Grunting, she rolled the boy off her and started snapping. “Rob. Rob! Hello?”
Something blocked the light. Then Rob was there.
“Damn it, I told you to put him in the floor.”
“You told me a storm was coming.”
Hoisting Mijo over a shoulder, he crawled toward the hatch. Sestra scrambled after him, helping him brace against the rocking. Through all of it, Mijo never once opened his eyes.
Light briefly scored the floor in front of them, then was swallowed up again as something big squirmed in front of it.
“Oh shit.”
Mijo’s body thumped into the hatch. Rob slammed the door shut. “Let’s hope this holds.”
Sestra rose, her gait unsteady, like that time she stole a skateboard and crashed into a bench.
She broke into a sprint up the stairs, Rob cursing after her.
“Girl, damn it, what the hell are you doing?”
But he was right after her—still a swift old bird when he wanted to be. He caught her by the ankle, and she slammed her chin on the top step as she fell.
“What the fuck?” She spat a piece of chipped tooth at him. There wasn’t much left of them anyway.
“You can’t go up there, Ses.”
She kicked at his hand. “Get off me!”
He made no attempt to hide his fear, the façade of unshakable machismo cracking like two-day-old makeup. “It’s a posy.”
“I know.”
It took another kick, but his grip wasn’t as tight. He released her, and before she could think twice about what she was doing, she emerged topside into a nest of monsters.
It was enough to make her stop breathing. She might have just up and suffocated if not for the jostle that buckled her knees. Down she went again, supplicant to the god that held her.
It sounded like a shitload of snakes slithering inside her head, except that it wasn’t coming from her imagination, but the tentacles wrapping around the bow of the boat. They looped around it like a snake killing a rat. It took a few moments for her to understand that the groaning was coming from the shift of the boat and not the posy. She was afraid to move, yet mesmerized.
Somewhere below her, water slammed viciously against itself, though she couldn’t see it from where she stood.
She should be able to see it. Where was the water?
There was movement behind her that instinct told her was Rob, but as it grazed against her back, it was obviously much bigger and stronger than him. Darting forward, she faced a wall of tentacle writhing in front of the door like a barricade. They were everywhere—behind, on top, on all sides of everything. Just heaps of gray rubber, so many that she couldn’t even fathom the creature they belonged to.
The cabin was silent.
“Rob?” The words were faint—too dainty and delicate to be heard.
Where was the water?
There wasn’t a place anywhere not touched by the posy. She didn’t know what it would do. It could heave her overboard. It could snatch her up. It could snap the boat in two and catch her as she sank.
It could have done any of those things by now, but it hadn’t.
She took a step. Aiming for a spot along the rail less congested with tentacles, she took another and another step. Nothing flinched. Nothing moved but her and the occasional flex of posy-muscle. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the thing was growing tired of holding the boat like this, but she couldn’t explain where that idea came from.
Step.
Two more.
Step.
As soon as she reached the rail, she immediately stepped back again, unable to believe what she was seeing.
Where the fuck was the water?
The sky opened, dropping itself onto the top of her head. It splattered against the boat. It filled the ocean that now raged a good twenty feet below her. The posy held the boat in the air, presenting them like an offering to something larger and meaner.
In shock, she froze there for she didn’t know how long.
The posy slapped here and there against the boat, every movement sounding like a bad cold.
“It’s holding us up.” She wasn’t sure if Rob could hear her, but she said it anyway. “It’s holding us above the waves.” As if physics itself had had a stroke, this thing held them up.
She didn’t know what to do. It was everywhere and it trapped her topside with it, but otherwise ignored her. Like it wanted her to see it, to say to her, “Look, bitch. You see all I do for you?”
As if an affirmation, the boat jostled again, flinging Sestra to one side. Things thumped and crashed inside the cabin. The beast loosened its grip on one side, tilting them threateningly.
“No no no.” The boat tipped more, and she slid across the top. Just when she was sure she would fly overboard, the boat would settle. Each toss got her nearer to touching one of its tentacles, and each time she’d claw at the floor to avoid it. They continued this sparring match until she was sure it would toss her aside and be done with her. It couldn’t—it shouldn’t—be doing this on purpose, but it sure fucking felt like it was, and she was outmatched in every way.
Wood cracked and bolts rolled across the deck. This crappy vessel couldn’t handle much more. The posy could set them down with the care of a new mother and still sink them. And it sure seemed intent to toy with her, in particular.
Thinking of Mijo and Rob, of the flood and soggy attics, she let the posy fling her once more. This time she didn’t resist, landing hard in the knot of tentacles blocking the cabin.
It felt like rope and muscle. It felt slippery. It felt strong.
And she felt nothing.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting—some epiphany, a vision. Something to explain all this. She was so sure that it was trying to communicate with her that she was disappointed when it appeared to have nothing else to say. It could at least have the decency to strangle her or some shit.
She reached for it, grazing her fingertips against its smooth skin, which it allowed for a moment before pulling its long tendril away. Not that it seemed to mind much—the posy did not flinch, simply removed itself from her reach. Each time she picked a new spot, the posy would readjust itself, until she set about her curiosity with more purpose, picking and choosing which to touch and which to leave.
