Brother

by Ania Ahlborn

  Ray’s mouth fell open in shock.

  Misty Dawn and Michael were also unable to hide their surprise.

  Ray had never seen Lauralynn so angry, and he’d never ever heard anyone speak to Momma that way. He looked from Lauralynn to Misty Dawn and Michael, dumbstruck, the three of them sitting there like open-mouthed trout. Wade covered his face with a hand, as if not wanting to see what was about to come next. When Ray laid eyes on Momma once more, his secret amusement was gone. Sure, Lauralynn deserved some of what was coming to her, but the satisfaction of a little poetic justice burned away at the sight of Momma’s bubbling outrage.

  Her gaunt face was as red as if she’d stuck her entire head into a boiling pot. Her mouth was pulled into a line so tight that her lips all but disappeared. But her eyes scared Ray the most. Just as he’d never heard Lauralynn so angry, he’d never seen such hostility, such obvious loathing radiate from Momma’s stare. For a second, Ray was sure Lauralynn had sealed their fates. Momma would murder them all, and then she’d boil their bones and go back to being Claudine Morrow—childless, happier.

  Ray shot a look at his adopted brother. This was all his fault. Michael was the one who had turned Lauralynn against him. Michael was the one who had taken Snowball and skinned him under the cover of night. Ray considered outing him right then and there, telling the entire table that he’d caught Michael red-handed earlier that morning. But he was almost positive Michael would get a free pass. He was little, and he hadn’t successfully brought in a kill for dinner in nearly a week. He had killed Snowball out of desperation, out of loyalty. And what was Ray doing? Betraying him by tattling. Ray bit his tongue against the temptation. No, if he kept it to himself, he’d have something to blackmail the little bastard with. If he kept it to himself, he could hold it over Michael’s head for the rest of the kid’s life.

  All of this flashed through Ray’s mind within the time it took Lauralynn to horrify the table with her outburst. And Momma reacted exactly as expected. She stood up, the legs of her chair screaming against the hardwood floor. Wade got up too, as if ready to stop the inevitable, but he kept silent. It was as if he’d risen from his chair to get a better view, his hands gripping the table in front of him. Lauralynn made like she was about to run, but Momma was faster than any of them gave her credit for. She grabbed Lauralynn by the hair and used her daughter’s momentum to shove her into the wall. Except Momma missed the wall and pushed Lauralynn directly into the corner of an old armoire.

  Lauralynn stumbled backward, choking out a winded breath before falling onto her rear. Her hands flew to her face like frantic birds and came back bloodied. Ray couldn’t tell where it was all coming from, her nose or her mouth, but there was a lot of blood . . . so much that his fascination turned into panic. He jumped up from his seat, ready to run to his big sister’s aid, but Momma gave him a look so threatening that he froze in his tracks. When his gaze darted back to Lauralynn, two teeth were swimming in a pool of crimson against the white of her palm.

  “Okay, everybody upstairs,” Wade said, rushing Misty and Michael out of the dining room. Ray hesitated, then shoved past Wade to help Laura­lynn up. Everybody included LL, but Momma caught him by the shoulder and gave him a stern glance, assuring him that he was mistaken. Lauralynn wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Everybody but her,” she said, that terrifying look twisting her face into someone Ray hardly recognized.

  “Momma, please,” he whispered, surprised by the warble of his own voice.

  “Get outta my sight,” she seethed through her teeth, sinking her fingers into the meat of his neck, and giving him a ruthless shove out of the room.

  When Wade ushered Ray upstairs, Michael was sitting on his bed, looking as aghast as Ray felt. Ray didn’t comfort his brother. When he heard Lauralynn shrieking downstairs, he slapped his hands over his ears and faced the wall.

   • • •

  Ray couldn’t sleep. He kept replaying Lauralynn’s fall in his head. Kept seeing the way her hands fluttered around her face like trapped moths. Remembered the small bits of pink-stained bone lying in her hand like rotten, oozing fruit.

