Winter Sparrow (11 page)

Joshua carried the deer toward the side of the road. It didn’t matter that his cheek absorbed some of the black mess that had ruptured from her belly or that the mud caked along his wrists, mixing with the stain that was already there. The deer needed his love. Joshua’s teeth tore at his bottom lip, waiting for the calm to come and steal away this disharmony.

But calm did not come.

Joshua found a fitting place to put her. The animal would sleep more softly now, away from the chaos of the storm. Dark dreams would seek her flesh out, surely. Perhaps the deer had run out too quickly without thinking of what it might mean. Perhaps she wasn’t ready for what lay at the center of this foggy, paved stream of tar and dirt, its innocence left in the company of wild, whispering trees.

The pain multiplied, and Joshua’s knees began to buckle. The harsh terrain cut into the denim cloaking his skin. Mist in the air caught his chin stubbles. A short beat lulled past him, and Joshua took steps toward the guardrail that had been torn through. But Mary’s Pathfinder was not among the damage.
It should be here.

Unless it wasn’t her who had crashed. Unless he had imagined the frightful scenario and it was all awaiting his mind’s inspection.

No, I felt it. I felt her fall.

He knew it so blindly that it was the only truth that existed. He saw Mary spiral out of control in his mind’s eye, clearer than a dream. He saw her let go. He saw her crash at the bottom. The how didn’t matter. The why wasn’t important. All that remained was the unyielding reality that his wife…

“Don’t,” he told himself. “Don’t let that horrible thought inside.”

Joshua stood at the edge of the cliff. A piece of the road came loose, tried to drag him down with it, but he wouldn’t be pulled. He remained a statue, staring down at the piles of mire and clay that the earth had borne.

MARY WOKE TREMBLING.
Through a crystal blur, she studied her hands, checked her forehead. Temperature was normal. Then why was her heart racing? She noticed the unsettled veins lingering on the surface of her forearms. Curious. They strangely danced up and down, as if they found a dark rhythm hidden somewhere inside of her.

She heard the breathing of a man, but she didn’t recognize him. More peculiar still: What was she doing lying next to him, in this bed, in this room? She had never been so reckless as to go to bed with a…

“Stranger,” Mary’s lips concluded. The word was claustrophobic behind her teeth. But when she uttered it, a chill sang through her bones.

Mary examined her garments: an elegant, white gown with an alluring cut at her sternum, enough to warm an imagination. Matching metallic bracelets fit tightly around both of her wrists.

Where
did these come from?  

What was a dream, and what was real? She began making a mini list in her head, positive she had been wandering the countryside and the woods last night. At least, she was
mostly
certain that it was last night that she had been driving. And then…

Memories flickered like dying candles in her mind. She stepped out of bed, placing her feet on the floor. Mary felt the uncomfortable slush of mud and sinking earth beneath her feet, could sense the very souls of the rocks she had walked over, as if she were there again. The sticks and dried-up roots that sought to trip her in the isolated dark.
The weather was terrible, wasn’t it?
Yes, that was a fact. But where was she coming from? Had she been speeding? Had she slammed her head against the dashboard? Was that why the details were so fuzzy?

Mary quietly glided across the open bedroom floor and found the closest hanging mirror. “Get the facts straight, Mary. Just get them straight.” She tugged at her eyelids, massaged her temples, smacked her cheeks, anything to jolt a memory, to understand why she was here and who that man was in the bed. Her belly felt empty. But not a hungry kind of empty; it was a lacking, tired, painful sensitivity that spread through her entire body.

“You took some pills last night.” That was clear. If she could get past that and the stumbling-around-the-woods bit, perhaps she’d be a little closer to getting a grip. “Okay, you took a lot of pills last night. And you wound up in bed with some guy you can’t remember.” Mary frantically pulled at her wiry hair and caught the shimmer of the bracelets once more out of the corner of her eye. “I hate bracelets.”

The back of her mind spoke louder:
But they are exquisite, aren’t they?

“Must’ve thought I was pretty good.” She felt a little bit of shame when that statement ran off her tongue. Dad would look down on her for this, she knew it.

Dad. Just call Dad. Ask
him
for advice.
But a memory came all of a sudden, along with a gray picture. It was them—her and Jamie—standing, arms-locked, in a cemetery, listening to some droning preacher attempt to offer some encouragement when he claimed that Dad’s failing heart was all a part of God’s plan. Oh, and the hell that followed must have been a sick part of the divine plan as well.

Dad’s dead. Oh no.
Please no.
She’d somehow had a lapse. Somehow had forgotten that he had died. That Mom had died. What was wrong with her? Mary blinked, and with a faint tear, she washed away another fragment of the past.

“The past is the past,” she mouthed. “I do remember that.” When she repeated it to herself, she heard a man’s voice. Mary’s gaze stretched across the ornate room, to the bed where the mysterious man lay, so soundly in his dream. It must’ve been beautiful, whatever he was dreaming about.
You told me that the past was the past. Of course, Jamie has been telling me for years, but when
you
spoke it to me…Yes, when I heard you say it, I believed.

