Entangled Moon

by E. C. Frey

  “I dig both of you. In fact, I dig all of you. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

  Fiona’s slender nose flared. “Let’s just finish this.”

  He reached in the right front pocket of his jeans, tattered and slung low on his youthful hips. Fiona grimaced. She was glad her friends were with her. She wasn’t sure what she would be capable of alone. He stopped and smiled. “Better yet. Why don’t you come get it?”

  Fiona’s head was light. “Just give it to me.”

  “I will, but which do you really want?”

  Fiona’s face flushed. “The pot.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” Fiona gulped. “I’m sure.”

  “Too bad. The other is better.”

  He grabbed Fiona by the back of her head, and kissed her, long and hard. She kissed him back. Their blond hair fused into an image of one.

  The girls shifted nervously and looked up the street.

  Fiona pulled herself away and ran down the steps. “C’mon. C’mon. Shhh.”

  They headed toward the Rose Garden. There were corners of the dark garden in which they could hang out and smoke in peace.

  On their way, another group of girls emerged from the garden and moved as one down the street, noisy and self-assured. This was their street. Jazmin. Fiona looked for a way to escape.

  They headed to the other side of the street, and Jazmin and her friends didn’t seem to notice them—until they were parallel to them. Then one of the girls glanced across the way and yelled.

  “Hey! Who are you? What are you doing on our street?”

  Mariah whispered. “Don’t acknowledge them. Maybe they’ll move on.”

  “Hey, bitch! I asked you who you were and what the fuck you’re doing on our street?”

  “No one and nothing.”

  “Damn fucking right, no one.”

  Jazmin headed their way.

  “Run,” Fiona said. “Now.”

  The girls bolted for the Rose Garden. “You better run, gringa. I’ll beat the fuckin’ shit out of you if I catch you. You better not mess with my man.”

  They hit the Garden. Old lights bathed the grass and walkways in soft light. It would be easy to slip into the shadows. They scattered.

  Heather headed toward the stairs that climbed to her street. Mariah grabbed her. “Not there, Heather.” Mariah’s heart beat thickly in her chest. Heather couldn’t run home. If her mother found out, she might kill her this time. They had to get to Fiona’s house. She followed Heather.

  Leaving the concrete path and stairs, they headed into the quiet of the forest. Mariah searched below for movement. Jazmin and her friends were obvious, but Fiona, Esperanza, and Eve were, thankfully, well hidden. The fog she had moved through had completely dissipated now, and she realized the trouble they were in.

  “Stay here, Heather,” she said. “I have to try to find the others. We have to get back to Fiona’s house soon.”

  “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

  “Please,” Mariah pleaded. “You’ll be safe here. I can find the others more easily alone. Just don’t move.”

  Heather, trembling in the dark, nodded.

  Mariah made her way along the periphery of the forest. She knew these woods. She crouched behind the public restroom first and then moved farther toward the end of the building before stepping cautiously into the moonlit walkway. Tiptoeing across the grass, she crouched behind the first bank of rose bushes.

  All movement was up ahead. There were angry voices and the sound of running. She moved forward more comfortably, as the danger was well ahead of her. She ran along the walkway in the hopes of coming up behind Jazmin’s group. If she could surprise them, she might be able to distract them from Fiona. She sprinted in their direction, but the girls seemed to be moving swiftly toward and through the trees above her. Shit! She forgot about the path through the trees. She worried they might surprise and scare Heather if she wasn’t hidden well enough. She didn’t want a repeat of Tallon Park. She needed to find her friends and herd them back to Fiona’s, where it was safe. Where they should’ve never left. She sprinted back to Heather.

  “Heather! Where are you?” Mariah called in a loud whisper.

  Screams and scuffles filled the air. Two girls wrestled on the path and Mariah caught the glimmer of silver in the light of a street lamp that bathed the stairs. The blade, held high, came down quickly, but the other figure moved out of its way. Mariah ran toward the fighting. She pulled short at the sound of glass breaking.

