by Ronald Malfi
A small voice at the back of her head told her to get away. If her father died, people would come looking for her. Police would come. She’d be arrested and put in jail and how could she even begin to explain what had just happened? She didn’t even understand it herself.
Away, the voice persisted. Run away.
She sought solace in the cover of the forest in the valley below. They won’t find me, she thought. They’ll never find me. I won’t let them. She’d been in the forest many times before, though hadn’t strayed too far from the house. Now, she needed to be as far away as possible. The further she ran, she rationalized, the better her father’s chances of survival.
Those heads…those animals…
Thinking about it just made her feel worse.
(stop stop stop stop)
(—kelly—)
She ran until her feet ached and her lungs burned. Around her, the thick bluish branches of the evergreens shrouded her from civilization; she could no longer even see the house on the hill above.
Good, she thought, that’s how I want it. I never want to go back there. Never. I hate it there.
“I hate it,” she said between sobs.
Pushing through the underbrush, she uncovered a moss-covered log peppered with tiny white mushrooms. She administered a swift kick to it, causing it to rock. A platoon of black beetles came scuttling out from beneath it and vanished beneath the soil. Frightened and shaking, she sat down on the log and pulled her legs up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her knees. Her sobs dying down now, she sat there breathing heavy while her eyes roamed around the forest. This deep, the trees were full and green and as tall as houses. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the trickle of running water. Every so often the sound of birds taking flight could be heard from various locations, their wings beating against the branches of the trees as they took to the sky.
An image of her father surfaced in her head: lying dead in the middle of his thinking room, bloody and ravaged by hoofs. There were hoof-prints across his chest, on his thighs and shins, and one in the center of his forehead. His eyes had retracted back into his head, the whites tinged red with blood.
On the verge of fresh tears, Kelly began to shake her head frantically. “Is he dead?” she asked, her throat clicking. “Is he? Is he dead?”
—Do you want him to be?
“No.”
—Are you sure?
“I don’t want him dead,” she said. “I don’t.”
—Then I’m sure he’s fine.
She rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand. “I don’t feel well,” she said.
—Will you be sick?
“I think I w—” No sooner had the words come out of her mouth did she double forward and vomit stringy green foam onto the ground. Crouched and tensed, she remained like that for several moments, afraid to move, afraid to set the world spinning around her again. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the sound of the running water off in the distance. Hearing it evoked the colorful images associated with nursery rhymes and fairy tales—the lands of candy houses and kingdoms by the sea and all those other places she so desperately wanted to run away to. Make-believe…but real, too. She understood reality, understood that reality was flawed and subject to manipulation. Listening to the babbling water, she vowed she would track it down, would stand in it and feel its cool rush between her toes.
“I want to go there. I want to leave this place and go there.”
—You can. I know where it is. I can take you there.
Kelly opened her eyes. A cool breeze rustled the trees. “Hello?”
Silence.
A path-like clearing wound its way through the underbrush in the apparent direction of the running water. While part of Kelly wanted to curl up into a ball on the log and fall asleep, another part of her wanted to follow that path to the sounds of the running water. She stared at the path for some time before hanging her legs off the side of the log and hopping to her feet.
The world seemed to tilt to one side. She uttered a weak sob and caught the branch of a tree before vertigo sent her crashing to the earth. After a few moments of rest, her eyelids pressed together, she opened her eyes and released the branch. One foot in front of the other, she wove a steady channel down the center of the path, her eyes never leaving the ground. At one point, a flock of whippoorwills broke out over the trees and she paused to watch them leave.
“Good-bye,” she whispered.
Soon, the sounds of the running water could be heard just on the other side of a leafy embankment. Giddy, Kelly hopped from the path and jumped the embankment. Her sneakers slid in the mud and she downed the opposite side with a display of clumsy acrobatics.
A small brook ran serpentine through a clearing in the forest. Its water shallow and clear, she could see the pebbly floor several inches below the surface. She’d watched an old western on television one night last year. At one point in their journey, the cowboys dismounted from their horses and saddled up to a trickling stream. They drank from it.
It’s like magic here, she thought, smiling. It’s like my own secret place, like my own secret world where I can come and never be bothered, never be afraid. Never-Never Land.
She bent and rested the palm of her hand on the surface of the water. It was ice cold. Laughing, she pulled off her sneakers and socks, wiggled her toes, and jumped straight into the brook with both feet. Sharp slivers of icy water shot up her shins, into her thighs, spread like wings throughout the rest of her body. She closed her eyes and stood there, slowly swaying with the breeze, and thought it might be possible for her to fall asleep like this—standing in the middle of a brook.
“I could stay here forever,” she sighed.
—Do it.
She opened her eyes, her smile fading. “Who’s there?”
Again, no one answered.
The icy water spread to her groin. After a few seconds she felt her knees grow weak. She suddenly had to urinate.
—Stay there forever.
“It’s cold,” she said.
—You wanted me to show you, so I showed you. Do you want to stay in Never?
“Never-Never Land,” she corrected. Then: “Who are you?” She scrutinized the underbrush, the shadows hidden behind trees. “Where are you?”
