The Eye Unseen

by Cynthia Tottleben

  One morning she let me lean against her while we worked our way downstairs. My body was filling out, but my equilibrium protested every step I took. In my care to walk without falling, I didn’t even notice how Mom had rearranged the furniture to accommodate our Christmas tree.

  My mind snapped the second I saw the boxes of decorations. This meant we had passed through November, for Mom never allowed us to set the tree before the Thanksgiving weekend had been and gone.

  So it definitely was December.

  What a relief to know. My captivity, which seemed to have lasted decades, was relatively short-lived. At school we would be nearing the end of the semester. Marching band would have wrapped up, the choir would be rehearsing for the seasonal show. Our youth group at church would be singing at nursing homes and gearing up to adopt a couple of needy families for the holiday.

  Last year we had outfitted three children with coats, boots, gloves, and toys. Just twelve months ago.

  “What day is it?”

  “Well, that’s a strange question,” Mom answered, pulling the angel tree-topper out of a box and putting it on the coffee table. “Why would anyone want to know that?”

  I had forgotten her illness. In my weakened state, I had given her back her rationality when it wasn’t yet deserved.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t matter. I was just worried about making you a present and wondered how much time I had.”

  Which was, strangely, the right answer. Mom pressed her forehead against my own, a move she’d often made with Brandy. She held my hands. Swayed back and forth just a tad.

  “Lucy, honey, you don’t need to get me anything. The whole basement-door thing? You could never top it. How lucky I am that God found you worth saving.”

  We stood together until I was about to collapse. I dared not move, no matter how uncomfortable I was.

  Mom took over the ritual of the tree. Did her annual chores while I slowly hung ornaments, wheezing when I got tired, sitting when I had to rest.

  She floored me when she took out an old CD, found the player that had been locked away for several years, and put on music while we worked. I tried to sing but couldn’t hang ornaments and breathe at the same time. Still, I appreciated Mom’s voice as she belted out my favorite carols.

  At one point, even Tippy joined us in song, her howl both mighty and small.

  “This year there really is magic to the season!” Mom proclaimed as she placed tinsel at the end of each branch. “Doesn’t it all seem so much brighter to you?”

  It did. For the first time I felt welcome in my own home. The walls seemed to shine.

  * * *

  “Your grandmother was a ball of fire.” Mom put down her book and smiled.

  “Your mom or Dad’s?” I asked. In my fourteen years, Mom had rarely discussed our dead relatives except when she told Brandy stories, conversations they shared privately.

  “Mine. I never met his parents. They passed when he was a child.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Hilarious. She loved to sit around the kitchen table and play cards. Someone was always over, the neighbors or friends from church, and had a game going while they talked. I miss that. A house full of people. That…friendliness.”

  I wonder what has happened to my mother. To make her so standoffish, so alone in life that she was envious of such casual relationships.

  I certainly knew why I was.

  “Sounds fun. Did she work?”

  I was weaving pot holders. Mom had located my old plastic loom when she took the empty tree box back down to the basement, a trip I was thankfully too weak to maneuver. Amazingly, an entire bag of remnants was stored with it. I figured this gave me hours of activity, if I went slowly. Which I was bound to do.

  “Not for years. When I graduated from high school, she got a job typing for a local attorney. Mom loved the gossip, and since she couldn’t really tell anyone about all the tidbits that passed her way, every time I saw her I became her secret confidante and learned all the details about everyone in town.”

  I tried to picture Mom as this person. Young, loving, listening intently to her own mother’s every word.

