“Yes.”
“Fantastic. We can carry them back to Veronica and head out. It gets dark early around here.”
“Super early. And I’m not leaving. This is my home.”
“I can’t leave you here. Same team. Remember? You’ll come with me and then you can come back later if you want.” I say this but lies are buried too shallowly. Surely if I get him to the cops, if they see this place, the bodies, the decay, Earl will never see it again.
“You’d really take me with you?” Earl asks. “You’d keep me if I went with you?” The sweet hesitance in his voice makes me feel teary. He is braced for rejection.
“I’ll get you to a safer place. I can promise that.” I feel a twinge. I’m lying. When have I ever been safe?
“No place is safer. This is the only place I make sense.”
There is truth in what he says, but telling himself this is also not the right truth to share so I change the subject and ask, “So why didn’t George burn the place down?”
“He didn’t get around to a lot of things.”
“He’s a real prize.”
Earl misses the sarcasm. “He isn’t. He said he’d burn me up with the ghost buildings if I wasn’t better, and I love this place. I want to keep it.”
“Jesus,” I whisper. I stand still in the snow, but Earl keeps moving, not noticing that I’ve stopped. It’s painful to stop. The cold air settles on my exposed skin, fits itself to my pores. I stay still for as long as I can to watch Earl. A boy—no more than eight—smart enough to survive on his own. His long legs in their rain boots stretch up from the snow. He is all sinew and strength and defiance.
The daylight is changing around us, moving into afternoon in a way that makes the night already feel too close. The days are short here. Time is fleeting. I will my feet to move and catch up with Earl.
“I did it on purpose,” he says quietly. I wonder if he said it once already and I didn’t hear because he says it again: “I did it on purpose. On purpose.”
“What it, Earl?”
“Killed him. Tried to do him dead. And I don’t feel bad about it. Not a bit,” Earl says. “Dying might not be so bad.”
“Most people fight it pretty hard.”
“I’d be super quiet. Like the woods right now. Like this but warm. Maybe even with snow, but the snow would be a blanket. Something I could get underneath of. I like that.”
“Death is not warm or cold or anything. It’s just done,” I say.
“But I could be done here. On my land.”
“You mean if George burned you up for the assurance? Earl, you’re eight. You’ll live a long time if you stop being so gruesome. Plus, George is surely dead by now. You’ll have to find someone else to burn you up.”
We’ve reached the barn door. Earl begins to push, to put his full weight into it, and only moves it enough to dig it in deeper to the snow.
With the promise of shelter from the wind, I feel even colder. Impatient.
Earl doesn’t answer but his head tilts to the sky. Above us is a door that must lead to the hayloft.
“How we gettin’ up there?” I ask.
Earl looks at me like I’m stupid: “Climb.”
“Dermit,” I mumble. Earl smiles.
Pine trees hug the barn. Three cluster to the right of the barn door itself and lead up to the loft like some kind of legless ladder. The long trunks actually become quite plentiful in terms of branches as soon as they hit the second story of the barn but, until then, they are noble stalks of trees that I can’t imagine finding a way to hold on to.
“Are we supposed to shimmy up those?”
“Yeah. I do it all the time. You’ve got an advantage ’cause the snow gives you a leg up.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“You go first.”
“Why?”
“That way I can help,” Earl says, and laces his fingers together, as if I’m going to put my foot in his hands.
“My boobs weigh more than you,” I say, and he giggles. His laugh warms me. “Fine, I’ll give it a go.”
I tuck the ski mask into my jacket pocket and stand at the base of the three trees and rub my hands together. There are nubs here and there, spots where branches have broken off. A real climber would go for it, finding the tiny notches and bulbs to get to the top.
“I can tell you where to put your feet,” Earl says. It’s a kind offer since I’m still rubbing my hands together while wondering how to get out of this. “It’s easy.” He points to a knob on the left tree as he taps my left foot with his hand and another knob on the tree to the right for my right foot. “You just use these two trees until you get to the branches and then you just fit your left foot in the crack of the door and you’re in.”
“I hear an overuse of the word ‘just’ coming out of you,” I say.
“What?”
“Nothing. Here I go.”
I fall before I even have both hands and feet on the tree. Luckily, the snow is forgiving.
“Here I go,” I say.
“You already said that.”
I roll my eyes at him and then there’s his laugh. So young and so pleased with me. I smack my hands together and try again, shimmying up between two of the three trees like it’s something I’ve done before, and I feel a strange pride in myself, in this girl showing off for little Earl.
Once I hit branches, it’s no problem and I make my way to door level, stretching my left leg out to slide onto the ledge of the barn door. Earl is clapping as I reach out and grab the frame with my hand and make the hop inside.
I’m in the hayloft and Earl is already at the top of the tree, pulling himself inside. There is a drop-off ahead of me but the loft stretches halfway across the barn. To my right is a pile of blankets and some thick candles that have melted into the boards.
“In the summer, I live up here. In the winter, I stay downstairs so I can be close to the stove.”
“It’s freezing in here.”
