Motherless Child

by Glen Hirshberg

  “What do you mean?” his Destiny whispered.

  Even the sound of her breath, without even any voice in it, seemed to bend the Whistler’s bones together, set them singing like a musical saw. “What do I mean?” He turned, and ignoring the pain, he smiled again. He couldn’t help it. It astonished him to discover how delightful and excruciating courtship turned out to be when it meant something to the courter. He’d forgotten that. Or maybe he’d never known it. Even before. “I mean to have you. And I’ll Tweet, and I’ll Whistle, and I’ll follow you over mountains and through the valleys, too—”

  “Finished,” his Destiny hissed. “What did you mean when you said ‘Finished?”

  “Oh.” The Whistler’s smile widened, which caused his eyes to water. His Destiny, of course, had skipped right past the trivialities. Had, in fact, never bothered with them at all. Was shining her beautiful light right on the essential point. The Other One was, too, he saw now; she simply hadn’t been able to face right up to it, yet. Because she wasn’t his Destiny.

  He floated to his feet. Neither woman protested. Because they already knew what he was about to tell them? God, this night just kept getting better. And better. And better. “I was so sure you knew. Surely Mother must have told you. I assumed that’s why she kicked me back into the truck and spoke to you that night. Mother’s a sporting one, generally.”

  “You’re talking about finishing transforming,” said his Destiny. “Into you. Aren’t you?”

  “Maturing, I think. That’s a better word. And into you, not me.”

  “Meaning we’re not Finished yet.”

  This is like orgasm, the Whistler thought. That really was the only comparison he could imagine. He held the moment as long as he could. Then let go, with a wracking, riveting shudder that he tried, as much as he could manage, to fashion into a shrug as he gestured with his chin toward the Other One. “She is.”

  After that, he just watched it happen. The glance the girls exchanged, then the second, as the true meaning of what he’d said dawned. Such a privilege, he thought. Actually getting to be here to see this. His Destiny’s hand lifting, falling back, as the gulf opened between her and her friend. The Other One with her mouth open, already borne away on the current of her own actions, with no oars in her boat, no way back. What stunned him, most of all—what made it even more magical than he could possibly have dreamed—was the lack of pleasure he felt, as his Destiny twitched on her feet and her mouth opened and real loneliness, the kind people dread and dream of all their sorry, scrabbling lives, rushed into her for the first time. I’m sad, he thought, and really did cock his right foot in the first step of a dance he’d forgotten he knew. If he’d thought it would help, he would have taken her in his arms and just held her.

  For amusement—and because his Destiny kept doing it—the Whistler did eventually look again toward the Other One. He was glad he did, because she was an entirely different flavor of delicious. She had her hands at her heart and was gulping at the air for no conceivable purpose. But her eyes betrayed her. Oh, yes, they did. Where his Destiny was desperate, engulfed, staving off panic by sheer force of will, the Other One looked mostly confused. She was still close enough to having felt, of course, to remember what that felt like. But not close enough actually to feel. Not in the same way. For a moment, the Whistler experienced an echo of something he didn’t recognize. Not remorse, surely. But a strange sort of … kinship. Perhaps he could help this one, at least a little, since she was his Destiny’s friend. Explain a bit more, if he could find the words. His Destiny would appreciate it if he did. He opened his mouth, but his Destiny spoke first.

  “I can go back to my son?”

  Son? At first, the Whistler had no idea what she meant, and then he remembered. Yes, he remembered, now. She had indeed babbled something about a child, as he’d lowered her, gently, Hungrily, into the backseat of that car. Had done so again near the end, as he’d held her in his arms, stunned at what he’d somehow managed to do. And perhaps even a third time, right at the moment he undid her.

  His Destiny’s son.

  She was still murmuring. To herself, though only he could answer her questions. “All I have to do is not kill? Not eat? Is that right?”

  Stirring abruptly, the Whistler shook his head. “No. No. Stop that. It’s—”

  “She said the Hunger would make us,” said his Destiny, and looked up. “That woman. The one you travel with. She said sooner or later, it would just take over.”

