Authors: Cynthia Tottleben
Alex stole my heart and never returned it.
All I wanted in this world was to feel his body wrapped around mine. Smell his scent, a dab of Eternity and the slight musk of his sweat. To feel safe again. Loved. Cherished.
But what if he was repulsed by what was yet to come? Would Alex turn his back on me? The thought of spending eternity without him infuriated me. I picked the ax up, threw it back into the floor. Listened to the wood beneath it crack. Did it again.
All that I had endured.
That fucking red-headed man. He had destroyed my life. Taken away all of my love. All that made me happy. What had I done to deserve this? Because I was born into the blood line? Who cared about the freaking family curse? Why had I been selected to bear the greatest burden of all?
I would take care of matters. First Lucy, then myself. If she was even alive.
All I had to do was look at her flaming hair and know where she came from. That would make this job much easier. Imagine him in her body, the man that ruined everything, and my fury would emerge. He had killed my husband. Slaughtered my mother. Left me all but dead. Come back after all of this time to flaunt his power over me.
And I would get to end it all.
Payback is a bitch.
I hoped Alex would forgive me. I didn’t have to worry about Mother; she had always known it would come to this. My battle was almost won. I had waited, strategically, until the last moment. When he wouldn’t have another opportunity to put his seed in another one of us. Because who was left?
My daughters.
A picture of Brandy, laughing over a game of Pictionary at the kitchen table, flashed through my thoughts. On her piece of paper, a sharply rendered drawing of a man with horns sticking out of his head.
Bastard.
What if he had had her? What if he had treated my sweet child the same way he had me?
Here I thought I’d been protecting her. And I’d put her out into the clutches of the very beast that had decimated my life.
This time I threw the ax at the wall. Watched it stick for a second, then fall to the floor.
Oh, Alex.
Could he ever forgive me?
Tippy
The smell was everywhere.
Pouring out from your room. Sitting thick on your mother’s skin. The floor reeked so badly of it that I couldn’t clean it off my paws, no matter how hard I tried.
But you were with me. Barely. I could feel your hurt even though I couldn’t see you. Joined you the best I could, wanting to put my head on your shoulder and lend you my courage. Touching paws was the best I could do.
I couldn’t imagine my mother treating me as yours did. She had a kennel, but no one locked her in it. Her humans would say, “Dolly, go to bed.” And Mom would. She liked her special spot. With the big fluffy pillow in it. And all of her toys.
But her bed had no bars on it. Fresh air. A door that opened all the time.
Yours had nothing. I had almost given up all hope when you reached for me. Your fingers scared me at first, and then I understood that you had heard me calling for you but you couldn’t see me. My tail wagged. Knowing the smell hadn’t taken you over. Knowing you still loved me, even if I was on the outside.
I couldn’t stand the thought of life without you. Days of silence, only to be kicked out the door when your mother remembered that I had to go outside to pee.
She had forgotten to feed me. But I had found a secret supply of old treats, hidden in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, where I liked to hole up sometimes. They were like eating the rocks straight from the driveway and smelled like the sickness in your eye, but I didn’t have it in me to complain anymore.
I didn’t know what to do.
I rested my head against your hands.
And then she came back to me. Dolly, my mother, the wisest of all.
“Tippy, your girl is dying.”
Yes. But how could I stop it? I had an army. They were ready. But they were fighters, not door-busters. How did I get them up the stairs and through the door?
“You don’t.”
I begged for her help.
“You know what to do, dear. What does she need?”
When your mother boarded up the window, I had witnessed it. Thought about the times we had feasted on snow. About how afraid I was when you went out on the roof, terrified you would fall off and die, leaving me alone. Now you couldn’t get outside at all.
“Water.”
“Then get her some.”
The gap under the door was small. Even if I could find a glass of water, I wouldn’t be able to wedge it through.
“Tippy. Think. What water do you have?”
My dish. But my teeth couldn’t hold onto it well. I could not drag it through the kitchen, let alone up the stairs.
