by Zoje Stage
“Hmm?” Orla glanced down at her apprehensive daughter.
“If it had melted so fast, there’d be flooding. That’s what happens.”
“Yes, usually—”
“We prayed it away!” said Tycho. “It worked, Mama—now we can play outside!” He bounded around the porch, indifferent to the puddles that soaked his sock-covered feet.
The temptation to revert to denial was strong. But she’d promised herself—and her family—to face reality, such as it had become. She’d asked for this. And here it was. Had something heard her? The same thing that was trying…she didn’t want to think about the night before, or the voice demanding entrance into Shaw’s head—not until they were far away. Orla wasn’t as hopeful as she’d been at first, even with their escape route unblocked. Something—in the air? In her gut?—didn’t feel right. Poison came to mind. A silent and deadly weapon descending around them in an invisible mist. What if they were all breathing it in?
But to Eleanor Queen, still clutching her hand, she tried to sound cheery. “Nothing to be afraid of now, we can come and go as we please.”
“No, Mama—you don’t…you’re being so blind. This isn’t so you’ll leave, it’s so you’ll be happy.”
Eleanor Queen didn’t sound very happy. The deepening connection between her daughter and what was happening around them turned her bones to ice and she shivered despite the balmy temperatures.
“Okay, it’s time to go, let’s go.” Orla ushered her family indoors just as Shaw had during the glorious night of dancing lights. She was certain she and her husband were of one mind now, with a definitive, if unspoken plan, even if he was overwhelmed and confused.
Inside, she helped Tycho strip off his sopping socks. “Hurry up to your rooms. Pack your favorite things; it’s time to go. Papa and I will come back later for the rest.” Or maybe not.
Shaw stumbled in from the porch, a thousand times more alive than he’d been a moment before. Something had jolted him back to life. “No, wait. We can’t. Not just yet.”
His words stopped the children. They looked from one parent to the next, in search of clear direction.
“We need. To go.” Orla carefully measured her words so as not to alarm the children with the volcanic emotions that rumbled within her or the scalding reminder she wanted to spew at her husband: Have you forgotten last night? “We’ll work out the details later, with the house—”
Shaw’s look cut her off. He wasn’t disagreeing with her; something else was wrong. And he widened his eyes, desperate to say or not say something. He cocked his head toward the kids.
Orla wanted to cry. Massive snowfalls were within the realm of possibility; it happened sometimes in nearby Oswego County, that’s what Shaw had said. But could so much snow just…vanish? Momentum surged within her, an urgent and primal desire to flee. Now, while they could. Why couldn’t they? She beseeched her husband without words.
“Why don’t you guys go up and get dressed,” he said to the kids in his composed-father voice. Thankfully he could still appear normal, not like the broken man who’d sat with his back to the wall, a shotgun…
Tycho dashed off, but Eleanor Queen assessed them one final time before following him up the stairs.
“What’s wrong—why can’t we go?” Orla whisper-barked to Shaw.
He guided her back toward the door and spoke just as softly. “Did you notice the garage?”
Orla shook her head. Willed him not to say what he was about to say…
“It looks like one side collapsed, part of the roof and wall.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“The far side. And from where we were standing, the car looks to be buried in debris and—”
She threw open the front door and flew back out, even stepped into the snowy yard in her slippers. She’d been so distracted before, she hadn’t thought to look at the garage, but Shaw was right. And there was something else she hadn’t noticed. A little splotch of crimson off to the side, just a few feet away, soggy, atop the snow. The lifeless body of her little friend the cardinal. Had he been buried when the snow came down? Trapped, asphyxiated by the sudden, supernatural descent? Another day Orla might have cried over the loss, sentimental or symbolic, but now she was too agitated. Shaw joined her in the yard but didn’t notice the feathery red corpse. Instead, he looked behind them, up toward the roof. She followed his gaze.
Their satellite dish dangled askew.
“Shit. Fuck,” she muttered. “This fucking place. Did you check your cell?”
