It’s Monday morning when Magda Doubinsky discovers all her chickens are dead.
Slaughtered
Every egg crushed too.
A poultry genocide.
Even from here I can see the bright red flecks on the snow. Not just near the ramshackle coop, but scattered the length and breadth of the front yard. Feathers too, although only the dark-coloured ones really show.
There’s nothing wrong with Magda; she’s a nice old lady. The neighbours can’t imagine who’d do this sort of thing as they gather outside her house, clucking, offering sympathy to the distraught woman. Magda’s been in the garden all morning now; she’s shifted from seeking help and howling to simply telling whoever walks by what’s happened. Gathered quite a crowd, she has. The attention’s paying her back a thousandfold, so I guess that’s something. Making a connection with one’s fellow humans.
Who would do such a thing?
Who indeed?
I’ll have to go out soon, go across the road, stop peeking through the dusty blinds that I really need to clean. Go and make my presence known so no one looks in our direction. There’s some leeway, everyone knows I work late (because everyone knows just about fucking everything in this teeny-tiny town), stocking shelves at the Mart on Carrow Street, and I sleep late as a result. But there’s only so much grace that buys you—folk are naturally suspicious of those who don’t conform to the norm. My own mother used to regard anyone who wasn’t an early riser as some sort of deviant. Possibly still does.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” I say in a low voice.
He can’t hear me, of course, slumbering dead as he does. We’ve been here, what? Six months? It’s been nice. Settled. Quiet. Then he fucking does this. He always does something like this.
A batch of cookies can be whipped up in under twenty minutes, and hand-delivered to Magda’s door. I’ll make myself presentable while they’re in the oven, remove last night’s makeup that’s a little like a melted clown face because I was too lazy to take it off when I got home. A new layer applied will cover a myriad of sins. I head to the kitchen.
“Tea, dear Kitty?”
Magda’s delighted with the offering; no one else had thought to bring anything to sweeten their sympathy. When I turned up, she shooed the stragglers of her audience and ushered me inside. It’s dark; smells nice in here, clean, and sort of like spices and potpourri. Like stepping into the specialist bath and bedlinen shop on Main. It shouldn’t do so well in such a small place, but apparently it’s hit the town’s weak spot for long, luxurious soaking and high thread count sheets.
“Thanks, Magda, yes.” Through the dim hallway lined with old photographs—like really old, daguerreotypes and tinotypes, plus a few faded ones from maybe the 1970s or ’80s but nothing later than that. I wonder if all these people are dead, and there were no children to keep the line going, no one to take new photos. I don’t look too close, don’t ask questions about lost families. The kitchen, when we step into it, is surprisingly bright. A lot of windows, a lot of clear glass rather than the ones at the front that’re frosted and coloured in spots, with heavy curtains to keep out the sun. Feels like two different buildings.
“Sit, sit.”
I obey—it’s a bad habit—and slide onto a bench seat against a wall; outside’s a backyard, overgrown, almost tropical-looking but for the snow on every branch and leaf. There’s a long heavy table in front of me, an ancient refrigerator in a nook, a woodfire stove that looks like it came with the ark but is keeping the room toasty warm. Warmer than our whole house on its best days. That’s the problem with renting, and renting cheap: lucky if there’s a lick of insulation. If there is, it’s probably asbestos.
She’s little, is Madga, like quite tiny. Surprisingly so—after a few seconds of staring as she bustles around the space I start to think she might actually be shrinking before my eyes. I blink, shake my head. I’m tired, a little dizzy, a little anaemic. I look again: she’s stabilised. Short, but normal short.
“Milk?”
“No, thanks. Black’s good, whatever you’ve got.”
“I mix my own blends! My mother used to do it, and her mother before her.”
Ah, crap. What have I let myself in for? But when she puts the pretty floral teapot in front of me, with the paired pretty floral cups (their glaze a little crazed with age—but aren’t we all?) the steam coming from it smells intoxicating.
“Rose petals, blackberries, lavender, a little lemon peel—every batch is different because I don’t measure anything. I like surprises.” She smiles until she doesn’t because, I imagine, she’s remembering what she found this morning. Poor Magda. Poor chickens.
“Are you okay, Magda?” I ask as she pours the tea, then hurries back to the counter to collect the cookies I brought—transferred from my dingy plastic plate to an ancient porcelain thing, much better than anything I own. ‘I’m so sorry about . . . you know.’
“Not very pleasant to wake up to,” says she, eyes darkening and narrowing behind big black-framed glasses. But the hand that passes me the teacup on a matching saucer doesn’t shake. This little old lady’s not for the frightening it seems. Still, I wonder how she’d go if she knew what had done for her chickens? She finishes kindly, “But you didn’t do it.”
I never do anything.
“Maybe a fox?” I suggest. “A big one. A mean one.”
“Maybe,” she says, grabbing a cookie like it’s done her wrong. “Or something.”