  Whoosh! A house caught fire. She knew the house—a memory of Halloween, candy, children, and an adult tirade. The blaze grew quickly in intensity. A scream, high-pitched and terror-filled, spilled into the confusion.

  Heather! Oh, God!

  A flash of silver caught the light again. Fiona! Jazmin would rip her to shreds. There was so much anger and rage in that girl. All she needed was one score, one drop of blood, and she would know the kill was within reach.

  Mariah froze. Save Heather or save Fiona, she couldn’t do both.

  Jazmin moved closer and lunged, plunging the blade, but Fiona moved away. Jazmin paused. She was clearly weighing her options, her intent unrelenting. Fiona smiled and softened her knees into an en garde position, ready to parry the next offense. Years of fencing maneuvers served her well for once.

  “Fiona! Heather’s in that house.”

  “Go get her!” Fiona yelled, momentarily distracted.

  Jazmin made her move. Mariah watched as the silver, glinting and animated with the proximate fire, plummeted toward her friend.

  Mariah gasped. “Watch out!”

  Fiona screamed and fell to the ground.

  Jazmin turned toward Mariah, the fire illuminating the surprise on her face. Mariah knew that look. A beautiful buck had once wandered out into the headlights of her family’s car. Her father had braked hard and missed him, but the look Mariah had seen in the deer’s eyes still haunted her. It was the same look in her grandmother’s eyes when they told her that her son was missing in Vietnam.

  “Fiona!”

  Fiona moaned and held her shoulder. Jazmin threw the knife into the forest and ran for the top of the stairs. Mariah raced to Fiona’s side.

  “Mariah. You better go get Heather.”

  “You need help. Where’s everyone else?”

  “I don’t know. I think she just grazed me. I’m scared, Mariah. Please! You have to get Heather and we have to get out of here. Some of Jazmin’s friends went to the house. That man and someone else was yelling and cussing them out. I think Damon’s there too. I saw him throw something at the house right before the fire started.”

  The house was now in flames. A raging fire fed by dry air and sea winds could ignite whole neighborhoods. The fire crackled and spit out sparks, the threat of consumptive destruction. Everyone would be in danger, including her family.

  Several figures ran from the house.

  Mariah had to find Heather.

  She moved without thinking.

  She took a neighbor’s hose, doused herself with it, and ran into the building. “Heather! Heather!” Her voice was cut off as the air seared her vocal cords and lungs. She dropped to the floor and coughed and heaved at the offensive heat. Black smoke roiled in the cramped space. The noise reminded her of howling monsters and angry spirits. Through the sounds of the disintegrating house, she heard whimpers and moved towards it.

  “Heather!” Her voice now nothing but a whisper. She crouched further down out of the black smoke. A back bedroom door was shut and Mariah leaned into it. The door gave way gracelessly and fire followed her. Knocked to the ground, she struggled to find her bearings. She was blasted with the specter of someone tied to the bed, another unconscious and prone on the floor, and a third hovering over the figure tied to the bed, sawing at the bindings. Through the smoke and the terror, cold gripped her heart and she moved. Her grandfather had called it a warrior’s sang-froid.

  “Heather!”


  Heather didn’t move. She was still, bleeding and naked in the light of the monstrous fire.

  The man turned his head to Mariah. Tears washed his face and glistened in the shadow of the inferno.

  He cut the final binding.

  He turned to look at Mariah. It was the second time that night she had witnessed that look. He rose and ran toward the inside of the burning house, toward her, past her, through the fire. Mariah stepped over the fallen figure on the floor.

  He didn’t move. His eyes were open and watching, a huge hole opened in his middle, a fountain of blood seeped through his dirty tee shirt. She shook Heather.

  “Heather. C’mon. We have to get out of here. Heather! Please! You have to help me get you out of here.” Mariah lifted her by her arms. “I can’t do this alone.”

  Heather roused herself enough to allow Mariah to lead her to the open window. They climbed from the almost fully engulfed house. Mariah got Heather as far away as she could. Firemen arrived as the house blew out its remaining windows and became an inferno. She knew it would take everything in their power to contain it before it destroyed everything in lower Sunny Hollow. Neighbors hosed down their houses. In the grip of the calamity, no one noticed two teens emerging from the burning structure.

