ࡱ> JLIk GbjbjZ Z 7P8cb8cb? 44444HHHH\HD2pppppKKK$v,f4KKKKK44ppSSSKv4p4pSKSSSpP)=%FS0DSLS4S\KKSKKKKKSKKKDKKKKKKKKKKKKK B : HYMNALS By Noche Gauthier WV Fiction Competition Third Place Winner Selected by Barbara Kingsolver Barbara Kingsolver selected the winners of the 2022 WV Fiction Competition, and Noches story was chosen by Kingsolver to receive Third Prize. Kingsolver wrote critiques of each of the finalist stories, and here is what she wrote about Noches tale: This is a lovely set piece: two children find a dead bird that they see as an omen of their grandmothers death. They take it outside and put it in the creek, in hopes of changing her fate. The language of this short narrative is beautiful, lyrical and impressionistic. Many sentences could stand alone as poetry. And in poetry, language alone is everything. A short story, by contrast, is propelled by plot, or sometimes by character, if a satisfying shift in a persons outlook can be earned in the brief space allowed. The short stories of Eudora Welty are a great model of how a characters world can turn in a very few pages. Lee Smiths, as well. In the case of this story, very little happens. The points that get made are sometimes repeated many times. We understand that the younger brother is the pious one. We understand that the narrator wishes she could do something to prevent her grandmothers death. She seems to have an epiphany at the end a literal falling down, as if on the road to Damascus but did something actually happen here, to warrant this breathless collapse? Im not sure. I reread carefully, saw the falling down, the anger and tears, the regret, the wishing. Even wishing shed prayed, though it does not seem she did. And then I see singing trees. I really wish I knew why. This authors grasp of language and voice are so powerful, I believe that with some work, this story can discover its plot and reveal its true intentions. We knew Gran would die when Joe found the grackle. The cat had dragged it in by its delicate neck, left the small bird just inside the door, splayed like an open casket viewing on our welcome mat. He had called out to me from where I was in the kitchen, in that rushed tone of voice that meant a calf was coming, or some man we didnt know was on our land. I had been trying to contact the doctor when I dropped the phone straight from the wall, going to Joe as quickly as I could. The bird cupped in the palms of his hands was too far gone to set loose like a dove. He looked up at me from where he knelt, earnest eyes trying to capture mine, asking what to do without saying it. I bent down to his level to inspect the bird, my hands gentle on his, trying to keep my face calm. A pair of puncture wounds were solidly placed on each side of the grackles breast. Joe held the bird with curled fingers, almost afraid Id take it from him, as though hed found some relic from the tomb of an apostle. He whispered to me, with earnest, wide eyes, Ma says I know, I whispered, I know what she says. I glanced out the picture window to the front of our house, where the hills of Bull Run dipped and spun down to the bustling valley below us. My mind went first to our creek, far enough from where Gran sat in a back bedroom, perhaps feeling strong enough now to raise herself up on her elbows and look out onto the green fields of our farm. Joe and I stared at each other, and then the soft feathers of the small bird, its eyes closed like my brother had only been rocking the sweet creature to sleep. With determination, I dragged him by the shoulder out to the backwoods. There we would scramble over barbed wire, broken bottles, and the hollow frames of windows devoid of glass panes left as past-life in-memoriams. Psalms written into our land, reciting the words of a time bygone. Down below the rocky hills, he set the birds corpse adrift in the creek. We both knew without speaking that mountain water was the holiest thing to exist in the hills we had grown up in. Long had we heard stories of folks dropping things into the creek of Bull Run, wedding rings, certificates, necklaces, bodies. A way of washing clean a part of yourself, perhaps bright as copper long before. When Joe and I were young and spindly as newborn calves, Gran had walked us to the creek as we delighted in the freedom of the woods. She sat in silence as we turned up dirt and searched for treasure in the crevices of the cool water. She would eventually stop us, soft eyes suddenly serious, calling out, You both be respectful here, this is a worship place. Looking up to see vines of ivy, redbud and oak trees scattered like jewels from someones hand, I thought only of Eden. I wondered if Eve, too, had warned her progeny of the power of holy places. Standing there, Joe kept quiet, in his timid way, watching the water ebb and flow in the slight stagnancy of flat places. I thought of Ma then, who had been out in the back garden when we fled the scene. Ma said the legends of the people of Bull Run were all true. That things got corroded like coins in a creek-bed, that there was a difference between our storytellers and gossipthere was too much of one and not enough of the other. She had told Joe and I that gossipers were street corner preachers, Ill pray for you, women with gilt-edged bibles dressed in fake smiles and derby hats. She assured us that any woman dressed up to go to the races never walked with anything