I reach over, take one; still soft, the warmth is fleeing, though the dot of jam is just under molten. Not bad. I could have eaten them at home, but then I’d miss out on the company. Why today, though? Of all days? Why come over today? It’s no sort of anniversary, nothing that might make me nostalgic. And I’ve seen so much grief over the years, my own, other people’s—why this little old lady?
Funny how death can bring people together.
Yeah, real funny.
“And how are you, Miss Kitty? Seen that boyfriend of yours lately?”
“Some,” I say. “He travels a lot. I’m alone a lot. It suits us.”
“Well, I guess folk like their space.” She nods, chews. “Delicious. No one bothers you in that house on your own?”
“Nope. How about you?” Chickens notwithstanding.
“No one’s tried to break in here since 1985.” She sits back with a smile, as if the memory is very pleasant, and a shiver runs up my spine, does a tumble-turn at the base of the neck, and runs back down.
“What happened in 1985?” I ask.
“Just some silly boys got taught a lesson.” A wider smile, surprisingly white teeth, and I think she’s kind of boasting, bigging herself up. As if she could have done anything; maybe there was a husband here then, took care of matters. I imagine a big bear of a man with hands like hams. Suddenly I regret coming over; but equally I want to tell her everything. That I’m sorry, really sorry and I know who did it. And I’m really, really sorry.
Instead I swallow down the last mouthful of cookie, drink too fast the tea that’s still hot. The burn on my tongue, in my throat as the liquid passes by, is a sort of a comfort—I’ll regret it later—but for now it’s an intensity that breaks through the daily numbness. I stand.
“Well, I’d better go, Magda. I’ve got a few chores to do before work tonight. Thanks for . . . ” I gesture around. “Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
“You’ve done enough, Kitty. Thank you for your kindness. The Kane boys are going to clean up the bodies soon, and Abel Tasker’s bringing more chickens tomorrow.”
“Do you need any help paying for them?” I reach for the wallet in my back pocket, remember I left it at home because why would I need it just going to visit a neighbour? But it doesn’t matter because she’s shaking her head. I’ll go to the feed’n’seed and put a hundred bucks of credit on her account, just to smooth things along. My conscience mostly.
“I’m not impoverished, missy, thank you very much.” But she doesn’t sound offended. I’m reminded of my Great-Aunty Ede who could tell you off without making you feel bad. Should have been a diplomat, should Ede. My hostess walks me out.
“Bye, Magda.”
“Bye, Kitty Lang.”
I can feel her eyes on me as I cross the road, but when I turn at my door to wave, she’s gone.
I hate the cans.
They’re unreasonably heavy. Peas are the worst. Or second worst. Any of your canned meats are hefty but you kind of expect that. Peas, though? Seriously. Should definitely be lighter than they are.
The advantage of cans is that they fit together nicely, a good and simple system of interlocking. Boxes not so much. Boxes are kind of ass when it comes to stacking; too light, especially cereal, easy to knock over. Then you’ve got to start again, and then Beanie Donaghy, Night Manager at the Mart, wants to have a word with you, thank you very much. I try to avoid those chats. I really do my best to do so.
However, sometimes it is apparently unavoidable.
Like an hour ago when I had to restack a bunch of Reese’s Puffs, which meant I was behind a schedule of some sort but of which I was not aware, because Lord forbid I should finish anything early. Beanie had subsequently walked along all the aisles and stuck bright yellow Post-its on anything she felt was not my best work. I couldn’t help but feel she’d made extra slog for herself just because she didn’t like me—my makeup in particular and my attitude in general. And the attitude, I guess, because I go out of my way to be an asshole at times; but the makeup’s a masterpiece and should be acknowledged as such. I don’t know why but there’s just something about Beanie that makes me slather on that extra layer of black eyeliner, one more slick of red lipstick, and ensure my hair’s dead straight, with the bangs cut precisely just below my brows so it always looks like I’m peering from behind a curtain. I do this because I once heard her boyfriend tell her I was hot and maybe she should try that look sometime. Which, coincidentally, was around the time Beanie decided she didn’t like my attitude. I mean, seriously. I don’t want her dumbass boyfriend, but I do like irritating a woman stupid enough to think I do.
It’s been a long six months.
“Hey, baby.”
His voice in my ear, and I didn’t even hear him come up to me. I should be used to it. It shouldn’t make me startle after all these years. But it does. Has a different effect nowadays. Once it would send me into a fever of want, how quiet he was, how he’d just appear. It’s been a while since I felt that way; now I’m just afraid. And it makes me feel even more alone than I usually do when I’m sitting in whatever house in whatever town we’ve washed up in, and he’s sleeping in a cellar or beneath the floorboards, up in the attic or in a crawlspace, anywhere the sunlight can’t find him.
And I don’t make friends anymore because if—when—he finds out they get treated like Magda’s chickens and we have to move all over again. It’s always him. Except once in the early days. It was all me.