“George put in a wood burner. Keeps it toasty.” He points to an old pipe stretching up through the eaves and piercing a hole through the ceiling.
“There’s wood in the stove downstairs. I’ll get it going for us. Come down with me.”
We climb the old ladder to the first floor of the barn; the rungs creak under my boots but hold steady.
“We aren’t staying long,” I say. “Don’t put too much effort into making it warm.”
Earl works on the fire and I inspect the rest of the barn. In the farthest, darkest corner is the supposed truck all covered over with a canvas. It looks smaller than a truck should, and I know it is going to disappoint in some way that I can’t yet determine so I leave it.
Instead, I discover boxes of canned goods, blankets, and several full gas cans. Hanging on one wall are snowshoes and ski poles. I can’t stop smiling.
Earl has flames already eating at the wood and twigs in the stove’s belly and I join him near a small wooden table with one chair. The table is covered with his tiny objects. Just like the ones I saw in the woods. There’s a small stockpile of tinfoil, a jar of what looks like silver paint, child safety scissors, a bottle of Elmer’s glue, and a few other odds and ends. There are sheets of tinfoil that have been flattened out and then folded evenly into squares for safekeeping. Next to these are hundreds of his tinfoil cutouts. They shine in the meager light coming from the stove. There’s also a whole zoo of animals, and the creatures are all proportionate to each other. The rhinoceros with wide circular feet is small enough to fit in my palm but big enough so that the tiniest of the birds can sit between his shoulder blades.
“It’s my mayonaisery,” Earl says proudly.
“Your what?” I ask. Then I think, menagerie.
“I was doing wood carving for a long time, but George took my knife away after I stabbed him that one time, so then I started using diner supplies.”
“Good for you,” I say. “For the stabbing and the use of diner supplies.” There are trees made of
yellow and red twist ties that I recognize as the same type of sky-high pine trees we just climbed. He’s also imitated thick maples, skinny dogwoods, and the sweep of a weeping willow.
“Mom is an artist too. She can paint.” He disappears into the shadows of a far corner, coming back with a small framed painting in his hands—five by seven at the largest. “It’s me,” he says. I take it from him and stare at the sweet little face. He’s younger. Four, maybe five, and his face is free of scars.
“This is how she saw you,” I say, knowing that this is a portrait of a little boy. Not a girl. Not something confused or in between.
“She called me Little Man,” he says, and I can feel that I’m going to cry. I rub at my eyes quickly and hand him back the painting.
“I’ll call you Little Wing. It’s what my father called me.”
“Do you want to see what they can do?” Earl asks.
“Of course.”
Earl moves to the other side of the table where the shadows are thicker. His hands disappear down and his face becomes focused. Then he raises his hands up above his head.
I’m watching his face so closely that I almost miss what he’s trying to show me. It’s the glint of them that makes me shift my head. On the tabletop, his menagerie is moving. At first, it looks like it could be a trick of the light. A shift of flames in the stove making the tiny animals look as if they are animated, but then my brain adjusts again. The animals are moving. He has them on fishing line attached to his fingers. Their bodies stepping forward. A horse rears up on its hind legs. A rabbit takes one hop.
A small bird tests the air with his wings and tilts his head up to look at me, so I hold out my hand, forefinger extended and it lands there, tinfoil talons on my knuckle. Its weight is barely there. I could crush it. Clap my other hand on top of it and snuff it out. Some old piece of me wants to do it. I hear what I would have said to Ray: If you don’t do it, someone else will.
I do not crush it. Its tiny talons adjust themselves on my finger, it shakes out its wings, puffs up, and nestles its beak into its feathers. And then, as I watch, the life in it fades and it drops off my finger, hits the table, and stays there. A lump of foil.
“How did you do that?” I ask.
“It’s what I do,” Earl says. He is proud, puffed up like that little bird.
“Do it again,” I say, and then add, “The bird. Just the bird this time.”
The little bird hops up off the floor and, wings spread, flies up into the air. It glides past my face, flaps its wings. Lands on the tabletop, pecks at the wood softly and then tilts its head up toward me.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. I watch the life go out of it again. A gentle leaving that takes with it not just the possible motion of the object, but also a glow that seems to originate from its center. A tiny heartbeat so subtle that perhaps I’ve made it up.
“I like making them. And I like doing it for you.”
“It’s incredible, Earl.”
He looks so pleased with himself that I feel the ache of his joy deep in my heart. Something in me activated. Electric.
“Do you want to know my dream for this place?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“I want to turn the ghost town part into a place to hang pictures and show off my carvings and stuff.”
“A gallery?”
“Yes, like that! And artists can come live here. People who don’t have any other place to be. They can make things and stay as long as they want.”
“An artists’ colony.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what you’re describing. Places set up to promote art. My stepbrother wanted to go to one, but they don’t take people under eighteen.”
“A colony,” he says with awe. “So I didn’t make it up?”
“It’s a thing.”
“I want people like you and me to come and stay and make things so they feel more better about themselves.”
“That’s a beautiful idea, Earl.” It is. It makes me wish I was younger, more hopeful.
“You sound sad,” he says. He’s right of course. I sound sad because I am sad.
