Four and Twenty Blackbirds Read Online Free PDF Page B

you—stop it, Lulu, I want to—"
    A small head was in the way. It was the boy she'd pushed apart from the man I supposed was his father. The boy stared at me, or through me, as if he could see something inside that I wanted to keep hidden. I tried to lean around him, but his sharp nose demanded my attention. I reached for him to push him away, but his father grabbed him first—like he didn't want me to touch his kid. He drew the child away from me as if I was contaminated.
    I glared at them both and he continued to stare blankly over his shoulder, his eyes not leaving mine and his expression not changing. They left through the main doors and I was glad to see them gone.
    "Hey, old lady," I said once they were out of the way. I think I was almost loud enough to embarrass Lulu.
    "Go on, now, Tatie," she said over my head. "You and I can talk later if you want, but you leave her be." I couldn't believe it. Lulu was actually pleading with the dwarfish, crooked woman in expensive makeup.
    Tatie fired her question at me again. "Do you know who I am, girl?"
    "You're the crazy guy's aunt."
    "And you know who else?" she prompted, shimmying closer.
    "Some screwy old lady?"
    All the wrinkles in her face sank down to the brim of her nose. She looked positively wicked. She was Snow White's stepmother in a designer dress. "You come here, you mixed-breed brat."
    "You leave her alone!" Lulu almost shouted it, forcing me towards Dave.
    One of the bailiffs raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with the judge, who hesitated at his bench but made no move to intervene. Lulu rotated me a full one hundred and eighty degrees, trying to force me out the other way. But I turned my head and shook it, answering Eliza well enough.
    "I," she raised a gnarled finger and repeated the pronoun, " I am your aunt! Hers too—that hussy who'd close your ears if she could. How you like that, girl? An' how do you like that, hussy?"
    Lulu was behind me then, pushing me with her knees along the pewlike bench and shoving me towards the door. "Devil take you, Eliza. You and your maniac boy both."
    "Maybe he will," she called back. "But I said it already— blood will tell . And that girl will follow him soon enough. You hear me, girl? You'll join him soon, like your mother before you. They'll take you off to Pine Breeze too!"
    And we were clear.
    Lulu dragged me down the steps and out into the parking lot before I could hear more. My dress shoes clacked and scraped on the asphalt as I hurried to match her long strides towards the car.
    "Is that right?" I demanded, squirming my arm free and nearly sprinting by her side. "Is she our aunt?"
    When we got to the car, Dave unlocked the door and hustled us into the front seat. "Yeah, is she?" he asked. Together we ganged up to stare down a sullen Lulu. I was surprised by the alliance, and by the fact that there was something about me and Lulu that he didn't know.
    My aunt drew her shoulders back, pretending that the seat belt chafed. Without looking over at either of us, she grumbled her unhappy response. "Yes. She's distant kin. Don't make more of it than needs to be said."
    "Wow," Dave said.
    "Wow," I echoed. Out the back window I saw two policemen guiding my cousin, Malachi Dufresne, into a van with iron mesh bars on the windows. He paused and scanned the crowd, one foot poised midair.
    One of the cops pushed him forward, and he disappeared into the vehicle.
    Later that night I cornered Lulu in the kitchen. You corner Lulu and you're taking your chances, but I was feeling brave after what I saw as my victory in the courtroom. I sidled up alongside her at the sink and broached the subject I knew she least wanted to see brought up. "So what is that place, what Aunt Eliza said?"
    "Don't call her that."
    "What was it you called her? Tatie? What's that mean? It's not like 'Katie,' is it? It's not like a name or something?"
    "Just call her Eliza. She never needs to hear more than that from you."
    I