. We walked into an unlit neighborhood park, full of sharply mown grass and rusty equipment. Nestled in a carpet of soggy wood chips was a metal dome made of intersecting triangles.

“I saw Fern with you at the café. It's lucky you're both in Seattle. It's a lot easier than trying to get you off the Farm,” Doug said, approaching the dome.

I could see the ghost of my breath as it hit the cold air, but my heart was beating too hard to feel it on my skin. “Fern went back already. What do you mean, ‘get us off the Farm?'”

“Shit, she's back there?” Doug grabbed one of the metal triangles with both hands. “Shit.”

“Why shouldn't she be?” The exhaustion of the whole day—getting up before dawn, the apple pressing, EARTH coming back, Indus, Ben, and now Doug—was making me sick. My stomach churned and I couldn't remember if I had eaten dinner. I leaned against the metal dome to steady myself and felt its cold bones press against my side.

Doug gripped the equipment with bony hands. I noticed how his clothes hung off him, how everything seemed too big. “At first I had a recurring dream that I came back and found both of you dead in the yurt. Sometimes there was blood on the door. That's when I was in the homeless shelter, sleeping with all my clothes on so they wouldn't get stolen. I had that dream every night for months.” He let his head drop toward his shoulders. He looked like a wounded animal, bent over, protecting his injuries.

How could I have been so cruel? It was Doug, my brother; recovered, alive.

I pulled his arms from the equipment and put them around me. A real hug, a brutally real hug. We fell against the metal dome, one of the rods digging into my side. I felt Doug shudder with a raspy cry and then I cried, too, squeezing his shoulders.

“I thought you ran away from us,” I said. “I was so angry.”

“I thought you never looked for me.”

He felt wiry and thin in my arms and smelled like he had been harvesting for a week with no shower. We squeezed each other till we might have caused bruises. The tears poured down my cheeks and my shoulders shook, and Doug sobbed and gasped for air. That's when I heard the footsteps.

“Hey there.” A flashlight was walking toward us. I looked at the street and saw a dark police car with its door open. “This park closes at dusk.”

“Sorry, officer.” Doug dropped his hands from my arms. He combed his hair with his fingers and stood up straight.

“What are you folks doing out here?” The flashlight shined into each of our eyes, causing me to raise a hand to my face. “Miss, do you know this person?” The light crawled up and down Doug's body, his muddy boots, his torn pants.

“He's my brother,” I said, wiping the tears with the back of my hand.

The light rested on my face. “Where do you two live?”

“Three blocks that way.” I pointed.

The light traced over each of us again, head to toe. “Park's closed, so I'm going to need you to move on.”

“Yes, sir,” Doug said. As we started walking toward the street, he reached out and took my hand. We were back on the sidewalk before Doug whispered, “He could have found my camp.”

“You're camping here?”

“See that line of trees? Tent underneath.”

“What would happen?” I glanced back over my shoulder at the police car.

“Arrest maybe. Probably just make me pack up and move. Tell me to go to a shelter downtown but not give me any way of getting there. That's the real Outside, Starbird. You're not allowed sleep in the grass under the stars, unless you own the grass.”