Wild Swans

by Patricia Snodgrass

  “What do you think we should do?” Elly asked.

  “For the moment, nothing,” Ruby said studying the tea in the glass. “Are you sure I can’t have just a teaspoonful?”

  “You can’t have any, Sister. Now quit asking.”

  Ruby folded her arms on the table top and put her head on her uninjured wrist. For a moment, Ruby resembled a petulant teenager.

  “What I want to know is how am I going to get home?” Elly asked. “I can’t go out there with that going on. And I’m not convinced that man of yours ain’t the cause of it. Queer things have been going on since he showed up, really queer things.”

  “Hush, Elly, Mr. Lindt is a nice man and has nothing to do with this.” Cally replied. “If anyone is to blame it’s those army ammunition plants. Especially that one in Karnack, Texas. I hear they make atom bombs there, and there’s no telling what they’re pouring into Caddo Lake. For all we know there could be all sorts of things mutating in the waters around here thanks to that.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s most definitely the devil’s work,” Elly said. “And I think you’re letting your loneliness for a man blind you, Cally. Even the devil can take on a pleasing form.”

  “Oh please stop,” Ruby said.

  “Yes, let’s have a drink,” Cally said. “I’ve got the coffee started. We’ll have café Amaretto here in a bit.”

  “At this point I could use a straight shot,” Elly said. Cally poured her a small glass and helped herself to one as well.

  “Maybe we should call the sheriff, once the phone is back on,” Cally said as she sat down beside her sister. “You know how the phones are here. The lines are up one minute and down the next.”

  “But they’ve never made a noise like that before,” Elly said. “That was the most awful sound I’d ever heard.”

  “And tell him what?” Ruby asked, ignoring Elly, “that we’re being attacked by a large horde of fireflies?” She snorted. “He’d think we lost our minds.”

  “I’m scared, Ruby. I want to go home,” Elly whimpered.

  “After this passes you can.”

  “How long is that going to take?” Elly asked, her usually lovely face pale and drawn.

  “I don’t know,” Ruby snapped. “But I promise as soon as it’s over you’ll be more than welcome to go.”

  “That’s no way to act,” Cally chided, her voice so low Ruby barely heard it.

  Chastised, Ruby said, “I’m sorry Elly, I truly am. It’s been an unnerving day to say the least.”

  “That’s the understatement of the century.”

  Elly nodded and finished her drink. Cally poured herself and Elly a cup of coffee with a shot of Amaretto. “C’est bon,” Cally said after tasting the coffee. “Now, chere, tell us again what happened at the church,” she said to Ruby.

  Ruby offered them a nervous laugh. “I fell and hit my head that’s all.”

  “That’s not all and you know it,” Cally snapped. “You’ve been hiding something all afternoon. And I for one am tired of it. So out with it. Now.”

  “But—”

  “—Out with it,” Elly agreed. “If you have some idea as to what’s going on we have a right to know, don’t we, Cally?”

  Cally nodded.

  Ruby studied her tea glass. “I don’t know if it was real or not,” she confessed after a lengthy pause. “I fell, I remember that much, but afterwards things got a little crazy, you know?”

  “We know,” Cally and Elly said in unison.

  “I was aggravated that Althea left church without saying a word. I went out to the car and my lipstick got tangled with the key chain.” Ruby bit her lower lip, concentrating. “At that point I can’t recall if I fell and hit the tire well or if I fell at the church steps. The only thing I remember for sure is that I started seeing buzzards. They were everywhere. Big ugly black turkey buzzards, you know the kind.”

  Cally and Elly stared at each other.

  “You don’t believe me, I can tell.”

  “It’s not that we don’t believe you—” Cally began.

  “It’s just that we’re having trouble understanding it,” Elly said.

  “How do you think you’re going to feel when you go to town and tell everyone we’ve been held hostage by mutant fireflies?” Ruby shouted.

  “Take it easy, Sister, we believe you,” Cally reiterated.

  “Please,” Elly said, “tell us what happened.”

