by Megan Hart
His wife gave him a steady stare. “And if he’s not, it would hardly be the first time I’ve cleaned up dog shit. Would it?”
All at once he wanted to hold her. Pull her next to him, close his eyes, breathe in the scent of her hair. He wanted to back up time and forget he’d ever thought about bringing her back here. They could find a way to make ends meet without this book. He could put all the files and folders away and take his family away from this place.
But then when she turned and spoke to the dog, making a subtle, barely there set of motions with her hands at the same time, Ryan knew he wasn’t going to.
THIRTY-FOUR
MARI’S HAND HURT. Punctured, holes seeping green goo tinged with blood. When her fingers clenched, sharp, fierce pain stabbed all through her, making her feel like she was going to fall down.
The dog had bit her. She’d reached for something in its bowl, and it had snapped, snarling. Growling. Mari had won the battle for the hunk of chicken on the bone Gran had put in there, always the dogs had food though many times Mari was forgotten. The dogs fought among themselves. Mari fought the dogs when she had to.
“Be quiet,” Gran had said. “Hide.”
Them had come, pounding feet on the floor. Loud voices. Gran fought Them the way Mari and the dogs fight. Gran won’t leave this house. Gran won’t take Their medicine, though she’ll eat the food They leave her. Gran won’t let Them help her change her clothes, goddammit, this is her place, They should get out.
Get out!
Get out!
Mari hid, and later when Them had gone, there was another voice. Another person. Nice hands, washing her face and cleaning her hands, the sore spots. Wrapping them in bandages. Giving her water, cold water. Mariposa is so hot she is going to fly away.
“Stay with me, little butterfly,” the voice says. It is soft, gentle, the voice of her protector.
Her forest prince comes to her from the woods. When Mari opens her eyes, he is there. Making everything better.
THIRTY-FIVE
“SURE, IT COULDA been a fox.” Rosie looked over the dirt in the yard.
The chickens had scuffed it up, covering the blood, but Kendra couldn’t forget that it was there. Ethan had snagged the single raggedy feather from the peacock’s tail, but Daddy had told him not to take it in the house. He said it was bad luck.
“What?” Rosie laughed at this when Kendra told her. “Bad luck? Is that what he thinks causes it?”
Kendra shrugged and kicked at the dirt with the toe of her Chucks. “Dunno. He just told him not to take it in the house.”
Ethan had hung it up in the barn, instead. Now he walked slowly behind one of the fluffy chickens and waited until it squatted before he picked it up. He held it in one arm while he petted its head. The chicken clucked, and the monkeybrat laughed. Rosie laughed, too, as she scattered some feed for them. Kendra felt for the comforting weight of her phone in her pocket before remembering she’d lost it.
“If it wasn’t a fox, what do you think it was?” Kendra asked.
Rosie turned to look at her. “I didn’t say it wasn’t. Foxes kill chickens. Your dog might kill ’em, too, you’re not careful.”
“Chompsky won’t,” Ethan said.
Hearing his name, the dog let out a single, sharp bark. His tail swept the dirt back and forth. Kendra bent to scratch his head. “Chompsky doesn’t even chase chickens.”
Rosie snorted. “Dogs’ll do what they do. Just like men.”
Ethan had already put down the chicken he’d been holding and was now after another one. He hadn’t heard what Rosie said, or if he had, didn’t care. Kendra did, though.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It wasn’t as if she hadn’t ever heard women diss on dudes before. Sammy did it all the time. But Kendra was kind of partial to guys even if they could be jerks and not reply to text messages.
“Oh, you could ask your mama that question. She’d know better than me, I guess.” Rosie chuckled.
“Don’t you have a husband?”
Rosie shot Kendra a sideways look. “He died. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” She really didn’t care, but it seemed like the polite thing to say.
“I ain’t,” Rosie said. She straightened as the chickens pecked around her feet. She kicked out, just a little, to shoo them away. She put her hands on the hips of her overalls. She clucked, imitating the chickens.
“Kendra! Ethan!”
