by C M Muller
And she remembers.
She remembers the council handing her over without a second thought. She remembers everyone standing outside, watching her led with tether and chain. She remembers their gazes upon her and their silence. Peace, they called it. She has a different word for what they’ve done.
Emerging into the sunlight, she throws her head back, cries out to the sky. The ground trembles fury beneath her feet, and she bares her new teeth.
The people want a monster. She’ll give them one.
Once upon a time there was a girl…
Momma
Eric J. Guignard
Momma asked, “Where’s William?”
“He’s visiting Poppa,” Daniel replied.
She smiled, thin lips straining upwards like a rusty lock that turns in creaks. Poppa died twenty years ago, said to be murdered during the night by a man of town who was never named. So it was true, in a way, that William was visiting Poppa. William was Daniel’s brother and had been caught in a fire that burned him so bad, he died a week later, coughing out the ashes of his lungs. That was six years past, when Momma’s illness began, when her memory began to falter. Even she was unable to save him.
“It’s strange, the things that come to me like ghosts in my mind,” she said quietly. “They appear and vanish with a whisper, as if apparitions of something I once knew. I search for them, but I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t remember what it is I’ve even forgotten.” Her eyelids fluttered and sagged over milky eyes.
Her mental clarity was better today than it had been all week. Daniel thought he should feel relief, even some joy, at her cognizance, but instead felt only melancholy. He could not decide which was preferred: To dream blissfully unaware of what you have become, or to have recognition of the slow death sentence, the incurable disease that sweeps away your faculties.
Momma sat in a wicker-back chair under the afternoon sun. Her eyes closed, and a drool of pepper-flecked saliva leaked from the corner of her mouth. It dripped slowly down her chin, following the canal of a wrinkle, like a drop of molasses seeping from bark. Such was her mind, too, like a reservoir which leaked the sap of life, drop by slow drop, until one day it would be left as only a dry husk.
That day was soon to be coming, and Daniel felt conflicting sorrow and relief.
He kissed the top of her head and hobbled through the screen door into their house. The sounds of wood flies and cicadas followed inside. The house was dark and old, an intimate realm of musty dreams and stale woes. He walked upon its cracked linoleum, some sections missing entirely to reveal the charcoal-brushed timber underneath. In the kitchen he boiled Momma’s tea, as he did five times a day. Into it he soaked wood root, gathered from mangroves out back, and added a teaspoon of pepper and a pinch of ground calcite.
He retraced his steps across the cracked linoleum and returned outside to give Momma her tea.
“Lucas, you spilled my gum oil,” she said, her words slow and unsteady.
“It’s me, Momma. I’m Daniel.”
“I know who you are, Lucas. Get your brothers, it’s bedtime.”
“I will. You know they can’t sleep until they say they love you.”
She smiled at that and sighed, the sound like wind blowing through dead stalks of wheat.
“Drink your tea,” Daniel said. He held her shaking hand in his own and guided the cup to her mouth.
She drank, and they were silent for a long time. There were no other brothers left to say they loved her. Daniel tried to make up for it, and often he would say I love you, Momma seven times, once for each of her sons.
Momma suddenly remembered. “They’re all dead…” she said. “God, why have I lived so long?”
Daniel squeezed her shoulder with his good right hand. His left arm was shriveled and hung loose, like a parasitic thing sucking at his shoulder. The afternoon sun began to fall and the sky darkened, indigo blue, streaked with cherub-red.
He was the youngest son, born last and born deformed and weak. Each of his six brothers had been beautiful and strong as the wild sycamores that blossomed on their land. It was as if by the time Daniel was birthed, all the resources which went into making flawless children had been used up by his siblings; there was little left, and he was cobbled together with the scraps of placenta and hope.
But as each brother grew into manhood, he left their home to make his mark on the world, only to be stolen away by a great divine theft. William, the eldest, was first. Ezekiel was next, crushed by falling rock from a mudslide. Aaron was mauled by a wild animal. Lucas, struck by lightning. Henry, pulled under the dark currents of a river’s undertow. Orlie, infected by raging fever. The brothers died one per year, in the order they were born.