“What else could you use to carry the water?”
What would fit under the door?
Your sister had once slid a piece of paper under there, back before she left. When you were being punished, and she wasn’t allowed to speak to you. Instead she wrote a note. The paper had fit. She pushed it under the door and your mom didn’t even notice.
But paper wouldn’t hold water.
“What else, Tippy? Think harder!”
And then it hit me. Washing dishes. When you and your sister finished, you always hung the rag over the sink and it would drip for a long time, the sound driving me crazy, the constant pinging of water against metal.
But I couldn’t reach the sink.
I kissed your fingers. I was trying, Lucy, really I was.
When you scratched my cheek, you gave me another thought.
The cloth you kept at the stove. Easy access. Something that even I could reach.
I jumped up and ran down the stairs. Pulled the cloth down, soaked up all the water in my dish, hurried as best I could so as not to lose anything on my trip back to you.
When I laid it down, you didn’t move. I thought I was too late. That in the minutes I’d wasted catching as much liquid as I could, you’d left me.
Then you pulled it in. Gave me one hand to hold. Asked me for more when you pushed the rag back to me. My dish was empty, but I knew where there was an endless source nearby.
The bathroom.
It took all I had left to stretch and get it in the big bowl, but it worked. I was proud of myself. Ran back three more times, keeping my girl alive.
Later, when you were sleeping, I snuck back to my secret hiding place. Curled up for a nap, hidden so your mom wouldn’t hurt me.
When I bit into another one of my treats, my mom came back for a visit.
“You did a very good job today, Tippy. But what else does Lucy need?’
My tooth crunched the answer.
My biscuits were square and very thin. Small enough to shove under the door.
I mustered my strength. Put two in my mouth. Hurried back up to your cage.
My girl would never die.
Not while I was on the job.
Lucy
In the end, I apologized to God as well.
How had I confused the two?
I’d thought I was being good. Following orders. Believing when everything Godless had said was dreadful. Wasn’t that part of the Old Testament? God says hey, go kill your son, and you do it because He gave the direction? Even after reading about his travels with Evelyn, I hadn’t questioned his origins. Just had faith, because Mom told me that he was God.
And he was the opposite.
Tippy had given me a whisper of strength. Just having her nearby was uplifting. I appreciated her efforts to keep me from starving, but it was almost too late.
In the end, I didn’t want her to see me this weak. If she could have crawled into my arms and I could have just fallen asleep, holding her, that would have been a different good-bye. As it was, I backed up as far as I could go, reaching the far wall, where I could lay on the floor and keep a watch underneath the door. If I could see Tippy, I would at least feel like I wasn’t leaving alone.
The time had come. Everything in my body told me I’d hung on too long as it was.
The worst was my mind. At times I thought I’d been having strange dreams, even nightmares, only to realize that I wasn’t asleep. Or maybe I was in some loopy world where I was asleep, dreaming that I was dreaming, and not asleep. My ideas were a labyrinth. I didn’t have the wherewithal to fight my way out of it.
Her paws were gone.
I couldn’t even hear the laughter anymore. Had he turned it off?
Birds filled the room. Not my chickens. Black birds, mammoth shadows fluffing their wings, waiting for me to go. To escort me somewhere? Had I heard that before, that animals welcome you into the next world? Or were they just hanging around because they, too, were extraordinarily hungry, and I would soon make a tasty meal?
Tippy. Why couldn’t I just hold her once more?
I spilled my last ounce of strength, sent an urgent thought to Brandy. She needed to come home. She needed to rescue my dog. Take her away from Mother. Find her a new home, if necessary. Mr. Wyckoli would love her. She needed loved.
And then it came. Sudden and unexpected. A breath-stealer.
A crisp flash of light, in the middle of the door.
Followed by a wave. My eyes shut at the sight of it, overwhelming, the light blinding me after so long spent in my room. Somehow I had expected death to be more subtle. Sleepy even. A black mist, coiling around my body while my eyes were shut and my senses on vacation.
