by Marnie Vinge
“Yes,” she croaks, her voice desperate and steadfast. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Vanessa doesn’t believe her.
“Wait,” Birdie gasps as Vanessa brings the rag back up. “You’re not the only one with gifts, Vanessa.”
She pauses, listening to Birdie.
“I’ve seen things,” Birdie says. “When I was shot. I saw the child being born,” her words are hurried, feverish. “It’s coming. Soon. And it’s alive.”
Vanessa thinks about this. She thinks of Mark and his warning and remembers that the darkness surrounding the child was not with Birdie, but instead with Tom. This makes her think that the girl might be telling the truth. The greatest danger posed to the child will be at Tom’s hands; not its mother’s.
Vanessa lets the rag fall limp at her side. Birdie relaxes slightly. Tom’s long-suffering wife stands from the bed and goes back to the bowl, where she rings out the rag, letting blood run down her fingers into the dish.
“Get some rest,” she tells Birdie. She looks back at the girl, blood at the corners of her mouth, a little vampire herself. Vanessa smiles.
She exits as silently as she came in and carries the tray with her, the bloody bowl looking like an element of some satanic rite. She obscures it with her carrying arm as well as she can, passing one of Tom’s men in the hallway. She smiles demurely at him, and he returns it. At Tom’s study door, she stops.
“He’ll call again in a few hours, he said,” Tom tells Jeff and Ollie, who stand, arms folded, in front of Tom’s desk. The sight reminds Vanessa of Tom’s time as a professor. They look like two students, come to his office for guidance on a paper. The memory of that time covers her like a wool blanket, itchy and unwelcome on her skin in the heat.
“Who’ll call again?” Vanessa asks.
The three men look at Vanessa. Jeff and Ollie turn and look like bookends on either side of Tom, who sits behind the desk. An old rotary-style phone sits in front of him, plugged into the phone jack on the wall behind him.
“I thought the power was cut,” she says.
“It is,” Tom says. “But the phone line isn’t. The FBI left a note this morning at the gate saying they’d call and provided this,” he points at the phone and then lets his hands return to their positions cradling his temples.
“Who called?” Vanessa asks again.
“Man named Wyatt,” Jeff says.
“A hostage negotiator,” Ollie adds.
“You two get the hell out of here,” Tom says to both of them. They follow orders without a second thought, but as Ollie passes Vanessa, she swears she sees something in his eyes: a plea.
“I wasn’t aware this was a hostage situation,” Vanessa says dryly, still hanging in the doorway.
“It’s not,” Tom snaps. “They want to take Birdie for medical care.”
Vanessa rolls this over in her mind. It’s unthinkable. With medical care, they’ll take the child. A child that Vanessa desperately wants. Birdie will leave here and never return. And then there’s the murder charge to think of.
“What did he say?” Vanessa asks.
“Not a lot of anything,” Tom says. “He mainly asked me about Birdie, how she was doing. He asked about you, too.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” Tom says, exhausted.
“What did you tell him about Birdie?” she probes.
“That she’s fine,” Tom barks. He runs his hands over his face. “She is, isn’t she?”
His eyes meet Vanessa’s, challenging her. He’s asking for the truth. A hint in his question that he might think she isn’t alright. Vanessa leaps on the question like a grenade.
“She’s fine,” she says calmly.
Tom sighs and leans back in his chair.
“He’ll call back later. Left a number for me if I wanted to give him a ring,” he holds up a notepad with a number scrawled on it. He lets it fall to the desk with disgust.
“Quite the little situation you’ve got yourself here,” Vanessa says.
Tom looks at her, a threat in his eyes.
“You’ll figure it out, Tom,” she says bitterly. “You always do.”
She turns and leaves, the bowl of blood sloshing with every step.
BIRDIE
The door clicks shut, the bolting mechanism finding its home in the groove of the doorframe. Birdie chose those doorknobs. When the money was still there, and she’d been in charge of overseeing the building of the house on the ranch, she had imagined a paradise in the desert. Not the prison, complete with oil-rubbed bronze doorknobs, that she found herself in now.
