Authors: Cynthia Tottleben
“I wear her blood on my hands! I was the victor! I took the eye and pulverized it, let the flames take the damned thing back to Hell where it belonged!” Evelyn lifted her fists in the air, as though she were scorning God Himself.
“We know, honey. You have fought this thing for decades.” Grandma patted Evelyn’s shoulder, her tone condescending. Behind her sister’s back, Grandma rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“You know nothing. Don’t even pretend to understand. The year is coming. Does no one care anymore? The year is coming!”
Grandma eased Aunt Evelyn’s hands down. Both women looked drained.
“Evie, we all care. But sometimes when you work so hard on a project you get blinded by it.”
“Mom, what’s she talking about? What year?”
My great-aunt reared her head again, her torment twisting her features until she resembled a vicious dog on the brink of attack.
“Have you not told her? How could you be so insane!” The fist landed on a plate this time, shattering it. “The year 2000, prophesied as the Year of the Woman. The millennial change in seats above and below. When She assumes the role for which She was destined.”
I had no idea what Evelyn meant, but dread settled in my stomach. A deep and somber ache with tendrils reaching into my adulthood.
“The bitch has been chasing her dream for centuries. I’ve seen what She’s done! I’ve stood on the same ground where She let loose her horror and could smell the blood, fresh as the day She unleashed it upon the soil. I’ve watched it drip from her teeth while She gave me her maddening grin. Babies, dead at her feet. The world behind her, burning. Satan is nothing compared to her. If we don’t stop her, She’ll destroy humanity!”
“Mom, I’m scared,” I whispered, practically crawling into my mother’s lap.
“As you should be,” Evelyn screamed. “She will rise from you. From your womb the witch will come!”
“Stop this!” Mother stood. “Mom, can’t you shut her up?”
“We have to stop her! We have to end this now!”
I moved behind Mom as Evelyn grabbed her arm.
“I have no idea what you’re saying and I’m just going to pretend that you’re talking about our conversation. Which is one we will never have again.” Mom used her firmest voice, spoken through tightly clenched teeth.
“The bitch is laughing at us. Can’t you hear her? How many times has She crawled from our bellies? Every one of us carries the guilt. Not only did we birth her, but we fed the devil and taught her how to walk! All of us!” Aunt Evelyn beat her fist against her heart, the color draining from her face.
“Calm down, sister. You’re reading too much into this.”
“No. Joan’s mother knows. Don’t you, Gladys? I can see it in your eyes. You believe.”
“I…” Mom started.
“She lives in our every cell. Trust me, she’s just waiting for the right time and vehicle to emerge. Joan will bear her. But who will destroy her? Do you have the strength?”
I cowered, afraid of her questions.
“Of course you don’t. My grandmother’s cousin, Ruby, left her flopping in the yard like a chicken after she cut her head off. The beast was only four at the time. That morning, she had set fire to her brother in the kitchen. As the flames rolled off him, Ruby saw the color rise in her daughter’s eye and knew then what she had borne. Ruby marched the spawn to the yard and took the ax to the child’s neck. Of course her husband shot her straight through the heart before she ever laid the weapon down.” Aunt Evelyn slowed her words a bit. “The men in our family have never understood.”
“I have the strength.” My mother’s voice shocked me. She did believe.
“I know you do, Gladys. But your courage isn’t enough for this one. She’ll obliterate you before you ever lay eyes on her.” A coughing fit racked Evelyn’s chest.
“You need to deal with the child you have now. It is the only way. She is destined.” She nodded my direction.
“No. If the child is hers I will take care of it. I will not harm Joan because you have bad feelings about her.”
“Yes! You will! You must!” My great-aunt screamed as her hands flew to her chest, clutching her breast.
For a split second Evelyn held my gaze, surprise touching her face. Her upper lip curled as though it had a faint wisp of laughter stuck underneath it. Even as her eyes rolled back in her head, my great-aunt nodded at me in acknowledgement. Pinning the future to my collar with her words. Understanding that no matter what, you would come.