  If he could only hold her, the Whistler thought. If she could feel his love. But she wouldn’t allow it. Not yet. “It makes most,” he said, low and purring, his admiration absolutely genuine, the sensations inside him intensifying with every word that passed her dry, sad lips. “Everyone I’ve ever known. But you … you’re so strong. Maybe you could fight it. Meaning, die. And that would be such a waste. So unnecessary. Don’t you see…”

  And even as he said the words, he realized yet again—and yet again, late—just how intoxicating this whole scene had become. Because he didn’t register the gun in his Destiny’s hand until she raised it. She’d hit him with that, not five minutes ago, and he hadn’t even seen it then.

  Her hands were shaking too much for her to shoot him, fortunately. Her emotions running riot, flushing her skin a thousand different shades, as though her veins and arteries had opened inside her, spilled into one another. All those crazy, crushing feelings. Grief, loss, loneliness, fury. Love? Was that love?

  “Oh, my Destiny,” he cooed, stepping forward. Miscalculating yet again, because by the time he realized the danger, the Other One had ripped the gun out of his Destiny’s hands and shot him through the shoulder.

  Driven backward, howling, the Whistler barely even felt the second slug explode in his stomach. What he did notice, as he collapsed into a crouch, guts popping out of his belly to flap against his knees—squirmy and too dry, even to him, and so cold—was his Destiny clawing at the Other One’s raised arms, screaming in her face.

  Screaming for the Other One to stop. His Destiny. Saving him.

  “Sophie, fucking STOP!” Tears pouring down her gorgeous, tortured cheeks. Black hair like a shredded cocoon around her. Wings of her about-to-be-born self just unfolding. Still so wet and new.

  She had the gun, now. And the Other One had dredged up a sob, too, or perhaps could still generate a real one from the dead, drying reservoir of whoever she’d been. She stood there shuddering, staring down at the new rents her best friend had clawed in her arms.

  Once more, the gun was now leveled at him. With one hand, he pushed at the sludgy weight of his insides, shoving them back into his skin like an old pillow into a case. The pain was perfect, radiating out from his middle and down his arms in all directions. Like heat. Almost.

  “Tell me again,” his Destiny said. Her voice completely steady now.

  “You are my Destiny,” he answered.

  No reaction whatsoever. “About the Hunger. About how I can choose to ignore it.”

  “Natalie,” the Other One mewed, pitifully.

  His pain all but forgotten—except when he straightened and his guts twisted together, pressing at the jagged rip in his center—the Whistler offered his gentlest smile. The one he usually saved for the songs that hurt and helped them all so badly. Even him, sometimes. “But you won’t. You’re my Destiny. You won’t be able to. You’ll choose me.”

  His Destiny’s growl was savage, terrifying, beautiful to behold. And her words were for herself. “You underestimate me.”

  “Not anymore. My only one. Never again. And that means I know I’m going to have to make you.”

  And before either woman could react, he sprang between them, snatched the framed photograph he’d glimpsed on the nightstand, and was through the door and past the pair of policemen racing up the hotel stairs. And then he was gone.

  17

  Somehow, her instincts outracing her thoughts, Natalie held herself together just a little longer, as the foo
tsteps on the landing hurtled toward their open doorway and Sophie snatched at her elbow, mewling—or was that giggling?—“Nat, Nat, Nat, we gotta move.” And sweet God, her instincts were fast, now. It was like watching a third creature that scythed itself free, flashed out a claw, and ripped Sophie’s halter top fully off one shoulder, peeling it all the way down the swell of her breast. Another flash, to rip her own T-shirt, this time, from the bottom right up over her crotch. A lightning shake of both of them to get their hair wild, and finally, quick as a flicker, in the instant after the pair of cops had erupted through the door but before they’d processed what they were seeing, a bend-and-tuck of the gun into the bedsheets.

  Female cops, Natalie noted vaguely. Knowing it wouldn’t matter. Then she fell against Sophie, spinning them both toward the door so the newcomers got their first glimpse full blast, and let her scream loose.

  “It was him,” she wailed, completely authentic sobs exploding from her throat, free arm flailing in the direction the Whistler had gone. “It was him, it was him, it was him.”

