I was not wrong
to fear
how men
would use
the shadows.
A woman’s shout
slices the night.
I slip from
Zahra’s grasp.
I am through
with cowering
as though each one of us
has not the strength
of all these men combined.
The woman’s shout
is rage and fear
a rusty dull-edged blade
thrust deep as it will go
in desperate hope.
I do not see her
but she’s there
behind the
hulking shoulders
one arm pinning
prey against a wall
the other unsheathing
a weapon.
My first thought:
You’re one of Chalon’s men.
Will that forever
be my impulse
when I see a man
with legs spread wide
entitled to the world?
One of the men
who slaughtered my family
or one who died defending us,
it doesn’t even matter.
You flaunt your power
for no other reason
except your terror,
your fear that you are nothing
to this woman, to this world.
You’re right to be afraid.
A length of discarded wood
in the alley, once a broom
or shovel or child’s toy
is far from the weapons
Father trained me on
but you are not worthy
to die by my sword.
There will be no
parry and riposte,
no holding back
no decency.
There is no code of conduct here
only this weapon I’ve fashioned
from my rage and your fear.
The wood is solid, heavy
in my hands but lighter than
my brother’s sword, the one
I practice with in stolen moments.
If there were time
I’d wonder if I’m capable.
I’d wonder if a sword feels different
when it meets with human flesh,
how the pain inflicted travels
through the weapon and back
upon the one who wields it.
There isn’t time.
The crack
of wood on a skull
strikes a triad chord.
One note: relief I hit my mark
Another: terror you’ll turn on me
The third, the root: complete revulsion
at the thrill of what I’ve done
and how readily I’ll do it again.
Your stumble backward
was my aim; the woman’s escape
exactly what I wanted.
Now I revel in your confusion—
expecting incensed brother, father,
and seeing instead a girl
with nothing for a weapon but rage
that’s been sharpened against the stone
of a world that hates her.
You bitch!
No time for technique; I react
on impulse to the tense of your muscles
the moment before you lunge,
surging forward, shoving you
against the wall with weapon
at your throat, roles reversed
(how does it feel to be
pinned and helpless?)
your face the face of every man
who terrorized my sister, my friend
the ones I love
and me.
What if our bodies
are not for you?
What if you’re not
entitled to the world?
The terror in your eyes
is sweet in my soul.
I won’t say I have no fear.
The difference between us is
I’ve nothing left
to lose.
You gasp for air
as I shove harder
against your throat.
It would only take
the last bit of my strength
to cut off your breath
and watch you die.
I could do it.
Right up until
I can’t. I step back.
Your hands fly
to your neck,
your eyes fly
to meet mine.
There’s a moment
where you consider
summoning
what strength remains
to show me exactly
how powerful you are.
But I’m not wrong—
you are a coward
fleeing into the darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An uneasy peace settles on the house after Papi checks on Mom, after I apologize and she sobs and tells me she just wants it all to be over but she gets that it’s not.
Mom leaves for an appointment. Papi leaves for a job.
Anytime I think about my Twitter feed the walls close in and I get a little dizzy, so finally I bury my phone in my closet and go to the backyard.
Chester follows me out. When I sit on the edge of the patio and wiggle my toes into the grass, he decides he doesn’t have to keep such careful watch on me and ventures out to patrol the perimeter.
The Bianchis next door have a cat who lives to torment Chester. At least, that’s how it looks from this side of the fence. When they first got the cat, it would sit on the other side and meow-scream at our poor dog. Chester dug under the fence until he made enough of a ditch that he could stick his snout under. Whereupon the cat would scratch his nose. Every time.
I don’t know if Chester hoped there would be a different outcome each time he stuck his nose under there, or if he’d forget what had happened the last time, but he kept doing it until he got a scratch so bad it got infected and we ended up at the vet.
Papi covered the hole with wire mesh Chester can’t dig through, but the vet told us to be vigilant, because Chester could try to dig another hole in a different part of the yard.
He doesn’t look like he’s scheming anything right now. But then you can’t always tell by looking.
The familiar vocal patterns of NPR float over the fence on the other side of the yard, where Mr. Cho is probably working in his herb garden. Somewhere in the distance kids shout. Chester cocks his head as a crow squawks overhead, landing on an electric wire and staring Chester down, daring him to bark.