I did something terrible, and I’m sorry for it, but there’s no going back and fixing it, is there? It wasn’t that girl’s fault, and he’d never intended anything except making a meal of her; I tell myself I can’t remember her name. I didn’t know any better then, and he was all I had. He’d taken everything else, hadn’t he? But because I was so new to him and his life, I was terrified he’d replace me quick-smart if I wasn’t good. Didn’t realise how far he liked to push and tease my insecurities because it made me obedient, didn’t it? Fearful and obedient. I didn’t realise then that you don’t throw away someone like me so easily, even if you tell them every day how worthless they are. Compliance is a price above rubies, after all.
The red hair’s always a surprise, no matter how many times I see him, kept long and in a ponytail. The scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, a little faded but still evident, green eyes, thin lips, big ears. Black t-shirt stretched across a chest that’s wide but not muscular, greyhound belly I used to love to slide my hand down, heavy boots, long legs in black stovepipe jeans, black leather jacket over the top the only concession to winter. It’s been a long while since that’s made me burn. It’s two a.m., almost my quitting time. There’s a glow in his cheeks, a false warmth. Stolen. Hopefully not around here; hopefully he did what he’s meant to: go elsewhere, another town, running as fast as he does, riding the night, leaving no trace.
“Why?” I say.
“Why what?” Feigned ignorance.
“Why Magda’s chickens?” I want to beat him around the head with this can of beets.
“Magda? First name basis? Have you made a friend, my kitten?” And his tone’s dangerous so fast.
“Don’t be an idiot. Everyone calls her that.” I shrug like I don’t care. “She’s an old lady, she’s done you no harm. And what did the chickens ever do to you? It was stupid.”
“Maybe I was just feeling . . . foxy.” He laughs. It’s a loud bark that manages, somehow, to echo around the Mart. Sure to attract Beanie, who’s probably watching me on the security cameras to make sure I’m not pocketing canned ham or other high-value items.
“Stupid,” I say again. “Shitty. You’ll draw attention and I’ll have to get us out of here.”
“But you’re so good at it . . . ”
“Lang? What did I tell you about goofing off with friends?” Beanie rounds the corner of the aisle faster than you can imagine, her heeled boots click-clacking. Man, she must have been booking it from the little office out back. Nothing, Beanie, you told me nothing because I don’t have any friends and no one’s ever visited me before. Not even him. The fact he’s here tells me he’s getting ready to start some shit.
But I don’t say any of that. I bow my head, look out from under my bangs (because a little passive-aggressive fucking never hurt anyone, and it feeds whatever whirlpool of ache lives within me) and speak very softly. “I’m sorry, Beanie.”
“I should fire you.” Her lips, smothered in a peachy pink gloss, pucker like an asshole as if she’s considering it. She’s a reasonably attractive girl, it’s just her personality that leaves a lot to be desired. And it’s cute she thinks I think she can fire me, however, speaking of passive-aggressive fucking; her dad owns the place and he hired me and he’s got tastes his little girl doesn’t want to know about.
Oh, nothing creepy, but Big Bill Donaghy—terror of the loading dock, darling of little old ladies with handfuls of coupons, and scourge of the town council’s rezoning ambitions—has a penchant for being told what to do and ridden around as if he’s a pony with a bit in his mouth. Once a week we meet at a Motel 6 a couple of towns over. He doesn’t seem to care if anyone thinks it’s an affair—eligible widowman as he is—but certainly wouldn’t want anyone knowing what it really is. And Billy-boy’s aware he’s unlikely to find anyone else in Hope’s Bluff who’s going to keep his secrets for a low-paying job of restocking shelves plus an extra envelope of tax-free cash every week. There’s a notice in the window I want to see: “Man seeks rider. Will provide own saddle. No funny stuff.”
Maybe it is a little creepy. It’s just so hard to tell anymore.
“Beanie, is it?” The only sign of mockery is that Cinna’s voice rises a couple of notches. There’s that shiver, doing its thing up and down my spine again, but Beanie’s too dumb to know what’s good for her. I swear that girl would hear a rattlesnake shaking its booty and go right on over to have a word with it about the noise it was making and would it mind keeping things down. I don’t like her, but not enough to see her at the end of his fingers, dangling with her cute clicky-clacky boots a foot off the ground. Although maybe it’d be funny? No. No, it would not.
“Cinna,” I say gently. “Do what you will. I can’t be bothered with her at the best of times.”
Beanie’s expression is priceless. The least I could do is hate her. Isn’t indifference just the worst?
Cinna narrows his eyes, long nose almost twitching as if he might sniff the lie on the air. But I haven’t spent all these years around him without learning a thing or two. If I don’t care, why would he? He loses interest faster than you can imagine, it’s as if a light goes out.
“Cinna?” Beanie says, only she pronounces it “sinner” and I think maybe I can’t save her; maybe she’s determined to be dead. But then he laughs. Should have known that would tickle him.
“I’ll see you at home, Cinna. Beanie, I am sorry, it won’t happen again.” I look at the man who’s the only lover I’ve ever known and say quite clearly: “I’ll be there soon.”
He wanders off, deprived of his fun. He might wait outside, hang around and spy on me to make sure I don’t detour, don’t drop in on any friends. I learned that after a while, that it wasn’t worth it, making connections.