  So Ruby did, at least as best as she could recall.

  Nearly half an hour passed before anyone spoke again. Ruby looked at the window over the sink. The blinds didn’t do a good job of hiding what was going on outside, but she could see the millions of small black hard shelled bodies plastered against the window. The screen bulged inward and sagged against the heavy lead glass. Mon Dieu, she thought. There’s so many of them. How can there possibly be so many? And what will we do if they manage to break the glass?

  “When are they going to leave?” Elly asked for what seemed to be the thousandth time, her voice tense, and the tendons in her neck sticking out. “I want to go home. I left Danielle with the sitter and she loves les petite moiselles. You know how kids are. What if she goes out there thinking they’re harmless? What if she gets stung to death by those things? What if?”

  “We’re not entirely sure that they’re not harmless. Maybe they’re just confused,” Cally said.

  “How can you say that after seeing what they did to Ruby?”

  “We have no proof that the bugs bit Ruby. That chimney is ancient and hasn’t been properly cleaned out since last winter. There’s no telling what’s up in that stack.”

  “It was the fireflies,” Ruby said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “But still—”

  “You heard Ruby. They swarmed her and they stung her so badly she had an asthma attack. What if the same thing is happening at my house too? What if those things attack my little Danielle?” Elly burst into tears. “My little girl is my whole life. If she dies because of me—”

  “Don’t borrow any trouble, Elly. We can’t pay back what we’ve got,” Cally said.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Ruby said, slapping at a stinging sensation on the back of her neck that promptly reached a startling burning crescendo. She looked at her hand and grasped.

  A quarter sized drop of blood was smeared in the palm of her hand, mixed in with an eerie purple glowing chemical. Stunned, she sat and stared at it. Blood, she thought. The little bastard actually drew blood. She looked up at the ceiling as if by doing so she could determine the location of the stowaway. “Now how did they get in here?”

  Cally cried out. “One of the little bastards stung my ear.” She stood abruptly, knocking the chair over in the process. Elly did the same seconds later.

  “My God these things bite hard,” Cally exclaimed. Elly cried out as she slapped the insects away from her face and hair.

  “How are they getting in?” Ruby shouted as the kitchen quickly became filled with lightning bugs.

  “Who cares?” Cally shouted. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Elly squealed. “We can’t go outside.”

  “We can go up,” Ruby said grimly as she grabbed both women by their dress collars and hauled them into the hallway where more bugs were swarming. Ruby glanced around, realized that the damper on the fireplace had been forced open. She closed it for the second time, shutting off access for any more of the mutant fireflies. Grabbing the women by the arms she dragged them up the stairs and into her apartment. She slammed the door behind her. “Get some towels to stuff up underneath the door,” she said. Cally nodded and ran to get towels.

  “I’m burning up,” Cally complained as she ran into the bathroom. “Whatever those things are they pack one heck of a bite.”

  “That answers the question as to what really stung you, Ruby,” Elly commented.

  “Don’t wash it off,” Ruby cautioned when she saw the marks on her sister’s arms. “Tha
t looks like you got off into some battery acid.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near a battery.”

  “I know, but don’t put water on it; it makes the burning sensation much worse. Put some baking soda on it and see if it’ll stop the burning sensation.

  “The only baking soda we have is down in the main kitchen.”

  “Shit,” Ruby swore. “Well then get into the medicine cabinet and grab that extra bottle of calamine lotion. It took the burn out for me.”

  “It looks like the bites effect people differently,” Elly was saying as she rolled up her sleeve and looked at what appeared to be mosquito bites on her arm.

  “Are you hurting? Do you feel sick?”

  “No,” Elly replied. She looked hard at Ruby. “You got stung again. How about you? Are you okay?”

  “There must still be enough asthma medicine in my system to take care of it,” she replied. “I have another inhaler on the end table beside my bed, just in case I have an attack in the middle of the night.”

  “You might want to get it, then,” Cally said.

  Ruby nodded, but instead of going to the bedroom, she looked out the French windows bracketing the balcony.

