Under This Unbroken Sky

by Shandi Mitchell

  “Go deeper.” Maria herds her brood. She counts her children’s heads, momentarily panicked that she has forgotten one.

  Myron refuses to go. “I have to keep it wet,” and ladles water over the wooden sides, jutting high past the waterline. Dania plows through the water to help him. Her feet sink in the murky slime. She loses her shoe. Ivan, Petro, and Katya climb onto the cart’s shafts and take refuge behind the front board. Lesya wades in with her hen held high over her head. Sofia hugs her body as she forces herself into the cold water, imagining eels and leeches clinging to her skin.

  Maria sees the fire creeping through the bush and Anna still on the shore, as if waiting its arrival. She splashes toward her. But Anna doesn’t hear her. She is listening for the coyote. The baby kicks and writhes. Her knees buckle and she sinks to the ground. Maria is beside her. “Do you hear it?” Anna asks. Maria hears the fire ripping through the muskeg.

  “Yes. We have to go.” She tries to pull her to her feet.

  Anna fights her off. “I have to stay. It’s come back for me.”

  “Get up!” Maria screams and drags her into the lake. She feels her own body cringe in pain. The fire swings wildly around, the flames race along the south shore, up the trees, swinging from branch to branch. The water glows red, and in its light, Maria sees a deer, a cow, and a horse standing in the shallows. Mice, rabbits, and chickens veer up and down the shore, throwing themselves into the lake. The children scream as the fire flares toward them. Anna shakes herself loose from Maria, falls, and sits motionless in the water. “Stay here,” Maria warns her and wades back to the wagon.

  Anna stares up at the flaming treetops. The cold water soothes the baby inside her. Her wet cloak weighs her down. At the shoreline, the coyote emerges from the undergrowth, its back smoking. The deer doesn’t even notice, but Anna does. The coyote paces frantically, its tail tucked between its legs.

  “Come,” she calls it. “Come.” The animal looks uncertainly at her and back at the fire. “Come.” She stands up, hands outstretched, water dripping from her sleeves. Branches plummet to the ground behind the coyote. It yelps and leaps into the lake. Anna wades toward it. The animal’s back is black, raw red flesh scars its coat. She smells its torched hair. She fills her hands with water and spills it over the animal’s burns. The coyote trembles. Anna gently runs her hand over its back. It flinches from her touch, then swims away from her and climbs onto a rock shared by the yellow tomcat.

  THE ANIMALS AND HUMANS HUDDLE IN THE WATER. Maria clings to her children burrowed against her, repeating the only words she can think of to keep them safe: “Keep your eyes closed. Don’t look, don’t look.” But she watches.

  She watches treetop torches crash to the ground and the fire claw at the shoreline. She watches to brush the sparks from her children’s hair and submerge their heads when the heat threatens to choke them. “Don’t look, don’t look.” She watches when Myron can no longer lift the pail to douse the wagon and tears of frustration blind his eyes. She watches when he rips off his shirt to slap at sparks that aren’t there. “Don’t look.” She keeps watching to prevent them from slipping underwater when they can no longer hold themselves up.

  She clutches them until after the fire has passed, leaving behind only the moon that has slid high across the sky. She holds them until only faint embers pulse. Blackened tree limbs steam. Twigs crackle. White smoke drifts low between the trunks and she is certain that it is gone. “Open your eyes.”

  The children rouse. Their heads nod up. Their eyes blink open. They loosen their stiff limbs from the cart and from her. Ivan and Petro, leaning against the wheel, are nudged awake. Maria unwraps Katya’s grip around her neck and waist and lowers her into the water. Katya groans, reaching to be picked up again and carried back to bed.

  Maria leads her family out of the lake. Chilled and exhausted, they stumble on shore to the charred remains of the chicken coop, barrels, buckets, and pots. Water drips from their sodden clothes, cools the baked earth beneath their feet. Myron picks up an ax head. Drops it as it sears his palm. Lesya’s foot drags behind her. She hugs Happiness close to her chest. Not until she is on dry land does she uncover the hen’s eyes.