Momma stood abruptly and hurled her cup of tea across the porch. It shattered midair into flying ceramic bits. Daniel winced. She spun at him and her milky eyes turned black as oil.
“It’s the townspeople’s fault. I’ll get them, Daniel, every one of them,” she said, her voice a rasping growl. The exertion made her faint, and she collapsed back into the wicker chair just as quick as she’d stood.
Daniel bent down and wrapped his arms around her tight. He rested his head against her breast and said, “I know we will.”
She looked at him, her face sagging. “We will what, Lucas?”
That night turned cold, a brush tipped with frost flicking over the wilderness. Daniel sat alone on the porch in Momma’s chair and watched the moon cast shadows across the trees. Night birds and frogs sounded, calling and answering each other. Their songs must be what music is like, he thought. Momma used to sing when she was healthy, but she told him there were also man-made instruments which could produce song. She used to dance and sing and make music with others, long before the townspeople settled the land.
The townspeople were out there, somewhere, and Daniel narrowed his eyes as he looked carefully at each shadow in the surrounding woods.
“It’s funny, I’ve never even seen a townsperson before,” he said. “Momma says to stay away from them, but I don’t even know who they are.”
A cicada rested on his shoulder. It chirped into Daniel’s ear, sounding like raindrops batting on the tin roof.
Daniel replied, “I know they must look like the rest of us, but I wouldn’t care to meet them, seein’ as what happened to Poppa.”
The cicada extended its wings and chirped again.
“That ain’t true about Poppa and you know it,” Daniel said. “Momma says he was murdered and this world is a cruel, cruel place.”
The cicada climbed over his shoulder and ascended his neck.
“Quit it, Ezekiel. I’ve told you before that tickles me.”
It flew off and circled around to perch on Daniel’s outstretched hand.
“Momma’s real sick, now. I don’t think she’s going to live through the week. I’m going to be the last of the family...I’ll be all alone.”
The cicada rubbed its antennae and chirped to Daniel in a series of rising tones.
“Thanks. That’s not what I meant. I know you and the others will still be here.”
“Daniel,” Momma cried out.
“Coming,” he said.
Daniel was in the kitchen brewing her morning tea. He shuffled to her room, a small space separated from the main parlor by a faded sheet filled with red-and-gold images of mythical animals that stood upright in tunics. He sometimes wondered if Momma were as old as the images on that fabric.
Behind the sheet she lay in bed, staring at him, her eyes open wide and aware. A spiral of blood and snot hung from her nose, and drops splattered on her nightgown. She spoke in a voice which sounded clear and strong. “I’m dying.”
“I know,” he replied. He felt honest at saying those words out loud. He understood she’d been dying for a long time, but they lived their life together as they always had, without ever speaking of it.
“I haven’t much time,” she said. “My mind plays tricks on me, little pran
ks I once would have laughed away as a child. Now though, I don’t know what’s real, or dream, or memory. I’ve been asleep for so long…”
Daniel gently handed her the cup of tea and kept his hand placed over her own as she drank.
“I had a dream, Daniel. A vision of the holy land.” She coughed, then wheezed, and Daniel could hear the death-rattle, like pebbles grating in her lungs. “Your Poppa was there, waiting for me. He said he’s happy, but it’s lonely without us. There’s a place set for me at the golden table, and all my sins and black transgressions will be forgiven if only I undo the evil I have wrought.”
“You and Poppa back together?” Daniel squeezed her shoulder and his eyes widened. He only knew Poppa from her stories and the sad oil painting that hung crooked in the parlor.
“But first I’ve got to free the spirits of the townspeople I’ve bound to this land.”
“You’re going to let them go?” Daniel asked. She once told him that she kept their souls trapped in the woods like moths in a jar. He had asked what that meant, but she never chewed over details. Knowing too much leads to wicked ideas, Momma had told him.
