Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  It chirped and with it’s perfectly round bird eyes, it regarded Abigail. Maybe it was trying to look at Abigail from its nest. Maybe it just leaned over too far trying to get a peek at the creature down below, then it fell. It fell to me. Abigail scooped it up. No mama bird in sight.

  “Were you trying to figure me out Mr. Teensy Weensy birdy?” Abigail smiled at the bird, held it with gentle hands, and spoke to it in a sing-song tone. The type of sing-song voice that she pathetically wished would have been spoken to her as a girl.

  For a short, tiny while, Abigail felt a strong sense of nurturing. She could figure out how to nurture this baby bird. She would find that spot inside her that knew how to take care of things, love things, and make little baby birds feel safe in her grasp. Then, the dot popped a little heat, a jealous little pump of I don’t think so from the dot to the dot’s mama. The heat punched Abigail’s insides and took Abigail’s gentle hands and turned them mean. She bashed the bird’s tiny skull against the tree. One solid whack was all it took for the chirping to stop and the trees to hiss at Abigail. But, this mattered not to the dot. Abigail heard no disapproving hiss and happily tossed the bird’s body back and forth between both hands. She did this for a long moment, watching it pop from one hand to the other, enjoying the fragility of the creature. On one hand, Abigail felt empowered by being the cause of its death; then on the other, there was a wretched shame at what was now done.

  But it wasn’t Abigail who did this wretched thing. It was the dot who was just starting to get a sense of what she was. She was a small dot, not much to bother noticing, but she had a tiny glimmer of what she could do with her host, and the dot liked it. The dot would grow stronger and do more. Poor Abigail was once again muddled and infantile, but not useless; she was such a nice starting point for the dot, that the dot almost felt a fondness for her… almost, but not quite.

  Watching the sun start to hit the trees, Abigail felt as if she was pushed awake. What had happened? She was in the woods and the sun was just starting its day, now this the sun was setting. It was just like The Grey where Abigail was ‘pushed awake’ by the other girls almost every morning. Hurry up slow poke, the Mothers are coming. But, now it wasn’t morning and she wasn’t in The Grey. She was in the woods; the sun was up. Now, the sun was setting. She felt like she had been day dreaming the whole time, but knew she wasn’t. Lapses of time were starting to disappear in Abigail’s memory and this wasn’t because she was useless, infantile; it was because she was starting to slowly lose control of the reins. Abigail knew her dot would overwhelm her sooner or later—just like sooner or later the Mothers would come. Abigail licked her lips, breathed in deep, while still popping the bird from hand to hand. Stop that, stop it now, Abigail told her hands. Then, she let go of the dead baby bird. An old cat wandered by. The sunset was warning her that the guy would be home any minute. She didn’t want him to see this, to see that sometimes she did things that weren’t nice and weren’t lady-like—that sometimes when she did these things, it wasn’t her, but the her inside of her. Abigail didn’t want him to fear their little dot of a daughter, not yet.

  The Thinker

  Looking around his bedroom at his parent’s house, he couldn’t get over himself. Maybe he couldn’t get over the dreamer he was—the dreamer he is—or maybe he couldn’t get over once believing that everything in his world lay at his feet. His maps were a reminder that he, like most, was human and unable to aspire to anything he wanted. He stood looking at his favorite map, a simple one from the dollar store of the United States. As a kid, he had drawn circles in pencil around all the states he wanted to visit.

  First, in his little-kid mind, he’d visit Texas. He’d see the cowboys and horses. Then, he’d travel up and into South Dakota—not really knowing what was there, but the name seemed interesting. Then, he’d head over to Tennessee to really find out what country music was about. His little-kid mind had it all mapped out. His adult mind was disappointed in himself for never bothering to listen to his childhood.

  The maps were now almost insulting; they were hung on his walls, on his desk rolled up in tubes, and all over his bedroom. They mocked him every time they caught his eye; yet there they stayed. Why they stayed, he wasn’t sure. He should toss them, but tossing them meant giving up and admitting he had already done that years ago. And that made him feel less. He always felt less. The only job his maps gave him now was when Teresa snuck about his room; she’d pick up map after map studying them. She acted as if she was kept in a dungeon her whole life and didn’t know of this world.

