by Lee Maracle
“What’s the difference between having them thoughts and the snake doing them?”
“Plenty and hardly anything at all,” Ned answers. “Men don’t act on their thoughts when they take that kind of a turn.” He tries to keep it simple, but he knows it isn’t that simple. Men don’t have thoughts like that after they become men. Boys don’t act on their thoughts when they take that kind of a turn if they are raised right. Very few boys he knows had such thoughts. Jacob had acted on his thoughts. Now Ned wants to be sick. He shares an apprehensive look with his son.
Jim takes some tobacco out of a pouch and says, “Go talk to that river. There is a woman in that river. Ask her to watch over you.” When Jacob is out of earshot Jim says, “We better talk, Ned. Don’t you go telling Momma or any of the women about this.” Ned nods; he does not want to keep this sickening secret to himself, but he knows his wife is overloaded, full up. One more shovel and she might cave in.
“Tonight,” is all Jim says.
THE LAST PICTURE IS a sunset. No objects, just the sun setting on a thin line of black. Behind the sun, the light is nearly white; emanating from this ball of yellow is every possible hue of red, orange, pink, and pale yellow. The colours fill the page. Celia is about light, her mother thinks. She is about light and colour, and these colours shaped her somehow. Momma closes the book.
“Let’s go by Stacey’s,” she says. “We’ll all go to my house and I’ll make some pie.” Celia smiles. All her paintings add up to some pie. Somehow she doesn’t feel so strange. She might not know her mother well, but they share the same odd sense of logic and that makes her one of them.
THE MEN PACK UP their fish and saunter home. All the way there, Jim keeps the three of them laughing with stories of cow shit, bear shit, and any other tale he can drum up that might help them forget about the scene by the river. By the time they arrive home, they are like any old clutch of men who have just had a very successful fishing trip.
XIII
THE WOMEN ARE IN the kitchen making pie by the time the men return. The kids are running about the house, raising a ruckus; their laughter cuts the air into bouncing little pieces that seem to massage Ned’s bones. Jacob has gone home to put his share of the catch in his mother’s freezer. Jim is ready to talk. Ned and Jim go outside for a smoke.
“Spider is a storyteller. She weaves soft silk threads across human pathways. Be careful to unhook the web on the far side and clear the path. Her threads may otherwise get tangled up on you. In the fight to clear the thread you might swallow the spider. She is a predator too. You don’t know what her story is about until after she has spun the tale inside, twisted you in all kinds of crazed directions.” Ned isn’t sure why Jim has begun the conversation this way, so he lights a smoke and waits for him to explain.
Celia hears the story as she sorts through the wild cherries they are turning into pies. Her brother’s voice comes at her, sifted through the words young Alice gave her the night before, the ones she has been turning over in her mind. They disturb her. Stacey watches her sister; Celia looks distracted and Stacey feels suspicious about her because she knows she is daydreaming again. Stacey understands why children daydream, but Celia is too old. The lines of her face show her age. She joins Celia and sorts the cherries as quickly as she can, stewing over how in the world to approach her younger sister about her neurotic daydreaming. Momma rattles on about Celia’s paintings. Rena jokes about who knows what. The kids are antsy by the time the pies are done and the men have gotten back.
Jacob returns in time to join them in eating the pies.
Celia sits in her momma’s kitchen, wishing she were in her easy chair, the black night hanging over her, so she could smile at the memory of her gramma while reliving the lines of her cousin’s poem. The candle in the kitchen dances. The room softens. Celia thinks she might get through another night without her son if she can just escape this kitchen.
Mink is merciless. Celia does not need escape, she needs to be part of this story. Mink is determined to prepare her for it. Nothing happens after this moment, no dreams, no fear, no suspicions — just a family eating pie, telling stories, and sharing laughter. Celia is relieved by the time she leaves for home.
AT HOME, BY CANDLELIGHT, she retreats to her bedroom to recite her cousin’s poetry. She fought all day against resenting the intrusion of family that kept her from her musing. The only way she managed to get through the day was to promise herself that tonight she would sit in the dark tasting Alice’s words no matter who came. She has barely begun to roll Alice’s words around in her mind when the knock comes. The last line Alice read drops into her mouth and she feels herself swallow it. She savours the texture, the sound, and the taste of the words. Whoever is knocking is persistent. She ignores it. The tap becomes a rap then a bang. She clutches the arm of her chair. “Don’t answer that door,” she tells herself. The banging persists and finally she gives in and gets up to answer. Her aunt Martha stands there, mouth agape, looking at her. What in the world has driven Martha out of bed this late?
“What is it, Martha?” Celia steps back to let Martha enter, but she doesn’t.
“Celia, can you help me? I have to get my granddaughter.”
“How come? Where’s her mom?”
Martha’s face is ash white. Celia doubts she can solve whatever problem has turned Martha’s face this ash white.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” This agitates Celia. She is not in the mood for riddles. “At home, I hope. Don’t be pestering me with riddles without answers, Martha.”
“Celia, will you help me? My granddaughter called. All she could say was ‘Help me, Gramma.’” Martha is sweating. She is looking out over her shoulder at something — or maybe it is away from something.