She reaches with her functional arm for her mouth and draws back a hand smeared with blood. The first blood she’s had in her mouth since becoming a vegetarian when she was fifteen. She spits into the air, a fine mist of pink spraying over the white blanket.
Her stomach jumps, threatening to contract once more in an effort to vomit. She stalls it, swallowing the pool of saliva gathering in her cheeks. A thin sweat coats her brow. The room is warm without air conditioning, but the air feels cool against the perspiration. A small comfort.
She exerts the most energy she’s expended in the past few days and forces herself into a sitting position, no longer supported by the pillows. She bites her tongue hard enough that blood—now human—fills her mouth. She wants to groan, to scream, but she swallows the pain. When her ears stop ringing with it, she hears voices. People in Tom’s study below.
Birdie collapses back into a lying position, again stifling the sounds of pain. After a moment, she makes out what’s being said.
Tom makes a non-comital noise. The conversation is one sided, she realizes. A phone.
“And what makes you think that?” Tom says to whoever is on the other end of the conversation. Birdie imagines it has to be someone in a position of authority. Her heart quickens. There might be a chance that someone is advocating to get her out of there. She clings to the idea, a life-preserver thrown into a tossing sea.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tom says. More silence. He sighs. The person on the other end of the line is saying something.
Tom makes another noise.
“Thanks,” he says sarcastically. Birdie hears the phone find the receiver, a click indicating that the call is over.
Birdie overhears Vanessa’s voice. Her pulse quickens. She asks what the conversation was about, who it was with. Ollie speaks up. The familiar sound of his voice should have the opposite effect of Vanessa’s, but Birdie wants to scream out his name.
Tom dismisses Ollie and Jeff, leaving only himself and Vanessa. They go back and forth, a bitter conversation in which Tom tells Vanessa that they want to negotiate some kind of medical care for Birdie. She thrills at the thought. Her hope is quickly dashed like a snake against a rock in a hawk’s beak. Vanessa leaves the room, leaving both Tom and Birdie alone in the silence.
In the conversation, Birdie overheard Tom mention a phone number on a piece of paper presumably. Something in the office. She could get there if she just had a little more time to recover. She might be able to get on that phone and save herself.
The thought is heady. She wipes at her mouth with her sleeves, trying to get the remnants of the blood stains off of her lips. Newfound resolve suddenly makes her situation seem slightly less grim. She just has to get to that phone and find that phone number.
But then the idea overwhelms her that she’d still have to find a way to physically get herself out of the house and to a location where someone could get to her. And if the FBI could get to her, so could Tom’s people. There’s a chance that she might never leave this ranch again.
At least alive.
A gentle knock raps at the door.
Birdie steels herself for Vanessa.
When the door opens, Tom steps through, nothing in his hands. No threat of violence. He closes the door quietly and walks over to the bed. He sits on the edge and turns to face Birdie.
“How are you?” he asks. His tone is urgent, demanding an answer
that will further his foothold in the negotiation with the FBI. She knows how she has to answer.
“I’m okay,” she begins. “I think—”
“Good,” Tom cuts her off. “Some people are worried about you. I’m worried about you, Birdie,” he takes her hand. “But you’re strong. You’re okay?” It’s a question.
She nods.
“Good. I need you to be okay.”
Tom leaves, not noticing the pink spritz of blood on the white blanket or the stains at the corners of Birdie’s mouth.
There’s a lot Tom doesn’t notice, Birdie realizes. And she wonders if there’s a chance that he might not notice if she were able to slip out of this room, down the stairs, and into his study. She wonders if there’s a chance that she might be able to save herself.
IONE
The hum of activity making the tiny town pulse like a heart hardly slows as the sun sets. The only thing that changes is the level of light pollution the town normally sees. Tonight, artificial lights scare away the shadows of the desert, making it impossible for anything to lurk. At least not on two or three blocks that constitute the town’s main road in and out.