  Sitting at his desk, he wondered where Teresa was, and what she was doing. It was times like these that he was sure he should be out looking for work, or maybe going to a class, a training, anything to make believe he was more than he was. But, it always ended the same; he’d eventually loath the job enough to pretend it didn’t exist which got him fired. He’d stop going to class or show up for class out of boredom never bothering to do any of the class work.

  The only thing that was consistent was his nagging feeling that he wasn’t the man he should be and the odd bits and ends of poetry that, once written, made him feel cleansed. Grabbing his keyboard, he wanted to write something, something…there was a novel brewing in him, this he knew, but when he sat to write, poetry always poured out. A modern-day man with the mind of a poet, how romantically worthless.

  He was black and white;

  Well, he believed he was.

  A simple man,

  A thinking man,

  The type of man who

  Could contemplate

  For hours—

  Believing his thoughts

  Had a depth.

  No other could conquer

  he, only he

  would know the

  little secrets

  locked inside

  gigantic doors,

  because he was a

  thinking man

  who could be

  astounded by the

  mundane,

  never taken for granted,

  boring, everyday

  tick tock

  heartbeat of humanity.

  All believed humanity

  was a mess,

  a toss-up between

  animal

  and beast.

  The thinking man

  saw things backwards

  and upside down.

  Humanity was a creature

  that was evolving

  daily,

  hourly, and

  no matter

  the contemplation,

  the creature

  of people

  he still had hope for

  Blowing his nose, he stared at his computer screen. Was he this man? Did he still have hope for humanity? Even he believed himself worthless and unable to grasp his potential, but he was part of humanity, wasn’t he?

  Fucking lost cause, but he hit save on his computer anyway.

  Teresa

  Teresa stood in the shower…annoyed with her breath, her breasts, and her wants. The fact that she liked the bounce of her breasts was a ridiculous, narcissistic observation of herself. Pounding the shower wall, Teresa cursed herself for her desire to have his hands on her breasts and the utterly non-Woman of The Grey want for coffee. She was not liking the person she was becoming, because she was, in fact, being a person, not a Woman of The Grey.

  Inch-by-inch, this daily human grind was not Teresa’s niche, yet it was becoming her, assimilating to the most encrypted rhythm of human nature. How disgusting was she? Teresa was not human, this she knew. Teresa knew she wasn’t like them, but she wasn’t sure exactly what she was. Teresa felt like the foster kid in the family, living among them, but not really one of them. She was better than human, this she knew to be her truth, but she wasn’t exactly not human.

  Sitting at the kitchen table after her shower, every sip of coffee brought on an ounce or two of self-loathing. Coffee was just another way that Teresa was becoming a more basic
human. Soon, she pictured herself spending hours staring at a smart phone, painting her nails in vibrant colors, and taking selfies. Teresa couldn’t fathom the ‘selfie’. What if the women of The Grey did this thing? Then, there would be hundreds of pictures of the same woman doing different things in different locations. Then what, what? Teresa rubbed her dry lips together, she couldn’t see farther than that.

  The cabin fever here was immense. Teresa longed for The Grey, the order, the clean lines, the feel of stainless steel against her hands. Here, in her shit hole apartment, all was cloth and dusty, and there was too much human essence mixed in the air. It went up Teresa’s nose, in her ears, and had completely coated her tongue.

  Teresa kept thinking about coffee, but the fact that she needed a baby—she needed her baby—kept popping up and spilling the idea of coffee all over the place. She needed that damn baby to get back home to The Grey. No matter the chunks of human that she was—the wanting of sex and coffee—she was still very much a Woman of The Grey, and The Grey was home. The infant was her ticket back home. Once a Woman of The Grey had a baby, she was called back within six months. Teresa knew this—come here, find a father for her child, seduce the man, get pregnant, have the kid, wait, wait, wait, then the summons would come. Only then could Teresa go back home and hand her daughter to the Mothers.

  Handing over her daughter was a fact that always gave Teresa pause. The moment she would have to hand her infant daughter to the Mothers to raise played like a movie reel in her head. After she handed the girl over, Teresa would never hold her daughter again. She’d touch her daughter for six months, she’d learn the shape and smell of her, then she’d hand her over. There was no not handing her over. Would she memorize the sound of her daughters cry and be able to distinguish it over the other girls when she saw them in The Grey? How could Teresa know her daughter from the other girls? They were all the same and none different. There was no way of telling. There was no way of knowing.

