by Lily White
“Yes you did. You know you did. So you have to clean it up. Right now, before your sisters see. They’ll go crying to your daddy the minute he walks through the door and he’ll want to turn around and leave again. Is that what you want? For your daddy to leave? What will we do then?”
He’d be smart to leave. Anybody would. If I were old enough, I’d be gone too. I’d take Lena, Devin and Quinn with me. Start a new life somewhere else.
Momma stared at me then, long and hard. Urgent. Like there was an emergency and I was the only adult who could fix it. Maybe I was.
“Go get the shovel and bury the damn thing. Be sure to scrape it up good. Hurry, before all the brats wake up. They’ll want something to eat and you’ll need to deal with that too.”
I was dragged to the front door and shoved out, a mosquito buzzing by my ear wanting its breakfast immediately. Swatting the air didn’t help. It just kept buzzing, an invisible scavenger that hoped to fill up on blood until it was big and red. The only thing you could do was let it land on the skin and hope you crushed it on time. Either way, you’d have an itchy welt left as a reminder.
The porch boards creaked underfoot as I stomped across them on bare feet, the stairs rocking side to side as I stepped down them. This entire house was ready to cave in and nobody cared to fix it and make it safe. I guessed that would be daddy’s job, but he was working so much that he was never here to fix nothing. I didn’t blame him, though. It’s just how it was.
I wasn’t sure that anybody would miss us if the house finally fell and we were buried. Nobody in the neighborhood, at least. They’d just be glad to see Tammy Bennett and her four too many kids gone.
My family were like roaches, scattering about all over the place, hiding in shadows, picking and eating wherever we could. It would have been fine if my parents stopped with the one kid they couldn’t afford, but they added three more to the bunch, one after the other.
It was wet outside, not raining, but sticky, the sun not fully up and already the heat made my skin sweat and my nightgown stick to me like damp tissue paper. I fought the skirt flapping around my knees with every step, reached the garage and struggled to push the door above my head.
Another screeching train sound, just like mom, thin aluminum panels rattling with every inch they climbed. It slammed down near my feet three times before I finally got it high enough to swing up and over the track.
A dog howled in the distance and I turned to see old Mrs. Lester in her yard staring at me. She shook her head, yelled Yer cat’s dead! like I had been the one to kill it. People around here didn’t bother going to my mom with their comments. They came to me, a kid, ten years old today, not that anybody noticed.
I grabbed the shovel from inside the garage and shook it at Mrs. Lester. The problem would be solved. By me. Again.
She grabbed her newspaper and marched past her flower lined walkway to go inside, flip flops violently thwacking with each hurried step, the dog howling again, a loud airbrake from a garbage truck barreling down a distant road.
It was the chorus of early morning, and in two weeks there’d be kids walking out to bus stops when school started back again with new clothes and plastic smelling binders, while I stood there in the same thing I wore last year, lucky if I had a new pencil.
I hated this place. This life. This day. My birthday. There should be cake and presents and people singing, but instead there was just a sad song in my head, a reminder of the day my crappy life started.
The head of the shovel clanged down on the cement, a crunchy clatter while my fingers barely wrapped around the thick wooden handle. A splinter jammed up beneath my skin and I tried to suck it out, but it was too deep. I’d need a safety pin to poke at it when I went back inside.
Unsure where I would find one, I padded barefoot out to the road to find the cat.
There it was, flat through the middle, its orange fur stained red. For a moment, I actually felt sorry for the evil creature, but then a rush of jealousy rushed in. It found a way to escape, and I pictured my body on this road, flat as a pancake, my soul releasing into the mist.
Two scrapes and I balanced its lifeless body on the shovel, my spine arching back for balance as I walked it to the side yard between my house and the empty one next door. There was a strip of grass between the chain link fences, as good a place as any to bury the cat.
I slipped past the high grass that nobody bothered to cut, sticker seeds clinging to the bottom of my nightgown like ants, the ground squishing between my toes from a storm the day before.
Reaching a small patch of land where the grass wasn’t too high, I dropped the cat on the ground and turned to jab at the soft earth with the shovel. It only sunk a few inches, dirt flinging up and over when I raised it to try again.
“What’cha doing?”
Spinning at the voice, I locked eyes with a boy my age, his chin balanced on arms folded over the window ledge of the empty house, a lamp glowing softly behind him.
“Who are you? What are you doing in that house?” I was whispering. I didn’t know why. But I felt like I should keep this boy a secret.
He shrugged, the movement barely there. “I live here now.”
“Since when?”
I couldn’t see him enough to judge how he looked, not backlit like he was with a large shadow hovering between the houses where the sun hadn’t reached.
Another shrug. “Since yesterday. Didn’t you see the big truck with all our stuff?”
No, I hadn’t. I was always so busy inside taking care of my brother and sisters that I never saw much of nothing outside our doors. My mom should have been caring for them, not me. But that wasn’t any of this kid’s business.
“So, what’cha doing?” he asked again, curious voiced, his eyes searching the grass next to me to see why I was digging.
I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. “My cat died. I have to bury it.”
“Need help?”
I shrugged and looked every which way but at him because nobody had ever asked to help me before.