Beanie stares at me for a moment, then decides there’s nothing more to add, nothing that wouldn’t sound stupid. Or stupider. She turns around, click-clacks back towards the office.
Me? I grab another can, lift it into place, notice my hand’s shaking enough to blend the beets. Resting my head against the price strip on the edge of the shelves, realise how it might be sharp if I pushed at just the right angle, just hard enough. How it would be to have warm red drip down my face. To feel anything acute instead of this dull, constant lonely ache. But I don’t. That’d ruin my makeup.
Sluggish when I wake, the curtains keep the room dark.
The marks in the soft underflesh of my upper arm will be pink and they throb; he didn’t need what he took, but he wanted to take it. Because I’d yelled at him when I got home, stupidly fearless, hating him for drawing attention. So he chewed. Teaching me a lesson. What have you learned? Are you going to be a good girl, Kitty? Gone, now, from the bed with its saggy mattress, back in the basement where the one window’s been painted over black. In a tea-chest he had before I met him. Hardly a traditionalist. When he was made, someone stuffed him in and he can’t seem to be parted from it; it’s where he had his first rising.
What woke me? The phone flashes that it’s almost eleven a.m., but there’s no alarm, no ringing. Thud. I shake my head, instantly regret it. Thud thud. Someone kicking a wall? Or the sides of a tea-chest? No. He never rouses in the light time. Thud thud thud!
“Miss Kitty Lang? Are you alright in there?”
Magda, knocking on the front door.
Damnit.
No one knocks but the Mormons and the JWs and the occasional guy from the gas company looking to read the meter.
I should never have gone over there. Should never have shown my face. Baked cookies, had tea, what the fuck was I thinking? No one would have had any reason to look to our doorstep, to think Cinna might have been around, might have been given to chicken slaughter when he couldn’t get what he really wanted. When he was bored. When he decided the rules didn’t apply.
Don’t kill someone, just bleed ’em a little.
If you’ve got to kill ’em, then make it fast. Don’t toy with ’em.
Never a child.
Always old people who’ve had a life already.
Roam out of town—don’t shit on your own doorstep.
A list of rules repeated like a mantra. Like a decaying orbit, chipped away by circumstance, excuses and whim.
Don’t come to the house, Magda, he can smell you when he wakes. He’ll know you’ve been here. Think that because I expressed concern I care. That you’re important to me. That you’re a friend. A pet.
He always kills the pets first.
Roll up, out of bed, stumble across the bedroom because during the day I’m careful of light, trip on the dining room rug, stub my toe on the corner of the coffee table, make it to the door. Fling it open. Squint into the bright winter, all that snow reflecting back at me. From Magda’s expression I can tell I look like shit. Though there’s something about what he does to me that makes the aging slow down, without the thick makeup I look . . . older. Sicker.
He, however, just doesn’t age. Eternally a teenager, with all the entitlement and cruelty and arrogance that entails. Never got the chance to grow out of it. Or that’s what I tell myself even though I know it’s a choice. He got away with being an asshole when he was warm because he was pretty and fun; he continued to be that way because why wouldn’t he? I’m shivering, just in a singlet and pair of boxers, and I realise too late she can see all the marks he’s made on the canvas of me over the years.
“Are you okay, Kitty?”
“Just a little under the weather, Magda.” My voice is ragged, throat sore from dehydration. I clear it, but that doesn’t help. “Can I help you with something?”
She holds up a casserole dish. “I thought you might like a homemade meal that you didn’t have to cook yourself. Just heat it up. It’s mac’n’cheese, not that boxed crap.”
My favourite. I’m reaching for it before I think, then I stop. She looks at me, curious as an owl. “You can’t be here, Magda. I can’t take that.”
I clench my fists, pull them back to my sides. Her expression falls, but the casserole dish stays up high, an offering.
“Kitty Lang, I can tell something’s wrong in your life. And I’m willing to bet it’s that no-good boyfriend of yours. I had one of those myself and I know how to—”
“Sshh! Magda, you’ve got to go because I can’t protect you!” And slamming the door in her face, I turn, put my back to the wood and slide down it into a boneless puddle of person. I hold in the sobs until I hear her leave, out the squeaky garden gate, snow boots shuffling across the freshly salted road.
I really could have done with some of that mac’n’cheese. With something someone else had made just for me. Not just trouble.
I take a break, stand outside in the darkness of the Mart parking lot. Bummed a cigarette from Effie on the registers even though I don’t smoke but I just want the comfort of that tiny speck of heat and light. The orange flare in the dimness, while I jitter on the spot, my heels tap-tap-tapping on the asphalt. The advantage of the smoke is that it almost covers—or at least obscures—the stink from the dumpster where things are rotting. I think about Magda and I imagine what’s happening at her little house.
