Flickers

by Arthur Slade

  There was no reaction. Ernest could have been yelling into a cave, at a stone idol, or into the eye of a hurricane. The silence that followed brought an uneasy feeling to his guts.

  “Get out of here!” he forced himself to shout. “They’re my girls. Mine! Go! Get off my land.”

  Wayne nodded, though Ernest wasn’t certain whether he was nodding to him or to a message somehow passed from the back compartment. His nephew fired up the motor of the car and slowly rolled ahead, then made a wide turn. He didn’t look back. The car rumbled down the narrow road.

  Ernest watched until they had disappeared into the horizon. Only then did he loosen his grip on the axe.

  4

  The following morning started out as had the past hundred mornings. Ernest awakened before sunrise, pulled on his clothes, threw two logs into the pot-bellied stove, put on his mud-caked boots at the door, and went out to milk the Jersey cow. His wife had named the cow Blackeye because of a rather ominous patch of black hide on one side of her face that accented the hard craziness in her eyes. The cow had never submitted meekly to the humility of being milked. Despite that, he had grown attached to her. She had more personality than most human beings he’d met.

  It had been a good winter with Blackeye, though. She’d been more agreeable since the birth of the twins. Ernest wondered if the old bag of milk and bones was happier now that her milk was going to the young lives growing up inside the house.

  “Beatrice can crawl like the devil now,” he said as he opened the gate to the milking stall. “And Isabelle holds her head up straight and strong. All thanks to your milk.”

  Blackeye seemed to nod in agreement and went directly to her stall without trying to charge or kick him. He tied her halter to the post and she chewed contentedly on her hay as he drew the milk from her. Shup shup shup, went the milk into the pail. He fell into the hypnotic rhythm of milking her.

  He’d left the barn door open and the light of the rising sun was coming in the doorway. It was rising earlier and earlier each day, melting the last few dirty snowbanks, getting the grass to grow. Soon he would be seeding his land and waiting for the soft green tendrils of wheat to poke toward the sky. Maybe this year it would be a good crop.

  The slight buzzing of an insect interrupted his thoughts. At first he decided it was his imagination. It was too early in the spring for insects, and there had been a ringing between his ears ever since he stepped too close to a firing cannon in South Africa. He glimpsed a movement out of the corner of his eye, but before he could focus the insect was gone. It was certainly larger than a fly. A hornet? He’d never seen a hornet before the last of the snow was gone.

  He continued to milk, again lost in the shup shup shupping sound. The buzzing returned and Blackeye flicked her tail and shivered her hide, the age-old method of getting rid of bothersome insects. She slapped her tail again. Ernest knew it would be safest to pull the pail out now, but her udder wasn’t quite empty. No sense leaving that milk inside her.

  Something dropped out of the air and landed on her hip, just out of Ernest’s reach. The insect was not one he’d seen before. It was the size of his little finger with a somewhat serpentine body, hornet wings, and two large black eyes. What the hell was it?

  The thing’s long scorpion-like tail snapped into the air then stabbed down and stung the cow.

  Blackeye let out a harsh bellow, lifted her massive left foot, and kicked, striking Ernest in the right forearm. He heard a snap and felt a lightning bolt of pain. Then came the clatter of the pail as the milk spilled over his legs and splattered the straw. He cursed and backed away from Blackeye, who was now kicking and snorting, eyes wide and wild. She pulled her rope tight, seeming strong enough to bring the whole barn down.

  Ernest grimaced as he rolled back his sleeve to discover that his forearm was bent at an odd angle. There was a bit of bone sticking out, blood leaking from the hole. He’d seen these kinds of injuries enough times on the battlefield. A rush of memory came over him and he was thrust back into the war, unsteady on his feet, the Boer field guns tearing open the ground, rifle fire and smoke all around. He blinked and took a deep breath. The guns continued to fire, but he was still in the barn. It became clear that Blackeye was kicking again and again, breaking the boards behind her stall, which sounded like guns going off. She was going to choke herself on the rope. He squeezed up next to her, yanked with his left hand on the slip knot, and she crashed into the barn wall. She swung her head, sizing him up for a charge. Why didn’t I dehorn you? he wondered. Then she turned and barrelled out of the barn and into the farmyard. He didn’t know if the barbed-wire fence would be enough to stop her. She’d race all the way to Montana.