A grasshopper climbed up the side of his house, one of those big ones that were black and yellow. Above us, a small murder of crows flew past, cawing and bickering as if arguing about something important. The sun was higher in the sky now threatening the kind of heat that sinks inside your bones and makes them mushy.
“I’ll be out in a second,” the boy said, drawing my eyes back to him. “Just need to put on shoes.”
Not sure what to do with that, I wiped a sweaty palm on my nightgown, picked at some of the seeds and ground a toe into the dirt making a small hole. A shadow came around the side of his house a few minutes later, shoulders hunched with his hands in his pockets.
He jumped the chain link like it wasn’t almost as tall as him and strolled down to stand beside me. I looked up, saw he had blue eyes and pretty lips. Prettier than mine, anyway.
“How old are you,” I asked, brows bunching together.
“Ten, almost eleven.”
We stared at each other, the silence deep and empty between us as if I should be saying something to fill it. Finally he asked a question.
“How old are you?”
“Ten. Exactly ten.” I wasn’t almost anything.
“Exactly?”
“Today’s my birthday.”
The boy smiled, opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes moved to the shovel and to the cat. “Sorry about your pet.”
“It wasn’t mine,” I explained, not in the mood to tell a strange kid about how I hated the thing.
He reached to take the shovel from my hand. At first, I pulled back, didn’t trust that he wouldn’t steal it.
My father would kill me if I let that happen. But then I remembered his offer to help and handed it over. He started digging a hole much faster than I could have done.
“What’s your name?”
A patch of dirt went flying, bits of it sprinkling my feet. He’d asked the question through quiet grunts, a bead of s
weat breaking out on his temple as he kept digging.
“Ensley.” I paused a second, tried to be polite. “What’s yours?”
“Noah,” he answered with another grunt.
A few minutes passed before he drove the tip of the shovel into the ground. “That look deep enough?”
I peered over at the hole, noticed the tiny amount of muddy water pooling at the bottom, brown and summer warm. “Think so.”
It was another few minutes before he was patting the ground to make it even, that mean old cat finally buried. We stared at the dirt, fidgeted in place, neither knowing what to say.
Above us, the sun was climbing, and all around, songbirds were chirping happily. A few cars passed by as our neighbors left for work.
“Shouldn’t we say something?”
“Like what?”
His eyes met mine and I noticed just how blue they were, bright as the sky on a cloudless day, almost as blinding.
“I don’t know. Something. It feels wrong just burying it.”
No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t think of what to say. Noah stared at me, expecting something I couldn’t give.
Thankfully, my mother’s train screech voice tore through the moment, desperate and urgent. “Ensleeeeeey. Breakfast. The brats are up.” I think it was the first time I’d ever felt happy to hear her call me.
“I gotta go,” I said, reaching for the shovel, surprised when he handed it back. Not a thief, this one. Not like the rest of us.
“Is that your birthday breakfast she made?”
My head snapped around to him, my lips pursing into a puckered point. “Huh?”
“Your mom? She make you breakfast for your birthday? When’s your party?”
Noah tucked his hands back in his pockets, glanced down at his shoes, his face scrunching up to see how dirty they’d gotten.
“Damn it, Ensley. Get in here.”
My head snapped left and right again, to the house and back to him, heat coloring my cheeks. I could feel sweat trickle down my spine with the sun shining on my skin.
“No. I have to make breakfast for the little kids. And I’m not having a party.”
“Why not?” He was surprised, confused. “Don’t you get cake and presents?”
“No.”
Noah looked upset, and for some reason I felt the need to comfort him about it.
“I didn’t get anything last year, either, so it’s okay.”
“Ensleeeeeey, this is the last time I’ll call you before coming out there.” The firecracker whistled again before the boom. NOW!
“I gotta go,” I mumbled, already running off. Noah just stood in place watching me leave. I must not have run fast enough because my mother smacked my head as I ran in, feet dirty from digging and my nightgown still clingy and wet.
That was normal for my mom, though. The smacking. She was fast with those hands and could wallop you before you thought to duck. It didn’t take much to set her off either. One wrong word and smack. One wrong look and you got double.
“Get in there and make them cereal. They’ve been crying and waiting for a long time.”
Doing as she said, I wandered into the small kitchen.
Three dirty kids sat around a dirty table still wearing the clothes they’d worn to bed last night, Devin’s diaper still full and leaking.
There was a puddle beneath her butt on the plastic seat, a steady dripdripdrip sliding off the side to start another puddle on the floor.
Hurrying past them, I threw the cabinets open, grabbed bowls and a box of cereal that was almost gone, the corners crushed by someone tossing it around without concern for what food cost. I was reaching for the spoons when movement outside caught my eye.
I stopped and squinted my eyes, my hands stilling over the breakfast chaos to watch Noah drop wildflowers on the ground, just above where we’d buried that mangy cat.
It made me like him a little more.
“Ensley,” my mother snapped from behind me. “You get lost? I said feed these kids now.”
I was dragged back to reality, my mother’s marionette strings forcing my hands to pour the cereal. Eyes flicking up now and again, I watched Noah say a few words above the grave. He stood for a second and then walked away.