Cinna’s crossing the street, silent and sleek, graceful as any dancer or killing machine. Leaps over the fence like he’s got wings, then slinks through the yard. Scoping the locks. He doesn’t need an invitation. Prefers not to have one. Besides, what fun is permission? He’ll wait for the lights to go out, the blue flicker of the television to die against the windows. Magda’s old. He won’t take his time. Won’t get much out of her. But he’ll do it because he wants to.
Who’ll discover her? Can’t be me. Won’t be me. She lives on her own. Maybe the Kane boys checking the branches on those trees; maybe Abel Tasker will drop by, see how the new chickens are going. Find Magda Doubinsky doesn’t answer the door and worry because she’s aged and alone. They’ll break in or maybe someone’s got a key. Find her wherever Cinna left her. Maybe he’ll make it seem like an accident, a heart attack. Or maybe he won’t bother, he’ll let it look like what it is. Folk often won’t believe because they just don’t want to. But there’ll be some who know better.
I’ll need to start making plans in the morning, leave a passing-decent interval before we go. The lease is almost up, not that it matters. I’ll tell Beanie Cinna’s got a new gig, a permanent one, in another place, a big city. Chicago. Yeah, Chicago’s good. Meanwhile, we’ll go in the opposite direction, find another little pitstop on the way to the world. I’ll shed Kitty Lang like a coat, pick a new name from the false identities at the bottom of my bag, all those old licences, stolen, recycled over the years. Take Billy-boy’s rolls of cash from the cave I hollowed in the mattress. Fill the newish Ford F-250 with gas; pack the few bits of clothes we carry; when Cinna wakes one night soon, we’ll load his tea-chest, strap it down; roll on into the night. Or maybe I’ll need to meet him in the agreed-on place, the spot we always choose when we arrive, somewhere out of town, an old barn, abandoned farmhouse. In case of emergency.
“Kitty Lang!”
Beanie’s voice scares me shitless. I was so far away, so deep in figuring what I need to do to get us outta here. Don’t know how long I’ve been on break. Enough of a stretch for Beanie to lose her shit, apparently. I stub the life from the cigarette and hurry towards the automatic doors of the Mart, towards the artificial brightness and Beanie Donaghy with her halo of light and her clicky-clacky boots.
She’s shaking her head as I walk by; she says, “Kitty Lang, I ought to—”
And I snap. Flow at her like an oil slick until I’m right in her grille, lips drawn in a snarl and growling, “What, Beanie? What the fuck you oughta do?”
Maybe she sees all the years in my face that I normally hide. Maybe she sees how many of them I’ve been alone despite a constant companion I should have ditched an eon ago; how deep that isolation has eaten into me. Maybe it’s just the sawing tone of my voice, but she steps off, hands going to her crotch as if she maybe just peed herself a little with fright.
A few moments, me hanging there in the doorway like a threat to see if she’s got a snappy comeback, but nope. Just Beanie and her mouth dangling open. I straighten, jam my hands into the pockets of my jacket, go back to stacking cans. I can do that even with tears blurring my vision.
But late in the afternoon, when I finally wake, when I go to check the mailbox for bills, I see Magda in her garden. She’s feeding the new chickens, throwing corn kernels, bright yellow bits of sunshine on the snow. The old lady notices me—no wonder, I’m like a fucking garden gnome by the dead rosebushes—and raises a hand. A tentative wave. I’m so happy and relieved I wave back. I’m so happy and relieved, I leave my own yard and go across to her in my dressing down and slippers, shivering my ass off like a belly dancer. I’m so happy and relieved that I throw my arms around her tiny, scrawny form and cry on her like I’m trying to drown her in the deluge.
There’s more tea. This one tastes like liquorice, which I wouldn’t normally like. But it’s soothing.
“Now,” she says as she sits, puts a bowl of mac’n’cheese in front of me, and I realise I haven’t had anything for about a day. My stomach’s curling back against my spine. Next there’s a plate of chocolate cake; I use my fingers like a bad child, eating too fast and get the hiccups and heartburn. Doesn’t slow me though.
“Now,” she says again when I’m washing it all down with more tea, “tell me.”
And I do.
What he is, what he’s done.
What I’ve done.
How, when I got home this time, I didn’t say anything to Cinna. To do so would have been to feed his urge to destroy, whatever made him want to take away anyone or anything I might care about. He’d just repeat what he’d been doing all these years. Any friends early on as we moved around the country, before I learned not to connect. Of the family I’d had only my mother remained because there’d never been any love lost between us. My father and sisters, four aunts, two grandparents: all gone. All the same way. All in one night. It’s one of those historic true crime cases, like Villisca, those axe murders or the start of them anyway, crisscrossing states like a bloody tapestry. Unsolved.
Although I read something a few years later where my mother said it was me; that I’d killed them, then fled. But it wasn’t. Not really, he just followed me home. And no one’s ever managed to find us. I think Momma’s in a home now, one of those old people places; she sold her story, made some money I should think. I used to keep track of her out of sheer curiosity. It’s sixty years she’s been dining out on those lies. Feathered her nest telling folk how her oldest daughter did some terrible thing because she could believe it of me just coz we didn’t get along. Or maybe she’s dust too, the last link to my once-upon-a-time.
