What Should Be Wild

by Julia Fine

  And in the center of the shadow wood, the black-eyed girl’s clearing transfigures, the tide pulling the undergrowth back to make way for her cathedral. The bones of centuries of buried Blakelys past rise from their graves to build a yellow-white palace, displacing the trees and the dirt, forming turrets and battlements, a dark, echoing castle, the black-eyed girl’s old bed pallet her throne. To walk here now, you would not know this once was forest, this smooth ground soil, these chandeliers trees.

  Lucy, watching, is afraid of her own fear.

  “It is well to be afraid,” says Mary, patting Lucy’s elbow.

  “Nonsense,” she hisses.

  Lucy does not understand the shifting. Fails to grasp the black-eyed girl is now far outside her control, was never hers to begin with. She shakes her head, disbelieving. She thinks to punish the black-eyed girl with a spanking, as she saw the nurses do when her brother misbehaved as a child. To tie the girl up, as she might a naughty dog. This violence, this manifestation of the black-eyed girl’s anger—it must be misdirected, intended for the forces that have hurt the women out in the wider world. There must be a way to teach the girl, to help her realize her mistake.

  “She is here to protect us,” Lucy swears, her voice faltering as she moves with Mary and Imogen around the girl’s clearing. The women stand over the jumbled bloodless body that was Emma, contorted and curled, her cracked, empty bones hidden under a thin cobweb shroud.

  “We can leave, follow the traveling trees. Hide from the demon at Urizon,” Mary says, poking Emma’s wrist with a curious finger. She jumps back when the patchy web that covered it reveals splintered bone where the girl’s hands should rest. “We must leave,” Mary presses. “At once.”

  Imogen agrees. “Now is our chance, before she finds us. The house’s walls will protect us until we can make a better plan.”

  “I hate the house,” says Lucy, still staring. Imogen and Mary call her to follow them, but Lucy does not move. They must tug at her, summon all their strength to remove her from Emma’s remains.

  “Where are the others?” asks Imogen. “We have to find them, warn them.”

  “Who knows?” Mary sniffs. “They might be all like this.” She gestures toward the little girl, the twisted angle of her pelvis, the drained cheek, once that bright birthmark, now splotchy shades of gray and white. “We have to save ourselves.”

  Just then they hear a branch breaking, a body approaching, the shrewd movements of a creature on the hunt. Imogen nods at Mary; each take one of Lucy’s hands.

  “Impossible,” says Lucy. “We can’t leave now. She’d never hurt us. She’s my daughter.”

  But the forest’s door is open, and the others insist. The three of them tumble into autumn, run with the far-grasping wood to Urizon to take refuge in the very place they long ago escaped.

  26

  Our journey home was somber. We set out before the sun rose—Matthew’s home the only on the block with porch lamps lit, Mrs. Hareven in the doorway, one arm lifted in farewell, the rest of the Harevens still sleeping upstairs.

  I rode in the front seat of the car, wearing Matthew’s sister Elizabeth’s blue dress and a pair of her gloves, nervous I might brush Matthew’s fingers as they adjusted the temperature or shifted the clutch. I had never known myself to be so aware of his hands, the small golden hairs at the tops of his wrists, the notches of his knuckles, the steady competence of his square fingernails. He’d showered just before we left, and had a sliver of soap trapped by his right ear, stuck between his skull and the dip of his cartilage. The error was endearing.

  On our trip into the city, the car’s speakers had been broken, but in the interim Matthew had repaired them. He set the radio dial to a crackly big-band station, and I watched the neighborhood around me shift to cold, industrial outskirts as a wailing trumpet ushered in the dawn.

  Matthew kept glancing at his mirrors, as if afraid we were being followed. His anxiety was catching, but when I finally twisted around to view the highway behind us, a wide winding stretch of dirty gray, I found it empty. Our only fellow traveler was a large truck, just ahead, carrying livestock.

  “Smells like horse dung,” I said, as Matthew sped to pass the trailer. The scent was overwhelming, stronger than the tar that filled the air, the smoke that coughed out of the factories around us.