  He examined his injury. He wouldn’t be able to set his own arm, he knew that much—it was too horribly broken. He took a deep breath and kicked hard at a nearby pitchfork, breaking the handle. He clenched his teeth and used the handle and a halter rope to brace his arm. It took all his will not to vomit from the pain.

  Ernest stumbled out the barn door and up the path to the house, his head aching, his vision fading, then turning bright. He didn’t want to pass out. Especially not here. It was still cold enough he’d freeze in a few hours.

  There was no way to send a message to his nieghbours. How would he get himself and both girls to town to see the doctor? No, he couldn’t have the townspeople staring at them. Not at his Beatrice. He trusted the Paulsens, who lived only three miles away. Good people. They could keep their mouths shut. He’d have to rig up the wagon, not an easy thing to do with one arm, and the horse hadn’t pulled anything for at least a month. But Ernest was strong enough to do it all left-handed as long as he didn’t collapse. He’d leave the girls with the Paulsens, then make his way to town.

  He shoved at the door to the house and it jammed about two inches in. Smoke! Was the stove’s chimney pipe blocked again? A buzzing. Three more of those foul insects shot out the crack in the door. He slapped at them, but only managed to throw himself off balance. Then he heard fearful crying—both of the girls were screaming. He slammed into the door, banging his injured arm. That nearly made him black out. But he gritted his teeth and shouldered his way in.

  The stove door was wide open. How could that be? He never forgot to close it. Embers had spilled out onto the floor and the rug was on fire and flames were shooting up the moth-ridden curtains. The forge-hot heat made his forehead sweat.

  Isabelle was screaming as if she recognized the danger. Beatrice coughed and shouted her own cries and coughed again. He charged toward his children, bending low to stay below the worst of the smoke. Several long strides later, he reached down to grab Isabelle, then tried to use his right hand to scoop up Beatrice but a shock of pain shot through it and his hand failed to close. She tumbled out onto the floor.

  The flames licked at his pant legs, his shirt, devouring the house so much faster than he’d have thought possible, sucking all the air right out of his lungs. Isabelle let out a shriek and, as if that were a command, he turned and ran. He stumbled outside, gasping for breath and rushed right to the barn and gently lowered Isabelle into a pile of straw. When he turned back, he saw that the flames were already dancing across the roof of his home.

  Beatrice! His heart thudded in his chest and his stomach was knotted tight. Had he chosen one over the other? He coughed so hard he worried a lung would come up. He hadn’t left a single soldier behind in any of his missions. He wouldn’t leave Beatrice. He charged back across the yard and into the house—into the mouth of hell—striding through smoke and cannon fire. Memories of the war became real: soldiers were dying beside him, horses falling over from bullet wounds, shells landing in the foreground. He ran by them all. There was more buzzing and he was certain that a swarm of those horrible insects was circling around him, making his ears ring even louder. Beatrice was on the floor where she had fallen, and he was thankful to see that the fire hadn’t yet claimed her. She had wriggled out of the blanket, trying to crawl away.
/>   “Beatrice!” he shouted. “I’m here! Your father is here!”

  He scooped her up in his good arm and turned. The flames had closed the way behind him. He ran blindly toward the door anyway; the house stretched out before him, the flames grew hotter. His hair was burning, but he held Beatrice’s head to protect her, even cradled his broken arm around her despite the pain. He hit a wall and bounced off and got turned around somehow. The flames were eating him. But he had to stay strong. Where was the door? He blinked several times. He spotted a square of light gleaming through the haze. He aimed for it.

  A great crack shook the very air and he knew it was the frame of the house, its backbone breaking as it was consumed by the flames. A beam fell next to him. He leapt for the door only to have a fist the size of a steam tractor strike his back and pin him to the floor. He was right in the doorway, his arms and shoulders outside, the rest of him inside the house. He couldn’t move. Nor could he feel his legs. He didn’t know if the beam that had struck him had broken his back.