  “She knew how to handle everything. When my dad died, she was sad for a moment, but then we went to the funeral home and she organized everything, wrote the obituary, stood by his casket and greeted everyone at the showing, went to the bank and dealt with all of the papers, the insurance. Not until days after her work was done did she allow herself to fall apart. And even that was…stoic. She told me to go to my friend Marjorie’s house and stay there for a while. A couple of days later Mrs. Newcastle told me that Mom had called me home. When I returned, the place was spotless. She was wearing an apron and her cleaning gloves. Had a huge smile on her face, red lipstick on. I was just amazed, because all of this time I had been waiting for us to cry together. To sit on the couch with our photo albums and talk about Dad. But Mom wasn’t like that.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what to say. It felt like Mom was reaching out to me, and I had no idea what she wanted. I didn’t want to take a false step. Or trip over my own feet and do a face-plant in front of her.

  “But she was great. Every year that I was in school she would get lonely. Sometimes she’d jump in bed with me in the morning, declare that I was incurably ill, call the office at school and tell them I had a fever, and we’d spend the day baking cookies or playing board games.”

  “Sounds like fun!”

  “It was. She was a wonderful mother. I really miss her.”

  “How did she die?”

  The question fell between us like a bomb.

  “Just who the fuck do you think you are?” Mom spat. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted, her face instantly molding into the Mom with whom I was most familiar.

  “I….” My stammering was instantaneous. “I…I…I’m….”

  “Get away from me! Go upstairs!”

  I tried to stand up, but it took too long. She yanked my elbow and threw me off balance, sending me straight to the floor.

  “Mom!” I yelled, hoping she’d snap out of it. Jump back into the skin of the mother who had so recently forgiven me.

  “Don’t you Mom me!”

  Her shoe hit my hip. A minor pain compared to the fists that pounded my face while she bent over me.

  “How dare you! You know how she died! You were there, watching! Weren’t you?”

  * * *

  Strangely, this time my comfort came from the chickens.

  They came to me when I had finally made it into bed. Fluttered onto the comforter. Surrounded me, the headless ones, their concern so tender that I almost forgot the blistering aches that accompanied my every move.

  I petted them, just as I would Tippy. But I longed to cling to them as I would have my sister. These birds that I had never really met before, but merely passed in the hall. These eyeless, faceless creatures that seemed as forlorn as I.

  Eventually one hen let me cradle her.

  We swayed, back and forth on the bed, her neck touching just under my chin. I was thankful for the feathers that covered her neck, where her head would have connected. I didn’t want to gaze down at an open wound. Or even be reminded of the horror that took off her head.

  The room pulsed with Brandy. I gasped her name and watched birds rush to comfort me, their fluffs and struts and constant chattering surrounding me, musical, almost as though they were singing to calm me down. I longed to cling to them as I would to Brandy. I took a breath. I could smell my sister. Fill my lungs with her.

  Yet every time I opened my eyes I was greeted by quizzical heads, bent sideways as if wondering about my mental state. Bits of feathers flying. The headless one, still nestled in the crook of my arm, lending me all the warmth in her heart.

  I named her Sissy. Held her and longed for the post-beating attention that my sister always gave me. Her attempts at minor first aid. A handful of Band-Aids, the ice pack, my hair brushed and braided. Testing
my bones to see if they were broken, in her authoritative pretend-doctor way, asking, “Can you move it? Can you bend it? Does it hurt if I do this?”

  Spilling a rush of sweet words to help me get past Mom’s emotional betrayal.

  Funny that I had never had to reciprocate. Brandy had taken a few swats, even a couple of memorable punishments, but never to the extent that I did. Mom hadn’t beat her with the belt. An extension cord. Brutal words that flew around the room, ready to peck out my eyes and coat the walls with laughter while I bled on the floor.

  Sissy rustled in my arms.

  I lapsed into good thoughts. If I had learned anything in church, it was to cling to the white lights that spotted my life and thank God for these moments.

  Finding Tippy. How lucky was I to have her?

  Winning the spelling bee in seventh grade. Not just on a local level, but I had taken crown of the entire county. Mom and Brandy had driven me to Des Moines for the state competition, where I placed sixteenth. Not the best, but not bad, either. No one from our school had ever gotten so far before. The newspaper even printed an article about me.

