Authors: Cynthia Tottleben
The air there was cool and delicious. I sucked it in and felt my skin spark alive again, shivering with the change of temperature.
Trembling with excitement at my turn of luck. Like a key, upright one second, twisted to the right the next.
I shifted into feather form, something I never knew I could do. So light I could traverse the teeniest space. Just float around without a care in the world. Maneuver better than the mice that had scouted this area years before me.
My mind was so focused that I could watch my thoughts string across the walls like fresh spider webs. My body slinking. Each drop of blood in my veins consumed by this brazen escape, my quest for the ever-elusive water that had somehow beaten me out of the coal room. How had I not noticed it leaving this hot space we shared?
Where was it?
For that matter, where was I? And how did this maze extend past our house without anyone noticing?
I smelled it before my brain clicked in. Gritty. Loamy, the scent so strong now I could almost feel the moss climbing into my nostrils.
The cornfield.
This ancient path, my new-found salvation, wove beneath the Hanley’s farm.
The deeper I inched through the darkness, the closer my head came to the roof, the black soil crumbling as I brushed against it. Tendrils reached through the earth, pulsing with the faintest light, allowing me to finally see as I continued to work through the buried path. Was this part of the underground railroad? Some hidden torture chamber the sicko who built this house had designed? Had I become part of a freaky science experiment Brandy had created, a rat trapped in her maze?
Desperation had pushed me this far, and fear of suffocating between the tight walls kept me going.
That and my precious memories of the stream frozen at the edge of the field. The water in it pure. Cold. Mine. Would it drip underground? Wet the walls? Could I suck it straight from the soil? Because, at this point, I would.
All I wanted was water. The sense of freedom I was experiencing was so secondary to the siren song of hydration that I would have gladly signed away my years of adult independence for the promise of never again having lips that cracked like old cement.
The space narrowed more. The ceiling dropped. As slowly as my body moved, the earthen opening swallowed me at a rapid pace, walls screaming past like stampeding freight cars, their shrill warning cries not enough to deter me.
But the oxygen was sucked straight from my lungs, my swollen tongue the troll keeping air from passing back through. Vines crept in ringlets above me, their delicate touch reassuring as I collapsed, tucked so tightly into my dirt coffin that I couldn’t even lie down.
When I stopped I realized what a fool I’d been. How Mom had duped me. Teased me with the gallon jugs of water, led me like one of those old cartoon donkeys following a carrot, and I had simply obeyed, thinking somehow it would be easy, drinking, gorging on the liquid gold, sucking down every sip, a pool party for my mouth.
Tears didn’t even come this time. My body was too dry. I pictured my sister, her eyes glowing, her face alive with laughter, and said my mental goodbyes. She hadn’t returned for me. And now she’d never be able to find me. Mom had won. Drawn me to this grave. Was probably cuddling with Tippy, laughing while I wheezed below her.
Tippy. My baby. I wished her the best. Hoped Mom wouldn’t boil her one day and feed her to the coyotes. Prayed that dogs really had long-term memory and that she’d always remember my kisses. My scent. My love for her.
I was ready. A seedling planted deep in the earth. Ready to shed my shell and emerge, glorious, into sunlight.
My eyes closed, I waited for God to take me. Or, if Mom was right, for the devil to pull me down to an eternity worse than this life I’d already lived.
The tug came from above. I felt it squirm past my face like enormous tapeworms, thick and strong and bent on survival. At first the roots slipped by one or two at a time, then built in force. They wrapped me in their strong arms, wove around my head like a wedding halo, curled around my shoulders, down to my toes, growing thicker each second. I began to fight with my last tinge of strength, but then they hummed, swaddling me like a thousand nurturing hands, until I just melted into them.
The corn. Buzz-cut in the field but strong in the soil. Protecting me.
It sucked me up like a tiny piece of ice through a child’s straw. Catapulted me through layers of dirt and halfway across the field, where I fell into the snow, cool at last, surrounded by frozen water.