He continued. “But all my life you said there’s nothing more important than revenge on Poppa’s killers. We still ain’t ever found what happened to him.”
“There’s no peace found by keeping a grudge,” she said. “I realize that now. The townspeople know I’m dying...I hear their whispers in the wind. They hate me, and they’re waiting...”
“How could anyone hate you, Momma?”
“I cursed them...all of them. I cursed the earth like an ulcer, oozing cancer to rot the town. I wouldn’t let the ulcer heal, and it spread. I cursed everyone, so they’d die and their spirits could never find rest ’til I found what happened to your Poppa. It was a curse that took everything out of me and made me sick.” She turned and buried her face in the pillow. She spoke again, and her muffled voice broke in a sob. “I filled myself with black magic, more than I ever had before, and it poisoned me. You were inside of me still, and it poisoned you too. That’s why you don’t look like your brothers.”
Daniel felt a sharp sting, as if the flying bugs from the marsh crept inside and bit his heart.
“We’ve got to leave this dead land in our own ways. I’m sorry—real sorry—I’ve held you back. I’ve kept you hidden from the world, ’cause of my fears, my hate of the townspeople.” Momma turned back and her face was wet. Blood smeared her lips. “Lord, my poor, poor boys. Your brothers weren’t meant to suffer, but the curse didn’t discriminate. It seized them like the others...I thought I could control it.”
“But they ain’t suffering. They’re all around us,” he said.
Her face crinkled like a dried flower and confusion washed over her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak and stayed like that, in silent pause, before responding. “I’ve done wrong. I’ve got to free them, if it’s not too late already.”
“I love you, Momma,” Daniel said. “I don’t want you to leave.”
She shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs off her thoughts. “It’s time for us to move on. Your brothers and me…we’ll all be a family again up in heaven. All we have to do is get there.”
“But this is heaven, Momma. We can all stay here.”
“Honey, this world is a cruel, cruel place. Nothing is as it seems.”
“No,” Daniel said suddenly. “I’ll be all alone. You can’t take them with you.”
Her eyes turned oil-black in rage, a flash like colorless lightning. “Boy, you do as I say!”
Just as quickly, the black dissipated and her face fell slack, the weight of her anguish dispersing with the rage. “I need to make one last spell...to release them. You must gather things for me, roots and spiders and water hemlock—I’ll tell you a list. You understand...Lucas?”
Daniel walked through the woods pushing aside Spanish moss and batting at mosquitoes and snakeflies that hovered with each step. He carried a wicker basket yellow as a summer daffodil and, as he hobbled over wet ground, he placed things inside.
“Ezekiel, why don’t you talk to Momma like you talk to me?” Daniel said. He’d asked that question to each of his brothers many times, never satisfied with their lack of explanation. “It’s never made sense I can hear you just fine, but she can’t.”
The cicada hovered in the air, wings buzzing close to Daniel’s face. Ezekiel spoke in a series of clicks and peeps like the warble of a whippoorwill.
“Momma doesn’t believe you’re with us. She thinks everyone’s trapped in some limbo, like ghosts walking the land.”
Ezekiel chirped and settled on Daniel’s disfigured shoulder.
“But how can you be a ghost if you’re a critter?” Daniel asked. “You got flesh and blood like me. Even though we look different on the outside, you and me is the same on the inside, just like Momma always told us growing up.”
Ezekiel chirped again, its tone rising like a brewing storm.
“All of Momma’s children living around her and she don’t even know. She wants to make a spell to kill everyone and take you to heaven with her,” Daniel said.
He stopped under a black cypress that leaned to the earth, burdened by half-dead limbs and clumps of beryl lichen. He peeled off lichen by the handful and set it inside the basket, held in the crook of his limp arm. Ezekiel jumped into the air and started to speak, but Daniel interrupted.
“It’s murder, and murder’s bad, just like what happened to Poppa. Momma’s so confused now, she don’t know what she’s saying.”