  “Teodor!” Maria calls. Her voice booms across the silent expanse. “Teodor!” She walks into the smoldering night. Her feet follow the glistening trail of drenched, trampled stalks. To her right, barren ground smokes. All around her the acrid smell of burned sweet wheat. Up ahead, she senses a faint impression, a petrified shadow. He sits on the ground, his face and clothes blackened, staring at his scorched boots.

  “Teodor?”

  He looks up at her, his eyes hollow. “I couldn’t stop it.”

  She takes his chin in her hands and turns his face toward her, wondering how he can be so blind. She steps aside, revealing the surviving ragged swatch of wheat glowing white in the pale moonlight.

  “Let’s go home.” She helps him to his feet but crumbles under his weight.

  Myron races to his mother’s assistance. “I have him.” He drapes his father’s arm over his shoulder and guides him up the hill. The others follow in a slow funeral procession. Ivan leads the horse. The cow ambles after them. Only Anna, pulled along in their wake, looks back.

  The lake is calm and empty, holding only the moon and the outline of the cart.

  In the south, the sky glows red.

  THE FIRE CUT A SWATH THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE properties, its path impeded by the stone wall. The two houses were spared. The back wall and roof of the barn were scorched. The chicken pen and paddock torched. Of the six acres of wheat, three were lost. Also lost or damaged were seven barrels, two pots, three blankets, a harness, two rakes, one shovel, one ax, one chicken coop, six chickens, one rooster, and a child’s shoe.

  A half-mile northwest, Josyp Petrenko’s farm was untouched.

  BY TEN IN THE MORNING, IT IS EIGHTY DEGREES. THEY’VE been in the smoldering field since daybreak. No one speaks. There is only the sound of Teodor’s scythe cutting through the grain, and the grunt of his exhale with each wide swipe. Each cut is so quick that the stalks hang erect for a moment before collapsing to the ground. The sweat that soaked Teodor’s shirt and pants earlier has dried, and he is no longer sweating. He ignores the thirst and thickness in his throat. One step, one cut, one step, swing back, one step—his eyes only on the golden sea he is parting. With each stride, he widens the gap between himself and his children.

  Myron wraps a sheaf of wheat with binder twine and stands it in a stook. He glances to Dania, keeping pace beside him. She deftly wraps her bundle, completes another stook, and moves ahead. Myron waits empty-handed.

  “Hurry up!” he hollers up ahead to Sofia, who is gathering the felled grain. “You have to keep up with him!” She is a hundred feet behind her father.

  “I’m working as fast as I can!” She no longer feels her fingertips, numb from scraping the fallen stalks into armfuls and passing them off to Ivan and Petro like overstuffed batons to race back to their older siblings.

  “Don’t you cry!” Myron warns, forcing tears to well unwillingly in Sofia’s eyes. She pushes the kerchief back from her forehead, smearing her face with dirt and soot. Her cotton dress hangs limp, its hem tucked under her knees to give some relief from the prickly stalks. The dust sticks to her body, knots in her hair, and makes her skin itch. She must look like a peasant here on her knees, rooting in the dirt like a pig.

  “Don’t cry,” Ivan whispers and takes the bundle from her hands.

  He scampers back to Myron. His heart beats wildly in his chest, his lungs suck in the dry heat, searing his already parched throat. His head floats from the sudden acceleration. Run run fast as the wind run run fast as the wind, he chants in his head.

  He plugs his nose to the smoky smell that reminds him of burned bread and scraps of bone tossed in a woodstove, and breathes through his mouth. When they walked across the charred stubble this morning, he could feel its heat bleeding through his leather soles. The child
ren stepped slowly, careful not to desecrate the remains. Only Tato forged ahead, not looking right or left, but straight ahead to the remaining crop. Ivan wondered whether he would be forgotten as quickly by Tato if he had burned up. Myron snatches the grain from his hand. “Go!” Ivan laps Petro on the way back.

  Petro has fallen twice, and his skinny knees are smeared with dirt and streaks of dried blood. He stumbles again and the wheat scatters. He sweeps it up.

  “Leave it!” Myron barks. “Help Sofia.”

  Petro joins Sofia scooping up the loose grain. The chaff tickles his nose and scratches his throat. The dried stalks splinter in his palms like a thousand pinpricks. He tells himself, You’re not my brother. And looks to Teodor to see whether he notices how hard he is working.