  And then there was Michael, his steady breathing slowly driving Ray insane. He was sleeping like nothing had happened, like he didn’t have a care in the world, when this was all his fault. Ray imagined leaping across the room and pounding his fists against Michael’s scrawny seven-­year-old body until the cries and pleas for mercy faded into nothing. Ray wanted to beat him until he heard bones snap. Until blood soaked the bedsheets. Until he could no longer recognize the face he’d come to know over the past year—a face that he’d seen once on the news and on a missing-child poster at the grocery store but never again. When Ray had told Michael that his parents no longer wanted him, it had been an easy lie . . . but now he had to wonder if maybe he had been right. Michael was a blight on the Morrows, so it only made sense that the little shit had been a nuisance to his original family too.

  Ray shoved his sheets aside and stepped up to the window. He stared down at the empty rabbit pen and wondered if it would stay that way or if Wade would feel sorry for Lauralynn and get her replacement bunnies despite Momma being against the whole thing.

  He watched a long shadow shift across the yard. Someone was standing on the porch, the light to their back. When Wade finally came into view, he was carrying something in his arms. Lauralynn’s bare feet bobbed up and down with each step, her skirt fluttering in the light nighttime breeze. Her long hair hung down in easy waves, streaked with something that almost looked like oil in the gloom. Wade stopped in front of the rabbit cage for a moment, as if in consideration, and then stepped around it and moved toward the trees, the same way Michael had done just that morning.

  Ray refused to understand what he was seeing. He couldn’t process the possibility, the reasons for why Lauralynn had kept screaming for a good fifteen minutes when every other time Momma had attacked her she had remained silent. He didn’t want to entertain the idea that maybe Momma . . .

  . . . that she had . . .

  . . . that . . .

  His eyes went wide when he saw Wade come out of the trees ­empty-handed.

  Ray leaned against the wall, his cheek pressed to the cool glass of the window, his knees threatening to buckle beneath him. Something inside him was tearing itself free and it hurt. His eyes began to water. His hands trembled. Something was inching its way up his esophagus—­a sob that he was determined to swallow whole.

  Wade’s shadow trailed behind him across the yard as he walked back to the house. It reached for the oaks and maples, as if afraid to separate itself from the girl whom he had left in the dark. A second shadowy figure met Wade’s, and Wade stopped to regard it at the foot of the porch steps. When he turned back to the trees, his hands were hidden inside a pair of old work gloves. The handle of an old shovel stood out in the weak yellow light. He was moving slowly, as if reluctant, but he never stopped, and he never looked back.

  Ray pressed his palm to the window pane. He stared at his own reflection, just as he had before the sun came up. But his expression couldn’t have been more different from what it had been that morning. What was once dark amusement was replaced by a set of wide saucer eyes, that sinister smile now an O of shock, a refusal to believe, a silent scream.

  The Ray in the window looked monstrous with grief, and then he disappeared. Momma turned off the porch light and Ray vanished, swallowed by the darkness of the room.

   • • •

  The Morrows sat silently as they ate breakfast around the kitchen table. Ray’s eyes were fixed on Lauralynn’s empty chair, and the silence was enough to make him want to scream. He shot his mother a deadly serious look and split the quiet with a question he knew she wouldn’t want to answer. “Where’s Lauralynn?”

  Momma and Wade exchanged glances, but neither one responded. Ray considered having his own outburst. He wondered what would happen if he stood up and flipped the table over, wondered what they’d
do to him if he told them he had seen Wade carrying his sister into the woods. But before he got up the nerve, Momma settled her gaze on him and answered.

  “We sent her up to North Carolina. She’ll be livin’ with your grandparents from now on.”

  “North Carolina?” Ray asked, daring her to continue the lie. “In the middle of the night? Without takin’ any clothes?”

  “She already has clothes there.” Momma’s words were clipped. “And it ain’t none of your business anyhow.”

  Ray fell silent, glowering at his plate of rubbery scrambled eggs.

  “Momma?” Misty Dawn blinked up at her mother, her small face drawn in concern. “She was reading us Winnie the Pooh. When’s she comin’ back?”

  “I said that ain’t none of your business.”