  Ruby rubbed her forehead, the headache she’d been fighting off since the incident at the church was making a comeback. She yearned to lie down but knew Cally would never allow that. Just then she wished that Cally had gotten the chance to call old Doc Spivey before all this madness started.

  “Hey, I think they’re leaving,” Elly said, interrupting Ruby’s thoughts. “See?” She pointed at the window. “They’re heading back out toward the bayou.”

  “My Lord would you look at that,” Cally said as she and Ruby walked over to the big French windows. The fireflies stopped their trek toward the bayou and condensed their swarm into a startlingly frightening looking humanoid figure. It pulsated, the black shape writhing with blinking purple and red lights. Then the lights stopped as if they were absorbed by the blackness.

  “What is it?” Elly asked, crying now. “Oh God what is that thing?”

  Ruby’s mouth went dry. Fear wrapped around her chest like a thin hot wire.

  “I don’t know,” Cally whispered. “I swear to God I just don’t know.”

  “We should call the sheriff,” Elly said. “We should call right now.”

  “The phone’s dead, remember? Besides, what would they do?” Ruby snapped. “They’d just laugh at us silly women living all alone here on the outskirts of town. They’ll just think we have overactive imaginations and got spooked.”

  “I am spooked,” Cally whispered. “That thing is looking at us. I’m sure of it.”

  Ruby focused her attention again on the creature hovering just inches above the lawn. It turned, looking frighteningly two dimensional, like a blackboard that was propped up on its side. Then, without a sound, the thing simply disappeared.

  Ruby thought she was going to faint. She felt her legs turn to Jello. She leaned over and clutched the window sill for strength.

  “Did you all see that?” she whispered.

  Elly and Cally nodded.

  “Look at the store,” Ruby commanded. The women’s attention was drawn to the building standing just before the tree line. Sitting on the high line wires that fed electricity into the store as well as the house, was a large black buzzard. Its eyes were like red glowing pinpoints. Ruby’s breath caught. She vaguely heard Cally gasp.

  The creature was looking straight at them.

  Chapter Nine

  Althea leaned against a tree, gasping for breath, fighting a stitch in her side. Mom was right, she thought as another fit of crying assailed her. Oh Lord she was right. Jake really was two timing me. Regaining her composure, she walked down a winding deer trail leading to the bayou. It was a short cut that she’d taken every day since she started school. Home was about two miles away by walking down the trail as opposed to the four miles it took to drive. Althea didn’t mind. She wanted to walk. It gave her time to think.

  Rubbing her sore eyes with a knuckle, she started up the sloping path towards the levee. How could Jake do this to me? she wondered. I loved him and I thought he’d loved me too. We could have run away together and made a life for ourselves, but no, he had to be balling Matilda of all people. Of all the girls in the world, why did he choose her?”

  “Because she’s easy,” she could hear her mother saying. “And what do you expect with her father a drunk and her mother doing nothing but having babies every year and taking in washing? They’re trash, and so is their slut of a daughter. Jake will get caught and her father will have them both up before the altar with a shotgun pointed at Jake’s back before he can say boo.”

  “You’re right, Mom,” Althea whispered seeing her last hope for love and happiness vanish in the shimmering humid air. “You’re always right.” She stepped up onto the levee and skipped between the saplings and underbrush that grew there. Cardinals, mockingbirds and blue jays flitted through the trees, squabbling over territory. Sunlight glistened off the water to her left, and she heard the comforting sloshing of waves against the levee as she made her journey home.

  The forest was very healing. In the past, Althea would walk on the levee and let nature wash away the day’s strife. And from there she’d take every troubling thought, every hurtful word said to and about her and imagine it flowing out of her and into the dark green depths of the bayou below. She imagined all her fears washed downstream out into the Gulf where they dissipated into wind and sea and salt.

  This time the daydream wasn’t working. Perhaps, she thought, this problem is too big, even for the ocean to handle.