but the noise of her own mind. Her words, her determination of the truth in stories, is what stood us there, hoping to wash away the darkness with the corpse of a bird. I wondered, standing there with only the solemnness of my brother, what she would have said. I could picture the acceptance on her face, more painful than any other realization. It was her ease with the toss up of fate that caught me by the throat. Her unquestioning faith in the mercy of the omnipotent. I was sure, this story was one she would have left well enough alone, choosing the light in her being over the omen of our grackle. Shed have resolutely buried the bird just beyond the patch of string beans in the garden. Its her time, Ma would have said. Shed walk the back fields in quiet, reciting verses in her head and waiting for the inevitable. She didnt question the truth of stories, yet that business of the creek would have been pushing Gods will. Had I told her, I knew I would have only been angered by her absolute acceptance. Joe wouldve followed after her, done as she had instructed and kept his mouth closed tight. There though, with the two of us planted into the ground, I stood hopeful in our decision. The Virginia sun came sparkling down through the patchwork of oak and eastern redbud. The air smelt like the heat of summer, burning up the grass and brightening the smell of honeysuckle. I could hear Joes unsureness, just as well as I had memorized the sound of his voice. I knew what he was thinking before he said it, This wont stop anything. He came to stand next to me, so close his shoulder almost brushed my own. His defeatedness was hard to stomach, like a dose of bitter elderberry or dinner table sermons led by guests who couldnt praise religion in the honey-spoken poetry of Ma. I turned then to look at him, to see the wide eyes of a ten-year-old boy. His dark hair was cut in patches from where hed let Gran have a go at it, her pale hands shaking with the energy of snipping scissors. I wanted to reassure him, to pull him into my arms in the way Id seen Ma do, coo to him and tell him with resolve that our actions had fixed the inevitable. I had faith that some day perhaps Id discover my own divinity; a power in turning the things I didnt want to face into fable, just as easily as water could run red with the color of wine. A hope that some day hed turn to look up at me with the same strength of faith he and Ma shared, but I could only tighten my lips in a thin line. Heidi, he whispered, lets go home. Joe had always been the kid Gran and Ma had wanted him to be, the perfect Sunday Service poster child, with his wide, straight smile and easy stance. He never questioned or paused too long to think at services, he led prayer with his head up, not having once to glance down at the verses, having tattooed them in his head. He was genuine, soft, and accepting of what I feared I simply could not handle. This bird, I knew, would be something he would read over in his mind. My hope had left me to believe that perhaps he wouldnt question me, have the same faith for me as he did for the other women we shared a home with. The grackle had floated just far enough that it was a purple speck in the distance. Still, I felt its ominous cloud over me, like the scythe raised to brush its blade gently up my neck. The scene begged the question: just how far can you go to try and prevent the inevitable? Grans soft eyes danced in my head, the slight downward turn to their corners, sunken with age. She had always favored Joe and his devotion, his bent prayer over her patchwork quilt, tucked delicately into the worn mattress of her oak-framed bed. How far? I wondered again. Joe strayed further than me, clambering up the rocky hillside. We shared a final glance, a blood understanding that I just would not conform to the wishes he had. Everything about his face said preacher, with his brooding resolve, brow in a firm line. It wont stop anything. He repeated. The sun glittered on his face, lighting up the sapphire of his eyes in a way that made me hope perhaps he hadnt accepted the finality of our situation after all. He looked at me a final time, heaved a big sigh and started the trek back up through the trees. I stayed a few lingering moments, just to check that the bird had drifted far enough downstream. At the banks of the creek, I could see where the water had begun to stain with the red of creek clay, as it would be till the summer rain stopped and the dog days of August reclaimed most of it into the ground. Grans voice stayed gentle in the back of my mind. Nevermind her favoritism, I adored her for her graceful softness. The grackle was the omen that caught my breath in my throat, and held it there like my last grip to hope. I thought that acceptance would be letting out that final breath, the one I knew Joe had released into the air as a vow of faith. My boy felt heavy, weighted and stopped dead in its tracks. I hoped the birds body, buoyed by the creek, would wash away any worry I had had. I could picture the grackle firmly in my mind still, its purple, shimmering body limp and pulled by the current. When I pictured it sinking to the bottom of the creekbed, I thought for the first time of praying. Of raising my head to the sky in this sacred place of ours. The idea of calling out into the open to be met with silence kept me from speaking. I wrung my hands and