Lovely Wild

by Megan Hart

  There is a way to relieve the sting of this anxiety. She bends down to reach the box she pushed behind the pots and pans. She slips out a plastic-wrapped treat, her fingers fumbling so that it flies from her grip and lands on the floor. She’s on her hands and knees again, tearing the plastic with her teeth to gobble at the sweetness. Licking her fingers to get every crumb. Eating until her stomach clenches in protest and she claps a hand over her mouth to keep herself from vomiting.

  There’s nobody to see her acting this way. Crazy and wild. And though she doesn’t much believe in God, Mari sends up a prayer of gratitude for this chance to be alone. It’s harder to act normal when she’s with other people, and though her family might accept any number of eccentricities from her, none of them have seen her like this.

  She can’t let them. If they did, they wouldn’t love her any longer. How could they? When she is this unmotherly and unwifely creature? This wild and unlovable thing?

  She straightens up, wipes the crumbs from her face just as she hears, “Mama?”

  She turns, and there is her boy. Her dear, sweet boy. Mari clutches her fingers tight to her stomach, holding still the language that used to be the only one she used. “Yeah, honey?”

  “Is it dinnertime? I’m hungry.”

  “Oh. Yes. It’s dinnertime. Call your sister and Daddy.”

  Ethan does, but as they’re sitting down to the table to eat, something screams from the yard. It’s an eerie, cackling scream much the same as what had come out of the woods a few nights before, but this time, it ends in a squawk. Mari freezes with a pot of chili in her hands, halfway between the stove and the table. Kendra screams along. Ryan jumps up, knocking over his chair.

  The scream comes again, louder this time, along with the muffled squabbling of the chickens. Mari puts the chili back on the stove. “Something’s after the chickens.”

  They all run. Dirt kicks up under their feet as they run across the gravel driveway and toward the barn.

  Blood.

  There’s so much blood. It paints the earth in splatters of dark, not even red because it’s already soaked into the ground. Here and there, black puddles of it. And in the center...

  “Oh, no.” This is Ethan, small and sad. “Oh, no, the peacock.”

  Something might’ve been after the chickens, but whatever it was has killed the peacock. Its long tail is filthy with mud churned with blood. Its head, the feathery crown also thick with blood, is cocked at an odd angle that clearly shows the bird’s neck is broken. Its throat, in fact, is torn apart. Shredded.

  Kendra shudders and puts an arm around her brother, turning him away. “Don’t look.”

  Mari can’t not look. She has to see. She runs through the dirt of the barnyard and falls to her knees beside the peacock’s corpse. She doesn’t touch. She looks at it without turning her gaze away, even though the sight is enough to turn her stomach. Not because of the blood or the death, but because of how such a beautiful creature has been made so ugly with it.

  “Babe, get up. It’s dead. You can’t do anything for it.”

  Ryan’s right, of course. He so often is. He’s been Mari’s guidepost for so many years. Her rudder, steering her through the complicated and confusing seas of social intercourse. Yet when he bends to lift her up, Mari shakes him off.

  She remembers this, or something like it.

  The chickens ignore their fallen companion, pecking and scratching and clucking, and it’s not the chickens Mari remembers because she’s never forgotten them. Running behind them to catch them and the way they never squawked until she helped Gran hold them down on the block. How they ran and ran, blood spurting, when their heads were chopped off. Killing the chickens had been necessary to fill her always hungry belly.

  But the peacocks had served no use but beauty. They had, in fact, been something of a nuisance, fighting with the chickens for food and making a mess of Gran’s garden—when she’d been well enough to plant it, anyway. And the noise had always been scary and strange, never something Mari got used to. Still, she remembers them now, strutting with their feathers fanned out. The little ones in the spring. Another memory sifts to the surface.

  She remembers something like this, too, the lolling head and blood-coated feathers. She looks up at Ryan. “Fox.”

  “Huh? What? You’re kidding me.” He looks at the field beyond the yard automatically, as though he expects to see the fox there.