  Mr. Mitchell, the choir teacher, had often told me I had the best voice he’d heard in years. A songbird. A soprano with a maturity he found stunning. Last Christmas he’d let me sing “Ave Maria” at the school performance, and I’d gotten a standing ovation. From everyone except Mom, of course. My sweeping eyes couldn’t even locate her in the audience.

  Good times to balance out the bad.

  Mom’s quick turn to craziness. A chicken in my arms.

  No school, no friends, no freedom. God personally coming to my aid in the basement.

  My body, so weak now I didn’t stand a chance at survival if Mom closed her eyes to me again. My dog curled up against my hip, oblivious to the fowl surrounding us.

  Later I would wake to a room full of them. They kept time like living, ticking clocks, constantly making light chirping noises, punctuating each moment with just a bit of sound. They nested on my furniture, had taken residence in the corners. My bed was dotted with them.

  But when I rose in the morning, they were all gone. Sissy, her friends, any trace of feathers.

  Chapter 26

  Evelyn

  The episode with Josephina ignited a decade of delight for me.

  She might have been the first, but she will also forever remain the best. Her beauty, for years, went unrivaled. The utter thrill of tasting her, controlling her, reaching my claws in to rip out her spine, was never surpassed in all of my travels.

  I don’t even have to close my eyes to remember the night she became mine. The memories color my every thought, even as I walk strange streets or conduct business with men who look at me as if I would honor the lurid details of their bedroom fantasies.

  How would they feel, knowing that my ideas so easily put theirs to shame?

  I stopped Josephina on the street that night as she worked her way home from her job cooking for a wealthy family on the outskirts of her village. Pretended ignorance. Feigned difficulty with the language and layout of the few streets in town. Acted helpless, a lesson I had learned well from watching my sister grow up.

  Josephina’s smile lit up the night. She understood my confusion, altered her route to escort me down the murky streets to my rooming house.

  That’s when I felt him. The Devil, creeping up my thighs as I watched her walk. Her hips, graceful, perfectly formed, the tip of her braid bouncing as she turned to make sure I was following, all a lure baiting me to consume her.

  She reached out her hand, thinking I was shy. Grabbing me in camaraderie, hurrying me a bit in the late hour, protecting me from the unknown. Perhaps she had caught a sulfurous whiff of him, too.

  What a poor move on her behalf. I hadn’t found her with a plan. I hadn’t schemed or devised any exact method of extracting her soul. But when her fingers clutched my own, they sent shockwaves of electricity through my whole body.

  And it reacted.

  I had met her in the dark, yes. Acted befuddled, yes. Josephina had stirred my insides, had tempted me, yes.

  But I did not know my own capabilities.

  She touched my hand, put her skin against mine, and we were at once the same. Flesh. Combined.

  I dug my nails into her arm, hooks she couldn’t escape. Pulled her into me so rapidly her breath was lost. Joined our lips and swallowed her meager screams before they became a public warning.

  And I never let go.

  He helped me, that devil. While I had always detested the look and feel of a man’s skin, when he jumped into my own, I was thankful for the power that accompanied it.

  But Josephina certainly wasn’t.

  I chewed on her tongue. In our position I could track the horror in her eyes, the terror as it shut her fragile body down. This excited me in ways no man could. My thighs pounded with glee, the throbbing livened each cell of my body.

  My nails turned into talons. In one fast movement I shredded her dress, leaving her slip half attached, her left breast vulnerable to attack. For some reason I liked it better as it dripped with her fear, her blood. Which got me so inflamed I ran my left claw down her belly, opening her abdomen, the shriek of pain my new friend released only sending chills of pleasure down my spine.

  Which reminded me of hers.

  I bent my sweet Josephina backward, keeping our lips locked in a lover’s kiss. Her struggle was flowing out of her with the blood that pooled around our feet, but she still had some vigor left. She tried to flee, to push me away, which was foolish.