—Where do you want me to be?
“Come out.”
—Just tell me where.
She pointed to the embankment. “There,” she said. “On the other side.”
—Okay, said the voice, I’m there.
“Stand up. I can’t see you.”
—I am standing.
“I can’t see you,” she repeated.
—That has nothing to do with me. It’s all in your head. Whatever you want to see, you make it. Just like the stone.
The stone—the memory hit her with such force that she felt it as a physical thing. The stone and the ugly, angry-looking girl from town. That stone had just materialized in her hand moments before she knew she wanted to throw it. “I forgot about that,” she said.
—You tend to block out things that frighten you. You have that power.
“Who are you?”
—Who do you want me to be? the voice said again.
For a brief moment she almost said “Baby Roundabout,” but for some reason that seemed wrong. Instead, her mind flipped through the pages of her brain…and the first thing she thought of was a ridiculous nursery rhyme from one of her books, one that she’d always found a little bit funny and a little bit strange. Like the voice.
“Simon,” she said. “Simple Simon.”
—I am Simple Simon, said the voice.
“I still can’t see you.”
—I’m right here. You can hear me, can’t you?
“Yes.” Sort of: the voice was inside her head.
—Then I must be here.
“I want to see what you look like.”
—You haven’t decided that yet.
“When can I see you?”
<
br /> —Whenever you’re ready, I suppose.
The dull throb at her groin suddenly blossomed into exquisite pain, and she felt herself double over, planting her hands into the water and dropping to her knees. The pain was fierce and acidic, reminiscent for some reason of oranges, and with one great exhalation, she urinated in her pants.
She thought she heard faint giggling coming from the embankment and she blushed, embarrassed.
It was dark by the time she returned home. Glenda fussed over her as she entered the house, asking where she’d been and stuffing her full of hot chicken soup. Her parents were nowhere to be found. On her way past her father’s thinking room, Kelly noticed that the door was shut. She jiggled the knob and found it locked, too.
Upstairs, she prepared for bed and crawled beneath the bedclothes, suddenly exhausted. Closing her eyes, she waited for sleep to carry her away…yet found herself concentrating on the sound of creaking floorboards in the hallway just outside her bedroom door. Sitting up, she thought she saw a shadow pass beneath the crack in the door. Listening, she heard the footsteps recede down the hallway until they reached the stairwell. She heard the stairs creak.
Pulling back the blankets, she slipped out of bed and padded across the floor to the bedroom door. Careful not to make any noise, she turned the knob and pushed it open just a crack. The hallway looked empty, but she could clearly hear someone moving down the staircase at the end of the hall. Hers was the only bedroom on the second floor, and it was unusual for anyone—even Glenda, except for when she read to Kelly at night—to walk around up here.
Kelly crept into the hallway and tiptoed to the edge of the stairwell. A soft yellow light played against the wall: the downstairs hall light. Peering over the railing, she made out the lumbering shuffle of her father as he eased down the last of the risers and paused at the foot of the staircase. Black from shadows, he was only a silhouette to her, and she leaned further over the railing to see him better.
He appeared to waver at the foot of the stairs, confused as to his destination, and finally rested his bulk against the wall. Soundlessly, he let his weight slide down the wall until the first few stairs came up to meet him. He hunkered there, his legs bent, his long arms and hands draped over his knees like large fish laid out on rocks. She watched him, hardly breathing, frightened by what she was too young to acknowledge as his vulnerability. And then came the sounds—the soft, miserable hitches in his unsteady breathing. His massive back, like the canvas sail of some great ship, shook and trembled with each sob.
In utter shock, Kelly thought, He’s crying.
Without thinking, she turned around the railing and grabbed the banister with one hand. She took a step down on the stairs; it creaked loudly under her foot. Terrified, she froze.
Her father’s head snapped in her direction. Shadows played heavy across his features, but she had no trouble making out his eyes—they pierced the darkness like those of a frightened forest animal. For a brief moment, the two of them remained silent and unmoving, trapped in a place passed over by time.
Then her father stood quickly from the stairs. “Go to bed,” he said. His voice was flat. “You stay away from me.”
He turned and disappeared down the hall. Motionless, Kelly watched her father’s enormous shadow withdraw from the opposite wall and disappear.
Before the conclusion of that year, Kelly came to understand two things: that her mother was pregnant and that this new child, once born, would come to occupy what little time Kelly spent with her parents. This did not bother her. However, she knew that it had been Glenda who’d taken care of her all these years, and that therefore her time with the old housemaid would also be severed. She thought of Glenda’s singing, thought of the storybooks the woman would read to her on occasion, and it filled Kelly with a premature longing for the woman. She found she missed Glenda before Glenda was even gone. And although her parents said very little to her about the new child, Glenda had sat her down on her bed one evening and asked Kelly if she understood what having a new baby in the house meant.
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, but thought, It means that you’re going to forget about me and I’ll be all alone.