I tell Magda how he’s been the only person I’ve had in the world for so long. How maybe I was less afraid of death than of coming back from it, which was what he threatened at least once a month. It would hurt, he’d say, it would hurt a lot—and I’m a coward that way.
Darkness has fallen again while I’ve been here, talking and eating and crying with Magda hovering over me like a concerned grandmother, a proper one, like I used to have. It’s the first time in forever that I haven’t felt it happen, haven’t sensed how it drops like a curtain across the world. It’s only when I turn my head, looking outside, see my reflection against the black mirror night makes of the window—then I hear him moving.
Through Magda’s winter jungle of a yard, around the house—I’ve known him so long, I can feel it. But oh my god, there was that moment: that moment when I did not and what a glorious moment of hope that was. Freedom tastes almost metallic-new on my tongue, right up until I spot him out there, and he comes close, starts to tap on the glass. Then I see his expression, and his fingertips as he pulls away are blistered.
“What have you done? Magda?” I ask breathlessly. No wonder she was safe last night; he couldn’t have gotten in even if he’d wanted to.
“I told you, I had one like that myself,” she says and tweaks up the sleeves of her shirt to show the raised scars in the crooks of her elbows, faint yet distinct, “but I also had a grandmother who knew a thing or two about handling his sort.”
And she looks right through the pane, right at Cinna, with all those faded marks on display, and she gives him the finger. Twice, both hands rising like knives to the ceiling, and she calls him something so coarse it shocks even me, but I also want to write it down to use later myself. If I have a later.
“Magda,” I sort of breathe her name as a warning. “Don’t antagonise him.”
I want to ask more questions, find out how she does this, but then she steps to the window, chin jutting, and stares him down until he melts back into the blackness, and that just takes my breath away. “He can’t get in here. We’ll deal with him tomorrow.”
“He might run.” Cinna’s got his own keys to the Ford, but he doesn’t tend to drive, not on his jaunts—easier to trace licence plates, less so a man who can slip between shadows. He likes me to do it, besides, loves a chauffeur.
“He won’t go anywhere until he gets you, girl.”
The way she says “girl” sounds a little like “bait” and I am not comforted by that.
“He won’t go anywhere until you’re with him or dead. They don’t like rebellion. They break your spirit. Make it so you’ve got no one left in the world. Kill anyone you care about.”
“Kills the pets first,” I say quietly.
She steps away from the window, rests a hand on my shoulder. “Is there anyone else he might go after, Kitty? Anyone at all?”
And even as I’m shaking my head, even as I’m thinking He can’t get in here, I’m kicking at another thought. It starts small, but it’s insistent. Like a fluffy white dog that wants your attention. And you don’t wanna kick it because, hey, it’s just a little dog. So soon enough it’s hanging off the hem of your jeans’ leg, gnawing.
He can’t get in here, no.
But he knows where to find Beanie.
So I’m running down the street, towards the Mart and its lights bright as a fucking spaceship. All I can think is that I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die how he’s going to kill me, and I don’t want to come back. And I really don’t want to die for someone called “Beanie.” I mean, fuck it. What sort of name is Beanie anyway?
But I don’t need any more deaths on my conscience.
Not even Beanie’s.
Fuck it.
I left the house with Magda yelling on the doorstep. Stopped in at home to put on some actual clothes, because if I’m going to die I don’t want it to be my slippers and robe. And I’m on foot because I found he’d taken the truck. Lucky nothing’s far from anywhere in Hope’s Bluff. But the blacktop’s icy and I keep sliding, haven’t fallen over yet, so I’m sort of surfing along the rime-kissed roads. To my credit I stay upright until I get to the parking lot, then I misjudge the step up to the curb, and finish by rolling onto my feet, the right knee bruised, but the jeans untorn.
Effie’s on the register, looking so bored she just might die. Got to love teens. “Where’s Beanie?”
The girl looks at me, barely moves a muscle yet manages to convey that the “boss” is out back. I limp along the aisles, doing a headcount to make sure the evening staff are all present and accounted for; that he hasn’t decided to extend his massacring skills from chickens to people. Slap my hand against the office door. Panic for a few seconds, thinking it’s locked, then remember I need to turn the handle.
It opens, almost swatting Beanie as she sits, boots up, at the desk that’s too big for the little room. There’s a romance novel in one hand and a powdered donut in the other.
“Beanie! Thank god.” Not something either of us ever thought to hear from my mouth. “Have you got your car here?”
Sometimes the boyfriend drops her off. “What—Lang?”
“Do you have your fucking car?” I yell. She drops her donut, poof, snowstorm on her black sweater.
“Yes!” she yells back, trying to clean up.
I reach in and grab her wrist, pull her upright. “Keys?”
“Pocket.”
“Good, c’mon.” And I’m dragging her along behind, this girl I don’t even like but don’t want to see die, trying to figure out my plan—because do I have a plan? The fuck I do.
