Dove Keeper

by Emily Deibler

  She asked her husband, “Why do they treat us so, when you’re performing a service to the country? You don’t commit the crimes, nor do you make the sentences. You only carry them out. None of the judges come before the public and watch those horrid men die.” Men would dine with judges and lawmen and consider it an honor, but none of them would ever share a meal with her husband.

  Anatole rose a brow as he undid his tie. “Funny that killing for your country is admirable until a headsman does so for the law.” He preserved an ever-dutiful reputation exceedingly well, kept his work neutral. Death didn’t judge. It treated all its subjects the same.

  “Yes, funny.”

  That moment proved to be rare, when he allowed his frustration and scorn toward the public to show. They acutely picked apart the absurdities of social reactions, and Rosalie decided the masses wouldn’t take Anatole from her. After all, Rosalie and Anatole first bonded not over death, but over cycling. She was the only woman who participated in races, and they would engage in spring cycling and engage in conversation afterward.

  Accordingly, theirs would be a quiet, simple home with no blood and strife. Desperately normal, that was their life. In the bedroom, the most feared man in France was Rosalie’s. She massaged his arms, laid him on the bed. They spoke about nonsense before Anatole pleased her with his mouth and tongue, and she settled atop him. They made love with her controlling the rhythm. At that time, both sleeping and waking up were easier. She’d seat him deep in her and wake up rejuvenated. Rosalie gripped his wrists and kissed his knuckles. She’d been so vibrant then, the bright-eyed, avid cyclist, one of the first woman cyclists in France. She was the adventurer, the romantic, adamant that if Anatole was her land, her domain, she would be his water. They took the time to explore each other on their wedding night, rather than suffer through a rushed ordeal and call the consummation finished.

  This was before she was pregnant. When they joked more.

  Anatole rubbed his thumb into her shoulder, which brought Rosalie back to where they rested in bed on their sides.

  Ghosting her fingers over his trimmed beard, Rosalie said, voice thick with sadness, “What did I do to deserve you?” It troubled her, keeping contact with his steady blue eyes after those words needled her throat.

  Anatole caressed her cheek. “I often ask myself that about you.”

  She beamed, his fingers warming where the skin dimpled. “You charmed me with your cooking skills.” His gardening, his newspaper comics, how he laughed. He accrued many talents and virtues. Even in his failed efforts to avoid his father Louis’ bloody work, Rosalie had admired him from afar with the perfumes he created and his dashing military uniform. When Anatole courted her, as bashful as he was, she asked him if he’d ever made love to anybody before, and she couldn’t recall all the words, but he spoke about the former love of his life leaving because of the blood on his hands. Rosalie didn’t want to be second, the second love, the consolation, but if she had to be, she’d be the best love he had.

  Now, Anatole said to her, “Your brilliance, your resilience, why wouldn’t I love you?” It made Rosalie want to cry because, if that wasn’t rhetorical, she could easily give him a hundred reasons, but she wouldn’t burden him. After unpinning her hair, Rosalie kissed him and removed his coat. His lips worshipped her cheeks, her neck, her collarbone. This time, when she settled on him and they joined, it was several desperate minutes before they let go of one another.

  H

  The slick scents of sweat and rose potpourri wafted through the bedroom. When Rosalie awoke, Anatole slept beside her, and twilight’s blue wash dwindled to complete darkness as she simply stayed in bed. One of her legs crooked over him and the side of her face touched his warm cheek. Idly, she stroked the soft hair on his chest.

  “Are you sleeping, Brother Jacques?” she whispered. Anatole answered with gentle, slow breaths. Rosalie smiled with a sore tenderness, brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, and kissed the prickly skin there. Normally, she stroked Anatole’s hair when nightmares lingered above him, and she would mutter whatever diaphanous, porous prayers crossed her mind.

  Rosalie shut her eyes and warded off those pinches of memory falling like petals, brittle and as faded and red as Anatole’s hair had been before it silvered. As the petals paled to snow, to gray ash, a keen whine sounded off in the distance like a train whistle. The ashes became pillars of smoke, and she drifted away.

