by Kim Zarins
The next morning, just before dawn, Wilbur woke up in high anticipation. He trotted back and forth in his pen, and then, finally, Charlotte called down to him from a high beam. She seemed to be a kind of vampire, because she sucked blood, but at least her no-nonsense personality meant he wouldn’t hear rutting jokes from her.
Then, to Wilbur’s alarm, Rooster crowed for an emergency meeting.
“What is it?” snapped Templeton. “Do you need a friend too?”
With his clawed toes, Rooster scratched the ground angrily. “I have enough playmates, as you well know! All of you, listen up. This is truly important. I had a terrible dream—an ill omen for us all.”
His entire harem trembled, and the whole barn heard him out.
He paced as morning light streamed through the rafters and played upon his brilliant feathers. “Lives are in terrible danger! Last night I dreamed there was a fierce creature we‘ve never seen before. The animal came to our farm and attacked me. The hungry beast tore into me with his sharp teeth. This vision is surely a warning. Some creature of death is coming our way. I’m deadly serious—I bring you tidings of dreams, desire, and death.”
Mari flashes me a mischievous smile that I have to return. She’s woven in a line from my Morpheus story. She’s parodying me, and E. B. White, and possibly more. Her simple story actually isn’t so simple. It’s brilliant, like everything she does.
“Dreams? You’re not serious.” Templeton yawned. “I could be sifting through Zuckerman’s garbage, but instead, I’m stuck here listening to Rooster’s dreams? What, dreaming of a tractor or something?”
“This wasn’t a tractor. It was smaller.”
Templeton scoffed. “Oh, I’m shaking.”
“After a dream, you’ve only got to wakey-akey-akey,” advised the goose.
Surrounded with indifference and misunderstanding, Rooster turned to the wives and concubines he’s always counted on, and especially his great love, Pertelote.
But Pertelote wasn’t having it either. “Did you take your medicine last night? You know, the laxatives?”
The animals all gave their varied squawks and brays and squeaks of surprise and gleeful alarm. “WHAT?”
Pertelote explained. “Oh, it’s that all-corn diet. Can’t digest it properly. Takes laxatives to soften things. Softens the brains, too, you know? Laxatives really mess up dreams. We shouldn’t worry.”
“What do you think, Charlotte?” Wilbur asked. “You’re clever, and you’d know what these dreams add up to.”
Charlotte dangled before them all on a glistening strand. “Dream interpretation is a pseudoscience. I wouldn’t put much stock in dreams without more evidence.”
Pertelote fluffled her ample feathers. “There, see?”
So Rooster tried to forget his bad dream, which wasn’t hard to do, considering how lovely his wives and concubines were. He began treading feathers then and there, much to Wilbur’s discomfort.
While Wilbur and Charlotte were getting more deeply acquainted, and Rooster took his treading act out toward the henhouse, no one noticed a new visitor to Zuckerman’s farm. Not much bigger than a barn cat, but much cleverer, the fox found his way to Rooster’s henhouse.
Pertelote shrieked. “What’s that?” All the hens flapped to the roof of their henhouse, and Rooster was right there with them, though he was at the edge of the sloping roof and closest to the strange creature. It would be a near miss at best if the strange creature could jump.
“I’m terribly sorry,” the fox said, his head bowed with a show of apology. “I didn’t mean to frighten anyone. But, oh my, you are a beautiful animal.”
Rooster fluffed up his tail feathers to advantage. “I’m sure you meant no harm,” he said, somewhat mollified.
The fox’s amber eyes watched Rooster with a loving expression. “You must be that magical bird with the singing abilities. I’ve heard the songs of your kind before—only the males deliver that crooning song of raw beauty and power.”
Rooster trilled a little cock-a-doodle, with a question mark at the end of it, as if to say, Ah, that little thing of mine?
The fox’s mouth opened in a canine smile. “Like that, yes, but with more force! When the eyes are shut tight with concentration, and the gorgeous throat extends to unleash the full power of song, there is nothing to compare it to. What I wouldn’t give for just one rapturous performance!”