And I am out here with nothing on me, not a weapon of any sort because I am dumb.
I am the stupid girl who accepted a Coke from a cute boy in a drugstore. I’m the stupid girl who let him walk her home, after she’d told him all her secrets. I’m the stupid girl who woke one night not too many days later to find most of her family dead in their beds. And I’m the very stupid girl who got in the 1961 Ford Pickup with Cinna when he told me to even though he was covered in blood and grinning from ear to ear. Because there was nowhere else to go, and only my mother left.
Clicky-clack, clicky-clack, clicky-clack. Her boots sound like train wheels on tracks. If I drag her any faster she’ll start puffing steam. She gets out: “Where are we going?”
And it’s interesting to note that Beanie is simply obeying me—maybe she’s just like her old man, likes to be ordered around a bit—and I’m thinking Yes, Kitty Lang, where are we going? Just where the fuck are we going? And I think how maybe she’s a lot like me, how I’ve been trained to be, because there’s a certain relief in obedience, in abdicating responsibility.
“Beanie, we are going for a drive. We are going to drive until we come to the sun again.” And I sound like Peter Pan with his “second star to the right and straight on until morning” bullshit. And I’m dragging this girl behind me because I know I’ve been mean. Because when I saw her expression the first time her father favoured me over her and she mistook its nature, I didn’t correct her. I let her heart break a little and I just played on it like an asshole. I’m dragging her behind me because of that other girl whose name I won’t remember, but whose face I’ll always see painted red by my hand, because I was afraid of being alone—except it just made me more alone, didn’t it? Did not see that coming.
We’re heading past the registers, Effie raises a brow and it probably counts as a heavy calisthenics program for her. Out the automatic doors, where we pause for a second for Beanie to point to her new red Ram 1500, then we’re stepping (carefully) down from the curb and moving towards it as she bloops the key, and the taillights flash. She hands me the keyring when I open my palm.
“Well, when are we coming home?”
“Yes, Kitty, when are you coming home?”
Cinna’s voice cold as an ice storm and he’s standing in the middle of the parking lot where he wasn’t a moment ago. No sign of the truck, but then there wouldn’t be, would there? Around the corner or in an alley where I couldn’t see it. All he had to do was wait. Because I’m a stupid predicable girl he trained too well.
“Just go away, Cinna. Just leave me be. Leave me here.”
“But that’s not how the game’s played. I don’t like being alone on my own.” He grins.
“I’m tired. I’m old. Let me go.”
“Oh, baby, you look so good for your age! Very well preserved.” But he puts a finger to one cheek, as if considering. “Although you’re a little slower nowadays, and getting ornery. So, maybe it is time for some new blood.”
He hasn’t moved but he doesn’t need to. He can stand in the one spot all night and never seem any less dangerous. He looks at Beanie.
“Lang, what’s he—”
“Hush, Beanie.”
“Now is that any way to speak to your successor?” drawls Cinna. She wouldn’t last a week. He’d snap her neck after the third question in a row.
“Lang, why’s he—”
“Beanie, quiet.”
“Does she have your organisational skills, though?” He takes two steps—one forward, one backward, like the start of a dance.
“Lang, how’s he—”
“I swear to God, Beanie, if you don’t shut the fuck up I’m gonna marry your dad and you’re gonna have to call me ‘Mom.’ ” Which, as threats go, is quite surprisingly effective.
“C’mon, Kitty Lang, one last chance. What do you say? Let’s go now and I’ll forget you did this.” He holds up his hand, palm forward, and I can still see the blisters from whatever sacrament’s on Magda’s windows. “You and me, alone together. Forever.”
It takes everything I’ve got to drag an answer up from the bottom of what’s left of my soul. To not do what’s easiest, what’s habit. To not abdicate. To not obey. I say, “No.”
And then push Beanie out of the way because I know what’s coming. Push her out of the way just as he reaches me, nails longer and sharper than they’ve any right to be, and he wraps one hand around my throat, hooks the meat of my upper arm with the other and rips. It feels like someone’s cutting my strings; and it’ll start hurting in a moment. Behind him I can see something small moving surprisingly fast, what looks like a baton clasped in one hand. I shouldn’t watch, shouldn’t stare, should just listen to the patter of my own blood on the ground. But I can’t help myself, I do stare, and Cinna moves, doesn’t he? And though she’s surprisingly fast, she’s still too slow. Because Cinna fucking moves.
Not very far but just enough so whatever Magda is trying to stick in his back goes into the right not the left side of his ribcage. His expression spasms, and smoke rises from whatever’s embedded, but he drops me and swings around, one arm describing a wide arc until the back of his hand catches Magda in the face, lifting her off her feet and sending her flying across the lot. She hits the dumpster with a resounding clang. She hits so hard I half expect her to shatter.
I struggle-sit and watch Cinna fight to get hold of the stake she’s stuck in him. White wood, maybe ash, maybe rowan. Not enough to kill him, not in the right place, but enough to hurt. His fingers grasp it, pull, let it go as soon as it’s out—fresh burns on his palm livid in the lights from the Mart. Cinna staggers a bit, straightens, stares at me as if my betrayal was the last thing he could have predicted. He points a blistered finger at me.