  Mari stands and gathers Ethan against her. Kendra’s backed off a few steps to tap furiously into her phone. “A fox killed the peacock. We’ll have to make sure the chickens are locked up at night.”

  “Shit.” Ryan scrubs at his face. “Are you sure?”

  She’s momentarily surprised by this, that he should turn to her as the expert. “It might’ve been a dog, but I haven’t seen any around here. Raccoons will kill chickens, but I think this was a fox.”

  “Why didn’t it eat it?” Kendra asks suddenly.

  Mari looks at her daughter. “I don’t know, Kiki. Maybe it got interrupted.”

  Ethan looks up from where he’s pressed his face to Mari’s belly. “Are some of the chickens gone? Maybe the fox ate them and wasn’t hungry enough to eat the peacock.”

  “I don’t know.” The same answer to a different question. Mari pushes her son’s hair from his face. “You could count them, but I don’t know how many there were before.”

  “Rosie will know,” he says. “I’m sad about the peacock.”

  Mari nods. “Me, too.”

  “That’s what made those screaming noises,” Kendra says, but her face is pale beneath the blush of summer sun.

  “I guess we should bury it.” Ryan sighs and looks as though this is the last task he’s interested in doing.

  “After dinner.” Mari tugs on Ethan’s sleeve. “We can do it after we eat.”

  “As if we could eat now. Gross,” Kendra says in a voice thick with scorn, though her eyes keep darting to the peacock’s corpse, and Mari has the idea her daughter’s not quite as unmoved as she’s trying to pretend.

  “Things die,” Mari says to all of them. “Sometimes they die naturally and sometimes they get killed. It happens. It’s sad, but that’s what foxes do. Kill things. And sometimes, it’s something pretty that we’d rather have alive. So we’ll eat dinner, and then we’ll bury the peacock.”

  Ryan stares. Kendra stares. Only Ethan nods as though what she said makes perfect sense. It’s only later, inside over bowls of chili and silence that Mari realizes out in the yard she’d been speaking aloud, yes—but she’d also been using the language of her childhood.

  She’d also been signing.

  THIRTY-TWO

  KENDRA HAD GONE to the top of the mountain again, searching for a cell signal. She’d waited until Dad and Ethan left for the Humane Society because, after the peacock got killed, she knew her dad would’ve told her she couldn’t leave the yard. Maybe her mom would’ve, too. But she needed to talk to Sammy, bad.

  Except Sammy didn’t answer her phone. Kendra got voice mail. Taking a deep breath, biting her lip, Kendra dialed Logan’s number. He didn’t answer, either. They were probably talking to each other, Kendra thought sullenly and thumbed Sammy a text before slipping the phone back into her pocket.

  She’d wait a few minutes to see if either of them answered her, but, restless, she didn’t want to sit while she did. She’d avoided the creepy crooked cabin, which meant staying in the trees instead of being in the clearing. Her feet crunched branches and twigs slapped her in the face as she pushed through, waiting without much hope for the vibration of a return call.

  The snap of branches behind her didn’t bother her the first time she heard it. But the second time, Kendra froze. Heart in her throat, she turned and saw nothing. She heard something, though.

  Breathing.

  Heavy, harsh. Another snap of twigs and shuffling like feet in the soft bed of leaves covering the ground. A low, muttered voice like a growl.

  “Go,” it
said.

  Kendra didn’t think twice. She ran. Hard and fast, ducking branches that whipped at her face, scratching. With a quick glance behind her, she saw a figure, impossibly tall. Shadowed. It reached— Oh, shit, was it coming after her?

  She jumped a fallen tree and skidded in the dirt, on pebbles, twisting her ankle. She hit the ground with a cry and rolled, getting to her feet as fast as she could. A fingernail broke off against a rock, and pain throbbed throughout her entire body.

  The mountainside was steeper here than the path she’d climbed up, and Kendra fell again immediately. She skidded, sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes on her butt. She hit a flatter piece of ground and pushed herself to her feet again.

  Sweating, hair in her face, she heard the sound of running water. The creek. She was almost to her backyard, or at the very least close enough to safety that she could turn around and look behind her again.