Celia runs for her coat, wondering what in the world has made Martha think she could be helpful with anything that has got Martha this upset. Alice’s words have taken such a beating, first last night and now tonight. Celia’s ritual of listening to them, then going home to the pleasantness of the dark to play with the words until sleep comes, has been interrupted by Jacob, then by the humming, then by her momma’s paint viewing, then by the pie eating, and now by Martha. This means Celia will have to go Alice’s again; she chuckles as she slips her bloated feet into a pair of worn-out shoes.
The gravel in front of Celia’s yard crunches under their feet as she tries to keep up with Martha.
“C’mon, Martha, you know I gave up men so I could get fat. I can’t run. Slow down.”
“We have to hurry. Shelley called me. She was barely whispering, saying, ‘Help me, Gramma, help me.’ That girl would not dare phone unless something terrible happened. I can’t face it alone, so I stopped to get you.” Martha keeps right on flying down the road. Celia finds the strength to heave her nearly two hundred pounds after her.
“Shelley called. She’s only five years old. She knows to call.” Celia pauses. “I didn’t know that girl of yours had a phone.” She tries to consider the shack Martha’s daughter lives in and can’t imagine it having a phone. A phone seems absurdly extravagant given the conditions of that shack.
“I got the phone for her,” Martha says.
Celia can’t decide if this is funny or insane. Living in an old shack with barely any electricity and no running water doesn’t jive with a owning a phone.
“Slow down,” Celia urges. Until this moment, she had not thought her two hundred pounds were an inconvenience. In fact, she’d thought she deserved every tasty chocolate-filled ounce of them, but now she wishes she weren’t so heavy.
“We have to hurry. I am afraid of what Stella might have done to her. I’ve always been afraid. I got her the cell phone just in case.”
Celia is fighting to keep up. Halfway down the road, the impact of what Martha has said dawns on Celia. Something terrible has happened to give that child the cheek to use he
r mother’s phone. Shelley is a furtive and timid child. She doesn’t misbehave. Panic settles in Celia’s body as she catches a glimpse of what might have happened. Her legs move faster. She passes Martha. Something is so wrong in there. Martha struggles to catch up. Both women find it difficult to breathe.
Shelley lives with her mom and some guy down at one end of the reserve, not far from the old snake’s shack, in an old house that had been deserted until someone desperate for something to call her own moved in. Celia fights for breath; she fights her legs for agility, for speed, for something to move herself along. Nausea teases at her stomach. She is about to tell Martha to go on ahead when she sees the house. There are no lights on. She wants to tell herself that this is not unusual this late at night, but she knows that if Shelley were awake there would be a light on.
“Children don’t sit willingly in the dark,” she says out loud.
Celia reaches the shack and pushes open the door. The blast of chill air that meets them indicates the wood stove is out. The child must be cold. Celia flips the only light switch in the cabin. The light does not go on. Celia goes back to open the door wide so that the moonlight might help them to see. They stand for a moment, letting their eyes adjust. They can see the child lying there; even in the dark her eyes are vacant as they stare into the black. She moans so softly, so gently, so quietly. It sounds like a muffled hum. “That hum,” Celia mutters to herself. Is this who she heard screaming the other night? Celia feels her blood chill as the picture of the limp child staring at nothing with the phone still in her tiny hands comes into focus. Off in the corner is a woman, her legs spread open, a bottle of beer in her hand, her lids half-closed, her mouth open, and an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Celia fails to recognize Stella.
They move toward the child’s body like two people carrying a coffin, slow and reverent. Both women pray the child is still breathing. Martha fishes in her pocket for a match and lights it. It bathes the room in pale light for a moment; when its fire shrinks Celia can see that Shelley’s forearms have small, round purpled-red burns. There are bruises just about everywhere her skin is showing. Celia sees a small pool of blood near Shelley’s private parts.
“Oh, no.” Martha drops the match. She hunts for a wad of paper, twists it up, lights another match, and sets fire to the paper.
“Oh, Martha.” Celia reaches for the phone.
“Who are you going to call?” Martha’s voice has the quality of a threat.
“Nine-one-one.”
Martha grabs Celia’s arm and stops her.
“They take so long. She’ll die. Or they’ll take her away and I’ll never see her again,” Martha pleads with Celia as she reaches to take the phone away from her.
“We can’t just leave her like this.” Celia snaps her hand back, clinging to the phone. “She looks like she’s already dying. I’ll call Momma. She saved that awful snake. Maybe she can save this child.”
Martha remembers the snake, that beast Momma so carefully tended. When she was young, she had hated her aunt for her devotion to reviving that old snake. Now she hates her daughter, who cannot tend to her grandchild, this sweet child who is much too obedient, much too grown-up to be just five, and now is much too innocent and much too small to be this tortured. The hate catches fire, hooks itself to Martha’s voice, floods her arms with the need for revenge, and brings the worst sort of foulness from the bottom of some well of decadence she had swallowed a long time ago. She screams the foulness out at Stella. “Wake up, you fucking bitch. Wake up!” She shakes Stella by the hair.
Her daughter comes to, mumbling, “What’s up? Fuck off.”