  Another high noise. Indecipherable, curious. Didn’t matter. A wild dog, maybe. André and Marcy were inside, so they were safe.

  Weren’t they? Had André returned?

  The shrill sound sent a chill down to the bottom of Rosalie’s spine, and as she turned it into pulp in her awakening mind, what was insignificant, a lash under her eyelid, sharpened like a dagger in her side.

  Moving out of bed, she slipped on her taffeta robe and tied the sash.

  She couldn’t tell if Anatole’s eyes were open as she stood motionless. A caterwaul, closer, she squeezed her hands, nails biting into her palm.

  “Rosie,” Anatole called, his voice gruff with sleep.

  She adjusted her robe sash. “I heard something, and I’m not sure what it was.”

  Anatole mumbled, “I’ll come with you.”

  She allowed herself a grateful smile, even when she supposed he wouldn’t see. “Thank you.”

  Anatole shuffled out of bed. It wasn’t that she couldn’t go alone, but she found it unwise to investigate a noise by herself at night. Anatole rustled as he fetched his own robe, their soft breaths clouding the air.

  Before she descended the stairs, she crossed to the oak chest at the end of the bed. As she leaned down and opened it, hair fell in her eyes. She produced a handgun and shotgun from the chest, setting them at the foot of the bed. The long snout of the latter weapon knocked against the footboard.

  “Which do you think is prudent?” she asked.

  He scratched his head, but otherwise showed no surprise. “Are you certain it will come to that?”

  “No, but if it should, best to have protection near.” Rosalie settled on the shotgun, which was easier to aim.

  “Should we turn on the lights?”

  “If someone is here, or if they try to come in, perhaps they will be dissuaded to come if they know somebody is home, but the auto’s in front of the house, so anyone should know.”

  Anatole replied, “Not if they’re here to harass. It doesn’t—it doesn’t sound human. It may be only an animal.”

  Marcy was here, and therefore their responsibility to protect her at any cost.

  They turned every light on so they could see their surroundings. They checked the kitchen, the living area, the study. Nothing was out of place, but the room still shifted. The stairs creaked, like a body settling into a molding rocking chair.

  “André still isn’t here. He must’ve walked to town. Or—is he—”

  “He could be visiting a friend for the night,” Anatole said, gripping her free hand. Rosalie let him assure her, or it could’ve been to assure himself.

  A knock on the window, another. Rosalie stood still as a wind-neglected winter elm, the shotgun she held weighing her hands down, feeling unnatural and burdensome, even though she knew how to use it. However, she’d never shot anyone before. “Call the police,” she told Anatole, and he moved to the telephone.

  The walls surrounding them gave some semblance of protection from all but dreams. Just the other night, Rosalie dreamed of ambling through the woods, a membrane covering her vision. A chase, many chases, even though no one chased her, she dreamed of it and awoke in a panting, sweating tangle. A destination, she ran to something, but the dream ended before she found whatever it could be.

  She shook her head. Of all times, she couldn’t lose herself now.

  Anatole spoke on the telephone in an unwavering voice, exchanged his words slowly. He looked to her. “The officer has asked for me to look outside.”

  Moving to the curtain, the telep
hone cord growing taut and stretching like a pulled sow’s tail, Anatole parted the curtain’s edge with two fingers, leaned in, and squinted outside. He said, “No, there’s nothing.”

  A shriek splintered the air and weighed her to the spot, her blood chilling like an Irish swamp.

  “Yes,” Anatole whispered.

  Marcy said from behind her bedroom door, “Papa, what was that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Their daughter replied, “If somebody comes in, what will we do?”

  “You’ll hide,” Rosalie said.

  Incessant slamming of a frantic hand on the door, each thud came rapid and hard, and it startled the breath out of her—somehow worsened by not seeing the threat. Jolie yapped until Rosalie told her to hush, the dog’s barks turning to low growls. Even in normal circumstances, Rosalie hated when there was a knock at the door, especially when the sun started to descend.

