Ever since that fateful day last summer, Owen has barely spoken to me. But he doesn’t go out on the days he doesn’t work. He rarely stays out all night anymore.
I almost wish he would.
Instead, he stomps around the house, glowers at me when I’m resting, accuses me of laziness. He slams doors, slams pans on the stove, slams his shoes on the floor in the morning. He demands dinner, wordlessly shovels it into his mouth, stomps out onto the porch to smoke a cigarette, a habit he’s picked up from Ira in the past few months. When he finally goes over to Ira’s, or spends an evening tinkering in the shed with his tools, it’s a relief. I don’t know what happened to the person I married.
I’m sure he would say the same about me.
I’m sure the woman he married would not lie in a puddle all night, scared to touch her own body for fear of what she will find. The woman he married risked everything to run away from her father. She’d let his friends have a little fun with her if it meant she’d get to have a little fun with him, too. She wouldn’t lie in her own filth, not knowing if it’s urine or amniotic fluid or blood. She would not be so scared to find out that she’d risk bleeding to death.
But what does it matter? If I don’t give him this child, there will be no more chances. This was the only thing holding him to me. And when he leaves, I’m not even sure I’ll try to stop him. It’s beyond me to care about that now, when I’m lying here, my womb turning to stone again as my fingers stiffen with cold. I remember this feeling from the last time, when Eastwood left me empty. The heaviness, the stillness, the icicles that poison my veins as they form, filling my heart and womb with beautiful, sterile fractals.
2
When at last the sky begins to lighten outside, I can see that steam collected on the inside of the windows last night, then turned to ice as the house grew colder. Owen slips from the bed wordlessly. I listen to the stream of his piss in the toilet, strong and alive. It’s probably steaming in the cold house.
“Are you going to get up and light the stove or just lie there all day?” he calls from the bathroom as he dresses. The heavy thud of his boots leaves the bathroom, stomps through the kitchen, out the front door, where he will smoke the day’s first cigarette in the icy morning.
I could lie here longer, tell him I don’t feel well. But then he will want to know what’s wrong, how long it’s going to last. He might let me lie here a whole day before he demands I get up, power through it. So I slip from the bed, my thin legs quaking in the cold. My nightshirt clings to my thighs, still damp. I check the bed. No blood.
Before Owen returns, I strip the bed. I’ll tell him it’s wash day. He’ll never know the difference.
I ball the sheets and stuff them into the hamper, then grab new ones. I dress quickly, shivering from cold even with thermals under my jeans and sweater. Nothing is wrong. If I keep telling myself that, maybe it will be true. I could have wet the bed. Pregnancy sometimes causes that.
I can see my breath in the cold house. The door crashes open, slams closed hard enough to make the little house tremble. I cower beside the bed. His heavy footfalls approach the fire, stop. A huge crash sounds through the house as he throws an armload of wood into the wood box.
“I’ll do that,” I say, emerging from the bedroom.
“I got it,” he snaps. “I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
I start to tell him it’s not a bother, but a sudden flutter in my belly stops me. My hand flies to the spot where I felt it. It wasn’t just gas. I’m sure of it. Which means the baby is okay. I did just wet the bed. The relief is so intense I almost collapse. Now I’m glad I didn’t wake Owen in the night, screaming about losing the baby like a crazy woman.
You are a crazy woman.
Not even the nasty voice of that witch can crush my spirits today. Maybe I am crazy, like she says. Because now, I don’t just hear Owen when he’s not around. Once in a while, I hear her voice, too. The witch. But I don’t care today. Today, I may be crazy, but I’m the crazy queen, the crazy mother of the prince or princess. I may be crazy, but I’m still pregnant.
3
That night, I lose the baby.
Summer 1997
1
As soon as Owen is off, I pull open the front door, crouch down, and shift. He’s been disappearing every day for months. Of course he offers no explanations when I question him. So now I’m going to find out for myself.
I swoop out the open door and beat my wings hard. I was shocked the first time I spied out the window and saw him shift into a hawk before taking off. Like many shifters, Owen doesn’t like sprouting feathers through his skin. On top of that, he’s scared of heights and once confessed that he’d shifted into a bird only to discover he didn’t know how to fly.
He seems to have remedied that. I don’t attempt to catch him, but fly some distance behind, dropping down into the trees when need be. I’m not trying to stop him. I only want to know where he’s going.
