Nightbitch

by Rachel Yoder

  The pack of cubs formed a sort of platform—one single mass working in unison—onto which one of the mothers pushed me. I stretched out atop the pack, and they moved as one body, transporting me beneath the trees to a cozy den in a well-protected cave. “What good children,” I repeated again and again within my spinning dementia. Inside the cave, a low fire burned. Eyes flickered in the dark recesses of the habitat. I estimate that a dozen WereMothers were nestled within, along with countless cubs.

  In the cave, in the firelight, I was better able to study the WereMothers, even in my much-depleted state. Their pelts were truly glorious, as thick as bear fur and sparkling with hairs that appeared to be made of pure silver. One WereMother wrapped me in a thick flannel tick stuffed with down. Where such a linen had been procured was mysterious, but I could not and did not question its warmth and comfort.

  The cubs snuggled beneath the blanket, and their warm little bodies served to raise my core temperature quite quickly and efficiently. One WereMother provided me with a wooden bowl of something very close to chicken broth. The cubs barked in such a way that I thought I was able to distinguish language, in an obscure Russian dialect that approximated words such as “ball” and “play.” Another WereMother licked my face, and it felt like a warm cloth, reminiscent of my own, human childhood.

  Did I imagine the smell of freshly baked bread? Might I have hallucinated the lullabies I heard that evening as I drifted in and out of sleep? The WereMothers were the gentlest of creatures, though their large canine teeth were terrifying. I had no doubt they were masterful hunters and protectors of their young. I also wondered, had I been a man, what fate I might have met that night, wandering crazed in the forest. Perhaps—ironically—my womanhood was what saved me that day, rather than dooming me.

  I spent the remainder of my trip with the WereMothers. I witnessed the birth of many cubs and also spontaneous reimpregnation just days after cubs were born. If I had had more time to spend in my investigation of this most lovely species, I would have been curious to see how such life cycles were sustainable over long periods of time.

  Just a year ago, I returned to this region in search of the WereMothers and, though I am certain my geographical calculations were correct, was not able to find a single trace of their existence.

  * * *

  —

  SHE WATCHED HER SON closely that week to see if there would be any residual trauma from what he had seen. She searched the Internet for kids who have seen violence, and the boy did not appear to have any of the symptoms—no odd aches, no bad dreams, no separation anxiety (not that they were ever separated) or moments of aggression (other than the ordinary doggy snarls), just giggles and cartoons and crashing his cars together in the living room, dumping buckets of sand from the sandbox on the lawn and then raking the sand into the grass with his little-boy-sized rake. No, he seemed fine, but, still, she took him twice that week to get ice cream at the stand down by the river, and they threw rocks into the flat, muddy ripples. They went to the park with the old amusement rides, and they rode the toy train eight times, each time in the caboose, the boy never tiring of it, and crying when she told him she was out of tickets and it was time to go.

  Yes, she would go to Jen’s herb party. And, yes, she would invest in herbs. She needed all she could get at this point. Was there a Rage-Be-Gone variety? Something to ward off magical transformations into a rabid canine? No-Dog, perhaps?

  The next day, in a continuing effort to make headway and turn over a new leaf, Nightbitch sat at her son’s tiny plastic table in the kitchen and wrote ten things i want to do before i die, in all caps, on the back of a piece of construction paper covered in crayon scribbles. It was an excruciating self-help exercise, one she would never, ever reveal to another soul, but still. Her son sat in a large casserole dish full of unpopped popcorn, plastic trowel in hand. He wiggled his bare feet in the kernels and laughed. There was a baking sheet beside him, various spoons, plastic bowls, and many, many kernels strewn nearly to the living room.

  Nightbitch stared at the sinkful of dishes without seeing them. Ten things, ten things. Good god, she couldn’t even think of one. “Lose ten pounds,” she wrote lamely, then stopped.

  Did she really have no desires anymore? No deep passions? Where had the vitriolic emotions and sweeping gestures of her twenties disappeared to?

  Oh god, what did she want to do? There had to be something.

  She forced herself to jot down anything—blindly, just go—and so she scrawled “I want to run naked through a meadow and catch a rabbit and snap its neck and then rip its throat open and drink the warm blood from the wound” and

  I want to tell the truth

  I want to hump legs

  I want to chase horses around a barnyard and make them whinny and kick up dust

  I want to be in a church choir and wear a robe but instead of singing I just howl all my hymn notes loud as I can

  I want to never brush my hair ever again

  I want to wear the same linen dress for a year

  I want to stink!

  I want to run and run and run into the cornfields all the way to a stream and then follow it to the ocean—I’m sorry, but I’m not coming back—and I want to have very, very passionate sex with a stranger and I want to sit on a fully decorated cake without underwear and I want to perform a large anonymous act of extreme vandalism and I want to be an artist and a woman and a mother I mean a monster I want to be a monster

  And certainly her wishes had been affected by what she had read of the WereMothers earlier, for she found the passage so enchanting that she had been transported from her stuffy bedroom and into the cold, clean woods of the WereMothers where they lived together and helped each other and were in a constant state of babies. She loved babies! And she loved the thought of having twenty other wives to live with. Imagine the efficiency! Imagine the friendship! Sure, perhaps you were part wolf, but still. For Nightbitch, there truly was something so enticing and exhilarating at the thought of rejecting all established society for something remote and magical, for a community suited particularly and only to the community’s needs. Was being free to do what you needed and be who you wanted—truly free—monstrous? If so, it was not a wrong kind of monstrous, but a beautiful one. A way of being to celebrate rather than run from.

