by Greg Howard
Resting my head against the stump, listening to the water trickle through holes in the dam, I drink the last of the water Mordecai gave me. My eyelids feel like they’re made of concrete. If I could just close them for five minutes . . .
* * *
Mama sits on the swing on the back porch, watching me direct the Pentecostal corn choir. She just got home from her shift at the hospital and says she’s too tired to join me, but she’ll watch, so we give her a private concert. We open with “Amazing Grace,” followed by “Blessed Assurance,” and then close with her favorite hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul.”
* * *
Mama lies on her and Daddy’s bed, taking a nap. Thankfully she finally quit the temp job at the hospital, but she’s still tired a lot because she has a real bad flu or something. I guess I accidentally wake her, because she sits up.
“What time is it, Button?” she says, looking at me.
Her hair is weird and her face is pale. This flu has really done a number on her.
“It’s six thirty,” I say.
“Did Grandma bring you boys some supper?” she asks. “Is your daddy home yet?”
She stands up and walks toward me. That’s when I see it. The Windy City Slasher’s butcher knife lying on the bed. I panic. I’m having the dream again and I’m stuck in it. I can’t wake myself up this time, hard as I try. I feel like I’m drowning in an ocean of sleep.
“Hurry, Mama.”
It’s all I can get out, but she doesn’t walk any faster. She’s tired. The knife floats up off the bed and hangs in midair, pointing right at her back.
“Mama, please hurry!” I yell, but it’s like she’s walking in slow motion now. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
“Mama!” I try to run to her, but my feet are glued to the floor and I can’t move them. My breath catches in my throat. I reach out to Mama with both hands just as the Windy City Slasher’s knife sails through the air at her.
* * *
I wake up screaming.
Tucker lifts his head with a start, ears pointing straight up to Jesus. He stares at me with that was it the nightmare again, dude? look on his face.
A soft buzz in my ear startles me. I scramble to my feet and spin around hoping it’s not a moth. But then it’s gone. The light in the woods has dimmed quite a bit. How long was I asleep? Five minutes? Five days? Heck if I know.
I scan the treetops but can’t really tell where the sun is. It might’ve set already. What if I missed them? I walk over to the edge of the creek, kneel down, and splash water on my face. It’s cold and stings my skin in a good way. I have to stay awake.
I look up. A lone beaver with a stick in his mouth trots along the top of the dam, not even giving me a second look. He goes back and forth over one area until he finds the spot he wants and places the stick carefully. Beavers have a lot of perseverance.
Perseverance is when you’re able to wait for something without getting your panties all in a wad.
Like, You need some real perseverance to build a dam one stick at a time.
Riley.
I spin around in the direction of the tiny voice, but I can’t tell which direction it came from. Something grazes my arm and I scramble back over to the stump. Tucker sits up on his haunches and sniffs the air like he smells them. I take a deep breath and wait. Watch. Listen.
Riley.
I look all around for them, but the voices are everywhere. The evening concert by nature’s symphony begins, making it even harder to pinpoint where they are. I close my eyes and imagine the Whispers dancing to the music as if part of the performance. Another slight brush on the rim of my ear makes me open my eyes again.
One by one, they slip through the back door of my imagination and out into the real world. I see them—the floating blue lights, fading in and out, and suddenly they’re everywhere. One right next to me, only a few inches away. One drifting through the air on the other side of the creek. Two to my right, another on my left, weaving in and out of the treetops and then appearing out of nowhere right in front of my face. Once I set my eyes on one Whisper, it disappears. It’s like they’re playing hide-and-seek with me or want me to chase them. I stay perfectly still and in no time flat they multiply five times over. I can’t believe how many there are now—maybe hundreds, maybe thousands. They leave trails of shimmering blue light. Little blue fairies, just like Mordecai said—it’s beautiful and magical.
Tucker suddenly comes alive, jumping around trying to catch them in his mouth. I don’t think he’s trying to eat them, but without hands it’s his only way to grab at them.