  “We’ll be past this stretch soon,” said Matthew, “back into the country.”

  I nodded, and chewed my lip. There was so much that I wanted to say to Matthew, about my experience with Coulton, my feelings about Rafe, my immense and impossible gratitude, my poor behavior in the past and how eager I was to make amends, my concerns about my father. So much to say, and yet no way to say it, not with him sitting here, next to me, framed by the sunrise. I could hardly turn to look at him without losing my breath.

  A stray thread had escaped from the seam of one of my dress sleeves, and I chose to stare at that instead of Matthew. Three times I brought it to my mouth, trying to catch the string and cut it with my teeth, but was prevented by the movement of the car and my own poor coordination. Giving up, I fiddled with the volume of the radio, making it first very quiet, then quite loud, in the hope that the music might drown out my thoughts. I folded my hands in my lap.

  Elizabeth’s gloves were faux fleece things with grips across the palms, designed for making snowmen or shoveling out after a storm, far too warm for early autumn. When I looked at them, I felt that these gloved, gray hands were not my own. I wanted to place one atop Matthew’s hand, to lace our awkward fingers. Instead, I clutched them in my lap.

  HOURS OF URBAN drabness left me longing for the moors, the green vitality of that otherworldly ritual by the river. But when we reached them, all the purple flowers were gone. The grasses had yellowed. The winds were strong and chilly. My teeth chattered.

  Eager to be home, we had determined to stop only if absolutely necessary, but after hours in the car, I was uncomfortable, sore from this long period spent sitting and desperate to lie down. Still, I would be damned if I would be the one to suggest a break from driving. Lucky for me, Matthew eventually pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, parking the car before an old wooden outhouse, the weathered sign beside it proclaiming another fifty miles until we reached the next town.

  Matthew let me use the outhouse first. Inside I tidied myself the best I could under the circumstances, longing for the hot bath that awaited me at home. I stuffed Elizabeth’s gloves into my pocket, flexing my fingers against the chilly outside air, and took in the view while Matthew had his turn.

  I guessed we were about two hours from Urizon. Ours was the only vehicle in sight. The outhouse sat on the outskirts of a just-harvested farm, its shorn fields stubbled, the sky so low and damp and gray that though it was midafternoon it felt like evening. A light drizzle had begun, the spitting sort, and I fumbled with the car door, which Matthew had instinctively locked. I gave up after several fruitless seconds.

  Hearing a rumble, I at first suspected thunder, then saw large, yellow headlights breaking through the fog, approaching on the main road, soon to pass us. I silently willed Matthew to move quickly, until I realized this was the same livestock transport we’d passed hours ago, its driver a woman of indeterminate age, chewing a toothpick, apparently indifferent to her vehicle’s smell. I waved, and she slowed her truck to raise a hand in greeting.

  And then I saw another vehicle, an unmarked white van, pull up behind the trailer. The rain began in earnest. The van came closer, catching me in its lights where I stood at the side of the road. As it approached, it slowed to accommodate the dual hazards of the fluctuating weather and Matthew’s parked car, and I saw its lone occupant, knew his rheumy eyes, his blotched red skin, his thin-lipped mouth, the gray front tooth that glistened when he smiled. The pleasure on his face made it quite clear that he knew me. It was Coulton.

  He rolled down the driver’s-side window, ignoring the rain, and called out to me in a voice that was all too familiar. “Looks l
ike my riches have returned to me. Somebody out there’s been listening to my prayers!”

  He wrenched the wheel of his van in an attempt to turn around, but the ground was slick with recent rain, and the van had not been built for such maneuvers. Instead of turning, Coulton’s vehicle sped forward, slamming into the horse transport, which slithered snakelike on the wet road for a moment, before overturning both truck and trailer with a sickening crunch.

  My hands stretched in front of me of their own accord, although I knew that I was powerless to prevent the coming carnage. I felt time stop in the second that the horses vaulted through the air. The cab of the truck crackled into flame, the horses screaming, the air filled with blood and dung and gasoline—and I was still unable to react.