Kendra turned to see her mom on the front porch. She waved, catching her mother’s eye. Mom shaded her eyes, then came across the driveway and around the side of the barn.
“Hi, Rosie. Kiki, where’s Ethan? I told him to clean up his room.”
“He’s chasing chickens.” Kendra had cleaned her room before coming out, not because she was into cleaning but because she hardly had anything here that needed putting away. And without her phone, hardly anything to do.
Her mom sighed. “Hi, Rosie. We’re going to be grilling burgers for dinner. Would you like to stay?”
Rosie looked surprised. “For dinner?”
Her mom’s smile always made Kendra feel like everything was okay, no matter what else was going on. Rosie seemed more taken aback than warmed. The old lady shrugged.
Mom gestured. “I made potato salad. Corn on the cob, too. And biscuits. There’ll be plenty of food.”
“You’ll have enough to feed an army.”
“You’re welcome to join us,” Mom said. “Kiki, go tell Ethan he’d better get his butt inside and clean up his room, or I’m going to have to get angry.”
“Children need discipline,” Rosie said.
Mom looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Of course they do.”
Rosie snorted. Kendra didn’t need to stick around for more of that conversation—in fact, as much as she might’ve been interested in hearing the monkeybrat get in trouble any other time, she didn’t really want him to get yelled at in front of Rosie. She found him in the barn, looking at the feather he’d hung on the wall.
“Mom said you’d better clean your room, or you’re gonna get in trouble.”
“I’m sad about the peacock, Kiki. I don’t think a fox killed it.”
“What else would? Besides, what difference does it make if it was a fox or a raccoon or a coyote? It’s dead,” Kendra said flatly.
“Maybe that thing in the forest. The one that lives in that little house.”
“That’s not a thing,” Kendra said, feeling proud of herself for believing it. “It’s some hillbilly dude. C’mon. You need to clean your room so Mom doesn’t get mad.”
Ethan sighed and scowled, then stomped off away from her without saying anything else. Outside, around the back of the house, Rosie sat at the splintery picnic table where Mom had already put out paper plates, napkins and cups. Also the bowl of potato salad and a pitcher of lemonade.
“Where’s my mom?” Kendra asked.
“Getting the meat, I guess.” Rosie pointed toward the house.
“I guess I should help her.” But the back door was locked, and when she knocked, her dad took forever to open it.
When he did, he didn’t look happy. “Kendra. What?”
She made to push past him. “I have to help mom with the burgers.”
“Go around.”
She stopped, incredulous. “Huh?”
“This is my office, Kendra, not a highway. Go around. I’m working.”
Her mom appeared around the side of the house with a platter of meat patties. “Ryan, relax. Kiki, come help me. Ryan, can you please get the grill started?”
She took the platter from her mom while her dad closed the door without a word. Kendra gave her mom a scowl.
“So we still have to walk all the way around, even though the kitchen is literally right through there?”
Mom sighed. “He’s busy, Kiki.”
The next minute the door opened again. Her dad came out and shut the door heavily behind him. He did a double take at the sight of Rosie, then gave Mom a squeeze.
“Let’s get this started.” Her dad rubbed his hands together and bent to look at the tank of gas under the grill. He twisted the knob. He lifted the grill lid and pushed a button.
Nothing happened.
He pushed the button again, then again, muttering curses. Kendra put the platter on the table with a heavy sigh. Rosie snorted softly.
Mom looked over at them both with a small smile. “Honey, maybe you need to use a lighter or something.”
“No, no, I’ll get it.”
This was going to take forever. Kendra scooped some potato salad onto her plate and grabbed a plastic fork. She could starve before her dad got the grill going.
Rosie frowned. “You don’t pray before you eat?”
Kendra paused, fork halfway to her mouth. She glanced at her parents, both of them working on the grill. “Huh?”
“No,” Rosie said. “I guess you wouldn’t.”
By the grill, her dad muttered a curse, but Mom burst into laughter. Kendra took a bite of potato salad, her teeth scraping on the plastic fork. Rosie took a biscuit.