Rooster’s eyes popped open with delight. Even Pertelote had never praised his song so highly. “Well, if I have a fan . . .”
The fox whined with the hunger of fandom.
And like a diva, Rooster screwed shut his eyes and gave a terrific crow.
“COCK-A-DOO—”
He got no further. Instantly, the fox leaped into the air and snapped his jaws around Rooster’s elongated neck, landing nimbly on black-gloved paws with Rooster’s body underneath. Wasting no time, the fox took off running with his prey, Rooster’s long tail dragging in the dust.
Hens screamed, the geese picked up the panic, and all the animals went berserk. Wilbur went mad with fright, sending up a high-pitched wail and running aimlessly around his pen while the fox was trying to pass through the barn, with Rooster in tow. There was a terrific crash, and the fox bounced off Wilbur, completely winding him, and Rooster, now free of the fox’s jaws, beat his wings until he was up with Charlotte on the high rafters.
“Ah, love, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the fox told Rooster, looking up with longing and then glaring at Wilbur. “I only wished to take you out of this prison and go somewhere where we can enjoy your music . . . in privacy. Won’t you come down, my dear?”
Rooster, whose throat was bruised, rasped, “I have no idea what ‘privacy’ means, but I see right through your sweet words. Think I’d fall for your fandom act a second time? Eat my tail feathers!”
Charlotte waved at the fox. “Speaking of which, look who’s on your bushy tail!”
Lurvy and Zuckerman were running pell-mell toward the barn, but not as fast as Zuckerman’s dogs, who were frantic to get at the fox.
The fox beat it out of the barn, and they never saw him again.
“Well, well!” Rooster crowed, at last coming down, noticing he had a huge audience gathered to see him. “I’m all right, friends! If it weren’t for Wilbur here, I’d have been that animal’s lunch. That’s some pig!”
All his wives and concubines gathered around Wilbur and bawked “Some pig! Some pig! Ba-kah, ba-kah!”
And when Charlotte needed to save Wilbur’s life by writing words in her web, these were the words that seemed the perfect ones to write. The end.
“Aw, that was cute!” Mouse says.
Rooster chuckles. “Yeah. I’m kinda cute when you give me a harem. Nice one, Mari.”
She leans on one elbow. “Thanks. Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it?”
“Both of my cockles,” he says with gusto. “Cockles. Wattle. Treading feathers. Mari, you are my Word Girl.”
Rooster looks at Mari like he’s noticing her for the first time. Not just as a brain, but as a woman. It’s like her tale rampant with chicken sex was a female mating call for him. They’d be like Hermione and Ron, wit on her side and a redhead jock on his. I’m probably just hallucinating, thinking of Mari and Rooster as a pair. I don’t think she’d appreciate knowing he’s been a steady client (my favorite client—try writing a C-minus paper on The Scarlet Letter in Rooster’s voice, and it will be more fun than getting drunk, though you’ll need to be to write the paper). Not a likely match.
But, on days like today, anything can happen.
Or not. Pard still won’t return my glances. This must be how it felt sophomore year when I’d walk past him like he wasn’t there. For months. I need to apologize. At least after high school, when I think of him, I’ll know I did that much.
SOPHIE’S TALE
Mr. Bailey reads the slip of paper in his hand. “Sophie, it’s your turn!”
Sophie giggles shyly. She’s tr
ying hard not to look nervous, and then the group gets all pep-talky and cute, saying, You’ll do great!
So. An angel and a devil fell in love.
The girls go wild, and Mari fist-pumps. “Is that line from Laini Taylor? This is going to be awesome.”
“I’ll take a story with hot angels and devils!” Lupe says.
Sophie smiles, but when she pushes back her hair, her hand is trembling. Sophie is not as painfully shy as she was before she hung out with Mari, but still, this will be the first time I’ve heard Sophie speak to a group for anything more than a few sentences.
The angel and devil were both assigned to the same soul.
It was young Constance’s first assignment in the mortal world.
