by A. M. Shine
She would wait until sunrise, and then she would decide what to do. Mina had driven for so long that there had to be someone nearby who could help. The daylight would reveal some distant cottage, or maybe a tribute as trifling as a signpost. There was always the chance that the car would miraculously start back to life. As financially harried as she was, she would happily retrace the way she had come and let Peter have his bird back, free of charge, and his fucking map.
‘Well, this wasn’t one of my better ideas,’ she muttered. ‘I guess I’ll just add it to the list.’
Too attuned had Mina become to the din of her city apartment. There was always some busker warbling on the street below. The same songs, the same awkward chord changes. The pigeons tap-danced on the roof slates during the intervals, and by night the gulls glided inland to tear open the bins with their beaks like hooked swords. The silence now felt unnatural. But it was nothing like what was to come, when that shriek sounded through the night like a siren, pinning Mina back into her seat and dashing the cigarette from her fingers.
It was unlike anything she had ever heard; so savage and shrill. It wasn’t human. It couldn’t possibly have been. And she hadn’t seen an animal for hours. Its voice was so clear that the stars themselves must have shivered from its force. Mina drew her arm back inside and screwed the window up.
‘What the fuck was that?’ she said, shrinking behind the steering wheel.
Mina locked all the doors, feeling suddenly exposed. If there was something out there, then she sure as shit couldn’t see it. Her car was met on all sides by an impenetrable blackness, as though she had sunk to the ocean’s deepest trench, where old things live without time or light, in secrecy and in darkness. She clambered into the back seat and shifted the parrot’s cage over to the side. There she huddled under the coats in the hope that they would keep secret her presence in a place where she no longer felt safe.
‘Don’t make a sound,’ she whispered, curling her legs up beneath her. ‘Something’s out there.’
There was no crack of ice, no soft crunch of frost. The windows eventually fogged and whitened from the night’s breath but there wasn’t a sound to be heard, however delicate or innocent. Even the parrot knew to hold its beak. There was only the memory of that scream stalking Mina’s thoughts with pounding steps. Her arms were cradled around her shoulders, holding in whatever warmth they could, listening, and waiting for that unearthly voice to return.
2
A sliver of light crept in by Mina’s feet. She pulled the coats loose and tossed them aside, kicking one of them into that forgotten space behind the passenger seat. Her bones unfolded like broken patio furniture as she stretched her legs between the two front seats. She had never felt so old in all her thirty-three years. The bird, with its head quizzically atilt, seemed almost surprised by Mina’s unveiling. Its little pink feet shuffled on their perch. Peter wasn’t wrong about the name at least. The gol-den-con-yure’s feathers were gleaming in the morning light. Despite everything, it really was quite beautiful.
Frost spangled the windshield’s centre. Mina could hear the ice cricking and cracking around her like brittle eggshell. She reached over to the passenger seat to retrieve her phone. It didn’t matter who she called, just so long as it wasn’t Jennifer. Mina had ignored her for far too long now to ask for help. The phone’s plastic felt cold, as though rigor mortis had set into its battery. Not a good sign; dead, as expected. She let it drop behind the back seat where it sunk without a sound into a coat. Not the best start to a new day. Mina sat back and looked to the yellow one. ‘What do you reckon; if I tie a note to your foot will you go and get help?’
The bird trilled and whistled, experimenting with the most ludicrous of melodies. It was too early in the morning for that kind of carry-on. He only acts up when he’s hungry, Peter had said. Mina could relate to that. There was a bag of bird pellets in the boot of the car – a consolation gift for the buyer willing to drop a small fortune on a yellow bird that couldn’t hold a note. Mina unlocked the door and placed a wary foot on the ground. One of them might at least have some breakfast.