  “They need to rest. They need water,” Dania admonishes Myron.

  “We stop when he stops,” and he doubles his efforts.

  Dania wipes the sweat from her eyes. “We have to stop.”

  “Then stop!” Myron screams at her and grabs the sheaf from her blistered hands. And to his surprise, she does and walks away.

  The children look uncertainly from her to Myron and back to Teodor, whose step hasn’t faltered.

  “It’s time to rest, come get a drink.” Dania lifts the blanket shielding the bucket of water and scoops up a ladleful. Her parched, numb lips open to receive the tepid liquid. It trickles to the back of her throat. Pours through her insides. A hot breeze blows on the back of her neck and goose bumps shiver up her arms. Sofia abandons her post.

  “Girls,” Ivan sneers to Petro and turns his back on them. He picks up the slack by filling his arms with a double load. When he bends over, black dots jumble behind his eyes, the ground sways, and he seems to float up. He breathes in, braces his feet, and pulls himself back down. He hears his own rapid panting; feels the rise and fall of his chest. When he turns around, Petro is with his sisters.

  His head is tilted back, the too-large ladle suspended over him. The water splashes against his mouth, spills down his sun-burned chest. His throat hiccups up and down, guzzling down the water. Dania draws the ladle back but Petro pulls it forward again, like a nursing calf not ready to let go of the teat.

  Ivan wants to knock the ladle from his hand and choke the water from his throat. He wants to grab the bucket and pour it over his own head, feel it shower over his body. He’ll open his mouth wide until it sloshes in his belly, pools at his feet, and floods to his waist. Then he’ll lie back and float in his own golden pond. He licks the salt from his lips and looks to Myron.

  Myron strangles another armload of wheat with twine. Sweat burns his eyes, blurring his vision, and for a moment the grain turns to liquid dripping through his fingers. He wants to drink its paper dryness. Up ahead, his father in his white shirt and black pants looks like a magpie dancing in the heat waves. Black and white. Its silver beak slashing at the light. Its wings beating the air. He should have stopped by now. Myron feels a flash of fire ignite in his belly. He’s supposed to stop. In his hands, the liquid thickens into molten gold and hardens into shimmering sheaves. He places the bundle on the golden altar along with all the others. He blinks, and the stook of wheat leans heavily to the left. “Get me more!” he shouts.

  Ivan finds his feet and rushes to him, arms full, showering wheat… Run run fast as the wind…

  IN THE SHADE OF ANNA’S CABIN, KATYA LIES NAKED ON the stoop, her legs splayed, her dress crumpled beside her. Her toes wiggle in and out of the hot dirt. She breathes shallowly. The soft breeze whispers, Go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep. Katya’s eyes open and shut, afraid to surrender in case the fire tries to get her again. She can taste it on her tongue. It seeps from the corners of her eyes—black, gritty gobs that stick to her fingers and taste like fear.

  The fire was stronger than Jesus. She held Jesus up to protect her and he disappeared. Or maybe she used him all up for herself and that’s why the fire ate their wheat. She failed the test. She killed Jesus to save herself.

  But Mama made them give thanks to God and Jesus and the Blessed Mary before tucking them into bed. Mama says Jesus did protect them. The fire didn’t take their house, didn’t take them, didn’t take all their wheat. Maybe Mama doesn’t know that Jesus is gone.

  But Tato knows. Tato refused to pray. He wouldn’t wash the ashes from his face and hair, even though he smelled like fire. She was afraid to kiss him good-night.

  If she has killed Jesus, then that means God won’t want her now. Only the fire will want her. Go to sleep go to sleep. She didn’t sleep last night or this morning. She kept herself awake by pinching her arms and legs and poking at Sofia until she punched her. Mama thinks the bruises were from the Night of Fire. She kissed each one and rubbed a yellow flower salve on them. Go to sleep.

  Mama doesn’t know the fire is coming back for her.

  This hot is different. This hot wraps around her from head to toe like a cat’s purr. Sleep. This hot isn’t angry. This hot is day…

  LESYA SPENDS THE MORNING SALVAGING BOARDS AND crates for a new chicken coop. She borrows from the barn, scavenges behind the house, and then heads to the dump. There she finds an old board peppered with almost straight nails and a crate with a faded, crinkled picture of a smiling lady holding a bar of soap. She is missing the top of her head and one eye, where the label has torn away.