Mom turned toward the table, shaking her head. “Well...I guess I could always just make them on the stove. It’ll only take a few minutes. C’mon, Ryan. Don’t fuss with that anymore.”
Her dad kept muttering but followed her mom, along with the platter of meat, into the house. This left Kendra sitting alone across the picnic table from Rosie. The old woman stared at her.
“Your daddy sure does love your mama, ain’t?”
“I guess so.” She didn’t like to think much about her parents’ relationship beyond the fact that it worked better than, say, Sammy’s parents’ did.
“Are you a good child?”
The question surprised her. “Um...”
“Are you a good daughter?” Rosie asked. “You and your brother. You good kids? I already know your brother don’t listen good.”
Kendra frowned. “He’s okay. He’s not that bad.”
“Children should obey their parents, that’s all.” Rosie took another biscuit and bit into it, crumbs gathering at the corners of her mouth. “Children who don’t obey their parents deserve to be punished.”
“I... We obey our parents.”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” Rosie muttered. “Jesus said that.”
Kendra was 100 percent positive that Shakespeare had said it, but she didn’t argue. “I’m not thankless.”
“Huh.” Rosie snorted and looked around the backyard, then gave Kendra a sly sort of grin. “Most people don’t stay here long, you know? Rent the place for a week or so, get their hiking and hunting in, then leave. Oh, once we had a family that tried it out, but they didn’t last long.”
“Did someone throw rocks at them, too?” Kendra asked sourly.
Rosie scowled. “If you were my daughter, I’d wash your mouth with soap for that sass.”
Kendra didn’t offer an apology, though Rosie was clearly waiting for one.
“I guess your people don’t scare easy,” Rosie said finally. “But you’ll be heading back to the city soon enough.”
“I don’t think we are leaving,” Kendra said, just to be a jerk. “My dad’s working on a book, and he’s not even close to finishing. And besides, my mom likes it here. A lot. This was her house, you know.”
“She picked it?”
“No,” Kendra said. “This was her house. I mean her actual house, where she grew up.”
Rosie’s hand jerked, knocking against the bowl of potato salad. Kendra was quick enough to keep it from spilling off the table, but Rosie looked as shaken as if she’d dumped it all over herself. She got to her feet, one hand on the table to keep herself steady.
“You shut your lying mouth.”
Kendra settled the bowl carefully and fixed Rosie with a long stare. “I’m not lying.”
“Your mama grew up in this house?”
“That’s what I said.” Kendra wished she hadn’t said anything. Based on the look on Rosie’s face, the old lady was going to have a heart attack, and there was no way Kendra was going to do CPR.
Rosie began to laugh. Spit flew from her mouth as she bent at the waist, guffawing. She pointed at Kendra, but couldn’t manage to speak for a minute or so.
“Oh, wait until he hears this,” Rosie crowed at last. “Won’t he feel stupid, though?”
“Who?” Kendra asked.
But Rosie only shook her head and backed away, face going sober. She slurped at her teeth. “Tell your mama I’m sorry, I can’t stay for dinner.”
“But—” Kendra called after her, but Rosie only gave a backward wave as she left.
THIRTY-SIX
THE MASTER BATH renovation was done well. It has a shower better than the one in the hall bath and a vintage-looking claw-foot tub that’s probably a reproduction. Mari fills it and adds a foaming bath cube Ethan bought her from the school’s holiday shop last Christmas and which had been packed, forgotten, in her travel bag for months. It doesn’t smell very good, too much like chemicals to her sensitive nose, but it gives the water a luxurious and silky feel she’s completely enjoying.
She’s not much of a bath person, normally. Mari likes showers because they are quick and efficient, allowing her to get clean in the least amount of time possible so she can move on to other things. Like many other memories she’s shoved aside and which are now rising inexorably toward the front of her mind, she thinks now of how she used to fight the bathtub. She sinks down in the water now, remembering strong hands holding her as other hands scrubbed her hair and pulled the tangles free. She remembers screaming.