When he lowers towards the trees, I drop as well. I soar over the treetops, gliding, letting the wind streak across my feathers. I resist the warm current of air offering to buffet me higher, and instead, sink into a tree not far from where Owen has perched. When he takes off I watch, amazed at how adept he’s become. Is this what he’s off doing every day—practicing his flight skills? I feel suddenly silly. All this time, I thought there was another woman, that he was replacing me. But he’s simply teaching himself new skills.
Suddenly, a shriek sounds behind me. Before I can turn, a pair of talons grips me, and I’m torn from my perch. I scream, beating my wings as we plummet through the branches towards the ground. With a thud, I hit the ground under him in a cloud of feathers and shredded oak leaves from the tree now looming over us.
I scream again, trying to free my wings. For a moment, his grip loosens, and then grows larger, duller than the steely talons biting into my wings. Suddenly, I’m lifted into the air not by a bird, but by human hands. I scream again, beating my black wings against his arms, slashing at his skin with my talons. But one small raven is no match for a large human man. The muscles in his forearm flex, and I watch the flinty hatred burning in his eyes as his hand tightens around my neck.
With every bit of strength that remains, I will myself towards human form. Maybe he doesn’t know who I am. Maybe he doesn’t recognize his own wife, the raven girl he fell in love with so many years ago. My throat strains under his fingers, and my eyes fly open. It’s my human throat I can feel trying to swallow under his crushing grip. My hands fly to his, pry at his fingers, scratch at his skin. I can’t breathe, can’t swallow. Blackness swells and recedes in my eyes.
“Owen,” I gasp. “Let me go.”
“What the fuck are you doing following me?” he asks, hurling me to the ground.
I cradle my throbbing throat, staring up at him with uncomprehending eyes. It’s true that he doesn’t love me anymore. Anyone can see that. But for the first time, I’m actually afraid of him. I’ve been mourning my losses and trying to become the wife he wants for so long that I failed to notice I no longer know this man. Maybe I never did.
We’re in the woods, barely in shifter territory anymore. No one comes out here but hunters. And if there’s anything a shifter can do convincingly, it’s make a death look like an animal attack. If he wanted to get rid of me, now’s the time to do it.
When I left the house to follow him, I never expected this. But then, I never expected to be afraid to be alone with my own husband, either.
“I—I’m sorry,” I say. I push myself up to sitting, scramble away on my hands and knees, then turn to face him.
He towers over me, breathing hard, his face red, tendons standing out in his neck. “Why—are you—following me?” he asks again, this time more slowly, as if speaking to a child. A child he’s very angry with.
“I don’t know,” I burst out. “You’re always leaving, and you won’t tell me where you go, and you never want to make love anymore.”
His
face twists into an incredulous snarl. “You want to make love?”
“Of course,” I say, my voice tremulous. “You’re my husband. I love you.”
“Then we’ll make love,” he says, barreling toward me. He drops to his knees between my legs, pushes me back in the leaves, and rams himself into me. I’m so shocked I don’t protest, but the pain is so sharp, so intense, that tears spring to my eyes. “Why are you crying?” he snarls. “I thought this is what you wanted.”
“It is,” I manage, then bite down on my lip while he continues to grind himself into my dry, unready body. Tears pour down my cheeks, but he doesn’t stop again. He crushes me into the leaves, pounding into me relentlessly, his teeth clamping down on my shoulder, his hand fisting my hair. I try to relax and absorb his passion, his fury. This is what I wanted. I wouldn’t give it up for anything, the chance to try for another baby. It’s the only thing that will save us now.
But I can’t help wondering if he’s somewhere else, with her. If there really is someone else. Because he hasn’t had such passion in years, since before we were married. He hasn’t been so ferocious, like a starving animal.
He finishes with a brutal thrust, then lies there, breathing hard into the hollow of my neck, before unclamping his hand from my hair. With a shuddering breath, he heaves himself from me. Crouching, hardly pausing to concentrate, he swiftly shifts into a hawk and takes off, beating his powerful wings until he’s rising through the trees, disappearing from view.
I sit up, gingerly touching my tender parts. I’m bleeding a little, but nothing that won’t go away in a few days. When we were first together, he was often too impatient to wait for me to get warmed up. It’s like that. A little soreness, that’s all. Maybe it’s because after months and months without it, he needs this as much as I do. Even more. He couldn’t wait because he wanted me so much. At least, I try to convince myself.