Martha’s arms pummel Stella’s drunken body. Celia grabs her cousin as soon as she gets off the phone.
“Martha! What are you doing? The child, the child, she is still alive. Momma says we have to do things for her.” Stella tries to rise from her corner, remembers her cigarette, looks for a light. She catches sight of her daughter. She eases herself toward her; then, like a rabbit that has caught sight of a fox, she hunches, stands still, and collapses. Her eyelids, loaded with defeat, fall shut.
XIV
“NED. WAKE UP.” MOMMA squeezes the words out between tense lips. Ned wakes up, sits up, takes one look at his wife’s determined and frightened face, and scrambles to the floor. He jumps into his pants, grabs a shirt from the closet, and, putting it on, heads for the door. Momma throws a wet sheet into the freezer. Ned pays no attention to what she does and asks no questions. He heads to the car, where he waits for her. He knows he will find out soon enough what the horror behind Momma’s face is all about.
Momma swings into the passenger seat and instructs Ned to stop by Judy’s. Momma runs in and comes out with Judy, who is still tying her scarf around her neck and buttoning up her jacket. Rena is standing on the porch, watching. She is going to Momma’s house. “This is going to be a long one,” Rena murmurs as she picks up the phone to call Stacey.
After hearing Stacey’s sleep-filled grunt, Rena says, “Get your shoes on, Stacey.”
“Whassup?” Stacey drawls, still half asleep.
“I don’t know, but your momma came and got Judy. You know she wouldn’t wake Judy up unless it was critical. You get ready and pick me up on the way to Momma’s.” Rena declines to tell her how horrified Momma had looked.
Momma is aghast. How could this happen? Even in her unconscious state, the child is murmuring, calling out to her mother in whimpers. Martha paces, wanting Momma to work magic.
“Do something.” She wants Momma to relieve her grandchild of the hell she is living. She stops pacing and attacks Stella. Celia separates them, reminding Martha of her grandchild. Momma understands Martha’s rage. She feels the same in her own bones; she wants to shout at the child, “Who did this to you?” At Stella, “How could you let this happen?” At the world, “What has happened to my family?” At anyone who will listen, “Are we less than animals?”
Ned stands in front of Momma, terrified by the scene. His shoulders sag, his body almost unable to hold his weight. He has fallen into old age and lost decades all in one moment. When he begins to move he drags himself about the room, doing whatever the women instruct him with no enthusiasm. He hunts his memory for someone to hate, to blame, to help him understand how this could possibly happen. As he hunts his memory, the fire in him begins to drown in the guilt that is being born.
As a young man, Ned had left this village and headed out on the open road. He learned things on that journey, things about electricity, about positive and negative, about grounding and shorting out. He thinks about it now. It tells him something about humans. Humans are charged or they are not. They are grounded or they are not. They are transmitting or receiving, or they are shorting out. The dust, the gravel, the hard work, the mountain climbing, the fishing, the berry picking, all this keeps the villagers grounded. The hard work and the mountain climbing wore out the charge. Someone had lost connection to his ground wire; two positives had collided, shorted out, and aimed the force of the charge at this child. Ned finds a comfort in seeing all of this in the light of the metaphor of electricity, as he cannot contemplate the level of meanness, the depth of Stella’s uncaring numbness, or the intensity of hate that are required to commit this act.
He feels his own charge waning as he looks for water.
“We have to move her,” Celia says. “This place is too filthy.”
“We can’t,” Judy argues, her hands and legs shaking violently so that her words jerk. “She needs a doctor.”
“They’ll take her away. We will never see her again,” Momma says, wondering if they deserve to ever see this child again.
Martha starts after Stella again. Celia catches her before she gets close enough to haul on any more of her daughter’s hair, pummel her, or tear her clothes.
“Momma,” Shelley mutters as she awakes and looks at the face closest to her. Momm
a finds some kind of confidence in this girl’s waking up and recognizing her. If she can wake up and discern one face from another and call out her name, maybe she has the strength to fight for her life.
“Help me,” Momma says to Celia. “Get me plywood,” she directs Ned. She turns to Judy, “You don’t have to do this. I know your people have rules. They mean something to you, but they don’t mean anything to me.”
“O God, please help me and forgive me, but I do have to do this,” Judy says.
The women talk about how to move Shelley. When Ned returns, they lay her out on the plywood.
Momma grabs hold of Martha’s face. “You listen to me, now, Martha. If this child is going to make it, she is going to because someone talks her through it, someone encourages her every second in a golden-throated Gramma voice — a voice free of rage and hate. You forget about your anger at that girl over there and you make sure this child makes it or you will never be able to live with yourself. You hear me?”
Judy shivers at the depth of cold in Momma’s voice. Martha shakes, but agrees. She closes her eyes and blocks the picture of her daughter out of her mind. She reaches for the memory of her own Gramma’s voice and calls out to Shelley, “You hang in there, baby. Gramma’s here. You just hold on.” Martha feels forever rising inside. She tells herself that she can do this; she will find a million different ways to say, “Hang in there, sweet girl. Clutch that thread of life. Cling to it. Don’t let it go. Stay with your gramma. I got you. I have you.”