Brian stood in the doorway. “You about ready, Lori? It’s getting late.”
“Just give me another couple of minutes,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
He nodded and disappeared into the living room. I turned back to Charly. “The danger. How am I in danger?”
Now Charly stood. She came around the table and knelt beside me. “Your mother’s sight was much stronger than mine. She could see things that I could only imagine. She told me the next day what had happened between her and the man. After I left, he told her to stay there with him. He didn’t ask her, he
told
her, and she told him no, she wouldn’t.
“She was frightened, Lori, afraid of his powers. What she didn’t know then was that her powers were just as strong as his. At that time she may have been able to destroy him, if she had known.
“She held her ground, your mother did, and he backed off. ‘Another day then,’ he said to her. ‘I’ll ask you another day
.
’ Then she said the flames in his outstretched hands grew brighter and shot up in the air, into the sky, and he vanished into the ground. Like a genie returning to his lamp, is the way she put it.”
“Did she see him again?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, many times. I never went back there, to the paper sky, but your mother went there often. Not of her own accord, though. After her encounter with the man of fire, she never wanted to return. She had no choice. There were times when she didn’t see him; times when she was surrounded by beauty as she walked with the deer made of straw.
“At other times, he waited for her. His pleas for her to join him became more desperate. He threatened your father and he threatened you. He said he would destroy the both of you if she didn’t stay.
“It was then, Lori, that your mother discovered her power. She cried and began to pray out loud, and as she did, the deer of straw moved beside her. Except then, the deer was made of more than straw. Mary said steel bands wrapped around its body, and its antlers were also of steel, and they glowed red, as if animated by the fires of a furnace.
“The deer pawed the ground and lowered its head. It charged the man, and your mother heard him cry out before he became a ball of flame.
“There was a bright flash of light when they met. A light so bright, your mother held her hand to her eyes. When she opened them, the man and the deer were gone. She saw a cloud of black smoke rising into the sky. She followed it with her eyes, and she told me she now stood on a hill overlooking Clarksdale. The dark cloud hovered over the town, and then the colors of the paper sky returned and the smoke vanished in its beauty.”
“But it wasn’t dead, was it? The scarecrow hadn’t been killed.” I said.
“No, but she had wounded it. She had shown it her power. It was the last time she spoke to me of the paper sky. I never asked her again about her dreams. If she visited the paper sky after that, she never told me about it.”
Outside the sky had turned an ashen gray. It was time to leave, but I had a final question, one I did not want to ask but had no choice. “Did the smoke man, the scarecrow, kill my mother and father?”
Charly said nothing at first and then she shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. They both died too young, I do know that. They both died way too young.”
We both stood and she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “You have the power too, Lori,” she whispered in my ear “You have the sight, and it may be stronger than your mother’s. You need to protect yourself and your husband. Whatever the paper sky is, whatever the thing is that calls it his world, you have to end it. You need to be brave.”
She kissed my cheek, and I heard her sob. It was on me now. It was my responsibility,
my fate
, to protect my husband, and my child yet to be born.
“I will protect my family.” I broke away from Brian’s mother but still held her shoulders, as I looked her in the eyes. “I believe that thing, whatever he or it is, a prisoner or a ruler, I believe that thing was responsible for the death of my parents. I promise you, I will not let him harm any more people I love.”
I gripped her shoulders as tightly as she had gripped my hand.
“The next time I return to the paper sky, I’ll kill that son of a bitch.”
Rosalind Mary Mayfield came into this world on the second day of June, 1971. Brian’s parents, Charly and Paul, were a constant presence at the Columbus Sacred Heart Hospital before, during, and after the birth. I’d like to think my parents were there too. In fact, I’m sure they were.
Aunt Betsy visited twice, each time with a huge stuffed animal in hand, and I even received a visit from Brian’s Uncle Todd who, according to my husband, was in the running for the world’s biggest lush. He certainly did nothing to dispel the notion that day. He seemed tipsy when he entered the room. His gift, a bottle of Irish whisky, didn’t make it through the afternoon, as it made the rounds between Todd and Brian’s dad. Even Brian took a hearty swig before collapsing in a coughing fit.