She reached her arms into the sky, cracking her neck from side to side, moaning as every sore part of her seemed to relax, if only for a moment. Everything outside was sharp and cold, and stones still glistened with a light rime of frost. She came to stare with some surprise at the road ahead, where a low fog skulked through the shadows, avoiding the sunshine like a prisoner dodging a searchlight. The car had broken down not far from a forest, but far enough that the headlights hadn’t revealed it before going blind. Trees were scarce in Connemara. A few wind-warped hawthorns maybe, but Mina never expected to find a wooded area of this size, in all its leafless misery. It was strange how the car came to stop where it did, at the edge of the treeline, as though the forest had denied her entry. The trees looked ancient, brittle and decayed like dead skin. Even with the sun breaking behind her, its depths looked dark as night.
Looking back the way she had come, there was nothing, not even a bird in the sky. The barren lands were uneven and ugly, rising into hills and dipping into hidden depths. The same muddied hue was everywhere, identical to the day before. Even the rocks with their discoloured splotches looked familiar. She had driven for so many hours, unable to see beyond her headlights. As it turns out she hadn’t been missing anything.
The boot clicked open and lifted to the subtle crack of ice. Even the most sheepish sound seemed to have had its volume cranked up. The bag of bird food was beside the spare tyre and a half-empty bottle of water. God only knew how long it had been in there. But Mina knew a survival necessity when she saw one. The day was only beginning and there was no telling how long a walk lay ahead. There might not be another source of water for a hundred miles.
‘Are you ready for this?’ she said to the bird as it nibbled at the pellets she had slipped into its cage. Mina never did ask Peter how much to feed it. That was meant to be the buyer’s concern. A handful looked right.
She stood by the open door, with one hand on the car roof, staring – absolutely unimpressed – at the forest. It looked so dismally uninviting beneath the blue sky, like a renaissance impression of heaven and hell. There was no point in walking the way she had come; that much was obvious. But as rocky as the road had been, it looked even worse going forward. It was as though some heavy machinery had simply ploughed a way through the trees. It was a mucky scar that nature had tried to cover up. Gangly weeds and fat nests of briars had stretched out from the wilds within, and nothing moved. Even the lanky, arid weeds were steady as hard stalks. There wasn’t a sound. Mina scratched around her ear just to make sure she hadn’t lost her hearing.
She eyed up the treetops breaking the sky like a jagged shore and fancied two possibilities. The first being that she was so utterly lost and apart from civilisation that she had happened upon a part of Ireland that no one had yet discovered, in which case hers was a hopeless cause. This was unlikely. But Mina had already proven herself to be the unluckiest woman in the west of Ireland, so it was by no means an impossibility. The second and more promising likelihood is that what she had found was in fact a little-known national park. One with actual living people who pruned the branches and sang to the gorse. Coachloads of tourists might come this way every day, and Mina would happily suffer their company if it meant she could get home and finally attack that canvas. That was easy money. This disaster was something different.
‘Let’s never come to the countryside again,’ she said to the yellow one, hoisting its cage out of the car. It was more cumbersome than it was heavy. Mina dashed some pellets into it and left the rest in the boot. Her handbag was already packed tight, and that was before the water bottle went in. The phone’s corpse could stay in the car – a four-wheeled mausoleum with tax and insurance discs. But the sketchbook and pencils were coming with her, and the tobacco, and other essentials that were worth an aching shoulder.
Mina locked the car, smiling to herself as she did
so. Maybe a seasoned thief would have the know-how to get it moving again, and if so, they were welcome to it. She took her first stride towards the forest but some subconscious hand tugged on the reins. Where do you think you’re going, Meens? It was that scream. Its memory was constant as the faint fog by her lips. Was leaving the safety of the car such a good idea? Her artist’s imagination fancied a hundred horrible things that could have been responsible. Every horror movie she had ever seen and every Gothic tale she had ever read, they all paid their contribution. But this was the real world. Monsters didn’t exist. Of this fact, at that point in time, Mina was certain.