Ezekiel flew to face Daniel and they stared deep into each other’s eyes, searching tenuous boundaries to find compromise. The cicada clicked rapidly, telling old stories from the shadows of perpetual dusk.
Daniel listened and nodded when he agreed, and shook his head when he didn’t. They were silent awhile, and he moved onwards, deeper into the marsh, gathering lilac root and hideous spotted beetles, fleshy mushrooms and poisonous crabapple fruits from manchineels. The further he travelled from home, the colder the air turned, as if he sank slowly through a river into the deeps that sunlight could not reach.
Ezekiel hopped to a branch and raked its legs through hanging ivy. Daniel turned, alone, to see the purple-striped blooms of water hemlock growing next to its look-alike kin, the parsnip plant. One was harmless, if not edible, and the other a slow death. When he was a boy, and Momma could still walk, she showed him the woods’ great mysteries and taught him the secrets of the plants. Once she caught him about to pop a leaf of hemlock into his mouth and slapped it from him so hard he thought her hands were made of mountain.
In appearance, the two were nearly identical, and he thought she wouldn’t notice the difference now in her fugue state. He plucked a sprig of parsnip, and Ezekiel saw him.
By the time he returned home, the sun sagged behind a lattice-work of cypresses that surrounded Daniel’s home. Things he picked nestled and crawled in the wicker basket, and Ezekiel sat on his shoulder chirping rapidly, its series of clicks sounding like a lecture that was half admonishment and half plea.
“My mind is made up, and it don’t matter what you say,” Daniel muttered. “I won’t let her take y’all away.”
He reached the porch, ascended its rickety stairs, and walked through the kitchen into Momma’s room.
“I’m back,” he said. “I gathered what you needed.”
Momma lay stiff in bed with her mouth hinged open. A bramble fly dipped down into her gullet and flew back out, its wings buzzing across cold lips.
“Momma, no—” Daniel fell to her side and a weight of loneliness and remorse sank upon him. He suddenly didn’t care if she was half out of her mind, or if he had to fetch her tea five times a day, or oblige any of her strange whims. He just wanted to hold her body and feel her hold him back. He wanted to tell her again that he loved her.
Ezekiel leapt off Daniel and chased away the bramble fly.
Daniel knelt by Momma’s bedside and caressed her face, wondering how man
y times she had done the same to him? He remembered as a boy, lying on a plank bed with each of his brothers curled around him, and Momma stroking his cheek, whispering that he was beautiful and would one day be stronger than them all. He wished more than anything for that moment with her to last forever.
He heard a quick clatter from the porch, as if spindly legs ran across the weather-beaten boards and then darted off.
“They’re coming already, ain’t they?” Daniel asked. “The townspeople are here, just like she said.”
Ezekiel clicked and flew out the room.
Daniel squeezed her hand. It was cold, and he felt strange to hold the limp weight. He gently rolled down the lids over her empty, white eyes.
The clattering steps from the porch grew louder and spread into the parlor, accompanied by the loud buzz of a thousand wings. It sounded like a nest of rattlesnakes in dry grass.
Ezekiel flew back into the room, followed by their five brothers, colored orange and copper and mint-green. The cicadas lined up in order of age next to Momma on the bedside.
Daniel kissed her and stood up. He spoke as if in eulogy. “It’s better this way. You thought you cursed the land but, the way I figure, you’ve blessed us to stay together. We’ll never die forever.”
Swarms of cicadas began to pour into the room, jostling between the sides of the sheet and doorway. There was a smell to them that Daniel had never noticed when around only a few at a time. But, in mass, he was struck by their musty odor, like old moth balls left for too long in a sealed closet. Their droning wings filled the air with a wild clatter, and he almost had to cover his ears as they flew to Momma, covering her body with their terrible roar. Soon, she could not be seen at all and, instead, there appeared only a mountain of writhing insects, fluttering and spitting out syrupy secretion from their quivering proboscises.