Each time I looked at my baby in my arms, I smiled. And, each time, I thought of the smoke man of the paper sky.
I had not dreamed of the place since my talk with Charly, not once. In a sense I was relieved, but I was also worried. What if I never returned there? What if the thing grew stronger in my absence? What if it was once again more flame than smoke? I thought of my last journey to the Clarksdale of the paper sky, and how the steel mill had grown, how it had taken over the town. Was there a connection there? A connection between the mill and the scarecrow?
I looked down at my daughter. Somewhere in her face - her eyes, her nose, her mouth - was a part of my mother, the part that would live again through Rosalind.
Not long ago, I told Charly I needed to return to the paper sky before my daughter was born. I needed to end it before it was too late.
“It’s all in the hands of God,” she said. “God will take you there when he is ready.”
I didn’t recall her mentioning God before. “Do you think God has something to do with this? Do you think God is involved in some way?”
She smiled. “My dear child,” she said. “Let’s hope so.”
Life settled into a regular routine. Brian worked while I took care of Rosie. I felt guilty asking Brian to see to her when she cried at night. He had to work the next day when I didn’t, and at least I could take an afternoon nap when Rosie took hers.
It was during one of those mid-day naps that I returned to the paper sky. It was a brief trip, but long enough to know something was not right.
I no longer stood on a hill. This time I stood in the town square of Clarksdale, not far from the gazebo in the park, the location of the scarecrow’s first sighting by my mother. And yes, the scarecrow was now my official name for the vile entity that haunted this place.
If he was lurking around, I neither saw nor felt his presence. The paper sky had returned in all its majesty. Ribbons of color crossed the afternoon sky in a tapestry of tones, ebbing and flowing.
I found I could walk. For the first time under the paper sky, I had legs beneath me, moving me from my starting point to wherever I chose to go. I decided to head in the direction of my home, my first home that is, not the house where I currently resided.
Clarksdale had an eerie, deserted look to it. I noticed there were no vehicles of any kind on the streets, and even if there were, there was no one around to drive them. I saw no straw deer roaming about, nor any foxes blending into the scenery. In this paper sky Clarksdale, I seemed to be the only living inhabitant.
Another strange thing was that the town shops and businesses stood where they belonged, but the signage displaying their names was missing. I came to Read’s drugstore where Brian and I first talked about our dreams over milkshakes years before. The glass window by the entrance was covered with a layer of soot. In fact, when I looked around, I saw a black sediment on everything; the sidewalks, the grass, the streets. I rubbed a small circle of the window clean and looked inside. The overhead lights were off and the interior seemed too dark for such a sunny day, but otherwise the interior of the place looked the same.
Overall, the town had the feel of abandonment, as if its occupants had left in a hurry. But if they had, they left no tracks, no footprints, and no trash on the ground. There was no evidence anywhere, at least in the town’s center, that anyone had ever lived there.
I walked out of the commercial district and into the resident neighborhood. The houses in this part of town were large Victorians, all angles and of colors that should have matched the sky for variety had they not also been covered in soot.
I had made my way to where Main Street crossed Elm. I turned right. My house was another five blocks up. The gritty residue covering everything seemed to get thicker as I traveled.
“You should be wearin’ shoes, missy,” a voice said from nearby. “That stuff is near impossible to get off of skin.”
An old man sat on a rocking chair on the porch of one of those sooty Victorians. He wore a red plaid shirt and washed out jeans held up by suspenders. He smoked a corncob pipe as he swayed back and forth, staring at me.
“Come on up and rest a bit. I rarely get company around these parts anymore, at least not the human kind.”
I stood my ground. “Where is everybody?” I asked.
“I ain’t gonna shout at ya. You wanna talk, come closer.”
I moved to the steps and as I looked down, I saw that the man was right. I was barefoot.
“That’s brazen, hiking shoeless in that black powder. Might want to bathe real good once you get home.”