  He opened his arms. At first he thought Beatrice wouldn’t move, but she coughed and he shoved her and she rolled onto the front step, then into the grass and away from the house. She crawled a few feet, then turned her head to look back at him. She wasn’t crying anymore and he was certain that she somehow understood what was happening. The flames were reflected in her eyes.

  “Go,” he whispered. “Go, little love. Go.” He was blinking tears and now he felt the flames work their way up his body. But again he gritted his teeth to the pain and he watched his daughter struggling forward with each push of her legs. She was a survivor.

  Horrible pain transfixed his body and he knew death was here, but his last thought was a comfort. At least the smoke will bring the nieghbours. My daughters will be safe.

  Then Ernest Thorn took his final breath.

  5

  1926

  Santa Monica, California

  Late in the afternoon of August 28, Beatrice Thorn was standing at the window of the white stucco tower that overlooked the Cecil Estate. She wore khaki trousers, even though girls were supposed to wear dresses or bloomers. Her short-sleeved shirt kept her cool in the heat. Her notepad and pencil waited in her pocket. She didn’t waste a moment staring down at the garden party below her, nor did she glance at the galaxy of birthmarks on her suntanned arms. Instead, she carefully pressed a pin through the thorax of a dead snipe fly, then forced the end of the long pin into the paper-covered corkboard resting on the windowsill. Beatrice examined her handiwork in the sunlight. The snipe fly was perfectly displayed—a fine addition to her insect collection. It even had some of her blood inside it. She set down the board and closed the lid on the killing jar, sealing in the sweet smell of chloroform.

  “You done poking pins in flies?” Raul asked. His skin was dark, his eyes were dark, and so was his hair. He was seated in one of the school benches, his feet up on the desk. The knees of his white gardening clothes were stained green. She had known him since childhood, he was the only playmate she’d had other than her sister. Today he looked suddenly older—more like a young man. “It’s absolutely boring.”

  An aggravating young man, Beatrice decided. “Boring! You’re the one who interrupted my work. And you’ve made me wait while you finish a sketch.”

  “But that’s different. It’s art. And I’m an artiste. This is dead bugs.”

  “Go back to pruning palm trees with your father.”

  “What!” He pointed his index finger at her, wagging it playfully. “You invited me up here. Anytime, you said.”

  “Well, I couldn’t just drop everything. Insects left in the killing jar get brittle.” She placed the corkboard on the table. “Done. Done. Done.”

  Beatrice tightened the knot on the scarves that hid her nearly bald head. There were three scarves, in a variety of colours, and they were pulled against her skull like a second, silky skin. She couldn’t hide the birthmarks scattered across her face, so she had declared a truce on her thoughts about them.

  “Finally!” Raul clapped his hands. “Papá will be looking for me soon. What should we do for fun?”

  “Tennis courts are off limits because of the party. So’s the jungle gym and pool. I could read a book to you. I have a great one about the life cycle of butterflies.”

  “A book? Please—just poke my eyes out. Why don’t we—”

  A loud cheer rose up from far below the tower. Beatrice squinted down through the window. The Fancy Party That She Was Not Invited To was taking place in a green swath of garden only yards from the water. The cast and crew from Cecil Productions twirled and sashayed amongst the palm trees and Roman statues like a flock of underfed swans: white dresses, white hats, white suits. A chamber orchestra was doing its best to play jazz, providing the musical flavouring to each glorious moment. Six of the male actors were astride camels, attempting an awkward game of sand polo on the beach.

  “Grasshoppers,” she whispered. “They’re all grasshoppers.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to jump with them. Just once.

  The party was a celebration of the production of another film. Tomorrow, the shooting would begin on Frankenstein. Today, they danced. Beatrice couldn’t spot Isabelle in the gathering; she was probably still sleeping. Mr. Cecil wasn’t there either. Knowing him, he was splicing film in his cottage home, which crouched in the shadow of the mansion. It had been built in a perfect circle. Even though Mr. Cecil was one of the richest men in California, he chose to live in a small place. Apparently all he needed was a bed and enough space to watch the dailies and splice film. Beatrice would love to go inside one day, but the cottage was verboten. No children were allowed in his sanctuary.