  Nothing. Nobody chasing her. Not even a shadow in the distance.

  Panting, Kendra pushed herself harder, anyway. Jumped the creek. She tumbled out of the trees and into a clearing to the far right of her house, on the opposite side of the barn and field.

  She was filthy. Her palms scratched. A welt on her cheek stung, and she’d bitten her tongue.

  Worst of all, her phone was gone.

  It was too much. Kendra burst into tears. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until she got into her backyard, where she found her mom hanging sheets and towels on the line.

  “Kiki? What’s wrong?” Her mom was there at once, holding Kendra’s shoulders.

  Kendra spit out the story about the cabin and the cell signal and the voice that had told her to “go.” The figure of the man, looming. Being chased. And, finally, about her phone.

  “Oh, Kiki. Your dad’s going to be so angry.” Her mom shook her head, but put an arm around her shoulders. “But...you said there was a little house? And...a man?”

  Snot bubbled out of Kendra’s nose. “Yes. It sounded like a man.”

  “A real man?”

  Kendra frowned. “Well...yeah. I mean, not like a Bigfoot or whatever.”

  Her mom looked past her, into the woods, her gaze far away. “What did he look like?”

  “He was in the trees. And he chased me.” Kendra paused. “Not that hard, though, I guess. I mean, if he’d wanted to catch me, he could have.”

  Her mom gripped her shoulders harder, a strange look on her face. “He didn’t touch you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see him?”

  Kendra shook her head. “Just heard him.”

  “No more going into the woods, Kendra. Do you hear me?” Mom looked fierce.

  As if she would, after this. Not even to look for her phone, which, even if she could find where it had fallen from her pocket, would probably be broken. Kendra drew in a sniffling breath and nodded.

  “Do we have to call the police again?” she asked.

  Her mom shook her head. “I doubt it would do any good, since he didn’t actually do anything to you.”

  “He scared me,” Kendra said.

  Mom hugged her close. “Just stay out of the woods, okay?”

  “What are we gonna tell Dad about my phone?”

  Her mom sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

  Kendra wiped her face. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Why?” Her mom looked surprised.

  “For going up there after everything else that happened. Being stupid. Losing my phone.” Kendra burst into more tears.

  Her mom held and shushed her, which made Kendra feel dumb, like a baby, but also better. She rested her head on her mom’s shoulder and hugged her, hard. They stood that way for a few minutes.

  “They’ll be back soon from the Humane Society. Why don’t you come inside, take a cool shower. Get cleaned up.” Her mom smiled. “We can make tacos for dinner, okay?”

  Her favorite. It didn’t do much to make her feel better, not yet, but Kendra nodded. She hugged her mom again, and headed for the house. She looked back just before she turned the corner toward the front door.

  Her mom was motioning toward the forest. Over and over, the same small set of gestures. She’d seen her mom do something like that a lot over the years, but this was the first time it sent a chill down her spine.

  Where are you?

  It was a game they played, her and mama. Kendra hiding, mama looking. Kendra giggling, silent. Mama moves her fingers, talking without her mouth.

  Where are you?

  “I’m here!” Kendra pops out from behind the couch. “I’m here!

  She watched a moment or so longer, but her mom had stopped. Now she just stared into the woods like she expected an answer to her silent question, but from who? And Kendra watched, her throat closing, also waiting for an answer, but none came.

  Mom turned. “Let’s go inside.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  THEY’D NEVER HAD a pet other than carnival goldfish, but Ryan hadn’t thought too hard about the decision to get a dog. He’d already half promised Ethan before they came here, and once the peacock showed up dead in the barnyard it had seemed like the most natural choice. Christ, what a mess. And to make things worse, when they’d come out after dinner to bury the damn thing, all that remained was a few bloody feathers and a mess in the dirt—whatever had killed it must’ve come back and carried it off.