I went up the steps slowly. They felt slippery, as if coated with ice.
“Shoulda told ya to watch your step. The path to the porch gets slick sometimes.”
“Who are you?” I asked him when I had reached the landing. He took a mighty drag from his pipe and blew out a massive cloud of smoke before he spoke.
“Like my hat?” He took off his wide brimmed straw hat and held it in front of him, admiring it. “Took me a long time to take down that deer, but it was sure worth it.”
“You killed the straw deer?” I asked in a low voice.
The man laughed loudly before he stuck the hat firmly on his scalp.
“Just joshin’ ya, missy. Just joshin’.” He nodded to the wooden chair beside him. “Sit down for a spell. Take a load off. You’re the first I’ve seen in, I don’t know, a year, maybe two. Nice to hear another voice ’sides my own.”
“Are you the only one here?” I asked him.
“Far as I know. Been that way for a while now.”
“So there’s no other people here besides you?”
“People? No. They’re long gone. Used to get visitors though; not many, but some.” The man took another drag off his pipe. The smoke he exhaled formed into three perfect rings, one following the other.
“Nice trick,” I said.
“Oh, I’ve got more than that. You ain’t seen nothing, yet.”
The smoke rings mesmerized me so, I almost forgot where I was. “What happened to the people?”
“Hell if I know. They were gone by the time I got here. My guess is something scared ’em off.”
“Maybe it was the scarecrow that scared them away,” I said. “Maybe he frightened them into leaving.”
“The scarecrow? Tell me about this scarecrow character.”
I told him what I’d seen and what I knew from my mother and Charly.
“Paper birds, huh,” the man said. “Did they look like this?”
He put the pipe stem in his mouth and drew in. I watched his cheeks hollow as he did this. Then he exhaled a large cloud of smoke, a dark grey in color. The cloud hung heavy in the air above him. Something moved around inside it, as if trying to get out.
When it finally did burst through, it startled me so much I nearly flipped backward in my chair. The white paper bird circled the porch before perching on the rail in front of me. I leaned in. One of its wings was bent downward, just a bit, as if someone had stepped on it.
I heard the faint crying of an infant somewhere off in the distance.
“Sounds like someone’s getting hungry,” the man said. “Told ya I had more tricks up my sleeve.”
The crying sound became louder.
“Shame you gotta run off. We really had much more to talk about.”
The cloud of smoke grew larger and darker as it moved from the confines of the porch to the sky beyond. The sound of crying grew louder.
“Looks like I’ll have to save my tricks for your next visit. You will be coming back, won’t you? I expect you’ll want to see the real magic then.”
I held out my hand, I’m not sure why, and the bird flew on it.
“Take him with you, if you’d like. My present to you.” The man turned his head to me and grinned. “I may have underestimated you, my dear. It seems you have become stronger.”
The child’s crying became louder still. The sound throbbed in my head.
“But so have I, Lori. So have I.”
He opened his mouth wide, and I saw the needles, hundreds of them, sharp and ready. The day had turned dark as night and coal black snow fell from the sky.
I’m coming, Rosie, I’m coming.
I gripped the paper bird tightly.
I awoke on the sofa, in exactly the same position I’d fallen asleep, on my back with my arms folded across my chest. Rosie’s cries brought me to my feet.
“Coming, honey,” I yelled out.
As I entered her bedroom door, I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. The origami bird, Brian’s bird, had made its way from my dresser to hers. It now faced her crib, leaning on a paper wing that bent downward.
I took Rosie in my arms and cradled her, bouncing her lightly as I walked around the room. When the cries reduced to a whimper, I fed her, singing softly to her the entire time.
Sitting on the sofa, singing a Beatles song.
On the carpet, dirty smudges. No, they were footprints.
I propped up my feet on the coffee table. Both were black with soot.
Footprints, my footprints going from the sofa to Rosie’s room.
I stopped singing, but Rosie didn’t mind. She had fallen asleep once more while resting in my arms.
Don’t dream, Rosie. Please, don’t dream.