Well folks, this one’s a structural tentacle, so it can’t be removed. But we can fancy it up with some real nice sconces.
She didn’t understand the game but felt sure they were in the middle of playing one. Somewhere beneath her, a man began to curse.
“What the fuck are you doing, woman?”
Sestra had never been more relieved to hear his shitty, condescending voice. “It’s fucking with me.”
“We’re going down,” he said.
“It’s still holding us. It hasn’t let go.”
“I see water through the window.”
Now that she thought about it, they were moving. She assumed her stomach lurching stemmed from the close proximity to a faceless creature that could crush her in a single flick. The frothy peaks of waves darted around her like a game of whack-a-mole.
“What do I do?”
Rob was quiet, then offered all that he had. “I don’t know.”
“Great. Thanks.”
They couldn’t have been in the air that long. Minutes maybe. Now it was just going to set them down as if nothing had happened. For what? Just to sink now instead of a few minutes ago.
Tentacles whipped themselves away from her back as the boat lowered closer to the water. Their swiftness threw her up, backside crashing down again in uncomfortable places.
The boat landing on the choppy surface stole her breath away like a punch to her sternum, and she flew feet-over-head into the cabin.
Rob appeared over her as she moaned in pain. �
�Foolish girl,” would be all he’d say regarding the matter.
Caught in the ocean again, the boat throbbed in the waves, occasionally jerking in the crash. Rob went up to watch, to look for the posy probably, to be the first person to announce their inevitable death like a bitter Paul Revere. Sestra scooted toward the floor hatch. Shivering yet alert, Mijo whimpered as she lifted it up.
“Hey hey hey. Shhh. It’s fine. You’re okay.” The heat of his fever penetrated to the bone, but he was awake. He was scared. He was listening.
“Kid,” she said, too shaken to think in another language. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Up and down again, she lost her grip and the hatch slammed shut. From inside, Mijo began to scream.
“Shit, kid, I’m sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.” The moment she lifted it again, his hands darted toward her. She helped him out, bracing against the sway using the metal holes in the floor that used to support a table. Mijo curled into her lap and she held him, rubbing her fingers through his sticky hair.
The posy was still out there. She watched the windows, waiting for it to yank them down. Rob’s heavy thumping reassured her that he was not only still alive but pissed off and confused as well. She was better suited for down here anyway.
It bothered her that she couldn’t contain Mijo’s trembling. She could hold him and whisper at him all sorts of shit about it being okay, and neither one of them would believe it. He had his ear pressed against her chest— he could hear how fast her heart was beating. Fear coursed between them like a parasite. They breathed it on each other. Inhaled it.
Fear was all any of them had in common anymore.
“My sister told me story once,” she said. “Mi hermana, she told me about monsters when I was a lot littler than you. I don’t even know if this is true or not—maybe I dreamed it—but I’m remembering it now and I’m fucking terrified so I’m going to tell it to you just so we have something to do. Okay?”
And to her surprise, Mijo nodded.
“Good. Okay.” Sestra took a breath, suddenly afraid to continue. She hadn’t spoken of her sister in a long time. It fucking killed her that she wished more than anything that she was still here.
“She used to read me stories. Every night I’d go into her room and she’d pull the same storybook out—I can’t remember the title of it now—but they were fucked up. I remember them being scary as hell. But I liked them. Something perverse about the both of us, I guess. We read each of them so many times that sometimes I can still remember little bits of them, or, more the cadence of them. The words don’t stick, but the rhythm of a story stuck somewhere in my brain like a song that sounds familiar, but you know you’ve never heard it before. One night, she didn’t bring out the book like usual. Said she was going to tell me a new story. Shit, I had to have been a toddler—three or four years old—and I remember thinking that she was about to drop some heavy shit on me, and I’d better pay attention. Funny how it comes to you, decades later. She probably thought I forgot about it, and to be honest I did for a while, but . . .”
They rocked violently. Water dripped onto her head from a leak somewhere above them.
“Anyway, she starts on about this little girl that had run away. She was barefoot and cold and in her jammies and stuff, but she kept running. She made it down a couple streets and then it got really dark. It was cold and things were watching her and growling. The girl tried to hide but the things—the thing—found her anyway. My sister said that a monster came after the girl. She said it watched her. That it was always watching. She tried to run, and it followed her. She said it had a dozen hands and sharp teeth. That didn’t scare me, though. Most of the shit she read to me was about nasty, evil things, and they always described the bad guys in detail. Trolls and witches and evil men, all with bad teeth and long fingernails and beards and shit. But my sister refused to tell me any more about this monster. Could have been one of those insert-personal-demons-here kind of thing, but I think it really scared her. And I’ll tell you, seeing her so damn scared was the most frightening thing to ever happen to little me. I was a stupid kid.”
She reasoned she was an even stupider adult.