When she found her mortal, a boy named Fabius, the devil was already corrupting him. It was a small sin, to harbor resentment against his parents over some rules, but still, it could lead to greater transgressions. Constance worked through Fabi’s tangle of emotions, and she found him. The devil.
“There you are,” he said, almost as if she were late for a date. He looked her up and down. “You’re new.”
She flexed her wings. “Clearly, you are his demon. I think I can handle you. Don’t assume I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He tilted his head. “I called you new, not inept. You’re too beautiful to be an old hand at this tiring game.”
She reasoned aloud. “Then you are also new.”
He raised his eyebrows, and she blushed at the implication that she’d called him beautiful. “I’m hardly new. Only experienced demons can be beautiful. Temptation is a beautiful thing, or didn’t you know that?”
Mouse squees. “Sophie, you’re a natural! That demon is hot!”
Franklin nuzzles Mouse’s neck and repeats, “Temptation is a beautiful thing.”
You can imagine what happens next. Their rivalry in steering their mortal became charged with their feelings, until Constance cared less about Fabius and more about Sowdain, the demon. At some point they followed their mortal around like balloons on a string but forgot to get into his head. They talked to each other instead, walked side by side.
And then something happened.
The mortal, now grown, was walking to the local ovens for his bread. There was a spring in his step. He was getting married soon, to a pretty young woman. It made Constance oddly wistful to see all the preparations nearly at an end.
Sowdain dropped some news on her all at once. “I’m going to be reassigned.”
She tensed like he’d slapped her. “How can that be? Our assignments are for life.”
“For the mortal’s life. Yes. Or ours.”
“Well, then. The man is young, and we are immortal.” Constance was still new. She didn’t understand.
Sowdain snagged a roll from the baker, which no one saw, of course. He broke off a few pieces and let them fall for the birds. “I don’t eat bread, my dear. I eat souls. I nibble away at their lies, resentments, and lust. When the mortal is won, I feed. I live. And then I do it again. Lately, I lost my knack for angling for this mortal’s soul. I’ve missed meals and feel myself fading. I’ve been . . . distracted. It’s negligence my commanders haven’t noticed yet, or maybe they are just waiting for the right time to end this. I’ll be replaced soon, and when I am, there won’t be time for farewells. If I’m a convincing liar, I’ll be assigned to grunt work. If not, they’ll feed on me. Either way, my time here will end suddenly. That’s why I’m telling you now. I want you to know. I want you to remember me when I’m gone.”
He dropped the last of the bread and wiped his hands free of crumbs.
She caught his hands. “You can’t go. We have to save you!”
He chuckled, but he squeezed her hands just the same. “Spoken like an angel. Saving. It’s your business, but I’m not your client. What would you advise?”
“Perhaps . . . perhaps Fabius could—” Could what? “Lie? Would that be enough?” Constance was too innocent to imagine what sins the mortal could do.
Sowdain’s eyes glowed like the coal fires. “Hmm. That’s a dangerous suggestion for an angel to make. I will do nothing that implicates you. Instead, may I suggest a different indiscretion altogether?”
She pulled back at the sound of his voice, but he had her hands. He only gave them up to slide his hands up her arms to her neck, her face.
He kissed her. He couldn’t help it anymore.
Constance had never been kissed before. She was young for pairing. Yet she kissed him back. They stayed that way, kissing on the market street, for some time, invisible to everyone else and lost to each other.
They were in love, and he apologized for tasting her soul. He offered to abandon his post. He didn’t want to jeopardize her position. Her life. He didn’t want to devour her.
Constance, being an angel, saw the situation differently. She wanted to marry him. When angels have sex, their souls mingle as one. She was young, she could sustain him, she was sure. And she wanted to.
And against his better judgment, he said yes.
It was a foolish plan. They abandoned Fabius and eloped. Then everything ended. Suddenly.
Angels and demons swooped in and attacked the lovers and one another. The lovers were unarmed and stood to one side, fighting only when attacked. Many died. So did Sowdain, and what happens to the souls of the demons, only God knows.
