In the Land of Birdfishes by Rebecca Silver Slayter Page A

could do to convince her. Not now, when what I’d tell her was true. And not later, when it would be a lie.

SEVEN
    W HEN WE ARRIVED at her house, Nellie told me that her own daughters would be home from school soon and I would have to be very nice to them, as I’d be sharing a room with her oldest daughter, Megan, and it would be a surprise to them both to find another little girl living in their home. She took me by the hand and put my suitcase in the other, and then she led me up a flight of stairs.
    “Here,” she said, pulling me through a door. “This is where you’ll sleep. Alexander put a mattress on the floor for you, see?” She grabbed my hand and pushed it onto the mattress. I stumbled, startled, and dropped my suitcase. She cried out, and I understood that it had landed on her foot. “You have to be more careful,” she said. “Being the way you are, you won’t be able to go to school. But you can’t be underfoot all the time. You’ll have to learn to be resourceful. The blind are very resourceful.”
    She hesitated, and I felt for the mattress behind me and sat down on it. Then I heard her take light, quick steps across the room. “Well, I’ll turn the light off. This room doesn’t get much light, but I don’t suppose you’ll need the lamp like Megan does. See that you check it’s off. The switch should be down,like this. Come feel. No need to waste money lighting up the room if …” She stopped again, and I withdrew my hand from the switch, which I’d slid my fingers along like she asked. “This will be an adjustment for everyone,” she said at last. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”
    After I heard her steps go down the stairs, I lay down on the mattress. I thought about getting up to feel my way around the room, so I’d know where things were and be able to be careful, like she’d asked. But in the end I fell asleep there, and didn’t wake until I heard their voices at the door.

EIGHT
    “T HAT IS NOT THE END of the story,” said Minnie.
    I turned my head to find she was now sitting beside me at the bar. Something about her made me nervous, and I had a feeling she didn’t mind that. She seemed always to be watching me and Jason, always nearer than I thought she was. But I was glad for something to say beyond wondering what Jason’s strange story meant and why he told it to me, or if he only wanted to distract me from the question I had asked him. “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “I heard that story plenty of times, and that’s not how it ends. He made that ending up.”
    Jason had his head down, lighting a cigarette.
    “It ends with Old Man and Old Woman agreeing that the people will die forever. There isn’t any more,” said Minnie. She had a flat, expressionless face. From her eyes and mouth I couldn’t have told how sharp her words were.
    Jason sucked on his cigarette hard and didn’t look at either of us.
    “Maybe there are different versions of the story,” I said quietly.
    Minnie barely glanced at me. “That end sounds more like something from the Bible or something his mother would saythan anything that ever came out of our Elders’ mouths. I’ve never heard it that way. Never.”
    Jason said, “Minnie.”
    Minnie looked closely at me then. “He’s a liar, you know. Oh yes he is. You are.”
    Jason said, “I don’t have to take shit from you.”
    Minnie said, “You ask anyone here. Everyone knows he’s a liar. Isn’t he,” she asked the bartender. “Isn’t he. Don’t you believe anything he says. Nobody does.”
    Jason raised his bottle and slammed it down on the bar. Hard. We both jumped. The bottle did not break. As beer foamed and spilled over onto the pitted wood of the bar, Jason shoved back his chair and walked to a table at the other side of the room.
    “Jason,” called Angel, whom I now noticed sitting at a table near enough that maybe she’d heard everything. The two of them were like gulls circling a meal. More and more, I felt like