“First thing. I check it fifty times a day. Don’t panic.”
“I’m not—”
“I’m really sorry about last night.”
“I know.”
“Thank you—for everything, for understanding. I only want us all to be okay.”
“I know that. We’ll get everything sorted out. For now, let’s stay focused—we can still follow through with our original plan.” At least outside they could safely raise their voices without alarming the kids. And she didn’t care about her feet turning to ice or the snow seeping through the worn fabric of her sweatpants. Focus. “We’ll get into town, walk the whole way if we need to. And call Walker—wait. Are they traveling?” The other Bennett clan spent alternate Christmases with Julie’s family in North Carolina.
“It’s fine, they haven’t left yet.”
She plotted it all out. “We’d probably only have to stay a night. My parents will come and get us—”
“Maybe we won’t need to do that.” He must have read the lava surfacing on her face, readying as she opened her mouth to protest. “Have them drive here, I mean. Maybe…” He looked back to the car. “I can try digging it out. It doesn’t look too damaged, a few dings. If I can get some of the snow that’s blocking it out of the way, maybe I could just back it up under the wreckage. It doesn’t matter at this point if the rest of the garage collapses.”
Orla nodded. Smart plan. Whatever had infected Shaw hadn’t stolen all of his rational thinking. It would have been a long walk for the kids, and she’d never liked the idea of them being on the snowed-over road, without sidewalks and with the berms buried. And they had choices about where to head next, though driving straight on to Pittsburgh seemed by far their best option. She wouldn’t let her family make the same mistake again; wherever they ended up living, they needed to be around people. They could worry about the financial loss of all they’d invested later. Or maybe they could sell the house—and maybe it wouldn’t be so inhospitable to the next owner. The place was going to be their undoing, and Orla didn’t care about the why or how of it. Sixteen days had been long enough. It was time to go.
23
While Shaw was outside trying to free the car, Orla stayed upstairs with the children, going from bedroom to bedroom to assist with the packing.
“Are we gonna see Derek and Jamie?” Tycho asked, piling toys into a box. He sounded eager enough, but Orla sensed a hint of confusion. A few weeks there, a couple of weeks here; did he think this was how it would be from now on, his new peripatetic life?
“Maybe. Or maybe Lola and Lolo—would you like that?” She kept her voice light but didn’t otherwise interact with him. In her career, she’d been required to act, to perform roles, but now she didn’t trust herself to convincingly portray the Calm Mother. She tied her everything’s-fine mask in place and put her thundering heart on mute. Told herself to keep things as normal as possible. It was part of a parent’s duty to make sure her children understood the difference between reality and fantasy, but she was hard-pressed at the moment to keep the two straight herself.
Orla stacked Tycho’s neatly folded clothes into a reusable bag. Her plan was to squash as much stuff into the back of the SUV as possible. After getting dressed, she’d gone downstairs and retrieved all of their boots—not to pack, but to wear. She didn’t trust that something unexpected wouldn’t happen again, and she insisted the children put on layers, in addition to their boots, in case they nee
ded to flee on foot. She hadn’t phrased it quite that way, but the wariness on Eleanor Queen’s face told her that she understood nonetheless.
Orla heard a clamor behind her and turned around to see her daughter pushing a box of books into the hallway. She heaved a black garbage bag, presumably filled with her clothes, on top of it.
“What about my new bed? And the rest of my stuff?” Eleanor Queen asked.
“We’ll try to pack up the house later, but I can’t guarantee when. We’ll get you a new bed if nothing else. Okay?”
She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment, the frustration, on her daughter’s face, so Orla busied herself with other tasks. She endeavored to move about methodically and appear composed so as not to give away that inside her was a crazed cuckoo clock, ticking down toward a collapse of mechanics. Nothing made sense and there was no time to analyze it. All she could do was try to keep everything—everyone—calm and hope to avoid, at least for now, the difficult questions that were coming. How would they explain what had happened to their family? The real part, with Shaw and the shotgun, as well as the stuff that would make them all sound delusional? And eventually they’d have to find something to tell the children; at present she was far from having any comforting answers.