A crow isn’t worth Chester’s time when his feline nemesis is clearly (but silently) taunting him from the Bianchis’ yard. He stalks restlessly.
It’s the kind of gloriously beautiful Seattle summer day that gets everyone out of doors, sends them in droves to Green Lake and Golden Gardens and Discovery Park.
My backyard will do for now. Toes in grass. A cat’s meow. Chester giving up on the cat and coming over to rest his slobbery head in my lap. I can still turn this around. I can make this right.
I have the impulse to text Jess, or Francie and Sam, but I shake it off. No phone. Only me and creatures who will never understand the concept of a hashtag.
Chester pops up at the sound of the front door opening. Papi must have forgotten a tool. “I’m out here,” I call.
Instead it’s Nor who bang
s the back door open. Chester is on her immediately but she doesn’t even look at him. Instead she storms over as I’m getting to my feet and shoves me off the porch into the bushes below.
“Are you trying to ruin my life?!”
I barely feel the branches snagging on my skin, my flimsy T-shirt. I’m too stuck on Nor’s rage. Her screaming. Nor has never screamed at me. She’s never pushed me. Even as little kids, we weren’t the kind of siblings who wrestled or roughhoused. Angry Nor withdraws, deploys the silent treatment with military-level precision.
Chester whips his head between us, unsure who’s in more distress. I struggle to free myself from the branches. She stands there, red-faced, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Nor—”
“No! No more talking from you! Can you shut your mouth for once? Stop all the words! The talking, the writing, the tweeting—”
“I am so—”
“Shut up! I told you stop! You’re selfish and you’re immature, but you’re not stupid! You should be able to follow simple directions. You should realize this isn’t a game! You don’t get social justice points each time you pick up a megaphone! You destroy lives! I don’t care if you’re trying to help! Help who? You’re only helping yourself feel like you’re doing something, but instead you’re making everything worse for me!”
She whirls around and stomps back inside.
Chester looks from the door to me. Then, with an apologetic glance, he follows her.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to follow her. Part of me wants to, to defend myself, to scream back at her. But I also know she’s not wrong, not entirely. Plus she made herself pretty clear about me keeping my mouth shut.
I go inside to get my phone. I have to text my dad, or Jess. Or even my mom. Francie or Sam. Someone to ground me in reality, remind me that we have not actually slipped into an alternate universe, despite all signs to the contrary. I’m not even sure if Nor will be in the house, or if she came all the way over from the U District to shove me into a bush and now she’s on her way back, mission accomplished.
But on my way through the house to my room, I see, instead of Nor’s battered car, a small U-Haul parked out front. Then I turn to see Nor coming down the hallway, hauling her desk chair.
“Move,” she says, not even meeting my eye.
I step into the doorway of the bathroom so she can pass, and she takes the chair outside, puts it into the back of the U-Haul and comes back in.
“What are you doing?”
She pushes past me into her room, where she tries to pick up her desk and ends up hunched over with what looks like back pain. She lets out a huff and grabs her nightstand instead. Even that makes her wince.
“Nor, I can help you, but tell me what you’re doing!”
“No more help from you.” Not screaming anymore, but still shooting to kill with her laser eyes.
I go dig my phone out of hiding and text Jess and my dad both, telling them what’s happening, telling them to get over here.
“Then Papi can help you. Or Jess. You’re going to hurt yourself,” I say when she comes back in from putting the nightstand in the U-Haul.
She stops at the hall closet and pulls sheets and towels out, pillows and blankets. “How about these?” she snaps. “Am I allowed to lift these?”
I sigh, going into her room and grabbing her laundry hamper.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch my stuff.”
“I thought you could put the linens in here.”
She huffs again, then shoves the pile into the hamper with so much force I almost drop it. She grabs it from me and turns back toward the front door.
I open it for her and follow her out to the truck.
“Did you . . . move out of the dorm?”
She snorts and heads back to the house. “Moved, driven out by an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, whatever.”
A vise squeezes my heart.
All those hashtag threats to send her to the doghouse . . .
I want to say something, anything. I want to take it back, but I can’t. Right now, all I can do is help her fill up a U-Haul parked in front of our house, our home, where she could have moved if she was driven out of her dorm. But instead she’s packing to go somewhere else.
The hamper in the truck, she sits on the edge to rest, her cheeks rosy from effort or anger. It feels like an offering, that she stays instead of running inside and slamming the door in my face. I sit next to her, ignoring the curious stares of Mr. Rawson and his Chihuahua as they walk by.