With no food and so little water, waiting for help to find her wasn’t an option, and so with the air fresh against her cheeks, Mina walked, following the only road she could, with a caged bird dangling from her left hand and a rolled cigarette in her right. If only her sister could see her now. Maybe the dead phone was a blessing in disguise. She might have called Jennifer in her panic the night before. As if being an artist didn’t earn her enough flak. The little-known role of parrot courier promised more of the same.
She didn’t have to take many steps before the gnarled trees gathered around her, swallowing the sky, making Mina feel all the lonelier, and turning the air that little bit colder. The path was uneven and, judging by the tufts of wilting grasses that broke its surface, it didn’t enjoy much use. Roots tore through the earth, coiling their tendrils around each other like a bed of worms, making her watch every step. The ditches on either side were steep enough that had she driven through in the dark she may well have tipped her car on its head.
Mina hadn’t eaten since leaving the city, and that was only a snack. Her appetite never woke up until the late afternoon. Anything before then was a struggle, like force-feeding a baby with a full belly, minus the tears. She had nibbled at some pasta saved from the night before, managing maybe half a dozen forkfuls. It was one of her mum’s recipes. Mina followed it down to the finest detail, but it still never tasted the same. Such was her hunger now she would have wiped the plate clean.
The parrot suddenly let out an almighty squawk. The sound of it seemed to tremor across the underbrush, travelling up the body of every tree before soaring into a sky scarred and latticed by their many branches. The fright of it nearly took the legs from under her.
‘Jesus,’ she said, lifting the cage to meet the bird in the eye. ‘Do that again and I swear to God I’ll…’ She paused and the parrot almost seemed to grin at her.
As bad as Mina’s circumstances may have been, surely her lot was better than the bird’s. The poor thing had probably spent its entire life in that cage; gifted flight only to be clipped, imprisoned, and put on display. Still the parrot’s little face beamed with excitement.
‘Sorry,’ Mina whispered, feeling almost guilty now. ‘Just try to keep it down, okay?’
When she was a child, her parents had taken her to the zoo. The animals all looked so bored, so sad; repeating the same torpid routines as though their minds had cracked. The elephant was the worst. Its foot was tethered to a block with a fat chain, and it just swayed back and forth, staring into space. Mina had been convinced it was crying. Some memories become hauntings over time, and this was one of those days. Nothing should have to live in captivity – that was little Mina’s take-home message from the zoo. And if it hadn’t been for the money, she would have set the yellow one free there and then.
The forest stretched on for miles, drawing her deeper and deeper into that eerie, sylvan labyrinth. There had to be a break soon. But the trees were so tightly packed that there was no way of knowing. She couldn’t even pinpoint the sun’s whereabouts anymore. Hours had passed. Here and there Mina had seen burrows in the earth, but there were no animals. No nests up high or droppings down below. Nothing living seemed to call this place home. She became quite glad of the bird’s company, even if her arm was straining now from carrying its cage.
‘I think we’re long overdue a break, don’t you?’ she said, placing it down on the earth so that she could massage some feeling into her shoulder. The pain was already working its way around to her back, like a snake coiling around her body.
The thirst had hit her an hour ago. A half bottle of water wasn’t a lot, and so she swore that she would only take a drink when her mouth couldn’t even muster up some spit. Now, ruddy-cheeked and out of breath, was that time. She would give the bird a capful soon but seeing as she was doing all the heavy lifting, the yellow one could wait a while.
As she leaned down to pick up its cage her eye caught something amidst the trees. Everything was grey or brown, or a smeared palette of both, and so the red glove was unmistakable. It seemed so out of place. This was the first indication that another living person had been there before her. The glove was entangled in some brambles, floating in the air like a fly trapped in a web.
‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘I mean, at least we’re not the first to get so fucking lost.’
What faint light crept between the branches was fading fast. Mina hadn’t found the cold discomforting until then, but she was tired now, and the aches had colonised every part of her. The night was coming. There was nowhere to escape it. The earth was stiff to the step, and a silvered mist was starting to seep through its pores. Though the trees had cast their dead parts around them, the wood was too damp to be used as kindling. Besides, even if it were dry as old bone there was no guarantee that the lighter would hold a flame to it.