  That moment would come, and every time Teresa took a pregnancy test, that moment ran through her chest and slapped her ears. There was no way around that. It was the way of The Grey, and since it was the way of The Grey, it was the way it should be done and Teresa would do as she was told. Teresa would do it when the moment came. She would hand over her daughter. Yes, Teresa told herself every time the thought came, yes, I will. The pain in Teresa’s chest said she couldn’t do such a thing.

  “I will,” Teresa told the coffee cup and slammed it into the sink, breaking it into pieces. She would hand over her infant daughter no matter what she felt in the depth of herself. Teresa wouldn’t lower herself to the pathetic level of acting like a human; that was beneath her. Teresa was from The Grey, she mustn’t show that there might be a person underneath her hard layers. She must hide it down in the soles of her feet, squashing it daily with every step when she returned to The Grey.

  And when Teresa was home, she wouldn’t think of her, the infant daughter that wasn’t even in existence yet. Teresa was annoyed that she was allowing herself to stress over a babe that wasn’t in her yet. This reminded her that she’d been nothing but a failure at getting pregnant. Stressing over shit that hasn’t happened, over thinking seemed to be a problem with Teresa.

  “FUCK!” Teresa told the broken cup pieces in the sink while rubbing her head. All for nothing, this is all for nothing.

  Lisa

  Lisa couldn’t help but believe that this was all for nothing, nothing at all—being trapped here in The Black, with the corpse of a naughty girl to cling to. Why here? Why me? What does being trapped in this darkness accomplish? Lisa thought they were women of logic and reason, and she believed they had been raised to be fierce, but those condescending bitch Mothers had their perfect little noses turned up at her. Now, here she was again, in the dark… and for what? Nothing, all of this was meaningless nothing.

  Lisa knew that this was not the time to be apathetic, which was usually her stick. Nay, now was the time for action. What action, exactly, was beyond Lisa, but she had seen a door and seen the opening. Lisa just couldn’t be sure whether or not it was locked. She wasn’t sure if it could be opened at all. Odds were, it couldn’t. Every other door in this place was locked. Knowing that this black was behind a simple locked door really made Lisa rethink every locked door she’d ever seen in The Grey. “Brujas,” Lisa said out loud—maybe a tiny bit of Maggie did rub off on her.

  How many times have I walked by a locked door and wondered what exactly was in there? Never once did Lisa imagine there would be The White and The Black hiding maliciously behind an ordinary door. The doors didn’t even have fancy locks. Really thinking on it, Lisa didn’t remember locks at all, just a doorknob. So how the hell did these doors lock? How did they open?

  Lisa kept shaking her head and feeling the fingernails on the naughty girl’s hands. Trying to understand all of this nothing, Lisa knew many of her own truths now. She was not human—not, not human. I am a creature, but not beast, and what does that all come down to? Lisa questioned herself and the dead girl. As far as I know, I have no “super power,” I’m just an ordinary bitch like all the others. Except she was trapped in The Black as a punishment by the Superior Mother. Who the fuck decided she was superior? Self-appointed on her very own I guess.

  Lisa felt the naughty girl with her hands, found her head, and gave her a pat. Lisa wouldn’t mourn for her—not for any particular reason other than she just didn’t feel like it. Walk, crawl, or shuffle…Lisa wasn’t sure exactly what direction to go with. The apathy mixed with anger. The terror was gone; it was lying dead on the floor by her feet. Maybe there are more like this naughty girl silently creeping closer, then closer to Lisa while she sat lost in apathetic anger, but Lisa would just kill them also. She thought about that as fact, if there are more naughty girls hiding in corners, I’ll kill them all; so there is no point in being careful. Again, it was all for nothing. There was nothing to gain in being careful. Either way, Lisa knew she’d get out of here by death or by wits; it was a coin toss as to which one.