“Nor,” I say. Almost in a whisper. “What happened?”
She doesn’t answer for a while. But she doesn’t yell or shove me off the truck, either. Finally, “It’s not all your fault. It had been happening all along. Through the trial, especially after Douglas got behind him.”
Matt Douglas, star Husky quarterback, who I guarantee had never once spoken to the water boy before, when asked by journalists about Craig Lawrence’s character: “He always seemed like a really good dude to me. He’s part of the Husky family.”
“But it got a lot worse after you posted the hashtag.” Nor puts a hand up to stop me before I can say anything. “I thought I could handle it. I did handle it. But then the door to my dorm room . . .”
I thought I’d already seen the depravity these assholes would sink to, but they went directly to where she lives?
“What did they do.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I really do. If you have to experience this, Nor, I can handle hearing about it. Especially when it’s my fault.”
“Partly your fault,” she corrects.
It stings. As bad as I feel, as responsible and guilty, a part of me wants her to absolve me completely. To tell me it’s not my fault at all, the responsibility lies entirely with Craig, with the Greek system, the football team, the administration, the fans, the world that hates girls.
“It looked like blood.”
My head whips up.
“What they wrote on my door. It wasn’t blood, but, like, it could have been. They wrote, ‘I know how to use a sword, cunt.’ And they’d stuck a dagger sort of thing in the door.”
“Oh my god.”
“I didn’t want to let them win. But I’m so tired of fighting.”
I put a careful arm around her and she lets me, her head dropping down onto my shoulder. “They’re monsters. And you shouldn’t have to fight them alone.”
She stays a moment longer, then lowers herself gingerly off the end of the truck. “I shouldn’t have to fight them at all, but here we are. Help me with the desk?”
“The desk?” I follow her into the house. “How about lunch? We have lots of leftovers.”
“I’m renting the truck by the hour,” she says, going straight for her room.
The nightstand is one thing. No one cares about towels. But Grandpa built that desk for Mom when she started college. They couldn’t afford for her to live in the dorm, but Grandpa wanted her to have a serious place to work. I’ve always been jealous Nor had it in her room.
“Where are you even going?” Stay here, I want to shout.
“These people from my gender studies class, they have an off-campus apartment with a room open for the summer. I want my desk there.”
It’s not her desk.
I leave her to pack up our family heirlooms and disappear to the kitchen. Will Nor ever cook here again, talking and laughing and whipping up something out of nothing? That’s dramatic, maybe, but shit has gotten pretty dramatic around here. I open the fridge and stare. I’m not even hungry.
When I check my phone, both Papi and Jess have responded.
Papi’s confused. Jess writes: “Heading to a longsword class. Will come over as soon as it’s done. Unless you need me sooner.”
That was twenty minutes ago,
so by now they’re dueling with some other medieval combat enthusiast. I’m still on my own.
I drape myself over the counter and rest my head on the cool surface. It smells like lemons.
“Are you going to help me?” Nor says from the doorway. “I can’t do the desk on my own.”
Now she wants my help. So she can take Grandpa’s desk and run to people she barely knows. “You seem pretty determined to do everything else on your own,” I snap. I pull out a jar of peanut butter, purely because I know Nor hates the smell.
“And you seem pretty determined to help me! That’s what you call it, right? Helping? By getting me kicked out of my dorm?”
“You said it wasn’t my fault!”
“I said it wasn’t all your fault. So if you truly want to help, you need to stay out of every single thing to do with what happened to me.”
“You know what? This didn’t only happen to you!”
“Yes, it fucking did!”
Then why do I feel that dagger through her door in my own chest?
SWORD AND BOOK
My chest is tight
as we head into the mountains.
One thing on top of another
the siege, the alley
and no time to breathe
to stop and feel the weight.
We have a bearing now
and must proceed
if we’re to reach the convent by dark.
The woman from the alley
directed us with longing,
held back from joining us
only by the children
hanging from her skirts.
At the convent
women are betrothed
to Christ.
Tedious, a life of chants
and prayers, monotony
but also
Christ would not
slip into bed
demand his urges
fulfilled no matter
the names he’s called you
times he’s struck you
your bone-deep weariness
desperate longing to escape
it all in sleep.
It’s something
We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire Page 10