“It means,” explained Glenda, “that you’ll have a little brother or sister, and that I’ll have a new baby to take care of. You see, we’re both going to be very busy, Kelly. Do you know what it’s like to be a big sister?”
Kelly shook her head. Until now, the prospect that she herself might be expected to play a role in this strange child’s life had eluded her. “No,” she said.
“Well,” Glenda said, “it means you will have to take good care of this little fellow, and teach him or her how to do the things that you already know how to do.”
Kelly’s mind returned to the day in her father’s thinking room—the day she had made the animal heads come to life. Was that the sort of thing she was supposed to teach her younger brother or sister? And how in the world does someone even begin teaching such a thing? She thought of the barrage of tutors that marched through the house during the week and tried to understand the difference between teaching arithmetic and teaching…teaching scary things. It occurred to her then that she possessed no word for what she’d done in her father’s private room. And the thought of teaching someone else how to do that frightened her.
“No,” she said, “I don’t want a baby here, I don’t want it.”
“Why, dear?”
“I don’t,” was all she said. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!”
Regardless, the baby came. After two days at a hospital in the city, her parents returned to the compound with a tiny, squirming thing wrapped tight in a soft pink blanket. Too afraid to approach, Kelly remained on the stairwell and watched as her parents silently ushered their new child into the house, spoke a few incoherent words to each other, then carried the baby upstairs. Her mother passed her on the stairwell and watched her with narrowed eyes. Haggard and distressed, Marlene Kellow paused briefly, her arms full of the little thing.
“Want to see it?” she said flatly.
Kelly nodded and her mother bent and exposed the ruddy, pig-nosed face of her sister Becky. It was impossible, she thought, that anything that looked like that could be alive. She’d never seen a baby before and suddenly her mind filled up with a million questions: how does it eat? What does it wear? When will it speak and what will it say? Mostly, while staring at it, she wondered what its purpose was—what did it do, what purpose did it serve? As Glenda cleaned the house and prepared the meals, as her father and mother earned money, what would this new addition contribute to the household? It made no sense.
She looked up and met her mother’s eyes. There was no compassion there. Yet the woman appeared deep in thought. The corner of her mother’s mouth twitched. Marlene Kellow said, “I felt the same thing with this one. God help me.”
Though she didn’t understand what her mother’s words meant, she understood the contempt in her tone. Backing against the stairwell wall, she watched as her mother rose and continued up the stairs with the baby.
She looked down and saw her father glaring at her from the bottom of the stairs.
Several evenings later, Kelly crept into the large and mostly barren room where Becky slept. The room was empty save for a crib in the center, the dusty shades half-drawn against the setting sun. Kelly moved across the floor, careful not to make the floorboards creak, and edged up to the side of the crib, peered in. The baby was awake and fussing to itself, sputtering tiny sounds that were almost nonexistent. Its face was red and puffy, its eyes almost lidless and squinty. And it was so small. It seemed ridiculous to think that this creature would ever grow to be a genuine human being. How could that be?
“Becky,” she whispered over the railing of the crib. Her voice caused the infant to start. “Becky.” She repeated the name. It sounded make-believe to her. “Where did you come from?”
Of course, the child did not answer. But at the sound of her older sister�
��s voice, infant Becky managed to turn her tiny head and look in her immediate direction.
Curious, Kelly reached over the railing and touched the side of the baby’s face with her index finger. It was hot and soft. She kept the finger there for several moments, until the baby started to struggle against her. Only then did she retract her hand.
“Glenda’s mine,” she said. “You can’t take her away. I won’t let you. I don’t know where you came from, but I won’t let you. And I won’t teach you anything, do you understand? I’m not your big sister. I don’t want to be.”
The baby began to cry.
Over the passage of seasons, the forest became her home. Though the imaginary creation that she had named Simple Simon only presented himself when she was lonely or angry or both, she found solace in the welcoming green of the woods. She spent several days during the summers of her tenth and eleventh years wading in the cold waters of the brook and reading high school romance novels beneath the trees. And although Simple Simon only emerged (vocally, at least) when Kelly needed him, there was always an underlying presence she was aware of on a subconscious level…as if the imaginary boy had somehow become part of the forest itself, and he was always all around her.
In December of that year, she fell ill with the flu and was castigated by Glenda for leaving her bedroom window open throughout the night.
“I didn’t open it,” she said, tucked beneath layers of heavy quilts.
“Somebody did,” Glenda insisted. “Windows just don’t open by themselves.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“What if you get the baby sick? Wouldn’t you feel badly?”
“No,” she said truthfully. Then reiterated that she hadn’t opened the window.
Glenda waved a hand at her. “Oh hush, now. Anymore fibbing and I’ll tell your parents.”
Kelly shrugged. “Go ahead, they won’t care.”
Her mind floating in and out of fever, Kelly remained in bed for several days. At one point, in the middle of the night, she saw a blurred image on the other side of her bedroom window. It was white and vaporous, almost ghostlike. Contributing the hallucination to fever, she watched as the window slid open, the curtains billowed out, and a strong gust of wind assaulted the room. She could feel the freezing night air against her face. Her eyes fluttered.