“Tucker, no!”
He doesn’t listen to me. He follows them down the bank of the creek, stomping at the ones flying close to the ground with his giant paws. I’m actually more worried about Tucker than the Whispers. They could have magical zapping powers or something that could reduce Tucker to ashes or fry his cyborg dog motherboard and paralyze him forever if he makes them angry.
“Tucker!”
He looks back at me and freezes for a second, his panting on overdrive.
I point my finger at him and give him a stern look. “No!”
He whines and eyes the Whispers zooming around his head, but he stops snapping at them with his huge cyborg dog jaws of death. I put a finger to my lips, motioning for him to be quiet. Nature’s symphony gets louder, drawing even more Whispers out into the open to join in the production. Now is my chance. But with Grandpa’s Swiss Army knife and Mama’s wedding ring gone, I don’t have a tribute left to give them. Maybe they’ll understand.
I go over to the stump and stand behind it like it’s the preacher’s podium at North Creek Church of God. Clearing my throat, I give Tucker one more silent warning, pointing my finger at him. He sits there a few feet way, panting hard with his whole body and looking anxious, but obeying. I watch the swarm of Whispers in front of me. I’m not afraid to look directly at them now because I have nothing else to lose. Not even hope.
“I gave you everything I have,” I say in a surprisingly loud and clear voice. “My grandpa’s antique Swiss Army knife and my mama’s wedding ring. You told me she was here. So, where is she?”
A honeysuckle-scented breeze rolls over the creek like a fragrant ocean wave. I listen carefully, trying to weed out any sound other than the voices of the Whispers. A soft, wispy word buzzes in my ear.
Tribute.
“I don’t have any more tributes!” I kind of shout it. I’m tired and angry. And I want this to be over.
Soul.
The word rings in my ears. Tucker becomes agitated and growls at them. He doesn’t move or pounce, but I guess he can understand them because he doesn’t like what they just said.
I sigh, all patience gone. “My soul? How the heck do I even do that? What about my family? I couldn’t do that to them.”
I hope the Whispers don’t call my bluff. Honestly my family would be just fine without me. They’d probably be better off not having to see the face of the person responsible for Mama’s disappearance staring back at them every day.
I look around, wondering if Mordecai really is out there somewhere keeping an eye on me like he said he would. If he is, I could really use his help right now.
“This isn’t a game,” I say, louder and with an edge to my voice. It’s not what I’d planned to say, but I feel like I’m channeling Detective Chase Cooper, bargaining with the perp. “A woman could be in danger. She needs help. Take me to her now and I’ll never bother you ever again.”
The Whispers fill the air, their soft blue glow fading in and out like the heartbeat of the entire woods. Tucker is surrounded and edges back nervously.
A single tiny voice tickles my ear. Soul.
“I can’t!” My voice echoes through the trees, releasing Mama’s forbidden word from my lips. Its sting lingers on my tongue. “I can’t give you my soul. I don�
��t know how.”
You’re close.
She’s close.
My heart nearly pounds its way right through my shirt. “Mama?” I whisper back.
Carolyn.
Mama.
I don’t understand how to give the Whispers my soul as a tribute, or what would happen to me if I did. Would I really become like them and have to stay with them here in the woods forever like the story says? But . . . I don’t care anymore. If that’s what it takes to find Mama, it’s worth it. She can come visit me in the woods and I can whisper to her through the wind every evening during magic time. It won’t be exactly the same as having a real mama, but it’ll be better than having no mama at all.
“Okay,” I say in a loud and steady voice. “I’ll give you my soul. Show me how. Please. Show me.”
Tears stream cold down my cheeks and sobs of exhaustion and desperation force me to my knees. I shake all over. I’m cold and I feel like I’m crumbling into a million pieces. I don’t know what’s happening to me. The sobbing takes over my whole body in heaving waves of sorrow. I can’t control it or hold it in. I’ve never cried like this before, but now I can’t stop. Maybe this is how the Whispers take your soul. Maybe your soul pours out of you in an ocean of tears. Maybe that’s where your soul lives—in your tears.