  The Lebanon County Humane Society was almost an hour away and had dogs to spare. Ethan had wanted to take home every mongrel they saw, but in the end Ryan convinced him what mattered was that the dog was big and could bark loud enough to scare off any foxes that came into the yard.

  They settled on a mutt with one bent ear and one standing straight. Something like a German shepherd and collie mix, with silky black fur, a white bib and a tail that whipped back and forth so fiercely it created its own breeze. The dog had looked up at them from its pen, tongue lolling, and given such a sharp series of barks Ryan had known it was the right one.

  He’d never had a dog growing up and honestly had never much wanted one as an adult, but as soon as he looked at that mutt’s face, Ryan knew what to name it. “Chompsky.”

  Ethan guffawed, eyes bright as he hugged the dog around the neck. For a moment, all Ryan could do was stare at his son, too aware that he’d never had such a moment with his own father. Sure, when he got older he and his dad had been okay with each other, but...never like this. When Ethan left the dog to hug Ryan, small arms going tight around his waist, all he could do was soak it in with gratitude, because he knew his son’s affectionate nature had not come from him.

  The dog rode nicely in the car and leaped from it as soon as they got home, sticking close to the kids even without a leash. It had some training, at least. Ryan watched, amused, as Chompsky tried with little success to herd them all together. Definitely some border collie, then.

  Mari waited for them in the kitchen. She stood quietly at the sink, turning but not startling as Ethan and their new pet scrambled through the doorway in a tumble of laughter and fur. She hadn’t protested when Ryan had said they were going to get a dog to protect the house and the chickens. Watching his wife from the doorway, Ryan realized uncomfortably he’d never considered the reasons why she might not want a dog.

  “Mom! Look! Isn’t he great? His name is Chompsky,” Ethan said, one small hand on the dog’s collar and his feet skidding along the tile floor as he tried unsuccessfully to keep the mutt from jumping up on Mari.

  “Lame name,” Kendra put in. “Guess it’s better than Zipper, though.”

  “I liked Zipper, but I like Chompsky better. Chompsky! See, he knows it!” Ethan laughed as the dog left off its pursuit of his mother and jumped to lick at his face.

  Through this, Mari stood silent and still.

  “Babe,” Ryan began, but when she held up one hand, he shushed.

  Mari tilted her head, studying the dog that now sat back on its haunches to give her a slobber-tongued, dog
gy grin. Then slowly, slowly, she got onto one knee, almost like a man proposing marriage. She reached out one hand, not quite close enough to touch the dog’s silky fur.

  “You want to pet him, Mama?”

  The dog whined and went down onto its front paws, rear in the air, tail wagging so fast it became a blur. Mari mirrored the position, adding a small yip that Chompsky echoed. In the next moments, the dog was all over her, slurping and licking at her face while Mari laughed and tried to fend off the attack of affection. Ethan joined in a moment later, the three of them romping until Chompsky rolled onto his back with his legs splayed and gave Mari another yelp.

  Ryan froze watching this, a replay of one of the videotapes running through his head. Young Mari had behaved this way in the playroom at the hospital, though there it had been with a large stuffed dog, not a real animal. Now she sat up to give him a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her fingertips found the dog’s belly and she rubbed while Ethan chattered about how they’d chosen the dog, the name, how he was going to teach Chompsky all sorts of tricks.

  “He’s part border collie,” Ryan said.

  “That’s nice, honey,” Mari murmured, never looking away from Ryan’s eyes.

  Ryan swallowed, the moment passed. There was nothing here but a dog happy in his new home and a family delighted to have a new pet. Even Kendra had consented to crouch on the floor next to her brother in order to rub Chompsky’s fur.

  “I’m going to get to work on the book.” He paused when his wife got off the floor. “You okay with this, babe?”

  Mari gave him that head-tilted look, that faint smile. She nodded just slightly. “Like you said, we need a dog. It’s good for the kids.”

  Still, he hesitated in the doorway. “And...you’re okay with it?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He might’ve been imagining the faint challenge in her voice, which would’ve been totally unlike her. “It’s supposed to be housebroken. That’s what the people at the pound said, anyway.”