  Lesya sits in the shade of the birch trees. Their leaves are dusty and muted but otherwise unperturbed by last night’s event. She looks down across the fields. A bird’s-eye view. She can see the new house on the hill, its timbers green and one window blinking in the sun, calling to her own dull gray house below. She can see the stone wall separating the worlds. A child’s line scratched in the dirt. She can just make out her uncle and her cousins, mere specks bobbing after him. Like a hen with her chicks. She smiles, forgetting that she is mad at them for not letting her come along.

  From her perch she sees what remains of the field. It is no longer straight and rectangular. Ordered. Its edges are ragged and frayed, shaped like a hard-boiled egg that someone has taken a bite out of with the shell still on. Cracked and broken. She looks to the black gashes that split open the prairies north to south, widening and narrowing, blooming outward, as far as she can see. A snake that slithered around hills and trees, jumped gullies, dodged right then left before spotting its prey.

  She spies a perfect magpie’s tail feather, long and glistening black with a white tip, and picks it up. The spine is translucent and hollow. She runs her finger down its edge. It softly parts to her touch. She lifts her long skirt, too heavy in this sweltering heat, exposing her pallid leg and twisted foot, hanging limp.

  “You did good,” she tells it. “You did your very best.”

  She runs the feather down the blood-dried scrape extending below her knee, down her shin to her bruised and swollen ankle. Three times she asks the feather to carry away the pain. The third time she releases the feather to the day’s hot breath. It tumbles lifeless to her feet. She works the kink from her aching foot, gathers up her spoils, and heads home.

  IN ANNA’S HOUSE, NOT A BREATH OF AIR STIRS.

  “You’ll feel better once you’re cleaned up,” Maria coaxes. “Lift your arms.”

  Anna protectively grips the filthy fabric of her dress. Maria suppresses the urge to slap her, there are so many other things she should be doing: helping Teodor in the field, preparing lunch, mending her children’s ravaged clothes, or any other number of tasks. She shouldn’t be babysitting a grown woman. Once she gets her cleaned up, she’ll prepare her sister-in-law a poppy-seed tonic to calm her nerves. It’s time this stopped.

  “It’s only me here. You don’t have to hide.”

  Anna looks into her eyes, questioning whether to trust her. Maria hopes her face is empty, nonjudgmental. “Let me help you.”

  Anna loosens her hold and obediently raises her arms. Maria pulls the dress over her head. The cloth reeks of smoke and the sour smell of mildew. The fabric is damp; Anna refused
to take it off last night. She also refused Myron’s bed and instead sat up all night staring out the window.

  “I don’t think it can be saved.” Maria examines the tattered hem, mud stains, and scorch marks. “Maybe this piece, I’ll take it home with me.” Even with the door open, there is no breeze. Only suffocating heat.

  “This too.” Maria stands behind her and unknots the grimy string clenching the corset. The soiled fabric strains at the eyelets. The crisscrossed string burrows into the soft folds of Anna’s flesh where the material should meet, and bulges around her spine. She loosens the string and the corset springs free. She pulls it open, uncasing the body, revealing bruises and welts where the wire ribs have branded her caged flesh. She pries it away, gently now, skin peels away, heat blisters weep around her nipples.

  “What have you done?”

  Maria touches her distended belly, feels for the head. Her fingers expertly push past the fat and muscle, lift under the ribs… and the baby kicks.

  “It’s still alive.”

  Tears break through Anna’s heart and flood her eyes, searing her cheeks. She chokes on her own spit, drowns in her own gulping wail. The tears fall on her belly and splash on her hands—she cries because she didn’t know she still could.

  THE NEW CHICKEN COOP IS A JIGSAW OF PLANKS AND boards of varying lengths. Nothing is straight or square. When Lesya kneels inside, her head brushes the bottom of the lopsided roof. She has used the crate with the lady’s face to make the roosts. She hasn’t figured out how to fasten the door yet, so a palette proclaiming NO-SAG-GATE leans against the opening. She has scattered fresh hay on the ground, plumped up the nests, filled a tin with water. Now she sits in the back, quietly clucking.