My body hurt too much to move. But my mouth opened wide, sucked up the moisture, shook uncontrollably as my teeth suddenly grew as cold as my skin.
Tippy would be so proud of me. Somehow, in ways I could never explain, I had finally gotten out.
Alive.
But practically paralyzed from my ordeal.
I knew I wouldn’t last long in the weather. Shirtless, shoeless, half-mad. I didn’t even recognize where I was. The house wasn’t visible. The Hanley’s out of sight. Just me, the corn, the blessed snow.
Evelyn
My entire life I’ve been surrounded by fools. Idiots content to suffer their days in a blind stupor rationalized by the spoils of their income and oft-quoted blurbs from whatever book they draw forth their gods.
Like my sister. Building a life flat on her back. Her lofty childhood goal to find a husband, procreate, keep his britches pressed and his offspring clean, wile away the years following his orders and never having her own mind. Which, of course, she executed with pride.
Not a very dignifying existence. But she was taught well by our mother. And her mother before her. And all the others at the front of the line.
Imbeciles. Their thoughts merely rancid flatulence in the webbing that is our world. Their days a pile of well-penciled calendars, diaries brimming with useless drivel that would leave the most faithful of nuns comatose, their minds blackened with boredom.
And yet, somehow, we are connected. This line of cooks and luxe queens, so kitschy in their home-made aprons and holiday brooches. As a child, I ambled through life wearing my father’s shoes. I couldn’t bear watching my sister better her posture by walking the house with books on her head, let alone participate in such inane activities. My strong back came from the rifle I toted, the heavy texts I kept in a bag at my side.
I still have difficulty reconciling my relationship with these fixies, the women in my family, pushing their way through life with voices as shrill as their nails, with high-riding bosoms and hair so permeated with spray even the bugs couldn’t unglue themselves to get out. That Doris and I were born of the same woman is ridiculous. That we shared blood and burden, our youths fermented in the same rooms, that we heard identical words but with such different connotations—all borders on the blasphemous.
And they thought me the odd one.
Dad didn’t mind my ideas. In fact, he often chuckled while I emptied his pocketbook playing poker, listening to me rant like the traveling preachers Mom would always drag us to hear. I was the son he never had. I was the off-spring with promise, the one who could figure his books, tend to the fields, challenge his friends to any philosophical conversation and leave them slack-jawed.
Never marry. A woman should not be shackled. I wasn’t. I managed my father’s money, played with it on the market until we achieved a lifetime’s comfort, then set about the world on a tour that kept me going for decades.
Forget children. Let someone else carry them, clean their bottoms, navigate life around their petty needs, listen to their relentless whining. Such a life was not for me. Instead of baby teeth and birthday cards, I wanted to collect turquoise and the ivory carvings that I bought off tribesmen during my visits to Africa.
After living with my father, I never needed another man. My hands grew black with oil when my automobile needed repairs. My shoulders, muscular from yard work and keeping wood ready for the fire. I felt no fear walking into a man’s club, joining them on the leather sofas, cigar and scotch in hand. Nor did I get a bad reaction. They accepted me as their own.
Which opened many doors. In my twenties I was virtuous and kept my stockings free from runs. No matter my life’s path, I respected my mother and her beliefs, chose not to bring any blackness to her house.
But what a change a decade brings. At thirty-three I had adopted pants, which were much better suited for hunting trips and long rides across rough terrain. I was on my third excursion through Europe, a lone traveler, gathering information, charting my lineage in an effort to understand how my sister’s offspring would infest the world. Many a lover had met my bed, but none moved me enough to get an invitation to stay.
Until my train trip to Madrid, and those first steps I took onto the platform before seeking my hired hand.
She was delicate, a raven so fragile I longed to cup her in my hands, and protect her from the ferocity of the wind. As soon as I laid eyes on Josephina, time ceased all motion. I struggled to inhale a mere breath. To remember that we were of the same species, inhabiting the same planet. That perhaps, if I stood close enough to her, the air she exhaled would pass her body and become one with mine.