“I just think this place isn’t what you think it is. It’s sad here. Dangerous. You could get out of here. Go to school. Find what you’re talking about somewhere else.” My voice goes up at the end as if I’m asking him a question. It’s reassuring to neither of us.
“I don’t think so.”
“I do. Didn’t George bring you out here because he thought it was going to fix things? And didn’t it make everything worse?”
Earl nods yes to this and then pauses. “You think I could find a place like that without making it myself?”
“I do.”
“If I did come with you, could I bring a few of them with me? And Mom’s painting? That too?” he asks.
“Of course!”
“There are blankets upstairs. I’ll go get them, and I’ll bring down those candles too.”
Earl’s headed up the ladder and I breathe deeply. I feel the weight of what I’ve promised him. I can’t raise him. I know nowhere to take him besides the hospital. If the story plays in his favor, he’ll end up in foster care. If it doesn’t, he’ll end up in juvenile detention. What other options are there? Emma and Earl drive off into the sunset? I could hold his hand while we both jump off the edge of the Badlands. I stand in the dimly lit barn and let the sick feeling ripple through me for a moment before I peer out the cracks in the large barn door. The snow is deep. The light continues to wane. Leaving him here can’t be the best choice. A body in motion must stay in motion.
I sink to the ground. My back is to the door. My pants are wet from falling in the snow. I should rise and stand by the fire but I’m tired. So tired. I look around the little room at all Earl’s creations. They’re treasures.
“Look out below!” He drops a blanket, an unlit candle, and another blanket.
I rest where I am a moment longer, tilt my head back and look up at the cracks in the loft floor where light streams down through air faint with dust. I see Earl moving up there. Flitting around happy, and I feel his joy in my chest. It feels good. Hushed. Warm. Soft. It’s that toe-curling, something-great-about-to-happen feeling. Maybe this is just what it feels like to want to be alive. To have a plan. A next step. A sustainable desire.
But then a new sensation comes. This one concrete and identifiable. A thump. A push. I feel it against my back and then harder a third time, up by my head. Something is pushing at the barn door and then banging and banging again. Thudding right at the spot where my body rests as if the whole of the barn door can be hit hard enough to give way. Something or someone is trying to get in.
TEN
“Emma,” Ray whispers as he plops down at the breakfast table. “Do you ever feel it coming on in your finger bones?”
My face flushes red. Lately it does that a lot. Often around Ray. I can’t tell if he really doesn’t notice or if he’s just pretending not to notice. I’m sixteen going on seventeen—Ray is already eighteen—and it’s silly, but I feel different, like something is actually going to change this year on the arbitrary day of my birth.
He reaches over and pinches me, which only makes me flush a deeper red.
“It feels like something great is about to happen?” He’s got a box of cereal in his hand. It’s the blue box of sugary flakes he hides in his room so Denise doesn’t throw it out. He pulls two bowls from the cupboard, pouring mine first because that’s the kind of guy he is.
“You trying out new meds or something,” I growl.
“That’s not kind,” he says, and I hear that I’ve deflated him. Hit home in the way only I can. I don’t like it when Ray is happy outside of me. It’s like I don’t even know him anymore. He becomes this other thing, separate from my life, and I have the urge to crush this happy new thing called Ray. It’s unkind, I know, but it rises up so strong these days. I’ve almost given up trying to stop it.
“I didn’t get enough slee
p and I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Well, I feel good. You should join me.”
I study his face for his crazy. It’s there. It’s always there, and while it’s true that his triumphant grin looks a bit maniacal, he looks otherwise pure in his happiness. Ready to take on some aspect of the world that I think we should hide from.
“I had this dream last night. Want to hear it? It was a revelation.”
“What is this? Bible school?”
“They call it Sunday school, you heathen, and stop ruining it. Just listen. I dreamed we were standing on the edge of a canyon.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, it was you and me. The thing was that we were surrounded by red rocks, shifting and moving as if they were the vertebrae of some great big monster. New canyons kept forming all the time. Our toes hanging right over the edge but we weren’t scared. You, you were happy.”
Ray smiles broadly at me and my heart aches. The joy on his face is contagious, but I do my best to fight it off. He’s been lying to me lately, thinking I won’t notice.
“Jesus, Ray. Are you some kind of greeting card now?” I slam my notebook shut. I’ve taken to drawing with black ink. Digging lines into the white paper over and over until they tear through. My mother found it and threatened a therapist.
“Shut up,” Ray says. “I won’t let you ruin this. It was an amazing dream. So, suddenly these green mountains start popping up in the distance or maybe they were always there and a path starts to snake from us into the hills. The path is all furry and green. It looks like moss.” He stops talking and grins at me, satisfied. He is not wearing mascara this morning. He always wears mascara, and he has a purple bruise on his neck.
“Is that a hickey?” I ask.
“What? Where?”
“On your neck. Is it a hickey?”
“Of course not. Where would I get a hickey?”
He’s lying. Flat-out lying.
“So that’s your dream? Some canyony shit?”
“I guess I’m not describing it right.”
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