  Mariah searched for their friends, but even Fiona was gone. The blood left by her injury gleamed in the light, though rescue feet destroyed its integrity.

  Mariah removed her own T-shirt and pulled it over Heather’s head. Her white bra was conspicuous in the gleam of the fire, but Heather’s nakedness had been no less so. She didn’t want to draw attention to them. She grabbed Heather, who put her arm around her shoulder, and they hurried toward Fiona’s house.

  Sanctuary, a short distance directly, took them a long time to reach because Mariah avoided the busy street. Dogs barked as they traveled through foreign yards. They stumbled several times under Heather’s weight, and Mariah feared discovery. The horror of their situation gripped her. This was far worse than the Tallon fiasco; Heather might not survive this. They should’ve been planning her escape instead of chasing after a score.

  Mariah tapped at Fiona’s door and waited. Esperanza opened. Mariah and Heather stepped inside the relief of light. They were all there and Fiona had a bandage around her shoulder. The harsh light threw their wounds into stark relief and each sized up the mountain of troubles they were in.

  How would they explain it? Mariah wondered. They should’ve gone to the hospital. They should’ve gone to the police. But she knew better. That would only make it worse for Heather, who was already broken beyond repair, beyond despair.

  Eve gasped. “Oh my God! Oh my God! What have we done?” She pulled Heather and Mariah to her and gently hugged them. Mariah whimpered into her shoulder.

  Esperanza threw her sweater around Heather’s shoulders and turned to Fiona, whose wound continued to bleed.

  Esperanza spoke first. “We have to do something to Fiona’s shoulder. I don’t think the wound is deep, but we have to do something.” She looked at Mariah.

  Mariah nodded. Her Grandmother had taught her that summer to stitch a wound. “I’ll do it, but we need antibiotics, too.”

  Fiona blanched. “It’ll hurt.”

  Esperanza moved towards Fiona. “I’ll hold your hand. You can hold on to me.”

  Fiona nodded. “There are antibiotics in my Mom’s medicine cabinet.”

  Eve left to find the antibiotics.

  When she returned, Mariah had already begun stitching the wound.

  Eve turned to Heather. She gently stroked a washcloth across Heather’s bruises and the smudges of soot from the fire. She rinsed the cloth and gently wiped the blood streaking down her thighs. Heather, in shock, stared at a distant point.

  The silence was unbearable. Outside, the sounds of alarms increased.

  Eve moved to the window. Fire glowed across her face. She looked at her friends. A tear slid free. “The hill is on fire.”

  When Mariah looked into her friends’ eyes, she knew the look. It was the same look that had been dogging her all night. But this was the third time, and three was never a good omen.

  23 Paul

  I was born Paul Ezekiel Marist but I could’ve been Jim, Bill, Bob, or any other poor fuck. I was gun fodder and my brothers-in-arms were no different. It didn’t really matter whether the guns belonged to the Viet Cong or the government of the US of A. We were still the little plastic soldier boys they lined up on their military maps back in Washington, DC. We were grunts, drafted by destiny into a war of someone else’s making. That was why we had numbers, numbers inscribed on cheap metal, so that when we got the shit blown out of us they could match our body parts to a name.

  Sorry-ass war. Mad as hell, I carried my rage like my duffel bag. But who gives a shit about that, so long as it isn’t something you can see, like an arm or a leg. My brothers in Uncle Sam’s war weren’t so lucky on either account. Most of their tags were collected and bagged for the trip home, their remains shipped in a crappy black bag. Blackness defined the journey, defined the heart of those who waged this misbegotten war.

  Mikey made it through boot camp with me but I wore his brain matter two weeks into my tour. All for a fucking hill. Dak To. Kontum Province. We were engaged and then they were gone. Pansies. It was all chaos and gunfire. And then it wasn’t. But before they retreated, they blew his head off and I wore his fucking brain the whole way back to Saigon. The smell never left, it was the reminder that a life had once mattered. When they bagged him, there was no brain left. It had crusted itself to me as if clinging to something living could make it whole again, could make Mikey live again. I itched at the fetid remnants, the pieces of pink and red turned to putrid brown. The smell made me retch and the creatures of the jungle feasted on his remains, gnawed at my still-living flesh. But we kept moving.