  “Hurry!” yelled Matthew, already past the shoulder, though I hadn’t realized he’d left the outhouse. “We have to get the driver before the whole thing blows.”

  His words did not move me, but his recklessness did.

  “Wait!” I shouted, running after him. Gasoline had pooled at the side of the truck, it would catch soon, we couldn’t risk it. Matthew’s eyes widened as he realized, and together we crouched behind his car, awaiting the blast.

  When it came, the explosion was smaller than expected. I’d thought we would be thrown back, that Matthew’s car would shake and shudder, but aside from a bit of horse manure flung onto the windshield, we were largely unaffected. I stood and felt no rush of heat, was struck by no loose bolts. My ears rang, the horses’ screams echoing, and it took me a moment to pull my focus from Matthew’s lips, the flash of his tongue against teeth, to take in what he was saying.

  “The driver!”

  Matthew rolled up his shirtsleeves, already soaked, and leaped into the wreckage. It appeared that he had not seen the van. My own instinct was to jump back into his car and abandon the scene, and I felt smaller for it, petty. I forced myself to follow him to the damage. I opened my mouth several times to scream a warning, let him know that Coulton was here, but my voice was overwhelmed by the storm and the brays of the horses.

  The rain had already quenched most of the fire, and so we had a clear view of the crushed cab of the truck, the driver slack against the windshield, her neck twisted. That toothpick she’d been chewing had rammed straight through the flesh of her cheek, poking out like an exotic piercing. I gagged.

  “Gone,” said Matthew, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to regain his composure.

  Three of the four horses had flown from the transport and were spread across the road, already dead. The last we could hear screaming in fear within a cage of crushed metal. Matthew and I both tried to lift the trailer to free the animal, but it was quickly apparent that we did not have the strength.

  “Its legs are broken,” I said, pointing. “It’s suffering . . .” I sat on the wet gravel and wiggled my good arm in through a gap. I clucked to the horse, softly. I cooed, hoping to calm it, have it come to my hand, nuzzle me gently, know me as an angel of mercy, a friend. Instead, the poor creature gnashed its teeth and howled, and I had to stretch myself elbow-deep to brush my thumb against the back of its neck. I felt it shudder, stiffen, release a final breath.

  The crash site was quiet, the rain softening, the last flames dying out. Matthew sat next to me and closed his eyes. I couldn’t tell the origin of the wet across his face. He rubbed his fists against his forehead, scratched his neck. I was frozen in my crouch beside the transport, debating our best option: hide here with the dead horse in the wreckage, or break out into a run and hope that Coulton had been hurt, that his van was too mangled to keep pace with Matthew’s car.

  “We haven’t had service for the past half hour, and I don’t know where we’ll find a police station, out here, middle of nowhere. We’ll have to figure out how to put up some sort of flare to warn other drivers.” Matthew got up and walked past the transport, out into the road. “There’s a second car!” he exclaimed, turning back to me. “Maisie, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Wait,” I whispered, pointing. Obscured before by the horse transport, we now could see the van, whose front was bashed in, but had otherwise survived the crash unscathed. Its airbags had deployed, and Coulton sat with his face half buried in a thick ecru balloon, apparently unconscious. Such a sight was more wretched to me than any gore I had just witnessed. Matthew made to move toward the van, but I dug my fingers into his shoulder. “Wait,” I said again.

  Coulton was stirring. He raised his head, and his eyes opened. He moaned a bit. He rolled his shoulders back, stretching his neck, blinking. Then he turned his head. He noticed us. He smiled.

  Matthew froze, then turned toward me, his eyebrows raised in question. Coulton unbuckled his seat belt. Coulton stretched.

  Between the van and where I stood in the road next to Matthew lay the ruined bodies of three horses. A brown-and-white beauty, its throat slit by a rogue bit of metal, a clean bone poking from its glossy front leg. A slender roan, bleeding freely from the belly, tail eaten by flames. And the largest, pure black muscle, the sinews of its mouth, its heavy teeth, its eye socket, all visible, flesh and coat almost entirely burned away.