  A gunshot resounded as sure as the Devil’s drum. Anatole put down the telephone.

  Rosalie’s gaze wandered to every corner of the room. Shadows blended into the furniture like mingling watercolors. Often when she grew wary, everything in her vision hemorrhaged.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, too dark outside. Police will be here shortly.” Anatole sucked in a deep breath.

  “Marcy, are you well?” Anatole said.

  “I—um, yes, only I don’t know what to do. The noises.”

  “Go back inside your room. Keep the door locked.”

  A loud, relentless noise like a siren pierced her, a noise as morbid as a baby’s coffin.

  “Screaming.” Rosalie lifted her hands to her ears. “Someone’s screaming.” She willed herself to believe it was an animal, but she couldn’t. The knocking, the—so high-pitched. She removed her hands. “Anatole, the police.” They needed the police, the Sûreté Nationale.

  The sound of flesh (flesh?) on wood died.

  A caterwaul like that of a wounded Chartreux broke the silence. How it soured the air, so close, so close Rosalie tasted the threat. Rosalie remembered a Bierce story she once read about a jaguar bursting through a window and stealing away a catatonic woman’s body, and the woman died from a throat wound, but not before she tore off the cat’s ear.

  A jest, that was what it had to be. A prank, weeks before Halloween. Boys not in the war, with nothing else to do than frighten others as their older brothers sacrificed their lives. That was it. It must’ve been.

  Anatole looked out the curtains again for what seemed longer than a minute. “I still can’t see anything.”

  Touching, they both settled in front of Marcy’s door.

  They had the same goal: keep any threat away from their daughter at the risk of injury or death.

  “Don’t go outside,” Rosalie said, afraid Anatole would have a heroic moment. Her thoughts slapped the air before she could halt them. “Don’t open the door. No matter what, don’t open the door.”

  “I won’t.”

  Jolie paced and drooled, her body heaving. Rosalie rested her cheek on the door. She felt and heard her daughter slumping with a tired, muffled sigh against the wood. “Poupée, are you all right?”

  Marcy replied, “Yes, Maman.”

  Rosalie wanted to request that Marcy not leave the door. The quick breathing on the other side assured her that her daughter was alive.

  Scratching on the window. Rosalie saw a glint out of the corner of her eye and shuddered, but nothing was within the house.

  A spark, a crackle of electricity. It could be a trick. She’d heard stories of people who’d cry and feign injuries so a sympathetic person would open the door and expose themselves to an attack and looting. Jolie paced in the living room and grumbled under her breath. Anatole laid a hand over Rosalie’s shoulder. She didn’t budge, didn’t lean into his warm touch.

  Rosalie’s senses narrowed. Both she and Anatole paused as they waited for any footsteps, any scratching.

  Anatole looked to her. She nodded to ensure him she was as well as she could be.

  Rosalie worked to calm her heart. This was their home, theirs. They shouldn’t be frightened to exist in it.

  Marcy opened her door. Rosalie was so close that they almost bumped into each other. Her daughter’s brow furrowed. Not every day she witnessed her mother holding a large gun.

  Marcy came closer. “What happened? Who was screaming?”

  Rosalie rubbed her chapped lips together. “I don’t know.”

  Even as the officers came with their reassurances and though she worked to push the night away, the sounds haunted Rosalie’s dreams. She was at the dinner table in her old home, and Juliette, lined with gold from head to toe, sat in front of her with an open palm and furrowed brow, but the screams came, and Rosalie knew Marcy was gone. As she left her sister and fled deep into the hungry thickets of briars and dying leaves, she swore Marcy called out to her, but she couldn’t find her.

  8

  Marcy

  Last night, the blue men spoke to Marcy, and she confirmed there was indeed a disturbance, but she couldn’t say more than what she heard. When the officers asked for the appearance of the attempted intruder, she couldn’t give them anything of value. They scoured the surrounding woods, but the perpetrators were long gone, it appeared. When the police arrived to investigate the call, they stated the cause of the disturbance was likely some boys joking, boys about Marcy’s age, and they saw nothing that indicated a more pressing matter. The scare they had had made her impatient to go somewhere else, at least for an impermanent time.