“I’ll see you—you know where to go.” His tone makes it clear I’m to conform. That he anticipates obedience. As always. Then he’s gone—not as fast as usual, however. Normally I blink and he’s gone, but this time I see him limping away.
Beanie rolls up from wherever I threw her, then helps me and we limp over to Magda. I’ll never get the details about what happened in 1985, never get that mac’n’cheese recipe, never have those random tea brews again. The old lady’s broken, head at the wrong angle, eyes staring, her black-framed glasses fractured on the ground beside her. But her expression’s serene—that’s what strikes me. She wasn’t afraid, there’s no horror there. She wasn’t terrified of Cinna. She’d faced her own worst once and I guess nothing was ever scary after that. She looks so tiny, so light, but I know she’s going to be a considerable weight in my chest.
It’s five hours before the sheriff lets me go.
And that’s with Beanie vouching for me, saying I’d tried to help, pointing at the wound on my shoulder that the doctor at the little hospital shook his head over as he sewed me up. There’s a bottle of painkillers in my pocket for when the injection wears off. The sheriff, who’s got the worst breath, tries to get me to say it was a bear or mountain lion—and I do not know how that’s going to make Magda any less dead. Beanie just insists it was a knife; I don’t bother to correct her. Eventually the deputy gently escorts an interrupting Beanie outside; I call after him that he should get her coffee and a donut because, well, it seems only fair.
I tell the lawman it was Cinna. I give him the licence plate of the F-250; I don’t believe they’ll find it though. There are too few cops around here, no resources—why do you think we’ve always chosen places like this? Nope, the truck’ll already be hidden inside that old barn ten miles outside of Hope’s Bluff; he’ll expect me to be there too, come nightfall, like the obedient girl I am. Sheriff’s picked over the remains of the stake, half eaten away by Cinna’s blood, still can’t get his head around the idea that sweet little old Magda stabbed someone with it.
Dawn’s breaking by the time he tells me not to leave town.
Beanie’s waiting in the lot, sitting in the driver’s seat of that bright red Ram 1500, door open, her clicky-clacky boots dangling. She’s sipping a coffee and got one hand buried in a Krispy Kreme bag. So, that’s something, I guess.
“Need a lift?” she asks, and her voice is kind of small, like she’s worried I’ll just tell her to fuck off.
I consider it a second, for old times’ sake, then say, “You got a prybar in that thing?”
She nods, looking vaguely offended that I’d ever doubt it. I nod back, climb in the truck.
We don’t go home. There’ll be what can generously be termed a police presence going through everything I own. They won’t find anything, but I don’t want to be around while they’re making a mess. Picking through the few artefacts of my life that actually meant something to me.
We don’t go home, though, because I’m expected elsewhere.
Beanie’s obedient, following my directions. She even lets me finish the last of the glazed donuts. It takes a while to get where we’re going because the roads are windy and the place is well-hidden behind thick stands of trees and rises, perfect for an illegal still or meth lab or general lair. We drive right up to the barn and Beanie’s suddenly less obedient when I tell her to stay in the truck.
In fact, she’s downright obstinate and insists on following, saying: “I know what I saw.” She gets out and goes to the toolbox in the back, rummages, hands me a compact prybar, sturdy; takes an impressive claw hammer for herself and slides a pink boxcutter into a pocket.
“You won’t need that,” I say, and hope I’m right.
He hasn’t even bothered to padlock the doors and we push them way, way open. The barn’s still dark as barns are wont to be, but there are spears of light coming through all the holes in the walls, so many it’s as if some Bonnie and Clyde shootout happened here.
There’s the F-250, midnight blue like it’s part of the shadows. Closed, but not locked, streaks of blood bubbling away some of the paint on the driver’s side. It takes a little time to find the tea-chest, however; he’s made a bit of an effort, made a cubbyhouse with some old bales of hay. Between us we demolish the fort and drag the crate out into the day.
I lever the lid off, then kick the front panel in, a creaking of nails, a splintering of wood. In the seconds before the cold winter sun does its job, I see him there in the bottom of that box, curled around himself like a sleeping fox or a snake, oblivious. He looks so small, smaller than Magda, and I can’t believe I’ve been afraid of him all these years.
Then that pale wiry body begins to smoke, shrinks further, bursts into flames, even the red hair kind of burning in on itself until there’s nothing left. Just like that, he’s gone. The person I’ve known for the longest time. The person who’s made me the loneliest. The worst. Yet, somehow, I can’t help but feel like my chest’s got a hollow ring to it.
I look down at myself, at my hands; I touch my face.
Got to admit, I sort of thought I might go too. That whatever linked us would pull me after him. But there’s no change. No sudden aging, no wrinkling, no inferno. There’s just Beanie looking at me, waiting for an explanation, and me not knowing where to begin.
Originally published in Isolation, edited by Dan Coxon.