  In an uncharacteristic move, she collected her son then and took him to the mall, which delighted him, for there was an ornate, full-sized merry-go-round inside, and carts shaped like choo-choo trains in which he could ride, and she indulged him that day in his every desire, and then indulged herself as well. Even though, in theory, she hated the mall, with a child to take care of all day long the shopping center became a wonderland of endless coffee and toddler-friendly activities, which, when visited only once every three months, was an absolute joy. When she allowed herself and the boy a trip, she indulged entirely in its basic, perfume-sample-scented delights. At the fast-fashion store made for customers decades beneath her own age, she bought a cheap pair of black faux-leather pants as her son sucked on an enormous grape lolly, the likes of which he had never been allowed. She bought a faux-fur vest and a coat with “real coyote-like fur trim.” She bought leather boots in caramel and midnight and ivory. She found earrings dangling with purple crystals, a necklace made of desiccated seeds. She bought the boy French fries and a hangurger, as he called it, and allowed him to attend to it himself, slathering ketchup down his shirt and smearing cheese in his hair, as she devoured her own burger with her collection of bags at her feet. Once home, she left the boy to nap in his car seat, for he had fallen hard into it on the way home, warmed by the late-afternoon sun, everything about him dirty and content. Inside, she changed from her holey T-shirt and shorts too short for her age to her favorite ripped linen caftan and soft fringed moccasins. She wore a red feather boa she had bought for her son. That entire week, in fact, she wore wha
tever she cared to, day and night, ripped or stained or leather or linen. She became more powerful and more terrifying. She saw it in the eyes of other mothers, in their sidelong glances and stares and quick turns askance. She saw it in the eyes of men, men both hungry and horrified.

  I dare you to talk to me, she told them with her mind, and they never dared.

  That same night, her husband—rather uncharacteristically, as if he could sense something was amiss, even from his hotel room in Omaha—wanted to video-chat, but she simply couldn’t in her current state—unwashed, hair spiraling to the greatest of heights, an all-over furring of her body, a wild, wild look in her eyes—and so she pressed cancel, but then he tried again.

  He had a way of doing this, knowing the perfectly wrong time to insist on being connected.

  You never call me anymore, he said later, when he called a third time that evening.

  Normally, it was her texting and texting and texting him throughout the day, bored and lonely and just wanting some human contact, Hi, and later What are you up to?, and then, even later, Must be busy today, and, finally, Hi a second time. He more often than not did not reply to her texts and then, in the evenings, would answer her calls with a clipped Hello.

  Are you working? she would ask.

  Just doing some paperwork. What’s up? he would say with an air of efficiency and business, this conversation another thing to check off the list.

  Ah, well, just call when you can, she would say, and he would respond with a few words of exhaled relief, and she would wonder, How hard is it to talk to me? To just ask me about my day? To inquire about the child? How goddamn hard is that?

  But now it was him calling. And it was delicious.

  We’ve just been so busy today, Nightbitch said.

  It was late, and the boy was sleeping in the kennel, curled up on a stack of pillows. He had fallen asleep in there all on his own for the first time in his life. Before, it was those long hours of books and stories and songs and water and hugs and crying and on and on, but now she simply licked his face, tilted her head back and let out a little howl, and then scurried downstairs. The boy cuddled up in a little pile and pulled the wire door closed, not latching it but simply creating a sense of safety, a barrier between him and the monsters in the closet and the monsters in the hallway and the terrifying darkness all around.

  He went to sleep completely on his own, she added.

  Seriously? her husband said, astonished.

  When I left, I told him I’d be back to check on him in five minutes, and he was out cold in the kennel when I went back up, no stories, no nothing. She said all this in a torrent of words, not leaving room for him to interject. She wanted to explain it fully and positively, to show what a good idea it had been. I know you don’t like the kennel stuff, she continued, but he’s asleep.

  Her husband laughed.

  I guess he’ll have some good stories, you know, as an adult, he said.

  You don’t even know, she said.

  Let’s hope it sticks, he added.

  Oh, it will, she said. You should see him. He just loves being a good doggy.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT DAY, AS she pushed her son on a swing and he squawked with joy, as they tunneled in the sandbox in the backyard with their hands, their paws, as she boiled yet another pot of macaroni noodles at dinnertime, as they went on their evening walk through the neighborhood, marveling at the texture of tree bark, chasing a bee from one flower to another, listening for the song from a bird and then singing back, she thought about animals and escape, about freedom and desire, about wanting to be a monster.

  It was now, she realized, that she would need to grow focused and quiet, to narrow her eyes and look into the future and see there her success and then work toward making that success happen. No more pouting. No more aimless doggy games. She must be single-minded in her pursuit and effective in her approach. And she would get her son to help her, somehow.