It seems so silly now. Her own children had never fought the tub—they loved it, in fact. They’d play for an hour in the water, dipping it into cups and floating boats. Splashing. They’d never even complained when she got soap in their eyes.
A stack of magazines she found in the living room cupboard sits next to the tub. It’s an odd collection. Doll Collector. Archery Hunter. Civil War Stories. Whoever lived here before sure had varied tastes.
Mari doesn’t collect anything, but the doll magazine fascinates her. Settling into the steaming water, she flips through page after page of dead-eyed dolls. There’s another toy on the page. Soft body, hard plastic head like the others, but this doll isn’t in the shape of a person. It’s a worm with a green body and a nightcap on its head.
She knows this toy. Her children had toys like this, but she’s remembering something else. Something like it, not the same...something she had held tight against her to light up the night until one day, it went dark and never shone again. Mari closes her eyes.
Did she have a toy like this? Maybe not exactly the same, but close enough that she can still recall the feel of its soft body, the hard box inside it, the plastic face. Her fingers squeeze the magazine, mindless of how she’s crumpling it.
“For you.” The forest prince has brought her a present. “For when it’s dark. So you don’t have to be afraid.”
Mari squeezes it close, watching it light up. She strokes the soft body, the hard head. She looks at him. “Butterfly.”
“Shh,” he reminds her, and forms her fingers into the motions of a butterfly, fluttering. “Remember. Quiet. So they won’t hear you.”
They’d convinced her it was imagination. That only Gran had been in the house with her. No matter how many times she’d tried to describe or explain him, nobody had believed her.
Mari looks to the bathroom window, to the darkness outside. Then again to the picture in this magazine. She hadn’t imagined that glowing butterfly doll. That doll had been real. So then, had the boy who gave it to her been real, too?
For the first time in years, she thinks he was.
She hears the click-click of claws on the tiles. Chompsky sits, head cocked, to look at her. He pants, smiling, and she thinks how much she’s come to love this dog even in the short time he’s been theirs.
She hadn’t loved her gran’s dogs. They
smelled bad, barked too much. They bit. They stole food from her hands if she wasn’t careful. They weren’t pets the way Chompsky is, and yet she can’t keep herself from thinking about those dogs from the past any more than she can stop the rush and press of all the other memories coming back to her.
The bath holds no more interest for her. She’s not sure what prompted her to think she wanted one in the first place, except that it’s what women are supposed to do when they want to relax. Now her skin’s crawling from the bubbles and her stomach’s upset from the heat. She runs the shower, cold, and stands beneath it shivering. Mari tilts her face to the water and opens her mouth to wash away the taste of the past, but it takes a long, long time.
THIRTY-SEVEN
KENDRA HATED GROCERY shopping, but when Mom had asked if she and Ethan wanted to come along, Kendra had jumped at the chance, especially when Mom promised lunch. Fast food was always a treat because Mom hated the taste of what she called “fake” burgers. And after Kendra had watched that documentary by the guy who ate at McDonald’s every single day she’d been a little scarred herself.
She hadn’t counted on the fact that they really were out in BumFuck. No McDonald’s, no Burger King, no Wendy’s. Kendra groaned as her mom drove slowly along one of the main roads in town.
“How about here?” Her mom pulled into the parking lot of a long, low building with a big red rabbit on the sign. “Look. It says ‘make the red rabbit a habit.’ Cute, huh? They have ice cream. And onion rings.”
Kendra had never wanted greasy fries and a strawberry shake so much in her life. Ethan was already bouncing up and down in the backseat, begging for chicken strips. Inside the place looked like something out of an old movie. Diner booths, a jukebox, old records on the walls. Her mom laughed in delight, looking around. Ethan jumped over to the jukebox. Kendra studied the menu. A buck fifty for a Hollywood Burger? Where were they, the Twilight Zone?
Kendra looked across the room at the counter, the bored teenager working there, and was sort of jealous. At least that kid had a job, earned some money, probably had friends to hang out with. When she got back to Philly, Kendra was going to be broke and behind on all the gossip.