But it doesn’t bring Mama back. I cry out every tear of my soul for the Whispers, but she doesn’t come. They lied to me. The Whispers lied.
I scramble to my feet and scream, swatting at them with both hands, but I can barely see through all the soul pouring out of my eyes. This gets Tucker going again and he joins me in my war on the Whispers as best he can.
“You said she was here! You lied to me! I hate you!”
I reach into my pockets and pull out the only thing in there. The note and the ten-dollar bill Daddy left me. I rip them both to shreds and throw the pieces in the air. The breeze scoops them up and scatters them everywhere.
“Here,” I scream. “Now you have it all. You’ve taken everything from me.”
Pieces of the note and money land on the bank and some in the creek, floating away downstream like regular old trash. My final tribute means nothing to the Whispers.
There are less of them by the second now. Fading away into the shadows. They’re leaving. One of them flutters by my ear. I slap at it, grabbing the creature and holding it tight in my fist. I can feel its tiny wings struggle against my skin, but not for long. I crush it with all the pain bottled inside me. I crush it for lying to me. I crush it because Daddy doesn’t love me anymore. I crush it because God ignored everyone’s prayers. I crush it because I’ll never find Mama. I crush it because there’s something wrong with me. I crush it dead.
I scream one more time at my balled-up fist. Tucker whimpers behind me, but I don’t look at him. I just stare at my fist like a crazy person. My knuckles are white and I feel dizzy. I ease my grip and slow my breathing before I pass out. Peeling back my fingers one by one, I gaze down into my palm at the tiny crushed corpse.
The creature’s blue glow fades one last time, like a final breath before it dies, and now I see the Whisper for what it really is. It’s not a fairy. It’s not made of skin and bones like me, or of tree bark, or leaves, or dirt. It’s not beautiful and it’s not magical. It’s a bug. It’s just a bug.
A loud crack of thunder sounds in the distance, stopping the sobs cold in my throat. Tucker barks like he’s answering the call. But it wasn’t thunder exactly. It was something else that sounded familiar. The blast of a shotgun. My mind races.
Dylan.
Oh, no. What if Dylan shot Mordecai, thinking he did something to hurt me? Or what if Danny shot Dylan, or Gary, or Carl, thinking they were squirrels?
Another shot cracks the sky and the echo gets carried off by the breeze.
Tucker answers the blast with an urgent bark. He trots off through the woods in the direction of the gunfire.
“Tucker! No!”
But he’s gone. I run after him, still clutching the dead bug in my right hand. Tucker’s not running full blast, but I’m so tired, I still can’t keep up with him. I just follow the sound of his barking.
“Tucker!”
Tripping over a branch, I hit the ground face first—hard. My knee stings and the side of my face burns. I struggle to get back up to my feet, but I’m so tired it takes me a minute to get my bearings again. Tucker’s bark is even farther away now. A cold Mountain Dew and some Funyuns would really give me the strength I need right now. But thinking about food or sleep isn’t going to help.
After a few more minutes of getting whacked in the face by tree limbs and tripping over branches, I finally break through the tree line and stumble out into a wide-open area. My eyes are blurry with sweat, tears, and the dusky twilight, but what I see doesn’t make any sense.
How did I get here?
Maybe I’m dreaming. That’s got to be it. This was all a dream. I’ll wake up any second in my own pee-soaked bed. That actually sounds nice right about now. I know there’s a six-pack of Mountain Dew in the fridge and Danny probably has a bag of Funyuns hidden somewhere in his room.
But that would also mean that the Whispers were just a dream. Mordecai being a nice human person and not a scary hobgoblin was just a dream. And the most perfect moment in the history of moments last night with Dylan was a dream too. Maybe everything was a dream.
My eyes refuse to stay open a second longer. My spaghetti legs give out from under me and one question rattles around in my foggy brain as I hit the ground.