  “She’s our sister,” Ray pushed.

  “Will you read the rest to us?” Misty asked quietly. “Me and Michael wanna know what happens next.”

  “When’s Lauralynn coming back?” Michael whispered toward Misty, looking confused. Misty shook her head to say that she didn’t know. “Was she bad?”

  Ray’s attention snapped to his younger brother. His pulse whooshed in his ears. How dare he ask such a stupid question about an event that he had caused? Dropping his hands to his lap, his fingers gripped the edge of his chair, his teeth gritted behind a close-lipped sneer.

  “Of course she was bad,” Momma snapped. “Did you lose your eyes and ears last night? She was bad and now she’s gone . . . and let that be a lesson to all of you, you understand? Any of you step outta line and it’s off to the grandparents. You won’t be settin’ foot back in my house again.”

  Michael turned his sorrowful eyes toward Ray. “Like you said, Ray,” he whispered. “Into the woods to get lost by yourself.”

  Every muscle in Ray’s body tensed.

  “Except she ain’t in the woods,” Misty murmured. “She’s at ­Grandma’s.” She wrinkled her nose at the idea, most likely imagining her older sister living out the rest of her life in window-curtain dresses.

  “I hope she comes back soon,” Michael mused. “We’ve gotta finish Pooh.”

  “Oh, you’re both idiots,” Ray spit at his siblings. “Don’t you get it? She ain’t coming back.” Michael and Misty looked startled. Ray scowled, hating them for being so stupid, and then shot a look at Wade. “Really, North Carolina?” he asked, giving his father a chance to come clean. But Wade let the opportunity pass him by, holding on to his silence.

  Ray’s gaze then jumped to his mother. She now appeared to be assessing her eldest son, sizing him up, probably considering whether Ray was worth the trouble of keeping around. That calculating look both enraged and terrified him; there was no love in his mother’s eyes, no compassion. He was sure it was the last thing Lauralynn saw before Momma had gone forward with whatever she had done—tightened her fingers around his big sister’s neck, or maybe slashed her throat. It didn’t matter how Momma had done it; it would never matter. But the fact that she had lied about everything, about where Lauralynn had gone—for that, he would never forgive her.

  For that, he would never call her Momma again.

  17

  * * *

  MICHAEL HELD THE pillow over his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He was trying to block out the wailing in the backyard with happier thoughts of his next visit to town. He wondered whether spending too much time with Alice, whether getting too close, would reveal the tired dismay in his eyes. Maybe someday, after he’d heard one cry too many, he’d open his mouth to speak, but rather than words, screams would pour out instead. And yet Michael could still talk, could still smile, could still enjoy himself at the movies and forget the horrors of his daily life. Somehow, despite his circumstances, he could still feel things. Like the flutter of excitement when he saw the Dervish come into view. Or what might resemble peace while he lay on a sun-dappled hill. It should have been a comforting thought—the fact that he’d somehow managed to remain human despite the things he had seen and done—but it wasn’t. If Alice only knew, his ability to disconnect would make him look like that much more of a monster. Cold. Heartless. A demon personified.

  Outside, the pitch of the woman’s screaming changed. ­Michael could read those shrieks like a mother deciphering an infant’s cry. The woman had started out desperate, but that had soon slipped into defeated terror. The cries that were coming now weren’t as much for salvation as they were for death. She was getting tired, probably woozy from the blood loss.

  The woman finally went quiet, and Michael pushed his pillow aside. He lay motionless on his mattress and listened to the silence hum in his ears as he waited for Momma to call his name. The crickets had chirped for a full minute before his curiosity got the best of him and he rose from his bed to glance out the window.

  Outside, the woman’s body wasn’t more than a few steps from the back porch. Her face was turned skyward, her eyes wide open, as though she’d been waiting for Michael to appear. Her arms were outstretched on either side, and her legs were bent at the knees. She looked as though she was running away, even in death.