“No!” Briony wailed. “You can’t take him out!”
Mouse piped in. “Yeah. I’m so mad at you! But go on!”
Alison was almost jumping in her seat. “It’s more Game of Thrones this way. Makes you keep guessing.”
“Or is this some sort of tragic ending?” Briony asks.
“There’s more,” Sophie says. Her voice is quieter now than it was a moment before, but she doesn’t look nervous. “If that’s okay?”
The angels won the skirmish and took back Constance. She was judged for her actions.
She was guilty of leaving her post, her mortal unguided.
She was guilty of conspiring with a devil and giving herself to him.
She was guilty of using the human world for purposes denied to her order.
The archangel ruled that she would wander the pathways of the Earth by water or road and have no access to nor insight of either Heaven or Hell. She would appear human, with a human’s physical needs for food and clothing and shelter.
She became an exile, a wanderer.
There were rules to her wandering. The main rule was to keep moving. She couldn’t stay anywhere long. When she tried, the pain was unbearable. When she lay down at an inn, she awoke on a road. She would get up and keep moving.
Years passed.
Our story next picks up in the modern day at a Greyhound station.
A woman boarded a bus. She had a pass that let her onto any Greyhound in the country. And she rode all day and all night. She crossed from New York to California and back again. She was known as the Bus Lady.
Mostly, people left her alone. Her tattered clothes and her snarled hair marked her as homeless. Sometimes someone leaving the bus would give her a dollar, or a granola bar, or a novel, and these gifts would keep her going.
Then there was the night with the scary man. The bus had a lot of empty seats, and the scary man came and sat behind her. A young man at the front cast a nervous glance her way.
“Pretty thing,” the scary man said.
The Bus Lady had to fight off would-be rapists before, and she got up and moved toward the front.
The scary man shouted, “Hey, that’s rude, leaving in the middle of a conversation! That’s rude behavior!”
There were only a few people on the bus. The young man signaled to her, so she sat next to him.
They waited a long time, but eventually, the scary man got off at his stop.
The young man sighed. “I’ve been waiting forever for that guy to take off. I’m sorry, but I forgot to ask your name. I’m Alan.”
The Bus Lady smiled. “Constan
ce.”
They talked. Constance didn’t say who she really was. She was on the move, with a past behind her, and that was enough. Alan had a past too. He was a young man caught between divorced parents, a violent mother, a distant father. His hope was to go to college next year and stay in one place: his own.
When it came time to sleep, they shared the seat, propping their legs on the other side, their bodies close. There was comfort hearing the young man breathe in his sleep. They stayed together for the entire next day, and the next. Talking, riding in silent company, sharing a book. But mostly talking.
On Alan’s last day on the bus, they both began to speak at the same time. “You first,” he said.
She told him her secret, that she had loved someone and saw him die. It was good to finally tell someone, to trust someone. He had no answers, but she expected none. She only wanted someone to help her hold her truth. They fell silent.
Then she asked him, “What were you going to tell me?”
He shook his head. “It’s not important.” But she’d seen enough inside him to know he was lying. Long after, she’d realize what he meant was that he was not important—he didn’t feel worthy to declare his feelings when he could never match this other man who died defending her.
They said good-bye at sunset. He gave her his money, his iPad (with his library), his journal, his jacket, the pack around his shoulders—everything that might be useful to her.
Everything but himself.
Then he was gone. She continued on her route, but the world had changed. She was restless. She read everything he had given her. She read and reread his journal. And with the pen in the backpack, she started writing her first words.
“Constance?”
It was a few years later, on another bus, in another state, and she looked up to see the face she’d imagined so many times: Alan. She didn’t know how it happened, but he slid in next to her and held her so close for so long. She tilted her head to focus on the feeling of his fingers over her snarled hair.
She’d imagined they’d have a rush of words between them if they’d ever met again, but, instead, it was a rush of touching in silence. Holding hands. Holding. Her finger on his cheek. Alan was a little older, but she was not.