Was Mama just a dream?
24
CAROLYN RILEY JAMES
My face is warm. The rest of me feels pretty warm too, and I smell real bad. A pinch of pain from the crick in my neck sparks my eyes open. The world is sunlit, sideways, and strange. Not too far away, a large pointy structure rests on its side, the sun peeking out from behind it. There’re no more trees. There’s grass. And flowers. And dewy morning air.
Something is draped over me like a blanket. It’s warm, but it smells like man sweat and armpits. I touch the faded blue denim fabric. Mordecai’s shirt. He must have carried me here all the way from the tree line. I guess he was looking out for me after all.
A heavy weight presses against my back. I turn over and see that it’s Tucker. His furry back is nestled up against me just like he used to do when he slept in the bed with me before my condition started.
My condition.
I sit up in a start and check my pants, but to my surprise, they’re bone-dry. Not even a drop of stray pee anywhere. I slept here all the way through the night and didn’t wet myself. But where the heck is here?
A few feet away, a large stone with a curved top sticks out of the ground. There’s another one sort of like it to the right and more of them to the left, all different shapes and sizes. Some have crosses on them and some have fake or dying flowers planted in front of them. I look over at the pointy structure, which has now righted itself since I’m sitting up, and it finally clicks in my sleep-drunk brain. I’m in the cemetery behind North Creek Church of God.
I nudge Tucker with my elbow. “Tuck. Wake up.” He doesn’t move. Doesn’t stir. And he’s not snoring.
“Tucker?”
His rib cage isn’t moving up and down like it usually does when he sleeps either. Panic rises up from the pit of my stomach as I scramble around to face him. My heart drops. His eyes are open but they’re cold and lifeless.
“Tucker! Tucker, wake up, boy,” I say, shaking him, my throat closing up on me. “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.” My eyes instantly fill with tears, though I didn’t think I had any left inside me. “Please, Tucker. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
I repeat it like a prayer, but Tucker doesn’t move. Just stares straight past me. His eyes don’t see me anymore. He’s n
ot in there. God’s still not hearing my prayers or He still doesn’t care. Wrapping my arms around Tucker’s big furry body, I pull him into my lap. Bury my face in the soft fur of his neck and sob.
“Why here, Tuck? I don’t want to be here. Not here. Anywhere but here.”
I sit like that for a while, sobbing into his fur and rocking the lifeless body of the greatest dog in the history of dogs. My protector. My friend.
Through eyes blurred by tears, I finally look up and stare at the headstone right in front of me, the one I’d slept under all night and the one Tucker had died under. I read the name engraved in the stone in fancy, pointy letters.
Carolyn Riley James
Mama’s name. My name. A name we share. Like Danny shares Daddy’s name. Engraved under her name are the day and month of the birthday we share, the year Mama was born, and another date about four months ago. It was the last time I was here. Her funeral. Near the bottom of the headstone are four words that kick-start my spotty memory into high gear.
Good Night, My Love
I hold Tucker tight, my soul pouring out of my eyes again as I gently stroke his fur. I hum the song to him, the one Mama wrote for me. I remember it now. All of it. Mama getting weak and sicker by the day, the chemo treatments at Upton Hospital—not a temp job; her beautiful wavy hair getting thin and falling out; the night she died—Danny and I were staying over at Grandma and Grandpa’s when Daddy called; Grandma’s terrifying screams and wailing—she sounded like a wild animal dying; Grandpa sobbing in his recliner—I’d never seen him cry in my entire life; the wake at our house, Mama laid out in the casket in the living room—not napping on the sofa; Sister Grimes and the preacher’s wife in Mama’s kitchen arranging all the food everyone brought; the funeral at North Creek Church of God packed with people. I remember everything, even though I don’t want to. All the memories are released into my brain from the dark corner where I’d kept them locked up all these months. I don’t look away, though; I keep stroking Tucker’s fur, humming Mama’s lullaby to him, and set the real memories free.