I watch, skulking in the shadows that still hover on the perimeter set up by journalists, as a national news team sets up for a live update. The anchor fidgets with her microphone and smooths her blonde hair. I listen as her vocal warmups echo over the dusty road like the cry of an animal.
I haven’t seen Jerry for the rest of the afternoon and evening, which is remarkable, given the tiny size of the town. I’m glad, though. The idea of making more polite conversation makes me uneasy. I’m fearful that my true intentions might become apparent with the revelation of any more details of my situation.
I wait by the car until the news broadcast is finished. I pop a couple of peanuts into my mouth, a snack that I bought at the general store when the grumpy guy behind the counter handed his shift off to a younger, friendlier version of himself. His son, I presume.
I‘m not sure how far a bag of peanuts will get me once I get to the creek, though.
I sling my bag over my shoulders and head out, now that the light has faded on the roadside that leads towards my destination. The Bower ranch sits in the distance, a dark shadow on the landscape under the moonlight. I imagine it watching me, knowing what I’m about to do.
I shake off the feeling of paranoia like a second skin, shedding it here on the desert floor like a reptile. Reborn, I walk on.
The road, red in the daylight, is purple under the moonlight. A taupe landscape spreads out in front of me, the sky broken up by rock formations and the mesa in the distance. The sky is inky, the stars spread out against it like confetti holding its place in mid-air, frozen during a celebration.
In the darkness that Kenton provides, the stars overwhelm the sky. There are pinpoints of light stretching from one horizon to the other. The moon hangs low and bloodless, a cool white against the navy behind it. It seems to glow. The perfect invitation for a werewolf.
Suddenly, I’m brought back to the very real and less fantastical idea that there are, indeed, many predators that haunt this landscape. The thought is brought home when I trip and fall. I look back to find that I narrowly missed a bear trap.
I examine it more closely, the rusted mouth of the device boasting teeth like sharpened stakes, ready to drive themselves deep into the ankle of an unsuspecting animal. Or in my case, human. I wonder for a moment what exactly the Bowers are hoping to catch with one of these things, but don’t let myself ruminate on it long. I need to get to the creek.
I roll the thought of a predator over in my mind, folding my brain around it like dough wrapping some guilt-inducing treat. Death is never far. It’s something I’ve learned in the last year away and during the writing of my first book. Even when we hope it is—when we’re sure—it isn’t.
Any of us is just a moment—a choice—away from the reaper at any time.
The thought does little to comfort me in this wasteland. I look back and see how far behind I’ve left the help of anyone that could hear me scream if a mountain lion did cross my path. The lights of the news trucks have become distant dots, so I look forward to the Bower ranch looming not far in front of me.
I pass the ranch house, noticing someone on the porch as I pass. I don’t wave, and neither does the man, but we see each other. He makes no motion telling me to turn back. I’m sure he’s resigned to the fact that journalists are going to come and go out to the little-known spot where the best shots of the ranch can be had. There’s probably even a part of him that would encourage it, knowing that any press Revelation Ranch gets is good news for him. It puts him one step closer to reclaiming this part of the country. I’m not a trespasser in his eyes; I’m an instrument.
I continue, watched in the darkness. It’s a relief when I reach a copse of trees that cover the periphery of the creek I’m seeking.
The cedar trees grab at my clothes like a crowd of men with no boundaries. My lightweight denim button up blouse snags on a naked branch. I wave it away, looking, I’m sure, like a girl fighting a spider’s web.
After I overtake my assailant, I push through the rest of the dense canopy. I hear the sounds of a menagerie as I pass through the last of the brambles. Nocturnal birds—owls, even, perhaps—call out to each other, not caring, and certainly not fearing, that I’m among them. I wonder for a moment what other nocturnal animals make this place their home. But I don’t have to wonder long.