  The only evidence of the disturbance came with clumps of dirt and a thin, black smear on the porch, which could have been mud, blood, or paint.

  Marcy sat on the couch and, instead of distracting herself, she kicked her feet and pressed her teeth on her bottom lip. What had happened the night before shook her, and she wanted to speak about it, but talking about bad experiences, even just after they had happened, wasn’t in Maman or Papa’s natures.

  If only André were here; Marcy hoped he didn’t hate her, but she couldn’t find out without asking him. He could be helpful to speak to in his own André way. Yesterday, she had heard Maman and André’s raised voices, and André disappeared with only a slammed door in his wake. They were arguing about Marcy, she knew it, and it stewed inside her, a veiled suspicion simmering to a tented, foamy crescent of white.

  It wasn’t until she heard her name that she realized Maman was standing in the opening leading to the kitchen.

  Blinking, Marcy crossed her arms over her stomach. “What is it?” Maman’s features straightened like prison bars keeping a condemned man at bay.

  “André told me you proposed to him.”

  Her heart jumped. “I did.” That was all she could say.

  “Why?”

  “Because, at the time, I thought it sounded like a fun thing to do, and it’d be the only time I could think of when I could try to have my first kiss. And if we did marry, we could have our own place, and I’d be able to leave the house, maybe even have a new home we could make our own.”

  “Is that what you want? To leave this house?” Of course Maman latched on to that.

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.”

  Marcy glowered at her bare feet. She should go to her room and occupy herself, not continue this conversation. She didn’t want to hurt Maman’s feelings, didn’t want to look up and confirm that she was too late with that wish.

  “You won’t even come near me. You hate looking at me.” Marcy inhaled, held it in her for five long seconds.

  When Marcy braved her head up, the lines in Maman’s face were pinched in confusion, and Maman had the nerve to soften, cross the distance, and sit close, but they still didn’t touch. That wouldn’t help cure Marcy’s righteous anger, not at all, and she needed all the help she could get.

  “Why would you say that?” Maman asked. “I’m looking at you right now, aren’t I?”

  Marcy steeled herself, and a s
harp pain pricked her eyes. “Why did you say you’d rather have me dead?”

  With that, Maman leaned back, as if struck. Her lips worked without noise. If she loathed looking at her daughter, she made up for it now, more present than she’d been in their last heated talk. When Maman finally responded, it took Marcy what felt like a skittering minute to realize she’d spoken.

  Hushed, meek. “I didn’t know you heard me.”

  “What else do you say when you think I can’t hear?”

  “I didn’t mean I want you dead. I only meant I want what’s best for you.”

  “That’s not what you said, though. Those are your choices for me, marrying André or death? Is death what’s best? Is that what you want?”

  Maman’s eyes were bright like she’d cry, but her cheeks remained dry. “I’d rather neither of those be choices. I worded what I meant poorly. It seems to be a talent of mine.” Marcy couldn’t understand. Maman treated her like she either wanted a rotting foot or a flogged back. Marriage wasn’t the same as death, wasn’t a close option, and Maman and Papa loved each other, so the comparison further baffled her. Their marriage wasn’t worse than death, though Marcy was biased.

  Could it be as simple as Maman’s words not reflecting her mind? Marcy wanted to understand, and wanted Maman to understand in return, but that tower crumbled long ago, and it left old skeletons in its wake.

  The unearthed desert bones poked Marcy enough for her to spout out, “Was I just a consolation after all that happened to you? Is that all I am? Is that all I was good for? What about after?” She shouldn’t have let that crawl out. “I understand, I understand you lost your sister and your maman and—but I can’t live up to that. I can’t fix—I can’t heal anything. I can’t be more, and I should’ve been.”

  “I don’t—I didn’t mean—”

  The mosaic shattered. All those cracked, pretty colors and lights Marcy kept in place to make herself happy. “I don’t have anyone like me.”