by Megan Hart
“I think we just…don’t go anywhere,” Marian said.
Briella frowned harder, but then the deep groove between her eyebrows eased. She shook her head. “No. We go somewhere. We can’t just end. There has to be something else.”
“So, you believe in God—”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Briella interrupted with that casual wave of her hand and the condescending tone Marian hated. “God sounds like something people made up to keep each other from doing bad things.”
Just like Santa, Marian thought.
Briella continued, “I don’t think I believe in God, but I’m sure something happens to us when we die.”
“Like what?” Marian asked and held her breath, unsure she wanted an answer.
She didn’t have to worry, because Briella didn’t have one. The girl shrugged and went back to her notebook, scribbling again. “I don’t know yet.”
“Briella…” Marian waited for her daughter to look up. “How did Onyx find us today at the pond?”
Briella’s scribbling went still. Her eyes narrowed, but only for a second before she smiled. “Oh, he always knows where I am.”
“How?”
“He’s my friend.” Briella scowled. “He’d be a pet if you let me keep him in the house.”
“We’ve gone over this. It’s wild. It should be free.” Marian paused, remembering an earlier conversation. “You wouldn’t like it if someone locked you up and put you away in a cage, would you?”
The girl looked horrified, then sly. “No! But…he wouldn’t have to be in a cage. He could just live in my room with me and fly in and out of the window whenever he wants.”
Something in the way the girl said this raised Marian’s suspicions. “You don’t let it in your room, do you? After I specifically told you it has to stay outside?”
“No, Mama.”
It was a lie. Briella might be the closest thing to a genius that Marian had ever met, but she hadn’t yet learned to hide her tells. The way she shifted her gaze and pursed her lips told Marian everything she needed to know. Wearily, she rubbed the spot between her eyes. “Briella…”
“Am I allergic to anything?”
The abrupt change of topic had Marian pursing her lips, an echo of her daughter’s expression. “No. I don’t think so. Why?”
“It must suck for kids who are. Like Toby. He’s pretty dumb, though, isn’t he?” Briella had bent back to the notebook, her tone casual.
“I’m sure it does, and that’s not nice to say, Briella.”
Briella looked up at her. “Some things that aren’t nice are true.”
Marian couldn’t argue with that. She had also noticed how easily Briella had moved the conversation away from that damned raven. She let it go, making a note to check the locks on Briella’s windows.
“Mama, would you bring back Gramma if you could?”
Marian’s breath hitched. “Yes, Bean. I would.”
Briella nodded as though she’d been expecting Marian’s answer. She closed the notebook with a snap. “I’d bring her back if I could, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dean had never been the sort of man to say, “I told you so,” but Marian had to admit after only a month and a half of Briella attending Parkhaven, he would’ve had the right to. All of Marian’s fears that Briella wasn’t going to fit in, that she wouldn’t like the new school, that somehow there would still be problems – all of them were assuaged each day when Briella came home from school nearly incandescent with stories of the day and how much she loved her classes and teachers.
This afternoon she’d brought home a small container of metal chips and a circuit board. For the past hour or so she’d been bent over it, explaining to Dean how she’d taken it apart from a bunch of old computers the school allowed students to cannibalize to create their projects. Marian stayed back to watch, ostensibly making dinner but really just giving the two of them time together without her around. It was the first time she could ever recall Briella actively seeking interaction with Dean. She even leaned against him affectionately while she pointed out all the different plans she had for the circuit board. Dean’s eyes met Marian’s over the top of Briella’s head as the girl pulled out her notebook to show him the scribbles of code she was working on.
“So, you’re going to build yourself a new computer system?” Dean asked.
Briella frowned and pushed away from him to put her hands on her hips. “Nooooooo. I just told you, I’m studying computer programs to see how they compare to brains.”
“Ah.” Dean shrugged and chuckled. “How do they compare to brains?”
Marian had braced for a snotty reply from Briella, but she didn’t go there. She flipped the pages of her notebook again to explain. The tiniest swell of jealousy swirled through Marian. The girl had been deliberately hiding her notebook from her mother, but now she was more than happy to share it with Dean. And that was a good thing, Marian reminded herself. She wanted them to bond this way.
“Well, brains just work. Unless they don’t. You know, if your brain doesn’t work right, you’re sick. Brains use, like, electricity, but it comes from chemicals and stuff, and computers also run with electricity. The thing is,” Briella said matter-of-factly, “you can’t just plug electricity into a brain to get it to work again. You can do that a little bit with a heart if it’s not beating, but it doesn’t work with brains. If you try to fix a broken brain with a computer program, you can’t just stick it in there, like with a needle and an electric current. You’ll fry the brain.”
“Ouch,” Marian said.
Briella frowned. “Brains don’t feel things, Mom.”
“Still, frying it doesn’t sound any good. The only thing we should be frying is fries, right?” Marian laughed at her own joke, but uneasily, because Briella looked so darn serious.
“It’s called pithing,” Briella continued seriously. “You do it on frogs.”