  One year and I said more good-byes than hellos. Before long, I couldn’t remember the names of those who were supposed to watch my back. They were all Mikey. The leeches were more constant than the brothers. But that was the way of war. You were always dirty, hungry, tired, and scared. That way you didn’t ask what the hell you were doing there.

  Things weren’t any better when I came home. I was always dirty, hungry, and tired. But I wasn’t scared any more. I was just pissed off. I was pissed off and my parents didn’t want me hanging around, polluting their safe little piece of heaven. I tried to tell them it was all an illusion. They couldn’t believe me. To believe would be an admission of the truth. The truth was dangerous. To protect their younger children, they sacrificed their eldest. Sacrificed twice to the gods of war.

  And the protestors didn’t make anything any better. They hated the war, but I didn’t start it. Fucking peaceniks. I didn’t even get to decide where my little plastic soldier body got to stand and try to survive. Someone else did that for me. But it didn’t matter. The protestors hated me anyway. And that pissed me off too. I couldn’t join them. What did they know about what we had been through? Nothing. The injustice of it was too much to bear.

  When I rented a house in Sunny Hollow, I finally found some peace in my waking hours. But then the night was always different. The sound of birds alerted me to another day of survival. They were a reminder that things could be better, should be better.

  And then I saw her. She was nothing more than a bird herself. But she was afraid of me. Skittish, broken bird. I wanted to fix her but I couldn’t even fix myself. I fixed motorcycles and cars. I wanted to fix birds but my hands were too angry. So I kept fixing bikes. That was how I met Stab. He introduced me to his gang of riders, some of who were back from Nam. People called us Hell’s Angels but we didn’t wear the badge. They thought they were badass but then they didn’t wade through a jungle pocked with land mines and people who smiled at you as they planned to blow your fucking brains out. Death was a game for the Angels but death was reality for us. It’s a difference you don’t get until you’ve been in country.

  I
thought things were never the same after I went away to ’Nam, but they were never the same after that night either. It had started in the morning. The birds were at it again. Stab brought enough hooch for the week. We had enough booze, pot, and smack for a platoon but it was just us and our bender. The cops would’ve had a field day.

  Their neat little uniforms with their neat little book of laws. They didn’t get it. Their laws were useless in the jungle. You lived or you died. And the things you had to do to survive weren’t in any little pansy-ass rule book. I didn’t tether enemy ears and fingers to my gun but I didn’t bother with those who did, either. When you’ve looked down the throat of the Reaper, who could begrudge you a little trophy of survival?

  In the end, it was Stab’s idea. She was standing outside in the trees. I told Stab she was a bird, a little broken bird. But then he liked broken things. He liked to break things to make him less broken. I tried to stop him but he dragged her into the house and tied her to the bed. She was so small and so helpless. Poor little bird. Some things in life have to be protected from all the meanness. I couldn’t fix Stab any more than I could fix her. He wouldn’t leave her alone. Her screams strafed through the darkness and I smelled the fear. It smelled like Mikey’s rotting brains. I itched at the horror of it but it crawled into the crevices of the room, crawling toward her.

  It’s a code of honor, a trick of survival, to defend your brother, to have his back. When you beat the bush, you have to know your comrades. Faith is something you don’t think about. You try not to think about the things you do or the things you see, it’s enough to break your faith. And breaking faith is death. But I had to break faith that day, that night of purgatory.

  I broke a chair into pieces and drove a jagged leg deep into Stab’s chest. There was madness in the air.

  Stab rose and reeled, a deer in headlights.

  He looked like Mikey right before the bullet entered his brain and snuffed his life. That moment he knew there was nowhere to run, the moment when time slows down and grants a reprieve to visit all the sweet memories soon to be a history of irrelevance.