  On Thursday, she and the boy spent the day watching online videos of wolves and foxes and dogs, mothers with litters and lone wolves tracking prey, foxes pouncing and playfully plunging their heads into deep snow in search of warm, blood-beating mice far below. They went to the library and checked out all the nonfiction books with the subject of “Dog” from the children’s section, and took three trips to lug them out to the car. When they arrived home, they spread the books on the living-room floor and lay there, looking at pictures, reading, discussing, play-acting, trying out a hunt, a pounce, a chase, a hide, a confrontation, sniffing and circling and fighting and snuggling.

  She stood in the bathroom and teased her hair until it was as wide as it was long. She whitened her teeth and took special care to polish her canines. She had stopped shaving her armpits, her legs, the tender folds of skin at the top of her legs and the mound of hair that grew at her center. A true furring was indeed taking place. She rubbed her fingertips over the stubble in her armpit, so comforting was this new part of herself. So, too, she had stopped waxing her lip and plucking her eyebrows, and that week practiced not looking in the mirror altogether. No need was there for makeup any longer, for expensive bleaching creams or sunblock, for tinctures designed to erase fine lines or inhibit aging or protect from environmental pollution. She threw pelts she had bought and pelts she had found over the bathroom mirror and the full-length in the bedroom. That night, she licked her son’s face clean, and he licked her cheek good night and then curled in his kennel, as simple as that.

  * * *

  —

  NIGHTBITCH ARRIVED AT Book Babies in her ripped linen caftan, the frayed edges unraveling dangerously, her hair unwashed now for a week and protruding hugely from her head in a frenetic net of curls and knots. Her freckles had been drawn out by the late-summer sun, and her shoulders were burned red from her daily sessions of fetch with the boy. Her toenails were unpolished, the bottoms of her feet dry and cracked. They were in need of serious exfoliation, yet she made up for this grooming oversight by accessorizing exquisitely with purple crystals dangling on thin golden hoops in her ears, a length of pliant leather around her neck, a load of golden bracelets weighting her arm made from leaf-shaped links, slim bangles, turquoise beading. She smelled of lavender. It was Friday, and the week had danced by so smoothly, so quickly. A focused and slicing one-person waltz, she thought.

  Oh my god! Jen exclaimed upon seeing her, and the rest of the Book Mommies turned to see. You are so boho! she said. I love what you’ve done with yourself.

  The others looked on less enthusiastically—disapprovingly, one might even say.

  You guys, Jen said, turning to Babs and Poppy and the other dubious Book Mommies. She is so…Joshua Tree.

  Thanks for your enthusiasm, Nightbitch said, taking a seat beside her and letting the boy loose to run around the room, barking.

  What inspires you? Jen prodded, the Book Mommies already on to talking about Kindergarten Roundup.

  Oh, you know, Nightbitch said. I guess you could say it’s a sort of art project I’m developing.

  Oooooh! Jen said, eyes widening. You’re an artist!?

  Used to be, Nightbitch said.

  What’s the project? Jen asked, only to be set upon by her twins, screaming over a piggy puppet they both wanted but neither could peacefully have.

  Nightbitch dug through her bag, looking for nothing, just to have a task with which to be occupied, for how could she say what her project was? Something to do with dogs? Magic? Or not magic, exactly, but power? Feminine power, finally wielded, for wasn’t that what all those witches in Colonial America had been burned for, all the folk-medicine practitioners, the midwives? Too much power makes a woman dangerous, and that was her project: creation and power.

  After settling the piggy war, Jen turned again to Nightbitch, her last question already forgotten.

  I’ve alway
s been a secret hippie, Jen whispered, following her confession with a wink.

  And oh! she continued with a start. I’m so excited you’re coming to the party! I saw you RSVP-ed yes.

  Yes, Nightbitch said, then yes again, for there was no add-on comment available to her, like Looking forward to it or I can’t wait, for these were not exactly true, and these days she could not bring herself to utter such quotidian niceties.

  We’ll have so much fun, Jen said with a clap and a squeal.

  * * *

  —

  TELL ME AGAIN, HER husband said, after arriving home later that day, throwing the boy high in the air to make him laugh, taking his shoes off, unpacking his suitcase, drinking a beer as he leaned against the kitchen counter and then, offhandedly, inquiring as to where in the world the stupid cat was. He ran his hand through his hair and focused intently on his wife.

  Explain again, he said.

  Okay, she said, inhaling as she looked at the boy on the floor who was busy loading a garbage truck with marbles. Honey, she said to him, go pick up garbage in the living room, babe.

  Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-nk, the boy said happily and drove away.

  Well, like I said, Nightbitch began, it was a hectic morning. I was horribly tired. Hormones or something. She paused to laugh nervously. And I was cutting up apples for applesauce, and had that heavy pot full of water and apples, right up to the brim. You know how heavy those are?

  Yeah, he said.

  And so I turned with the pot in my hands, and for some reason also still holding the knife—just trying to do too much all at once—and she was right there—you know how she lurks—and I dropped the pot right on her poor little head, and then the knife, which went right into her.

  You dropped a knife on her?

  I dropped a knife on her.