That was what happened when the three boys from town saw Rebecca standing in this exact same place on the shore, with dozens of birds perched on her outstretched arms. The frightened boys decided what they were seeing: something unnatural, that was their fatal estimation. Something as impossible as a sky that wasn’t really blue. Rebecca was only a girl, given over to the washerwoman when no one else wanted her, a child whose hands were ruined by the time she was ten, cracked by lye and grease. The shopkeepers didn’t like her in their stores, touching the silk or the biscuits, for her hands often bled from the work of doing their laundry. Girls her own age looked right past her, as though she were nothing more substantial than a pile of the ashes from which she made her soap. Men gazed at her and thought she’d be a pretty thing someday, if she had the chance to grow up without first being felled by fever, or hunger, or the thousand sorrows she’d be prey to before she was a woman. Women pitied her, but went on their way; they had their own troubles to attend to, and mercy was a scarce commodity.
But to those boys who were crouched down in the chokeberries on that day in March so long ago, it suddenly seemed that Rebecca was something more than a washerwoman’s girl. With her long black hair flying and her eyes shut tight, she looked as though she were dreaming, as though she were ready to rise up from the shoreline of the lake that was bottomless, as endless, some people said, as the sky up above. Soon there were so many birds, the boys could barely see Rebecca. She’d all but disappeared right in front of their eyes. Up to then, she’d had no name but Rebecca, given to her by the town fathers when she appeared out of the wilderness not speaking their language, wearing her silver star. Now, the boys gave her a second name. Rebecca Sparrow, they whispered, naming her then and there.
It was fearsome in some deep way to see her poised there, so unafraid. Other girls in town ran away from sparrows, as they did from bats and crows; such things, after all, were bad luck, bound to get tangled in your hair and bring death to a household. The girls in Unity didn’t go barefoot, as Rebecca did, the soles of her feet hardened by stones. Their hands didn’t bleed at the end of a day. They couldn’t call creatures out of the sky, without a single word, without a sign.
The boys began to whisper what all this might mean, first among themselves, then to anyone willing to listen. Gossip spread like fever, before there was time to take precautions. Soon enough, every boy in town had hidden in the chokeberries to watch Rebecca wash laundry, and every one swore he had spied a thousand birds perched on her shoulders as she hung yards of homespun and linen out to dry. Before long the women in town said a prayer whenever Rebecca brought baskets of clean, starched clothes to their back doors. They called her Rebecca Sparrow right to her face, and she didn’t seem to mind her name, not any more than she minded that her feet had been hardened or that her hands were so rough she could reach into pots of boiling water.
Rebecca took on her name the way she accepted the rest of her fate, and she never once complained. In time, she hoped to leave this place where the boys spied on her and threw rocks, where everyone thought they were better than she. One day, she might just fly away, and then they’d all be surprised. If she were fortunate, if she didn’t give up hope, if her wishes all came true, she might truly feel nothing at all.
III.
MATT AVERY had lived alone for eleven years, ever since his mother died, far too early, everyone agreed, for Catherine Avery was a kind soul who deserved an easier end to her life. There wasn’t a day that went by during her last miserable weeks when Catherine didn’t have at least one visitor, a neighbor, a ministering angel from down the street or across town who had brought over a pan of macaroni and cheese or a chicken potpie along with their warmest regards. These kind folks—Eddie Baldwin and his family, the Harmon brothers, Iris Elliot and her half-sister, Marlena Elliot-White—all insisted Matt take the opportunity to go get himself some rest while there was someone else to watch over Catherine. Matt would gratefully sink into his bed for a few hours of a deep sleep so crammed with realistic dreams—dreams of bread and butter, of washing his hands, of mowing lawns—that he sometimes awoke thinking he’d dreamed up his mother’s illness as well. But, no, there she was when he went back to the living room, still in a hospital bed, still in pain, doing her best to appear cheerful, insisting to Matt that she was fine, when it was clear she was dying.
Elinor Sparrow came to call once a week. Then, as time wore on and Catherine’s health disintegrated further, she stopped by more often. She brought bay laurel, which grew wild around Cake House, and bunches of Fairy roses; she brought a book of fairy tales, which were the only stories Catherine wanted read to her. Catherine’s mother had read such tales to her when she was a girl, but now the stories came alive for her. As it turned out, Elinor Sparrow, who had never bothered to read to her own daughter, had a talent for voices. She was as believable a fox as she was a sheep. An excellent princess, a wonderful shepherd, a witch so convincing Catherine had to be given an extra dose of morphine in order to get to sleep after certain tales were read.