My mother was standing behind me, a bony hand landing on my shoulder. It was the first time I remembered her voice being soft.
“Don’t fall for him, baby girl. Don’t do it. Boys turn into men before you know it. He’ll break you, over and over. Just like your daddy loves to break me.”
She leaned down with nicotine breath, warm and sticky, brushing across my cheek.
“Run, baby girl. Just start running and don’t look back. Don’t be a stupid woman like your momma.”
CHAPTER THREE
Ensley
Present
I blinked my eyes open, the same mechanical snapping, glass orbs floating side to side depending on which way you held me.
Something wasn’t right. My mind picked up on that immediately. There was no alarm blaring that could wake the dead. Was it seven? I felt drunk. Dumb. Floating along on that half-sleep daze that comes with waking up too early. It wasn’t time yet. Not yet. Only darkness surrounded me. I closed my eyes again.
“Did you do something to her before bringing her here?
“No. She passed out on the drive -“
“People don’t just sleep like that. You weren’t supposed to hurt her. You promised me, Noah...”
Noah.
My eyes snapped open, panic like a trapped bird flapping broad feathered wings inside my head.
I could a hear a cardinal’s trill above my head. Books falling. Skin ripping. The dull thud of a knife plunging deep.
A sound escaped my throat, half moan, half scream, a soft keening sound that froze the conversation as if someone had pressed pause, a movie stopped in place that I refused to watch.
“She’s awake.”
“I’ll talk to her-“
“No. Let me. She might not panic if it’s a woman.”
There was familiarity in the conversation, a soft knowing, like pillow whispers and intimate promises meant for only two sets of ears. My heart hurt to hear them.
It was ridiculous, that sorrow, that instant pain. But the heart remembers what it wants, regardless of time, of logic or shame. I was a traitor, my heart at least. Noah had killed my entire family. I should have only hatred for him bone deep.
“Ensley?”
Feet shuffled my way, hesitant, tiny steps, careful and non-threatening, like sneaking up on a bug you want to smash. The woman’s voice matched.
“Hey, hun. Are you feeling okay? I know this is probably frightening.”
I wiggled my hands to find them bound. The corners of my mouth hurt from something tied around it. I couldn’t see because a blindfold was stuck in place. I wanted to scream at this bitch You think?, but the best I could do was rattle my wrists around, my chair barely moving.
“I know this seems bad, but, really, it’s not. Okay? I want to talk to you. Want to take the blindfold off so you can see I’m just a normal person and all. I don’t mean any harm. But...”
She paused, the sweet southern lilt of her voice trailing off. I could picture her eyes searching the room for the right words to say. Anything, just anything she could snatch from the air that would make all of this all right. There wasn’t anything. I was abducted by the man who murdered my family. Stabbed them. Shot them. Didn’t care that some were children.
No. Absolutely not. None of this was okay.
“Can I trust you to be calm?”
I nodded, lying.
Shaky hands brushed across my cheeks. I knew they were fluttering, nervous hands, her skin too warm and clammy. A few tugs and she pulled the blindfold away, my stare meeting hers as soon as my eyes snapped open.
The woman gave me a shaky smile, as shaky as her hands had been, the expression dropping at the corners when I silently screamed at her You fucking bitch! This is n
ot okay!
“There, you see?” She was speaking to me as if I was a child in that syrupy sweet singsong voice. “We’re friends. Everything is going to be just fine.”
Like hell we were. And I wasn’t wrong. The woman fluttered just like I knew she would.
Her hands moved not knowing what to do. Her wispy bangs flew out at the temples. Even the sheer material of her shirt fluttered against the wind of a rotating fan that moved back and forth as if watching a tennis match between a delicate flower of a woman and the pit bull she stared down.
I smiled, though, because I wasn’t stupid. Snap snap. The doll lips were in place.
Her eyes rounded with hope, my behavior appeasing her for the moment.
“Good. That’s good, Ensley. I knew you’d understand. Noah said this was crazy, that you’d never believe us, but you look like a respectable woman. One who will at least take a moment to listen to what we have to say.”
Another pause, her face turning to glance over her shoulder. I followed her line of sight to a door at the back of the room, a warm glow of light bursting through it from wherever it led. Noah must have been standing close to listen.
I focused on the woman again to keep my stomach from heaving. They were all there, the memories, the horrible, mangled mess of bodies that woke me screaming at night when I dared step back into that house in dreams.
She was a beautiful woman with the kind of heart-shaped face most people comment on. Her eyes were a piercing green, her cheeks dimpled near the wobbly smile on her lips. This woman took time with her looks. Care. The type who wanted to be seen by the world rather than hide from it. She reminded me of a pastel tulip, thin and round in all the right places. Soft and perfectly shaped.
“It’s been several hours since Noah-“
Her voice cut out again, another glance at the empty doorway and back to me, eyes searching.
“Well, since you were brought here. I’m sure you need to use the bathroom. Or maybe you’re thirsty? Can I get you something to drink? Sheesh, my manners. I should have offered that first thing. Would you like something. Coffee, maybe? Or tea?”