Both Marian and Dean were silent, exchanging looks. Marian had dissected a frog in high school, a million years ago, set up in pairs in biology class. She could vaguely remember the smell. All those frogs had already been dead.
“Not the electric part, usually. But with a needle. It doesn’t hurt them,” Briella assured them.
Marian managed to say, “I’d think that killing something with a needle in its brain would hurt it, Briella.”
“But it doesn’t,” Briella insisted as she closed her notebook and clutched it to her chest. “That’s why they do it that way.”
Dean gestured at the notebook. “Is that what you’ve been working on at school?”
“No. They don’t allow us to experiment on animals at school. Only plants.”
“So…how do you know this?” Marian asked reluctantly, already sure she’d know the answer.
Briella looked surprised and then, absurdly innocent. “Research.”
“It sounds like gruesome research.”
Briella shrugged. “It’s science.”
“Well, I don’t have much appetite after that, but it’s almost time for dinner. Go put your stuff away and get washed up.” Marian waited until Briella had gathered her things and skipped out of the kitchen before she said to Dean, “It’s science.”
“I didn’t understand ninety per cent of it,” Dean said.
Marian dug into the backpack Briella had left slung over the back of the chair, but there wasn’t much in there. She was used to Southside sending home dozens of papers every week. Parkhaven had a parent portal she was supposed to be logging in to. She looked at Dean with a frown.
“I guess I need to check the parent portal to see if there’s something in there about the science classes? I know I went to school a long time ago, but I remember needing my parents to sign a form saying it was okay for me to dissect the frog, and that was in tenth grade bio.”
“She said they weren’t doing animal experiments, babe. You know how she is. She just knows a lot of stuff. I’m sure it’s fine.” Dean got up to peek into the pot of chili on the stovetop, giving an appreciative sniff. “Mmm.”
“I should at least maybe check in with the guidance counselor. Right? She’s been there over a month and nobody’s even called about her,” Marian said.
“They shouldn’t have had any reason to. But if you’re worried, log in to the parent portal after dinner, if it will make you feel better.” Dean hugged her, pressing a kiss to her temple.
Marian looked up at him. “Tell me I’m not turning into Amy Patterson.”
“Huh?”
“From across the street,” Marian explained. “She’s uptight. Super involved with her kid. Umm…that sounded shitty.”
Dean laughed. “Helicopter mom.”
“Right. That.”
“No. It’s a new school. It’s good to check in. But now, I’m starving. Can we eat?”
* * *
After dinner, Dean insisted on cleaning the kitchen before he had to leave for work. Briella had gone out back to leave a pan of slightly burned corn bread and her leftover chili for the raven. It, in turn, had left her a few new trinkets of shiny metal that Briella showed off.
“I told him to bring me something I really needed,” Briella said with a laugh. “He’s a good old bird.”
Marian tried to log in using the ancient desktop, but no matter how many times she put in the username and password they’d sent her, the portal refused to load. Frustrated, Marian muttered a curse and went in search of Briella.
“I need you to help me,” Marian said in the utterly defeated tone of an adult woman who has to rely on her preteen child to help her with technology. “I can’t get into the parent portal.”
“Oh, Mama, that’s because you need to use a different browser.” Briella’s fingers danced over the ancient keyboard. She also got an error message and gave her mother a look, then a shrug. “This computer is really old. Maybe you can’t log in on it.”
By this point, Marian was too frustrated to want to keep trying. She pulled Briella onto her knee, aware for the first time in a while how much she’d grown. Not just in height – the girl was still tiny. But her features had gone leaner, her expressions more mature.
“Never mind. It’s getting late.” Marian hugged her daughter tight, closing her eyes. “You know, when you were a baby, I would sometimes wish you’d never grow up. I wanted you to stay small and squishy forever.”
Briella squirmed out of her mother’s grip. “You wouldn’t really like that. Anyway, I’m going to grow up, unless I die. So you shouldn’t want me to not grow up.”
“Of course I want you to grow up. That’s not a nice thing to say.” Marian circled Briella’s wrists with her hands to look at the girl. “I love you, Briella.”
“Love you too, Mama.”
Dean left for work at nine thirty, and Briella had kept up the habit of putting herself to bed earlier than had been her previous practice. Marian had started finding herself at a bit of a loss. Ten at night still felt a little too early for sleep, even though if she stayed up too much later she was tired in the morning, but having the quiet house to herself at night was different from having that same time in the morning before Dean got home from work.
Tonight, she sat at the kitchen table, leafing through a cookbook that had belonged to Dean’s mother. It was the sort that had been printed on thick paper and spiral bound, sold to raise funds for the church. Recipes from Our Friends. Marian had a chuckle at the familiar recipes for peanut butter no-bakes and friendship bread.
The idea of a part-time job was still in the back of her mind, but far away. The whirlwind of Briella getting into Parkhaven and all the preparation to get her ready had derailed Marian’s urge to look for work. With all the other changes going on, adding one more didn’t seem like the best idea.