Not this. This boisterousness. This high activity. The brightness screamed at me, not in a welcoming way, but with a pointed finger and the diaphragm of an opera singer. My bones wanted to flee. To find shelter. To desperately cling to the darkness, cower in its corners.
Instead I reached out for God. Thankful He had forgiven me.
Reached out, despite my fear, to end the pain. Begged Him, as I went, to take care of Tippy.
But I didn’t move. The floor held me captive.
I realized that she was shrieking.
Mom, tearing down the door. She was moving furiously, but it all came at me in slow motion. Like she was twirling in a big ball gown. Eyes blazing. Hair a wild bird’s nest.
Holding an ax.
Her weapon assaulted the door again. Splintered the wood. Broke it open and ushered in the hall light. It beamed directly upon me.
The craziness had finally consumed her.
But I didn’t much care. I couldn’t move. I had made my peace with God. Tippy had forgiven my weaknesses. I had nothing left.
Mom put her ax down and pulled sections of the door apart with her bare hands, until she looked like a wedding photo, the harried bride framed by the outline of the door.
I tried to smile at her. Thankful that our game was finally over. I didn’t begrudge the fact that I’d lost.
Then they returned. Their song joined me in my room seconds before I saw them. My friends, the chickens. The hall held nothing but Mother, and then suddenly they appeared.
Dozens of them, all with heads. Bigger. In a steroid rage. Clucking furiously, their beaks enormous, they were as wound up as a cellblock in the middle of a prison riot.
I smiled, because they had not forgotten me. But despite the chaos and the dance Mom was doing with her weapon, I still couldn’t move.
They attacked her. Pecked at her legs, just as they had done to Ms. Antoinette. But this was much more vicious. The birds dug into her flesh. Stabbed her with their sharp beaks, clawed at her feet with their talons.
Mom reached for the ax, swung at them. But they did not give up. Their mouths were the knives I could never find, slicing into Mom’s calves. Esther buried her face in the skin behind Mom’s kneecap, pulled away a bit of muscle, pink and flimsy like a worm. The rest soon followed her lead.
Mom gave a warrior’s cry. Brandished her blade, crushed the heads of some of my defenders. But they ripped her legs to shreds. Mom fumbled. Fell down in her big, white dress, the blood from her wounds soaking into the fabric. Red blossoms appeared at her thighs, then her torso, as the birds continued attacking.
Mom tried to crawl away. I hadn’t realized that, in all the drama, I had inched forward for a better view. With her heading away from my room, I had a clear path to the stairs.
Could I make it?
She wailed in agony. They were pecking at her face. I turned away, not wanting to see what the chickens did to her eyeballs.
Looked back at the stairs.
At my sister, working her way up.
She had come back! She had remembered me!
But something was off. Brandy didn’t hurry to Mom’s rescue. She marched up the steps, slow and steady, moving with a swagger, as if she had all the time in the world to fix this horrible scene. Couldn’t she hear Mom screeching? See the ruckus in the hall? She was the only one among us not incapacitated, but I thought even I could hobble faster than her.
When she passed, Brandy paused and winked at me.
Her eyes were weird looking. Black. The irises almost doubled in size.
My gut woke up. Almost came leaping out of my throat, terrified of the creature standing so close to me. When I had fantasized about Brandy rescuing me, I always thought I would jump into her arms and never let go. Now I just had the urge to set myself on fire so I could escape her.
This beast was not my sister. She had grown taller, filled out and fluffed up. I had seesawed with sanity for so long that I worried for a moment that I had finally fallen off the board, but this woman was more enmity than love. The tendrils of her malice squirmed around her shoulders and patted my cheeks as she strolled past.
But nothing stunned me more than her hair. It flowed like blood from her head, rancor pulsing through every crimp and curl. Brandy wore it proud and red, just like mine. She flipped it at me when she turned her head back to Mom and her battle with the chickens.