  I put my right hand at the base of her neck. Trailed my devil’s nails down her back, tracing her curves, over her hips and up her side.

  One swift movement, and I had her spine in my hand. Talons in, talons out. The strength of fifty men helped me as I yanked, pulling it free of her body.

  I swallowed her final breath.

  Dropped her bones to the ground.

  Licked her sweet blood from my hands.

  Felt him leave me, the Devil.

  Sneaking down the alley I found a neat pile of men’s clothing, folded, lain out like a housewife had put them on a dresser, pants on the bottom and underwear on top.

  I transformed. Used water set out for someone’s dogs to clean my hands and face. Donned my new outfit. Put my dress in my satchel. Walked back to the rooming house, where I thrust it in the fire and watched the fabric burn before I fell into bed.

  The next morning I found the train again and headed to Belgium, tracking the story of yet another bit of my lineage that had fallen into cahoots with him, the Devil.

  Soon I would start a second journal. A first person account of a woman from my family grown to adulthood, cognizant of the curse. And living it with merriment.

  Chapter 27

  Lucy

  Tippy attacked the closet door, her growl gutting my sleep.

  Despite our weak condition, she threw her body against the wood with frenetic energy. I slithered across the bed, put it between me and the closet, pressed my back against the wall. My survival instincts had faded to a pale yellow. I realized way too late that the door was still unlocked and that I could have bolted as soon as Tippy indicated danger.

  We were both gasping with fear as the handle began to jiggle. Tippy doubled her efforts, tackling the door, pawing at it when that didn’t work, her bark so threatening that I expected Mom to scream up the stairway at any moment, telling us to quiet down, or at least ask what was going on.

  But of course she didn’t.

  She didn’t care about our safety. If we had a burglar hiding in my bedroom, Mom would give him a gun and tell him to have at it. To save her the trouble. Get us to that finish line once and for all.

  The door finally burst open, the foul air I could never clean immediately filling the room and reminding me of the horrible days when I was so ill. Shame overwhelmed me, but I was so intent upon the creature causing such turmoil in my room that I kept it at bay.

  I screamed
when He fell into the room. Let my lungs open wide until I realized who He was, and even then it took me a while to quiet down.

  Tippy, however, would not stop. She went after His knees, nipping and clawing with a ferocity I had never seen.

  When God leaned over and pulled her into His arms, her quiet was sharp and instantaneous. For a second I thought she had died of shock or joy or just plain weariness. But when our eyes caught, Tippy practically collapsed, paralyzed by fear, silently begging me to come fetch her and keep her safe.

  Which I did.

  “Sorry about that,” I apologized. “Tippy is very protective of me.” I put my hands out and almost had to wrestle her from God’s arms when He didn’t relinquish her.

  “Boy, she’s feisty. The wrong person might really hurt her if she does something like that again.”

  “She’ll be good. I promise.”

  I found myself back in familiar territory, sitting on my bed, on the edges of my room so no one would see me in the window.

  Did I need to tell Him about the house rules? Did He know how much trouble I’d get in if Mom or one of the neighbors saw movement in my room?

  I decided not to tell Him. I put Tippy in my lap and slowly stroked her back, stopping only to rub her ears. Her quivering unnerved me.

  “I thought I’d come check up on you.”

  God raised His eyebrows at me, and my stomach flip flopped as I remembered my dream, and the dirty things we had done together. I blushed and looked at my feet, willing Him to forget about my lustfulness, if He even knew.

  “I’m doing better. Thanks again for helping me.”

  Without moving He crossed the room and was right in front of me. He lifted my chin, forced me to meet His gaze.

  “You don’t look so good, Lucy. Your color is better and you’re walking a straighter line, but she’s still not being nice to you, is she?”

  I appreciated His concern. My thoughts jumped straight to my sister and how she could have sent someone to check up on me, could have easily told someone our story, gotten our family help. Instead, God was taking pity on me.