Her chin slammed against the table as she collapsed. I heard her jaws snap at the collision, the spray of blood bursting from her nose, decorating us all as her body plummeted to the floor.
As Evelyn drew her last breath, broken teeth fell from her mouth and skittered across the linoleum, collecting under the kitchen table. I could hear laughter that I first thought was a man’s until I felt it pass through my lips and pool around my great-aunt while she convulsed on the floor.
Her fall was like an enormous tower crumbling to the ground during an earthquake. In my child’s eye, she was the dragon slain by someone small.
Like a little girl. That I had yet to know. One that could kill someone as powerful as Evelyn with just the promise of her birth.
Not to mention all the other people I’d loved along the way.
After my mother died I could barely function. But you know that. You were with me then, clinging to life by devouring every drop of hope I had left. In my madness I forgot my legacy, the shadow that had always lurched on the edges of my existence.
But I couldn’t hide from it forever.
You were six when I first remembered. The heat clung to us like Saran Wrap that miserable summer’s day. We were at the park. I kept the bottles of water on the bench, and you came to me, sheltering your eyes from the glaring sun. Casting a shadow over your face. Letting your secret slip for a split second.
“Mom, I’m thirsty,” you said, holding your hands out for some water.
I opened the spout on your plastic bottle and let you gulp down the cold sweetness, mesmerized by what I had never noticed. Your left eye, an iris within an iris. The birthmark of the girl yet to come.
The light hit it exactly, lit it up like the beginning of a solar eclipse, the second iris the moon just edging across the sun. My body trembled, paralyzed with fear. And you just tilted your head. Smiled. Handed me back your water.
“Thank you,” you’d said, pretending your veins didn’t hold all the horror of the world to come. “I love you, Mom.”
Aunt Evelyn was right. I did not have the courage.
That night I sat in your room, my pillow in my hands. I wanted to smother you. Visions of my mother entered my head. She would never have hesitated. Her stride would have been swift, her actions to the point, her decision made twenty years before in that kitchen with the women in our family.
But that was not me. It took me three hours to put the pillow over your head. Three long hours during which I argued with everyone from Alex to God and back to Aunt Evelyn, who wagged her finger in judgment at me.
“Mommy? I just threw up in my bed.” Brandy stopped me. I’d not heard so much as a floorboard creak, and there she was, standing in the doorway, watching me as I hovered over you.
I moved to help her when she vomited again.
I forgot you. Laying in your bed, tucked in for the night, your mother’s pillow over your face. When I fell asleep the next night I realized you had put it back on my bed for me.
I didn’t buy the ax until you were nearly twelve. I saw it in the hardware store, the head smooth yet deadly. As I walked past I heard the weapon call my name.
Joan
, it whispered,
I am here. You’re going to need me soon. It’s almost time.
And that’s when I finally woke up. The stupid sloughed off me as I put the wooden handle in my hand, felt how well it molded into my grip.
My dreams that first night were of chickens, thousands of headless chickens and my arm the blade that destroyed them.
Lucy
I did a very bad thing when the snow first hit.
Tippy actually demanded I do it. Just looking at the determination on her face, I couldn’t deny her. She stood guard while I quietly pulled open my window and stole the snow that piled outside it. Following her instruction I gathered several containers, then brushed over the bare spot I had created.
We had a glorious night. Tippy and I had spent so much time together we no longer needed to speak. I could hear her voice loud and clear in my head, and from her expression knew that she shared my thoughts as well. We hunkered down at the end of the bed and watched the moon grace the falling snow, our bellies chilled with the flakes I had gathered.
We discussed Brandy and where she might be right now. How convenient it was, finding our old Easter baskets in my closet to use as bowls for the snow. How fun Mom had always made holidays, never having to work since the bank was closed, the three girls and Tippy always going for a picnic or to a church gathering, sometimes even the water park during the summer months.
Then Tippy got down to business. The snow went from dandruff flakes to avalanche conditions in just a few hours. She reminded me how important our water supply was becoming, especially since Mom didn’t let us out every day anymore.