Mary wanted to shout her revelation, let it breathe out in the open for a bit; but what if he got angry? What if he had drunk too much last night and the booze hadn’t yet filtered out of him? And what if there was still enough left to get him all levels of worked up? She was ill-equipped to handle that kind of confrontation.

What else was there? Had this creep sweet-talked her, promised her riches, to live in his fantastic house? Well, what if she didn’t want it?

But then a startling reality shook her nearly off balance. Her eyes had found a diamond glistening like magic on her left ring finger. It had a white-gold band. How had she not felt it before? The diamond, a solitary stone, sat at the center of the flawless band.

“That man…is my husband?” she said, realizing that the statement evaporated off her lips more like a question.

The bedroom suddenly turned cool enough for Mary to see her own breath. She watched its frosty trail drift farther away from her, carried away by a breeze. Black curtains whipped; the doors leading to a balcony had been left open. The balcony. It was different yet familiar.

Her car. Of course. She couldn’t be losing her mind, she just couldn’t be. Her Pathfinder, rugged and run-down as it was, had to be parked outside in the driveway. It just had to be.

Mary glided from the spot in front of the mirror. In seconds she was looking over an immense courtyard that resembled a maze. The view from this balcony was wondrous. And the flutters in her chest subsided when she saw the vehicle parked exactly where she just now remembered she had left it.

Last night.
Her mind paced.
Yes, last night.

Her vehicle was in perfect condition. Why, then, did she have a hiccup of a thought that it may have been destroyed? She wanted control of this feverish polarity. Mary shuddered and fearfully locked her arms together, a breaking sensation draping her bones.

Off to one side of the courtyard, she saw a garden with an awe-inspiring collection of roses, petunias, and chrysanthemums, to name a few. Her eyes sparkled at the sight, but the unkind wind forced them shut again. Not for long. The pulse of the garden had a certain mesmerizing, undeniable quality. She longed to walk inside it.

Mary rushed out of the room barefoot. Down the long hallway she flew, confusion spreading through her organs like a tormented butterfly. If she were indeed married to the man in the bedroom, why did she not recall the ceremony? Had there even been a proper ceremony, or had she merely fulfilled his midnight lust?

Scratching her neck, Mary descended the stairs. She couldn’t shake a familiar feeling, like she’d been in this house before, or one just like it. Come to think of it, should she even be calling this place a house? It was a mansion, if ever she saw one, and at the foot of the wide staircase, there were intricately carved marble birds. Crows. The detail in their wings and eyes and beaks was unparalleled. And the way their claws gripped each stone perch sent an eerie drip down her shoulder blades. The closer she gazed, the more she felt that the eyes were a startling black echo.

The garden.
 

She walked outside. Mary sought escape in the free, open space. Taking her first steps through the wrought-iron gate, Mary absorbed the sensitivity of the stone path and the grooves binding each pattern together. She was also aware of her knuckles cracking because she’d made a tense fist. But if she could just calm her thinking for a moment, maybe it was possible to get lost here in the sanctuary of the flowers.

How these blooming masterpieces had remained so unstained by the encompassing winter world was nothing short of magic. How had the frost not filched their scent? How had the sleet not corrupted their emerald spines?

Carelessly, she tried to grip a rose by the stem, but a thorn pierced her thumb. It stung but only a little. Perhaps she’d grown up with a tolerance for pain. Mary lapped up the red sliver anxiously, noticing the cut was deeper than she first thought.    

Closer to the center she moved, until at once she stopped short. As her nostrils filled with the fresh scents, Mary lightly touched a set of flowers thirsty for the attention of a sunrise. But there wasn’t much light at all. An overcast sky hung above her, eclipsing the landscape.

Just then, a breeze chilled the front of her teeth. Her lips twisted into a frown. So suddenly it all changed. Mary quickly noticed that the very flower that longed for the sun’s motherly glow began to wilt. The flower was dying, its petals tearing off like unwanted skin. In seconds, it was dust in her hands.

Startled, Mary turned around to gaze upon the rest of the garden. Pollen was choked the minute it drifted into the air. Petals slipped to the earth floor. Stems split in half. The bodies of these once precious things collapsed. Only thorns remained; a hideous miracle, really. What had caused it? It couldn’t have been her touch. Her breath. Could it? Was it human contact that caused these beautiful creations to die?

“Enough. It can’t be me.” She stammered. “I don’t understand it!”

She wanted to shed a tear for the petals withering at her feet or trapped in their potted coffins. These flowers were dead, and she needed to know the reason. 

Mary ran out of the circle, shutting her eyes to banish the choking world from her thoughts. A vine caught her before the last step out, and she smacked her chin against the stone path. A curse ripped out of her as she bit down too hard on her tongue and the sharp taste of blood sprayed inside her cheek.

She tore her ankle free and raced to the Pathfinder and leapt inside, gasping for breath. But the keys weren’t in it. She searched the visor and beneath the seats. Nothing. Panic seized her.