  Crawling all over each other in their desperation to respond, the cops stumbled from the room and raced off shouting. Natalie’s cries cracked over their heads like a whip. But Natalie wasn’t really driving them intentionally. And she couldn’t get her shrieking to stop.

  “Natalie,” Sophie hissed, and Natalie bit down on the insides of her own mouth and locked her teeth together so that the screams became squeals, then grunts, then ground to silence.

  “It was him,” she said, through a haze of pain tears. Which were also missing-Eddie tears. And Hunger.

  “Yes, it was,” Sophie murmured.

  Gunshots sounded outside, somewhere across the street. All kinds of scurrying. Sirens, too. When Natalie unclenched her jaws, she could feel shreds of her cheeks in her teeth. She shook her whole body like a dog, grabbed Sophie with her glare. “Now we move. Grab everything.”

  Sophie was already in motion. And this time, she was definitely giggling. “We didn’t bring anything. Did we? What did we bring?”

  “Mostly you. Grab the towels. All of them.”

  “We’re taking a night dip?”

  “I don’t want to leave them your blood. Or the guy’s, the gas station guy’s.” Natalie gagged, willfully, to keep from screaming again or having to bite back down. “Just grab everything.”

  “You’re such a mom.”

  “Yes, I was,” Natalie whispered. And held the wall to keep her feet.

  It was such a relief to let Sophie pull her to the doorway, then out into the shadows on the landing. Across the street, people seemed to be racing in all directions, looking everywhere but up here. And why would they look up here? Or ever check this room again? Just a couple girls who got freaked by an intruder and fled, the way girls would.

  “Come on,” Sophie whispered, voice gleeful, like a kid playing Ghost in the Graveyard. She pulled Natalie away from the landing toward the back staircase. Natalie was barely lifting her feet, just letting Sophie lead her, and yet the world whipped by so impossibly fast.

  “Where’s the…” she murmured, but Sophie had already seen it, was hustling them toward the GTO parked across the dirt road that ran along back of the hotel, all but invisible in the shadows of the Georgia pines.

  As if I knew this would happen, Natalie thought, wondering if intuition was something else she’d gained when she stopped breathing, before remembering the actual reason she’d parked there.

  So that no one would observe me dragging my best friend up the back stairs. Or notice the blood smeared over Sophie’s lips and all down the front of her dress. Or see the smile on Sophie’s face.

  “Hey, zombie, let the vampire drive,” Sophie chirped, sliding a hand into the front pocket of Natalie’s jeans and pulling out the keys. Then she pushed Natalie around toward the passenger side, toward the pebbled, pine needle–strewn shoulder. The black and looming woods.

  This time, instinct rose out of the ground like a rogue wave, all but swept her away. Would have, if she hadn’t clung to the roof of the car as though it were a buoy. Knowing she should let go. Knowing she should run.

  Another completely involuntary cry escaped her, compulsed from some elemental center. Like birdsong, she thought crazily. This is the difference between birdsong and singing, at least the way most people sing. All that avian whistling and cheeping isn’t a reaction or an expression but the thing itself, feeling itself. For every living thing but us. Poor birds. Poor frantic, ferocious things.

  Why did she get in the car? She wondered that even as she did it, and she would go on wondering, though her answer stayed the same. Because I’m not a bird. Of course, she wasn’t a human, either, anymore. Whatever she was, she chose to stay because she could.

  And because it was her fucking car. And because it had the radio.

  For a long while, for hours, it seemed, while they hurtled down a road that never seemed to curve, past peach orchards and solitary, shambling farmhouses and the occasional pickup truck packed with black-clad, juiced-up teens whose eyes flashed in the headlight beams like cats’, she managed to keep her latest anxiety cornered. Or rather, drown it in even more alarming ones. Along with the single impossible, unimaginable, hopeful one. She is, the Whistler had said. Meaning that Sophie was … Finished. And Natalie wasn’t?