“So, she tells me this, then tells me that the girl ran back home because she could hear her little sister crying. She made sure to run for a long time, to hide for a long time, just to make sure that the monster didn’t see her. When she was as sure as she could be, she came home. The cops were there. They asked the girl where she’d been, but she refused to tell them. They wouldn’t believe her anyway. They asked and asked until they became angry with her, but still she didn’t tell. What the girl did do was keep quiet, move carefully, and plot. The girl learned what was really important and what wasn’t. She learned that no matter how hard you try, your monsters always follow, so you’d better get that vagina good and tough and ready to fight. Well, she didn’t exactly say that, but you know. That’s when we started playing the monster game. Wow, I forgot all about that.”
Sestra trailed off despite herself. While the sea around them raged and Rob marched, shit knocking against the hull like missiles, she’d forgotten that she’d been speaking aloud and retreated seamlessly into thought.
The bad memories and the good ones must have gotten all tangled up—she’d repressed them all. It frightened her now how easy it had been to forget herself.
Knotted together, they stayed below in silence. Even when the water leaked in, forming a film on the floor. Even as the storm smothered itself and the sky cracked a purple dawn. She held him, listening to his breathing.
She’d have thought the calm and Mijo’s sleepy whimpers would have set her at ease, but something else pressurized within her chest. It felt sticky and thick like mucus. Like the time she got a bad chimichanga from a food truck. Indigestion ate at her from the inside out. Rage, but not really rage.
Closing her eyes, she saw black. With blinking, the black became clearer. Uneven and full of holes. Pebbles vibrated across the surface. It was split in two by broken white lines. It was asphalt and she was speeding across the top of it in her car. Her brain was a flat tire, just slapping at the road. Sparks flying all over the damn place while she tried to reach inside and pluck out a coherent thought, but there wasn’t anything there to grab onto—just a melted soup. It dripped out of her ears, out of her eyes. Her face was wet, and she couldn’t see.
The hunk-of-shit car rattled as she floored it. Wherever she was going, she was going to get there fast. Going somewhere fast. Anywhere.
Sestra tried to put it all together. When did she get in the car? Why? What had she been doing just before? Why was she so upset? Nothing made sense except the road underneath her and pain her chest, sharp as glass.
She didn’t feel the rumble at first. Fuck, she thought it was just her—damn nerves were shot to hell. But it grew. The car popped all over the place until she was pretty sure she wasn’t even on the ground anymore.
There’s a hole in your roof.
Road and road and road, and then instead of it being below her, it lurched upright.
Monster! Monster!
Rocks rained onto the hood of the car. The road rose like a titan shaking away a long slumber, pieces of it cracking with age and disuse. It pulled itself up, flipping her puny little car onto its back. Turning and flipping and rolling—she smelled smoke, a penny taste soaking into her tongue.
A cry emerged—one she didn’t know she possessed. A wail so full of knives that the sound of it slashed at her body. The car was gone and face down on the asphalt. She screamed until exhaustion stole the breath from her.
Everything hurt, and something moved below her. It wriggled like worms in the dirt, but it was bigger than worms. The asphalt wasn’t asphalt anymore. She was floating, and below her the monster ballooned in size, limbs lashing toward her.
She was sure it would get her—it moved like it wanted to, but every time one of its pie
ces got close, it slithered somewhere else. By the looks of it, the thing was holding on to something else, something bigger than her. Ropy monster tendrils lurched out as if grabbing something she couldn’t see. And just when she thought she’d seen every part of the thing, another limb snuck out of its middle. One more and one more. It snaked around her, at home in the darkness like she never could be.
Then she was home again.
Ma’s oak table was strewn with cards and matching silver envelopes. Thea sat across from her mother and Doris, stuffing, sealing, and stacking wedding invitations. Her fingers stung from the mixture of paper cuts and envelope glue. It’d been two damn hours of this. Water pooled underneath the table, soaking through her shoes.
Doris stretched her arms above her head.
“Yes,” Ma said. “We should all take a quick break.”
Thea slumped in her chair, the first time she’d been allowed to do so since her nine-in-the-morning, door-pounding wake-up. Get up. You can’t sleep all day. Every word was laced with another. You live here rent free. You don’t have a job. You’re not drunk, are you? Fun things Ma loved to imply but loathed to say.
When Thea had tried to take a piss earlier, Ma had followed her, so she’d just decided to not move at all until given the official decree. While Doris surgeon-scrubbed her hands at the kitchen sink, their mother circled the table, stacking and restacking piles of completed invitations. Reaching Thea’s pile, she paused, grabbed the topmost card, and pulled it to her nose.
“What’s this?” she said, thumbing the corner of the envelope.
Thea pushed the chair away from the table. “An invitation, I presume.”
“It’s dirty.”
“So?”
“You can’t send this out.”
Thea patted the cigarettes in her pocket. “It’s just the envelope.”
Ma’s lips curled around her top teeth. “It’s a wedding invitation, not a cable bill.”
“Better inform the mailman to fetch his wedding tongs, then, for safe handling. Look—it comes off.” Thea wiped the smudge away with her finger, dulling the pearlescent luster of the envelope. “It’s just dust.”
A Flood of Posies Page 14