What would she do instead? Make friendship bread all day? Mop the floors?
The soft tapping at the back door did not, at first, rouse her. It wasn’t until the large, sharp rap happened that she twisted in her chair and let out a startled yelp. Of course she saw nothing but darkness through the back door’s square four-paned window. She braced herself for another blow to the glass, already getting out of her chair and heading for the door.
It was that damn raven – she knew it, even though it was well past dark and it should have been in its nest by now. Or wherever the hell it spent the night. Marian grabbed a broom to yank open the back door, ready to swat.
All she found was the empty corn bread pan that Briella had forgotten to bring back inside. No raven. Not even the hint of wings in the night’s chilly air that sent a shiver up and down her spine so that she clutched her cardigan closer around her.
Something rustled in the leaves clustered around the bottom step of the small back porch. Marian froze, brandishing the broom. The back porch light fixture had four chandelier bulbs in it, two of which she now saw had burned out. This cast the yard into a pattern of shadow. Another shift of motion in the leaves had her straining to see what it was. Not big enough to be a raven, even one being sneaky and trying to hide, and they didn’t do that. Did they?
Using the end of the broom, she poked at the spot in the leaves that had been moving. At first, nothing. Then with another slight poke, a slow-moving shadow separated from the shadows. When she saw what it was, she first screamed and recoiled even as her laughter hissed out of her in stutters.
It was just a toad. A fat old toad. They often hung out in the dampness under the porch, but that was in the summer. Didn’t they hibernate in the winter? Like the frogs in the pond?
A flash of green in the leaves had Marian poking aside the leaves again. She caught sight of a smooth green back, kicking legs, but then it was gone and she couldn’t find it again. Toads were brown. Frogs were green. Marian dragged the broom through the leaves but upturned only a few scuttling beetles. From far across the yard, she thought she caught sight of another set of shadows, maybe heard a faint, rasping caw. But only maybe.
She went upstairs to stand in Briella’s doorway. The girl’s soft breathing meant she was asleep, one small foot flung out of the covers. Marian crossed to tuck her daughter more firmly into bed.
The ever-present notebook was open next to her on the bed, a pencil stuck between the pages. The end of it was chewed. Marian grimaced. She pulled it gently toward her, trying not to disturb Briella, who muttered and smacked her lips in sleep.
Marian took the notebook, intending to put it in the girl’s backpack, but an illustration stopped her. Briella had still been drawing frogs. She’d printed out some diagrams of their brains and nervous systems and taped them inside, as well. Her scribbled code meant nothing to Marian, whose heart nevertheless began thumping as she turned the page. More printouts, more scribbles. Another drawing, this time of a raven, sketched heavily in graphite. She didn’t need the written ONYX beneath the drawing to know what it was representing. On the next page, an article about a girl in England who’d befriended a raven that had rewarded her for feeding it by bringing her special treats. Mostly shiny things.
Sometimes, other things it somehow sensed she wanted or needed.
“Mama?”
Marian snapped the notebook closed and turned to see Briella sitting up in bed. “Hey, kiddo.”
“What are you doing with my notebook?”
“Putting it in your backpack for school tomorrow so you don’t forget it.” Marian cleared her throat. “You must’ve been working hard on something, if you fell asleep with it there.”
“Yeah. I had some good ideas for my project.” Briella yawned and settled back into her pillow.
“Briella,” Marian said before she could stop herself.
The girl sighed sleepily. “Hmmm?”
“You’re
not…what you said tonight at dinner, about the frogs. You’re not experimenting on frogs at school, are you? You wouldn’t lie to me about that, would you?”
“No, Mama. Lying is bad. I told you, they don’t let us do things like that at Parkhaven. They even want us to be vegetarian….” Briella’s voice trailed off. She rolled onto her side, away from Marian, and buried her face in the pillow.
Marian slipped the notebook into the backpack but stood watching from the doorway for another minute. The next question she asked was whispered, not nearly loud enough to wake her daughter. “Are you doing experiments somewhere other than school?”
Of course Briella didn’t answer her. Marian shook off the feeling and, downstairs, showered and got into bed with a book. Outside, the wind kicked up with a small howl. Rain spattered the glass with a tap, tap, tap that could have been the rapping of a beak, but she didn’t get up to check.
Chapter Eighteen
Marian had always loved the library. It had changed a lot since she was a kid. New computer desks, a bright decor – hell, you could even check out ebooks right from your phone. When Briella was small, Marian had hauled her all the way across town for story times and the summer reading program, but the kid had quickly outgrown the small-town library’s children’s section and outpaced the non-fiction reference section, too. Even with interlibrary loan, there were too few of the books Briella wanted to read or claimed she needed for her ‘spearmints’, and they’d stopped going to the library regularly a few years before.
Stepping inside it now, Marian breathed in. There was nothing quite like the smell of a library. Memory, nostalgia, the anticipation of finding something great to read – it all came back to her, and she wondered why it had been so damned long since she’d treated herself to this place.