  Lisa began walking in what she believed was the direction of the door; who knows what direction the door really was in. Anger fueled Lisa as she took step one, then two, and three with hands reached out. Suddenly, a door opened again, but just a crack; it hit her foot. There was a light so bright that it burned the hair on her arms and made Lisa think of that tortured man on the cross. Lisa felt arms grabbing her and could hear the consistent voices of Mothers scolding her.

  “Honestly, she can’t even, for like a second, handle her shit…” a Mother scolded the air; she sounded young. Lisa had never heard a Mother speak like that.

  Lisa wasn’t sure if it was self-determination or stupidity, but her brain suddenly clicked, Lisa’s arms shot out, and she launched a verbal rant energized by the mere force of being sick of being ignorant to her own situation, destiny, beginning, and possible ending.

  “WHAT THE FUCK…GET YOUR GANGLY HANDS OFF ME…YOU ARE THE MOST BASIC OF BITCHES, FOLLOWING EVERY FUCKING ORDER EVER GIVEN…AND WORST OF ALL, GETTING OFF ON GIVING THE ORDERS YOURSELF…” Lisa stood in the room where she could finally see clearly. It was a room like all others in The Grey—clean lines, nice floors, no dust or dirt. Before her stood three Mothers, all looking just like the other. You could never tell who was older who was younger. They were all the same and none different. “Fuck, seriously I’m over this shit…” The Mothers blinked and just watched her without even a hint of movement—not a growl or a wink came from them.

  “Lisa, calm down dear. There’s no need for such language. There’s no point in getting worked up. There is inevitably more of us than you.” There it was; in words, in the quiet inflection of her tone, Lisa could hear the Mother’s age. This was the leader of this group. It was in that moment that Lisa made her choice. In a split second, Lisa would make a choice on where she stood, what she believed, and how she believed it. These choices didn’t define her, but they were her.

  Lisa kicked the l
eader in the gut, dropping her to the floor. The other Mothers scrambled toward her, but Lisa was ready to claw her way out of there, out of this room, out of The Grey. By any means, Lisa was getting out, they weren’t getting her again, she had decided that it all ended here. Lisa stood up; today was the day to become fierce, then another door opened—a door Lisa hadn’t noticed. Superior Mother stood in the passage way watching her. There was anger in her eyes along with a palatable amount of frustration. Frustration dripped off Superior Mother like rain drops.

  Superior Mother appearing gave Lisa another second or two to choose. Do I dare hit Superior Mother? What will happen then? Do I succumb? Do I mind my Mother? Superior Mother walked toward Lisa; Lisa was running out of seconds to make a choice. Superior Mother stood before her and touched Lisa’s forehead with her ring. Ice ran through Lisa’s skull; it spilled over her body and left her feeling stuck to the ring. Lisa felt nailed to Superior Mother. There were ice crystals on her teeth that mixed into the anger on Lisa’s tongue.

  “You will succumb, Lisa love. You are one of us and no other.” With that, Superior Mother’s face came inches away from Lisa’s. She could see Superior Mother clearly. In actuality, Lisa had seen Superior Mother hundreds of times in her life; she looked just like every other woman in The Grey, except for the ring—a simple ring. This time, it was different. Lisa saw who Superior Mother truly was. Lisa’s aggression gave her enough focus to see the true face of their leader. Superior Mother’s face stretched tightly—so tight it looked painful. She had a mouth stretched with the rest of her features and became something that wrapped around her head, with what looked like hundreds of tiny sharp teeth, almost like baby teeth, but malicious and created for the sole purpose of harm. Lost in her teeth, Lisa almost hadn’t noticed the eyes—eyes that also stretched beyond what seemed like a breaking point, Superior Mother’s eyes wrapped almost clearly around her head. Lisa could see the frost that sat on Superior Mother’s skin; it coated her skin, as if you could scrape it off like ice on a window. Superior Mother put this face, her real face, next to Lisa’s. Lisa could feel the tight lips of Superior Mother pressed against the tip of her nose. Superior Mother opened her mouth, just a bit, and scraped Lisa’s nose with those evil little teeth. Lisa could feel herself tremble; she could feel her senses peak, but despite the terror, she wanted to look at this face—this ugly face—for as long as she could. She wanted to study it, make mental notes, and sketch it out. Superior Mother’s true face was the most honest thing Lisa had ever experienced.