  Was that right? Was there a way out? And if the way involved starving to death—eating myself completely out of existence, from the inside, instead of devouring someone else—could I do that? Do I want to? And if I could … and do … mightn’t I let myself see Eddie again? Just once more? When I was absolutely sure it was too late?

  One thing was certain: The Whistler thought she could do it. Or might be able to. She’d seen that he did. And that that had scared him. That’s why he’d said that last thing, about having to make her. What did that mean?

  “Sophie…” she murmured, stirring abruptly, half-climbing out of her seat, and Sophie turned. Grinning. Moonlight on her teeth, and in her mouth.

  “I didn’t even know you had this, Natalie,” she said, holding up a tape, waving it in the air. “Did you bring this for me?” Then she jammed the cassette in the deck and cranked the volume.

  “Lover of the Bayou”? Those wasp-buzz guitars rattling in the speakers, electrifying the air. Did Sophie even like this song? Do I? Natalie wondered. Cringing, she pulled her knees to her chest and her hands to her ears. But the buzz penetrated, demanding the lightning shock, pulling it down into the car. Sophie floored the accelerator and threw her head back, eyes all but closed, hips arching up off the seat, free hand flung out her open window to snatch the wind she’d created. She was screaming some Sophie-approximation of the words, exactly the way Sophie would have.

  If Sophie would ever have screamed this song. Which she wouldn’t. Natalie knew, definitely, that they really were different people, now, Sophie and she. Or different whatever-they-were. They’d always been, but now dangerously so. Under cover of a grimace, Natalie glanced out her own window, saw gravel flying past, the shadows of the woods lapping right up onto the shoulder. She’d shatter bones on the asphalt when she hit. Maybe. The bones would heal. Or they wouldn’t. Either way, the woods would close around her; she’d vanish into them. Then she and Sophie would both be free.

  She allowed herself one sidelong glimpse at her oldest friend. The person she’d come closest to sharing her life with. But she felt nothing. Felt the threat, and no more. “You’re not her,” Natalie whispered to herself, not even sure which of them she meant. It didn’t matter.

  She slipped her fingers around the door handle, tensed for the leap, turned, and Sophie grabbed her by the back of the neck and smashed her face-first into the dashboard and unconsciousness.

  * * *

  She woke to weight and warmth pressing down. And also lifting her up. Like a blanket. But wet. A magic carpet, because she was flat on her back and trees were floating by. She closed her eyes, opened them. Saw trees floating by, as though she were
flying. Am I flying? Kicking in sudden panic, Natalie sat up too fast, and the world tilted over, and she keeled sideways and almost tipped off the side of the flatboat before Sophie yanked her back and pushed her prone again. Blinking away frustration tears, Natalie writhed against the ropes at her ankles and wrists and then stopped. When she opened her eyes fully, she could feel black bruises pulsing underneath them. She stared upward.

  Into trees. Heavy, hulking things, leaning over as the boat drifted beneath, silent and hooded in their leaves and moss like nuns in a convalescent hospital. Their branches stirred in the rain, which filtered through as mist and settled on Natalie’s saturated skin, beading rather than penetrating. On one branch, not five feet over her head at the moment she passed, she saw a skink crouch into itself. Saw the skink see her. Beyond the skink, other things watched, skittered upward and away, which made the trees seem less nuns than fairy-tale giants, with worlds in their hair. An owl hooted, and somewhere well away, back in the real world, thunder rumbled.

  Once, years and years ago, the summer after Natalie’s father died, Sophie’s parents had taken them both to Sophie’s great-aunt’s cabin on the Okefenokee for a month, and the old woman had made them low-country boils and filled their stomachs with sausage-flavored shrimp and their evenings with swamp stories. In one, a bobcat ate a skink and lost its balance as a result and fell off its perch and got swallowed whole by an alligator. In the story, that had sounded like justice.

  “Whoops,” Sophie murmured, as the metal under Natalie bumped, then scraped. Then they were drifting again.

  Slowly, this time, head still spinning and the sweat and mist rilling down her forehead into her eyes, Natalie sat up. The ropes sagged from her wrists and slid halfway off. Natalie finished removing them and held them up.

  “Were these supposed to restrain me? Are those supposed to be knots?”