thought only of Gran. It had happened this way before, on a lesser scale when we couldnt keep our mares colt alive. His body strewn out in the straw of our little barn, born pre-maturely, his far-too-small chest heaving with the effort of forcing breaths. Gran had grabbed me with an outreached arm, stopping me from getting any closer to him, Let him go, Heidi, she soothed me by rubbing my shoulders, hes got somewhere good to go. She prayed for him, after stroking the white star on his forehead. There she would start to sing a song she long had from our book of hymnals, soft voice barely above a whisper, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like meI once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see The grackle had long since disappeared when I turned from the creek, grabbing onto the low branch of a redbud to pull myself up the hill. Pausing, I turned back to watch the water flow down out into the valley, where somewhere far below us, people carried on with their lives. The forest I walked through to head back toward home was blooming with life, the wind allowed the leaves to dance a two-step, back-and-forth. I thought at that moment that I noticed far too much, as if the next time Id walk that path Id be tainted with the memory of my actions, the dark stain of guilt. The call into radio-silence I would forever have wished Id made. The house was silent when I creaked open the screen door. Light poured in through the picture windows in the kitchen, igniting the house in the golden glow of a late summer afternoon. The silence was louder than our small house had ever been before. I ghosted through the rooms, out to the back porch, where I was faced with Ma and Joe curled on the corner couch, staring out into the field where the horses quietly grazed. Ma? I asked. The realization swept over me, cold and fast. Joes face was hidden, tucked into his knees that hed drawn to his chest. I stood there frozen, the screen door to the porch still held open by my hand. My heartbeat went quiet, and my body felt dull. Before I could process anything, Id turned back around and fled straight through the house. Back through the kitchen, I stumbled out the front door. The afternoon light was blinding, causing my mind to reel. My feet carried me before I asked them to. I went wherever I could find to go, somewhere other than the house with images of Gran: her quilts, her cat, pictures and paintings, the lingering scent of her lavender oil. I couldnt care for direction, I felt blind with confusion and anger, piercing through my chest. Instead, I found myself scrambling back toward the forest, with a pang in my chest. My feet carried me to an arch in our woods, where the creek flowed somewhere below me. My breath felt ragged as I reeled with my newfound reality, and slowly came down to my knees, where for the first time I felt the hot, sticky tears run down my face. It was then that I wished I had made completely sure that the bird had disappeared. Buried it, prayed it away, lit it on fire. Whatever I could have done to have wished away Gods inevitable. The dark cloud of grief came over me, a familiar shadow that I felt had been walking and waiting with me my entire life. Was this punishment? I wondered. Was this what happened to those who could not believe? I let a few moments pass in silence, so I could just sit and catch my breath in the woods. My chest felt heavy and constrained, but the tears had stopped. In my mind, I nursed the grackle back to health, and found some mysterious remedy to patch the holes in its chest. If you had prayed harder, I thought. If you had gotten on your knees and begged that He save her. I controlled my breathing when my skin lit up with sunlight. The patches were coming down, glittering on my face and hands, causing me to have to blink in the light. The woods were swaying with the evening wind, sending lights dancing on the ground I had collapsed to. Grans eyes were in my head at that moment, dark brown and deeply faithful. I breathed in the lavender, early Sunday mornings, and the way her box of powder makeup smelt. When I sat there, glued to the ground with my eyes on the sky, I had a grackle in my hands that I was preparing to set loose like a dove. There, looking up from my place in the ground, I took in the holy wonder of our woods. There was a memoriam where I sat, watching the wind pick up, shifting light and shadow through the leaves. I released my hold on my grief for a pause in time to feel the warmth of sunlight drift on and off my face. Gran had taught me as a child that loss was a thing we would spend our whole lives experiencing. Our colt came back to me, strewn out in the straw with his eyes gently closed. The constant preparation for the death I had been trained to receive. With my knees in the dirt and my head raised, I breathed out with the release of my guilt. Sat there, I felt encompassed in light. In my head, Gran appeared to me, walking down her lines of purple irises, singing something I couldnt recognize. The world was glittering around me, I could smell Grans flowers, honeysuckle, and the deepness of the ground I sat on. Between the arch of two blackjack oaks, I took in the holy wonder of our woods. There, I grew comfortable with God and death, as finally I raised my white flag in my fight with the inevitable. 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