  A shadow then drew long across the back lawn—Momma, he thought—but it was Rebel who moved down the back porch steps instead. He slowly circled the body. The woman’s tank top was so saturated with blood that its pale-blue color had all but disappeared. The fluffy cartoon sheep in its center now looked like a slaughtered lamb. With his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, Reb looked up as if trying to determine what was in the dead woman’s line of sight, and caught Michael in the window.

  Michael’s stomach flipped. His skin prickled with nerves. He had seen dozens of dead bodies, had gazed down on more than a few in this very manner, waiting for Momma to call him. But Rebel had never circled the fallen like a vulture, and he had certainly never looked up at Michael this way.

  Reb pulled his right hand from his pocket and held it up in a silent wave, offering Michael a peculiar smile. It was the same young man who had driven them home a few hours before—Reb’s body, Reb’s face, but not his brother.

  “Michael!” Momma called up from the base of the stairs.

  Michael turned away from the window, Rebel’s weird grin birthing goose bumps up and down his arms. When he stepped into the kitchen, Momma was washing a knife in the sink, its wooden handle water-worn and faded from decades of use. Reb stood on the back porch looking straight through the open door. He was still wearing that bizarre expression, as though his mind were a million miles away.

  “Bring me a flank on your way up,” Momma said. “Leave it in the icebox. I’ll get it in the mornin’.”

  Michael was only halfway listening, unnerved by Reb’s distant smile. Momma turned away from the sink with an im­patient frown.

  “You hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, Momma, I heard.” Michael turned away from his brother and stepped up to the sink next to his mother. Momma never did offer much comfort, but at that particular moment, Michael wanted to be near someone, anyone, and other than Rebel, she was the only one around. “What’s Reb waitin’ for?” he asked under his breath.

  Momma lifted her chin and glanced out the kitchen window, as if noticing Reb for the first time. She shrugged, ­indifferent, and went back to washing the knife, scrubbing the blade with an old rag. “Ray’s being Ray,” she said. “Just ignore ’im and go about your business.”

  Michael stepped onto the back porch, avoiding eye contact with his brother.

  “Have fun,” Reb said as Michael passed.

  He wasn’t sure why, but those two small words sent a chill down his spine, worse than any dead body ever had.

   • • •

  Michael threw open the storm door that led to the cellar and began his descent down the wooden staircase. He carefully placed his feet on each step as he went, pulling the woman along behind him by her ankles. The staircase was old and rickety and narrow, and there wasn’t a handrail. Her head thudded against each step as she slid into the bowel
s of the Morrow farmhouse. Michael only noticed her sliding to the outer edge of the staircase when her body was torn from his grasp. Inertia pulled her over the side of the steps and to the concrete floor ten feet below. She landed on her neck, a distinct snap cracking through the quiet. Michael winced and stalked down the rest of the way. It would have been a lot easier to shove bodies down into the basement like that, but he didn’t like doing it. Something about the way they fell, their dead weight pulling them down like stones, their limbs spread out like life-size rag dolls; he hated seeing them that way. He was to blame for their final denigration—an act that he was required to perform. Any dignity he could offer them in the meantime, he did. It felt better to treat them well until there was none of them left.

  He crouched beside the woman with a frown. “Sorry,” he whispered, then straightened out her arms and legs and pulled her to the center of the room. A moment later, he climbed back up the steps to shut the both of them inside. Taking a seat on one of the middle risers, he stared down at Momma’s—or did this one belong to Reb?—latest victim, the golden M around her neck glinting in the harsh fluorescent light. Nothing about her made sense, but Michael found some comfort in his own confusion. If he didn’t understand it, it meant he was different, that he still had a chance.

  His body went through the motions, but his mind remained separate, never really connecting the dots. Rebel had explained it to him once, when they had dragged the first girl home—something about Momma, about Grandpa Eugene doing bad things and Grandma Jean looking away. Somehow, Reb was able to justify his actions; Michael supposed that, to a point, he did as well. The Morrows had swept down from heaven like angels and plucked him out of harm’s way, swaddled him and taken him into their home when nobody else had wanted him. In a world where he owed them everything, he often reminded himself that this—the basement, the bodies, the blood—was his bounden duty. He had been saved.