  “How much longer should I make the chumps wait, Beets?” Isabelle said from the doorway.

  Beatrice twitched in surprise, then turned. Her twin sister was in a shimmering black dress that seemed to be cut from a starry night sky. A cloche hat framed her immaculate face and a few blond curls peeked teasingly out of the bottom. Her silver shoes were high-heeled. Raul’s eyes were wide.

  Isabelle stepped into the room and did a twirl so that the gown of her dress umbrellaed out and in. The top of the dress fit tightly just below her clavicle, held up by thin straps that left her shoulders bare. She was very pale, despite the constant shining of the California sun. “I must be fashionably late by now.”

  “You can’t be late for your own party,” Raul whispered.

  Isabelle gave a startled glance over her shoulder, but regained her composure in the blink of an eye. “Oh, your Mexican lovebird is here. How quaint. I thought he wasn’t supposed to be in the house.”

  “He’s not my lovebird,” Beatrice growled. “He’s my friendbird. And we don’t always follow the rules.”

  Raul said nothing. His gaze was directed at Isabelle.

  Beatrice thumped herself down in the wicker chair between the two of them and plopped her feet on the teak side table, purposely kicking Raul’s leg. Hard. He rubbed it, but kept glancing back at Isabelle.

  She patted her hair. “The party isn’t just for me. It’s for the other actors, too. There are camels. I asked for elephants! But I guess camels will do. You and your friendbird should come as a prince and princess. Get all dressed up. Ha! The more I think of it, the funnier that would be.”

  “Why would either of us want to go to that silly party?” Beatrice pretended to tighten the laces on her tennis shoes. “We’re above it.”

  “Pshaw! You’d make a stunning pair. And oh . . . the gossip! Especially from the press-gallery boys. Maybe they’d finally stop writing about moi.”

  Beatrice rolled her eyes.

  “I could drive both of you down the hill and smack dab into the middle of the party,” Raul said. “In the delivery truck. I’ve driven it before. That’d be a ritzy entrance.”

  “Oh, you think big!” Isabelle took a step, reached down, and pinched his cheek with her gloved fingers. “It’s what I l
ike about you, Rauly-Pauly.”

  “Don’t tease him,” Beatrice said. “Neither of us can go. You know that.”

  “Come anyway. It’s not fair you’re not invited, Beets. It’s a stupid rule. I mean that. I’m sick of you not being by my side.” She put her hands on her hips. “Let’s do it. Let’s break the rules. Mr. Cecil won’t stop me. He always lets me get my way at these shindigs.”

  Beatrice brushed her scarves off her shoulder. “The beautiful people would turn to stone at their first glimpse of me.”

  “That’s not true,” Isabelle said, slowly enough that she sounded unsure. She lowered her hand. “You could wear a mask. It would be so . . . so . . .”

  “Daring?” Beatrice spouted. “Mysterious? Elizabethan?”

  “Don’t get testy, Beets.”

  “Oh, go talk your infantile talk and walk your infantile walk. They’re your people—it’s your world.”

  “And books and bugs and garden boys are your world!” Isabelle huffed. She stomped to the door and delivered her next words over her shoulder, “I am off, dear sister. I am off.”

  “Then be off,” Beatrice said. “Off with your head. Off with the rest of you, too.”

  Isabelle’s footsteps were already echoing on the marble stairs.

  “Well, that was exciting.” Raul rubbed his hands together. “Are you sure the two of you are twins?”

  “Fraternal,” she said. “We’re dissimilar twins.”

  “You’re more similar than you think.”

  She gave him a short, sharp glare. When she was younger this sort of comment might have led to fisticuffs. But the problem with fighting with the only other kid on the estate was that there’d be no one else to spend time with. Her sister was always at the studio.

  There was another cheer from outside. Despite herself, Beatrice stood and went back to the window. Uncle Wayne waved his polo mallet around like a Saracen with a sword—celebrating a goal. He was legally the twins’ guardian and, by blood, their cousin, but he and Betty preferred being called uncle and aunt. It had been that way since the girls were toddlers.