  She uttered a heavy sigh, startling a rabbit from its hiding spot beneath a tangle of blackberry vines. It dashed out across her path and disappeared. Althea wondered vaguely where the creature went because there was little place for it to go other than over the levee and down to the water.

  A loud splash startled her and she paused, gazing at the swirling water below. An alligator sunning itself on the far bank had slid in and cruised in her direction. Althea sighed. The animal couldn’t get up on this side, she knew. The levee was too steep, and besides, there were several ducks swimming nearby—far more convenient and interesting prey—as far as she was concerned. Despite that, she quickened her pace.

  The sun pounded down high overhead. Althea skirted a cypress tree that, unlike its brothers, hadn’t sunk its knees deep into the muddy bayou floor, but chose instead to grow in the forest. She looked up past the canopy, feeling somewhat confused. What time is it? She wondered. I know it hadn’t been more than an hour since I left the church but the sun looks higher in the sky than it should. Where did the time go?

  Feeling headachy and somewhat disoriented, she stumbled along the path atop of the levy, knowing soon the trail would take her away from the water and back towards the plantation house. She could, if she chose to, continue her path down the levee and end up at the docks. But most of that path had been worn away by erosion as well as being obstructed by wild shrubs, blackberry canes, and thick ropes of honeysuckle. The right hand path away from the levee was easier and Althea had a sudden impulse to go home at the most expedient route.

  A great heavy flapping disturbed her and she looked up to see a shadow pass overhead. The air became dense and even hotter. Her hair plastered against her head. Sweat trickled in salty rivulets between her shoulder blades. The stillness was palpable. She stopped and listened but heard nothing.

  Mosquitoes and buffalo gnats should be swarming around but there was no sign of even the tiniest insect. Althea looked up and saw the sun looked unnatural. It had become as flat and dull as if it had been painted onto the vault of the sky.

  Birds squabbling for territory and fledglings taking their first tentative flights had disappeared. Even the alligator that cruised several yards behind her had submerged. The bayou water was still, deep and mysterious. Everything was hushed, as if the entire forest was holding its breath waiting for something
dreadful to pass.

  Has time stood still? Althea wondered. Despite the heat, she felt chilled, as if she were standing chin deep in ice water. It’s getting harder to breathe, she noted. Is it possible that the air itself was getting heavier?

  She stepped away from the levee, feeling suddenly and deeply frightened. Tiny hairs on the nape of her neck stood up. Her pulse cranked up another notch. Now she could feel tension in her jaws and realized at that moment that she had her teeth clamped tightly together. Relax she told herself. There’s nothing here.

  Nevertheless, she stepped backwards again until she came to stand between a pair of aged oaks. Spanish moss draped the branches in deep heavy curtains. The trees were a gateway to an old fort she and Jake had built when they were kids. Inside, she knew it was almost like a tree born cave walled with thick coverings of vines, saplings and shrubs. She stood at the moss covered threshold, her head cocked, listening. She saw, seconds later, a great shadow fall upon her from above.

  At that instant a hand reached out, clamped down hard on her mouth and dragged her into the fort. She struggled, terrified, adrenalin flowing ice cold throughout her body.

  A face came close to her cheek. It was a man’s she realized, and a grown man’s too because I can feel the beard stubble.

  “Quiet,” a familiar voice whispered in her ear. “I won’t hurt you, but you have to be still and quiet otherwise they’ll see us.”

  “Mr. Lindt?” She mumbled between his fingers.

  He gently removed his hand from her face and whispered. “Please don’t make a sound. We don’t want them to see us,” he repeated.

  “Who?” Althea asked.

  He pointed toward the opening between the trees. Her breath caught. It was the same thing she and Jake had seen earlier. A being as dark as if it had been carved out of space itself floated inches above the ground. It swept along the levee, scanning the area where Althea stood just moments before.

  The thing paused as if contemplating its next move. Pain shot through her. Blinding lines zigzagged along her peripheral vision. She felt sick, woozy, as if she spent too much time on a roller coaster. Mr. Lindt held her close, whispered so softly that she could barely hear, his lips brushing against her temple as he spoke to her.