Page 94 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

Phoebe nodded solemnly, grave in the face of this wonderful responsibility. She slid one hand into Vivi’s, the other into Samuel’s. The three fell into step under the pines, silent and alert, listening for the persistent old shades who shared the woods with them.

Chapter 35

1943

Tu?ndoesn’t want to go see the strange old lady, but his grandmotherNg?cinsists.Tu?n, three years old and bolder than anyone still devoted to a pacifier should be, has better things to do with his day. There are worms to pull from their hidey holes. His mother’s yucca cakes beg for his attention. If he asks politely, his father might even play his flute.

But alas, it’s a day at the strange old lady’s house. The Foreigner, they call her, with awe, like it’s some great honor to be dumped from the sea into their wasted little corner of the world. But she doesn’t look foreign; she looks just like them. Many days, she’s in bed, sleeping the hours away. Sometimes, she roams in the forest, like a spirit from his grandmother’s folk tales. She never goes into town. She rejects nearly all company but their family’s.

Tu?nlikes the Foreigner’s knickknacks. She owns books with unfamiliar titles and squeezy bottles of a sticky, colorful substance that she applies to a sheet. In her nightstand, she keeps a photograph of a woman with curly hair.

When the Foreigner is around,Tu?n’s grandmother doesn’t pay attention to him. The two sit for hours, talking and talking, always about things that escape him. Sometimes they hold hands. Other times, theycry. But the past is an inscrutable thicket he has no urge to explore.Tu?nis only interested in the here and now. When their heads are bent toward each other, he thinks they look like beetles.

He kicks up the dirt and settles in the shade. If no one will listen to him, perhaps he will run away. Or maybe he’ll nap. Nothing can’t be fixed with food or sleep. Even at his tender age,Tu?nunderstands happiness. He knows he will walk in joy all the days of his life. How could someone so hardy, so full of promise, do anything but?

It’s a sprightly afternoon, neither too hot nor too cold. A breeze carries the scent of crushed lilies to his nose. He hears the playful trickle of the river; the bowing of the trees. In the distance, wings are flapping, like sets of hands gently meeting. The world, his personal lullaby.

At first, trapped within his musings,Tu?ndoesn’t notice her. Then some tightening in the air alerts him of another presence. He turns.

The Foreigner sits on a nearby rock, a book balanced on her knee. There is a peculiar intensity in her gaze, hungry almost. She wears men’s clothes, tailored in the European style. She’s holding something in her hand. She brings the object, a rod, close to the page, then swishes it, the wayTu?nswishes a stick in the mud to loosen the water scorpions.

Curious, he walks to join her. “What are you doing?”

“Painting,” she says. Her voice is low. When she meets his eye, he feels like something is unknotting inside of him. Strange and more strangeness.

“What’s that?”

“This is a paintbrush. It’s very powerful, you know. It can create anything your mind can see.”

“Anything?”Tu?nis doubtful. “Can it create a boat?”

“Of course.”

“A dragon?”

“As many as you like. It’s as good as a wand. Would you like to try?”

“No.” He feigns disinterest.

But then the pretending becomes too much. He edges closer andcloser, until his shadow covers the book. With a small smile, the Foreigner washes the brush in a glass jar, then mixes a color for him on a nearby plate. He thinks it’s the prettiest shade of blue he’s ever seen. Just darker than his father’s eyes. The blue of dreams.

“You now,” she says, handing him the brush.

He holds back at first. What if he does the wrong thing and ruins her book? She opens his fist and slides the paintbrush into it. A feeling deeper than desire moves through him at that moment.

“Let’s try together,” the Foreigner says.

She’s almost tender as she places her larger hand over his and moves the streak across the page. It shines wetly on the sea of white. At first, he only sees a scribble.Tu?nwants to huff away. He was promised magic. But she makes a tutting sound and he stills, chastened. Foreigners are known to be unpredictable.

He watches the scribble transform into something more. It becomes a future he cannot grasp in its entirety, one that he’s only just beginning to sense. That glimpse fills him with a light so palpable, so blinding, that he almost bursts into tears. How could something so beautiful have come from him? And, just as importantly, how could it have come from anyone else? Art, he’d later come to understand, is the state of housing thousands of stories inside the broken country of your heart, then choosing which you want to whisper into the world.

The Foreigner wraps an arm around him.

“I know, beloved,” she says. “I know.”

Tu?nwill be thinking of this moment a lifetime later as he drives down the country road that judders from the farmhouse like a wayward tail. He’ll be imagining dragons in the sky, the way their wings unfurl into the stars, how so much of life is pretending to fly, bluster and faith, and in the end, you can never tell if you really are getting close to paradise, to love, any of it. But you move forward, because that’s the only real antidote to death.

He’s been convinced of this ever since his father passed. WhenTu?nwas in his forties, Huy had died the way he lived, fitfully, with a frown on his face. But before he went, he passed an envelope toTu?n. Inside was a letter and a sketch. Huy’s words had been gargled with pain, butTu?ncould just make them out.