  Coulton struggled to open his driver’s-side door. I took a breath. I went to the first horse, its white neck matted red, and I kissed the top of its head, watched it struggle to its feet. I went to the second, its entrails unwinding, and stroked its wet ears, saw it sniff at its own innards. I went to the third, its remaining eye open, and ran a finger across the one small still-soft patch of its nose. The eye went wild.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to each of them. The horses stood silent around me. Coulton had exited the van, and was now frozen, staring at the risen beasts in terror. The large black stallion whinnied, the sound all the more fearful from its rippling, skeleton mouth.

  “Attack,” I told the horses.

  They descended on the van.

  A Rope Around Her Neck

  The black-eyed girl returns to the entrance of the bower where she was once buried, where the poisoned roebuck’s antlers wait, crowning the clearing. In any other wood, squirrels would have scavenged them for nutrients, shredding the shaft, teething on the tines. These rest untouched.

  Born of the skull, an antler begins with a sweetness: a velutinous, nurturing blanket of fur. Like a child it grows and it hardens; sheds its caul, loses its velvet. When the seasons change, a buck will lose his antlers. New bone will grow in their stead into a crown of resurrection, leaving and returning with each cycle of the earth.

  Helen, standing still behind a heather tree, blond curls matted, petticoat torn, watches the black-eyed girl caress the roebuck’s antlers. Helen shed her childhood late, but very quickly. She had known, when she let go of that tree limb, waited all the endless drop for the noose to crack her neck, that there would be no ever after. She had hoped, of course, to find Simon, her lover, somewhere, somehow, in the beyond. But Helen sensed that death could very well mean darkness, the same peace that dawned on them equally, and was content to have that be all—the same darkness felt together, as if seeing the same moon from two faraway parts of the earth.

  She was surprised, then, by this forest. This perpetual limbo has been a frustrating detour. Helen takes a deep breath and steps forward so the black-eyed girl can see her. Kneeling, she kisses the back of the black-eyed girl’s hand.

  “Please,” says Helen, “take me.”

  For decades, here in this wood, Helen has tried to end her second life. She slit her own throat with a sharpened rock. She jumped from a thousand-foot maple. This time, she’d tell herself, this time I’ll get it right. But her efforts did not matter. Death was not hers to take.

  “Please,” she whispers. The black-eyed girl touches the pink necklace still scarring Helen’s skin. She takes Helen’s hand and pulls her to her feet. They are the same height, their eyes level. The black-eyed girl smiles. She lays Helen down on a bed of moss, arranges her golden curls, tidies her dress. She kisses Helen’s forehead and closes her eye
s with a palm.

  27

  We took the side road for a while before stopping to clean Matthew’s car. The sun appeared suddenly, wrinkling our wet clothes as it dried them, prompting a terrible headache. Matthew made me a new bandage for my arm. We did not look for the police.

  “At least now I won’t worry he’ll come after me,” I said.

  “I thought I’d seen him parked outside my parents’ house,” Matthew admitted, jaw clenched tightly. “I should have told you. I should have called in a report.”

  “You did everything right.”

  “Maisie . . .”

  I shook my head, closed my eyes. We were silent the rest of the drive.

  I WANTED A story to calm me, console me, make meaning of the events I had witnessed. I racked my memory, but found nothing. No knight had ever slain a rival with dead horses. No princess had lived happily with a prince who watched her summon beasts from hell. Those naughty little girls of Mr. Pepper’s held nothing, now, to me.

  WE REACHED COEURS Crossing and made the turn past Mrs. Blott’s cottage, shuttered and dark, its eyes squeezed shut, mouth puckered inward. Some primitive corner of my mind asked me why she had turned all the lights off, had let the front garden grow wild. Matthew slowed the car, at first to get an idea of the cottage’s upkeep, but then, once we had passed, maintained this pace out of necessity.