I emerge from the trees on the edge of the dry creek bed. Drought conditions have dried up the tributaries to the dangerously low river that runs nearby. I scan the bed and my eyes find another’s.
Scavenging, a coyote raises its head from whatever feast it’s found at the bottom of the stream’s path. In the moonlight, I can still tell that his lips and tan-colored jowls are stained crimson with blood. He looks at me for what turns into a very long moment. I stare back, determined not to let him cow me into submission. I suddenly wish I’d come more prepared, armed at least with knowledge about how to handle an encounter with a coyote, crouched low and protective over its dinner.
The coyote gives in first, thank God. He grabs a final scrap of fur and flesh and jogs effortlessly up the creek bank and into the trees that bracket the other side, mirror images to the ones I’ve just emerged from.
I wait until my canine friend has made a complete disappearance and then I hike down into the creek.
Jerry said if I follow it, I’ll wind up close to the ranch. So, I set off. One step turns into a hundred—a thousand—until I’ve walked a solid half-mile. I look up every so often, reminded by the incredible amount of light from the stars of just exactly how far I’ve strayed from civilization. I think of Wes for a moment. What he would make of the whole situation. How I could look at him and ask, Is this enough? Is it selfless enough for you?
The image is short-lived as I trip over a depression in the creek bed. I look down and find a series of them. The dinosaur footprints boasted about in the little store back in town. Two centuries ago this would have made me a discoverer and not just a trespasser.
I cling to the thought. Reality, as I know it in the city, seems very distant as I avoid falling in another set of tracks.
A significant bend lies ahead, and I know I’m close to Tom’s property. Or at least I think I am. I hike up out of the creek on the opposite side that I came in on. Huffing for air, I sound more out of shape than I realized I was. After catching my breath, I slip into the cedar trees that look no different than the ones I passed through earlier in the night.
Again, they tug at my clothes, but I’m so intent on coming out on the other side that I don’t realize yet that my shirt has torn, and my cheek is scraped. When I emerge, I see the bluff at the top of the hill. Trash from other journalists litters the path. I follow empty soda cans and candy bar wrappers up the steep side of the hill.
On top, I catch my breath once more. Bent at the waist, I can barely take in the view. I stand up
.
I look out over the top of Revelation Ranch. A bonfire glows behind a large structure. People’s faces reflect light like tiny moons, trapped by the gravity of the fire. I wonder if Tom is among them.
My heart quickens in my chest at the thought. The next thought I have is about Birdie: where is she?
I’m probably the last person she wants to see. Funny how insecurity can sneak up with poisonous fangs and bite even in a moment like this. It shouldn’t matter if she wants to see me.
It only matters that I’m here.
IONE
7 YEARS AGO
The last half of the semester seemed to stretch on endlessly. Seeing Tom was excruciating, like picking open a scabbed wound every time I entered his classroom. By the time the Headlights banquet rolled around, though, I had reconciled myself to the new status of our relationship. That night, I was ready to embrace the future. Even if that meant having to work alongside him for the next year. We were adults. We could make this work.
Time would heal us.
My heels declared my arrival on the marble floor of the hallway outside the ballroom. They pounded out a cadence that I wasn’t sure matched that of a woman on her way to meet her destiny. My stomach rolled with butterflies that fought to make their way up my esophagus and out of my throat. I held them down with a swallow and my throat bobbed like an apple chased by a drunken partygoer on Halloween.
The tender tinkle of piano keys drifted like a ghost out into the hallway from the ballroom. Laughter and music coated the room in a shiny new varnish that hid the imperfections of a department steeped in politics and favoritism. Tonight, though, that favoritism would shine a spotlight on one chosen student. A student who would get the opportunity to spend a year writing a novel. Historically, the Headlights Award was given to the student who had shown the most promise over the course of their time in the creative writing program. And historically, the winner of this award was also the recipient of the Gorman Fellowship, which would allow for a year’s time in which to complete a novel and invaluable publishing contacts. And standing between the recipient and those contacts was only one person, the facilitator: Tom.