After my father died, I never needed another man.
But I certainly began to understand them. The wanting. The ego that pulled them along, crushing everyone and everything in their path. The absolute craving of such porcelain beauty, the desire to possess and own it, to trade all in one’s life for three seconds of lips locked to a breast, a hand running along the spine of someone as exquisite as Josephina.
Something I could never have.
Oh, but I did.
Lucy
My body grew so numb that I could no longer differentiate it from the soil. A last-ditch effort to raise myself failed. The long red locks that had always been my pride had frozen to the ground, holding me prisoner.
Snow began to fall, the massive flakes camouflaging me. I thought of God, standing over me, His tears turning to mush in this winter weather long before they fell to Earth. He didn’t hate me. Mother was wrong. Already He mourned my loss.
I tried to let go. Hurry the inevitable along. What had I read in books? That when you were freezing to death, the worst thing you could do was go to sleep? As desperately as I tried, my mind wouldn’t shut down. My eyes stayed open, the snow caking in my lashes, my shallow breaths wrapping smoke around my head.
Which is the only reason I saw them.
An oasis, I thought. If I were disoriented and stumbling through the desert, this is what I would see. My mind would play tricks like this. Just as if I had survived weeks lost at sea and kept seeing coastlines and far-off ships that weren’t really there.
I knew the deer were imaginary. An eleventh-hour effort on behalf of my body, fueling me to get up and move, find warmth, water. Freedom.
They closed in, and I marveled at how real they seemed. Timid at first, the beasts came at me from all angles, but I could only watch the ones that walked directly toward me. I guessed their numbers at twenty, if not more. A huge male followed behind the others, stood poised at the edge of my vision. His antlers rose from the snowy mist as though he were a warrior on horseback, arms raised and ready for battle. My heart warmed at the sight of him.
The buck snorted and the others parted. He stayed on the outskirts of the herd, his dominance understood by all of us. From my position on the ground, I was able to maintain direct eye contact with him. No words had to pass between us. Just from his posturing, I instantly understood his decades of wisdom, his power, unrivaled in these back woods, and that, like a father, he had come to protect me. For the first time in months I felt a modicum of security.
The smell of their fur overwhelmed my senses. Each animal gave off its own scent, but I translated it into fields, overgrown and riddled with the witchgrass and foxtail that irritated the area farmers.
Hot breath hit me. The herd, melting my snow blanket, closed in, licked the thin sheet of ice I called my skin. A few nudged me. Even though the excitement had just begun, I could feel myself edging into sleep and wondered if they were trying to keep me awake.
In my mind’s eye, I had already found shelter. A cottage, a raging campfire, heavy blankets, and hot tea roiled through my thoughts. Like I was being carried on a tune, floating to some extent, but streaming along, my body supported by the thick base chords, the wooden posts supplied by the oboes.
None of it made sense.
But nothing had in a long, long time.
My toes twitched. I felt their flashy movements, wanted the rest of my body to follow suit. The deer found it a good sign and began backing away from me, their absence allowing the frigid wind back in. My throat was still too rusty to scream, but mentally I begged them to close the distance, to take away the wicked weather.
Then he pushed forward.
Their leader, the massive buck, who came to me like Santa Claus, a stranger bearing goodwill, the gift of Christmases to come.
He put his nostrils directly against my face. Sniffed me. Moved his head forward and drew the scent from my eye, a move Tippy had made many times, but in this situation seemed like a test I needed to pass. I tried not to fidget as he inspected me, then put his cheek against my own in an attempt I instinctively knew was meant to lend me comfort.
The rest of his movements were fast. Using his antlers, the buck scraped me off the frozen ground as though I were a cookie trapped on a baking sheet. When my skin was freed he lifted me with his massive rack, gently placing me on the back of a younger male, where I miraculously stayed without even a fear of falling off.