It must have been around half past four, or closer to five o’clock, maybe. Peter was probably perched on his stool by the fireplace in the pub, awaiting her return with his share in the easiest money she’ll ever make.
‘How do I get myself into these situations?’ she whispered through chattering teeth.
Mina could feel the cold across her nose and cheeks, and her hand holding the cage burned a sore red. The fingers throbbed as though she had caught them in a door. She had taken those hot whiskeys for granted. Even just to hold one now – to nurse it between her hands and breathe it in deep – that would be enough. Suffice to say, Peter now owed her more drinks than even a man of his seasoned constitution could handle. And an extra hundred would be docked from his share for all the trouble he had put her through. And if she lost a finger or a toe from frostbite, she was keeping every cent.
Just then, in the distance, jumping between the trees as she walked, there was a light. Mina stood perfectly still, arching her head, hardly believing her eyes. But there it was, constant and bright – a bulb. It hadn’t been there a second ago.
‘Well, would you look at that,’ she said, holding up the bird’s cage so it could see. ‘Come on, it looks like we’re not going to be sleeping outside after all.’
The last of the day’s light was waning fast, and Mina could scarcely see the ground beneath her feet. The yellow one screamed wildly as she forced their way through a bank of brambles, stumbling out the other side and nearly dropping its cage. The bird’s voice was deafening, and someone had heard it.
They appeared standing below the light. Their silhouette was all that Mina could make out through the ever-creeping darkness. It was a house. She couldn’t tell much more than that. Luckily, whoever had heard the parrot’s screech now saw Mina trudging towards them. She was already worrying about how the stranger would react to her.
‘Run!’ the woman shouted. ‘Get inside, quickly!’
Mina couldn’t understand what all the rush was about, nor did she care. She had half-imagined that they would draw a shotgun and chase her back into the briars. But she had no other choice. Without shelter she might not last the night.
‘I’m coming,’ she shouted, trying to catch her breath as she peeled her body away from whatever thorny monstrosity was holding her back.
Mina skittered across the undergrowth as fast as her tired legs could carry her, keeping on the tips of her toes as the heels of her ankle boots kept digging ruts in the earth. So focused was she on the light ahead
that she could see little else, like a blinkered horse racing towards the finish line. The woman stood inside the doorway, holding it open. It looked as though she might close it at any second.
‘Come on, come on!’ she yelled. ‘Faster!’
Mina didn’t even think. She just did as she was told and ran inside. The woman slammed the door behind her and went about securing a slew of locks. The hall was in darkness save for the single bulb that hung from the ceiling.
The woman was older than Mina, maybe in her late forties, and she was much taller. The bulb hung just above her head. She was awfully gaunt; a body hewn of flesh and vigour. Her skin appeared freakishly thin and it stretched all the lighter across her high cheeks and chin, fine as an insect’s wing. The woman had probably been so beautiful once upon a time, but her bright blue eyes were now sunken and framed by the deepest fatigue. All features were faded and limp, and no aspect of her seemed clean. Her hair was the palest blonde, as though the colour had been sucked out of it. It shone pearly white when the light caught it, and hung lifelessly past her shoulders, its ends crudely chopped and uneven, as if gnawed by a rat whilst she slept. Her body was all but lost beneath the dim, swaying light of the bulb. She was a scarecrow low on straw, picked apart and abandoned. Her fingers clutched the fraying edges of a downy shawl that draped down to her feet; as much a part of her as her face, her hair, and her hopelessness.
A sudden cacophony of shrieks poisoned the air – the same fearful strain from the night before. It was so loud and the voices so many that Mina fell back onto the floor, clutching the bird’s cage as though the yellow one could somehow protect her. The screams came from just outside, from the darkness where only moments ago she had run towards the light. She looked to the many locks – some bolted, others mere chains – that stood between them and whatever had overrun the woodland.