“Bean? Are you set?”
“I guess.”
“Can you help me? Just finish up with Tycho while I pack your papa’s stuff?”
Eleanor Queen plodded down the hallway, eyes on the floor. She couldn’t have looked more somber if she were attending a funeral for all her favorite books. Orla recognized the importance of not leaving them behind; they were her friends. But her daughter also looked smaller somehow. Had she lost weight? Orla expected she’d be glad to leave, glad to be free of this thing that hovered too close to her awareness. What the fuck is this place doing to my child? She didn’t believe her daughter was mentally ill any more than she believed her husband was; it was this place. They were fine before, and after they left, Eleanor Queen and Shaw would return to normal. In spite of everything, Orla wondered if her daughter was reluctant to lose another home, and she hated that she couldn’t give her children the sense of security they needed.
When Eleanor Queen was within reach, Orla caressed her back. “You don’t have to worry. It’s all just a bit more than we expected, but I’m sure your grandparents will be so happy to see you.”
Eleanor Queen lifted her eyes and Orla saw fear. No—terror. They were the eyes of someone too wise, too helpless, who knew she couldn’t escape a terrible end.
“Can’t you feel it?” Eleanor Queen whispered.
Orla didn’t want her to frighten Tycho, so she inched Eleanor Queen around the corner and into the master bedroom. She hadn’t had time to do anything more than lay out her own clothes in piles on the bed.
She was usually careful not to baby Eleanor Queen because her daughter didn’t like it, but now Orla dropped to one knee. Below her daughter’s eye level, Orla could see her face better. The girl appeared paler than usual, and she had faint purple smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. Something about her daughter seemed so very old, so very beyond the realm of her limited childhood.
“You all right? It’ll be okay soon. Papa’s digging out the car—”
“It’s very heavy; can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what, love?”
Eleanor Queen raised her eyes as if looking for something or following something. A moth, flying in herky-jerky bursts. Or maybe it was a sound she heard, a faint voice, words she couldn’t quite translate.
“It’s heavier than it’s ever been,” she said.
“I don’t know what that means.” Orla sounded more hysterical than she’d intended. But she knew what it meant: They had to leave. Go now. Even the packing was taking too long, the shoveling. She saw herself marching her children through the snow, holding their hands, dragging them if necessary to get them past an invisible boundary to where they’d be safe. “Please—can you tell me? What’s out there?”
Eleanor Queen’s head bobbled on her delicate neck. Her eyes watered but she wore the empty gaze of a person slipping into catatonia. “Papa’s in trouble.”
“What? How do you—”
“Big trouble.” She said it in a raspy whisper, sounding nothing like herself.
Orla started as Tycho popped into the doorway, his innocent face full of bewilderment. Everyone needed her—her anguished daughter, her frightened little boy, and now…what was wrong with Shaw? Her hands shook and she knew the everything’s-fine mask had tumbled off, revealing her slipshod insanity. It was all falling apart. Again. She raced around the bed and looked out the window, scanning toward her left where she expected Shaw to be shoveling behind the car.
What she saw shouldn’t have been possible. But of course it was, in this place that refused to obey the ordinary laws of space, or time.
“Take your brother to your room and don’t come out! And shut the door!”
Her urgency summoned Eleanor Queen from her trance, and she grabbed Tycho’s hand and ran. Orla didn’t want them to go back to his room, look out his window and get an even more direct view of what she’d seen by the garage. Could it get in the house? Climb the stairs?
She called to Eleanor Queen’s closed door as she raced past, “Don’t open it! Stay until I come to get you!”
Tycho whimpered, but Orla didn’t have time to soothe him. She almost stumbled on her way down the stairs but corrected her balance by reaching out to the wall on either side of the staircase. She flew into Shaw’s studio, flung open his closet door. The fucking gun locker; she’d hoped to never see it again. The combination took no effort to recall; it was her own birthday, backward. She’d insisted when Shaw set it that she’d never need to open it, but even then the words had sounded empty, uttered by her city-self, who no longer counted. Now she wished with her entire gun-hating heart that Shaw had given her more than the most basic verbal instructions; they’d yet to have the actual lesson she’d asked for.