I refilled the baskets—a couple of times. Neither of us had realized how thirsty we were and relished the moisture. Tippy instructed me to fill every shoe and bag that could hold water, all of my plastic pencil boxes, my backpack, our stash of empty bottles under the bed. Even though I was freezing, she had me strip down to my skivvies and wash myself.
How alive that made me feel! The moon kept her eyes on me, my pale skin beaming back to her. Goose bumps climbed my arms as I washed, the snow not enough to relieve my stench but pleasant all the same. I turned from Tippy and dropped my bra to the floor, ran my wet hands over my chest, covering my nipples when they became hard.
“Having fun there?” Tippy asked.
I told her to leave me alone.
“It’s a shame you can’t save enough to wash your hair.”
My good feeling faded as I contemplated how horrid I must look. I pinched a clump of hair and ran my fingers through the oily mess. I knew at least a week had gone by since Mom last let me wash it.
The flurry continued and Tippy, drunk on snow, insisted on going outside.
“You’ll fall off the roof!” I warned her.
“You’re too cautious. If you had any balls at all, we wouldn’t be locked in this room.”
I took my top sheet and tied it around her body, snug behind her front legs.
“Don’t blame me if you get hurt.”
I eased open the window again and helped her outside. Her ears perked with the breeze, her smile immediate. Tippy didn’t move for several minutes. She appreciated the ambiance, the luxury of fresh air, no matter how chilling.
Once Tippy worried her way across the snow she relieved herself.
“Don’t infect our water supply!” I silently screamed.
I tied the sheet to my bed frame and acted on Tippy’s orders. With an old pair of underwear I scraped her dried piles off my floor and flung them like softballs into the back yard. My dog watched with amusement as I drained my wastebasket by tossing the contents as far as I could, knowing the downfall would cover my trail.
We didn’t sleep until dawn.
When Mother fetched us Tippy and I were both terrified she had discovered our antics and would steal our loot from the night before.
“God, you reek. Get in the bath. I don’t have to work today so I thought you could clean your room.”
Just like that I was free. And worthy of her conversation.
Mom let Tippy out in the yard. Over the running water in the bathroom, I could hear her excited yipping. She could hear me purring as I crawled into the hot suds, soaping away the strain of the past week.
I laughed at the thought. My life had been reduced to a constant quest for water. And here I was, rolling in it.
“I made you breakfast,” Mom hollered when I stepped out of the bath.
I streaked to the laundry room and found some fresh clothes to wear. Gathering an armload of clean outfits, I hurried them to my room and flipped the pile of nasty ones into the washer.
“Pancakes?” I was shocked. My voice came out as creaky as an old hinge.
“With sausage. It was quite the storm last night. We got almost a foot of snow.”
Old Mom returned. I recognized her words immediately, her tone tinged with sweetness and a hesitant kind of love.
“And you don’t have to work? That’s great!”
Mom allowed me to change my bedding, borrow her mop for the hardwood floor, attack the walls with Murphy’s Oil Soap. I also rummaged through Brandy’s books and found her jigsaw puzzles, a treasure for someone with few activities and too many hours to fill.
Mom fed Tippy hot dogs and we played Yahtzee while my bedroom door stayed open, air circulating through all its nooks and crannies. The dog rolled across the linoleum, her antics enough to make Mom and me burst into hysterics.
Although laughing so hard sent me straight into a coughing fit. Mom ignored my discomfort, tossed Tippy more treats.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was Christmas.
We had a glorious dinner of turkey roast and mashed potatoes. Always a good girl, I cleaned the table, did the dishes, put the food away—except for the bits I shoved in my pocket and slipped to Tippy while Mom read in her recliner.
“I appreciate you doing all of the work,” she said as she turned another page.
“I love being in the kitchen,” I said, just in case she wanted me to resume my old position as lead cook.
We sat together until midnight, when Mom proclaimed she was hitting the sack.
I hoped that she would forget about the dead bolt on my door. Tippy screamed in my head that she was going to go bonkers if she had to spend any more time in my room, but, being bigger than she, I carried her and held her when Mom shut the door behind me.