The rifle, she remembered, was for shooting larger game, especially from a distance. The shotgun was for birds and (suicides) smaller things that might scamper away. But Orla didn’t trust her ability to aim, to hold the gun steady if the creature turned on her. She grabbed the double-barreled shotgun, cracked it open—more confidently than she had the night before—and shoved in two shells. Shaw had warned her about the kickback; she’d have to cram it tight against her shoulder, but at least a shaky aim wouldn’t matter so much. The thing outside was huge.
She bolted out the front door, leaving it shuddering in her wake as it crashed against the wall. Her strong legs helped her leap off the porch and land effortlessly in the snow. Boots. Sweaters. A part of her had known, and she was ready. She slowed down only when she was halfway between the house and the garage, then brought the shotgun to her shoulder.
The polar bear, which had been sniffing around the footprints Shaw had left in the snow behind the trapped car, reared up on its hind legs as it caught her approach. It opened its ferociously fanged mouth and made an angry sound, a roar of surprise and warning. The beast looked scraggly, not like the polar bears she’d seen in photographs, plump in their luminescent fur. She could see the bear’s ribs through its too-thin chest. In another circumstance—had it been a photo in National Geographic revealing the impact of global warming on starving predators—she might have pitied it.
“Shaw!” Orla tried to peer around the bear. Oh God, was she too late? The shovel was still there, abandoned in the snow. She feared Shaw was lying somewhere out of sight in a pool of blood, his innards exposed and half eaten. But maybe he was hiding on the other side of the garage. He didn’t reply, but she didn’t give up hope; maybe she could still save him.
Papa’s in trouble.
The bear dropped onto all fours and wagged its head back and forth with its lip curled up in a snarl. Orla, in spite of her ignorance of the outdoors, sensed what it was doing: gauging her, intimidating her, preparing to atta
ck.
She took a cautious step back. In spite of how she’d charged out of the house, ready to kill, the reality of it was quite different. Uneasy, niggling thoughts came to her; a warning sign flashed somewhere in her mind. She’d worried about bears since they’d first moved in, had even mentioned polar bears out loud, after which Eleanor Queen had explained the meaning of Antarctica. It should have been enough that they were nowhere near the North or South Pole, but this place conjured impossible things. The bear didn’t look like a mirage, and Shaw—wherever he was, hiding or unconscious—needed her help. Hungry bears would eat humans; she remembered watching a documentary with Shaw, grisly but compelling, about a man who misjudged his expertise in the wild. And once a bear had a taste of human flesh, it wouldn’t stop. In the film, the expert was eaten alive as audio rolled, as his unlucky girlfriend tried to beat off his attacker with a frying pan. The bear ate her too.
And after all the other weird shit that had happened, why couldn’t a starving bear from the Arctic break into their house? Clamber up the stairs and devour her children? Nothing was impossible anymore.
Orla rocked from side to side on her feet, inching backward as the polar bear started to advance. It roared at her. Reared again. An abominable snow monster towering above her head.
Her finger on the trigger. The gun’s butt wedged against her shoulder. Orla fired.
The explosive noise, the force, made her wince and take a stumbling step. But she hit her target. A spray of blood stained the bear’s exposed chest and stomach. It staggered. Dropped. Lay in a sprawl, its chin on the snow, and emitted a whoof of foggy breath.
“No!” The scream came from behind her. From the porch. Eleanor Queen.
Orla turned to her, wary that the beast, though down, might yet return to its feet. “Go back inside!”
“Mama, no!” Eleanor Queen ran down the porch steps and stumbled toward the bear.
Orla swiftly intercepted her and caught her in one arm.
“Mama!” Eleanor Queen fought against her grip.