Fall 1997
1
My heart leaps when I hear the truck clank into the driveway. I have put on my favorite dress and a record on the record player in the living room. I made a roast with carrots and potatoes in the Dutch oven, which now sits on a hotplate on the cheap Formica table. I even found a few tapered candles with half the wax left. And though they are now little more than stubs, he’s finally home.
I swallow hard and knot my hands in my lap, my heart pounding in tempo with his boots clomping up the three steps he built outside. The door swings open, and for a second, he stands in the doorway, his huge silhouette filling the frame. In that moment, I’m sure I’ve made a terrible mistake.
I’ve been caught. It’s the wrong man.
But then he steps inside the trailer and closes the door. “Doralice,” he says, turning back to me and smiling. “It’s good to see you out of the house. How you been, girl? I haven’t seen you around in ages.”
“I’m good,” I say. “I made you dinner.”
“Well. I don’t know what to say. That’s a nice surprise.”
I swallow again, trying to keep from fainting face-first into the Dutch oven. “You said I should come over sometime,” I remind him. “When our husbands were gone. You said it would be nice to have some company.”
“I sure did,” Galon agrees, going to the sink to wash his hands.
I twist my own hands tighter in my lap until my knuckles ache. I knew it was a casual conversation, maybe not even a real invitation, when he said it a few months ago during a chance run-in at the gas pumps in town.
“Do you think we should be worried?” I blurt out.
He stops halfway into his seat and frowns at me. But he drops into his chair and scoots in to the table. “No.”
“I mean, I don’t think Owen is after Ira or anything, but… I just don’t know what they could be doing. And why they don’t take you. You used to hang out with them, too.”
“Owen doesn’t think I can keep a secret,” Galon says, sounding wounded.
“I’m sorry.” I reach for his hand but stop before I touch him. Suddenly, I don’t know if I can do this. Most shifters marry once or twice legally, then decide it’s too expensive and just move into someone’s house. When it ends, they move on to the next relationship. And we’ve been together before. It would be easy, nothing new.
But I still love Owen, after everything. I still want to be his wife. I’d do anything to have his love again, to have his child.
Anything.
“I think you could keep a secret,” I lie, smiling at Galon.
“I can,” he says. For a second, I’m not sure if we’re talking about their secret or ours. The one we don’t have yet. Then he tears his eyes away and serves himself a hunk of meat and some vegetables, then dishes me up with more food than I could eat in three days.
“Ira knows,” he says, slicing into the meat.
“He knows where Owen goes? Of course he knows. He goes with him.” I force a laugh. “Do you know?”
He cuts his food in silence, frowning down at it. At last, he takes a bite and chews. “This is good,” he says. “It’s real good.”
“Thank you,” I say, wiping my hands on my dress and forcing another laugh. “I’m not actually sure what we’re eating. Nothing in your freezer was labeled. Just a lot of wrapped packages.”
“Probably deer,” he says. He eats with great concentration and speed, like someone ravenously hungry but with manners.
“So…do you?” I ask after a minute.
“I can guess,” he says, his attention to his food never wavering.
“Oh?” I move my food around with my fork, hoping he won’t notice that my hands are shaking. Trying to sound casual, like I’m not concerned, either.
“You want some more?” he asks, reaching for the pot.
I haven’t taken a single bite.
“I’m good.”
“I’m going in for seconds. This is fine food, Doralice. We should do this more.”
“Yeah, for sure.” I put a slice of carrot into my mouth and chew.
“I ought to get your recipe.”
I set my fork down and sit back. “So where do they go?”
He chews, frowning, and just when I think he’s going to say he can’t tell me, he begins. “This one time, about…two years ago, he had us drive him over into wolf territory. They made me sit in the truck and keep a lookout while they went looking for…something.” He looks up from his food and give me the most hurt look. “Like I wasn’t good for anything but a lookout. Like I was going to mess it up.”
This time, I reach over and take his hand, squeeze his big fingers. “I know how that feels,” I say. “I want a baby so bad, but Owen…well, he thinks I’ll just lose it again. Like it’s my fault.”
“That’s rough,” he says.
“Sometimes, I think maybe it is my fault,” I say, my fingers massaging his. “But then I think, it could just as easily be his problem. And I’ll never know, unless…”
“Unless…?” he prompts.
This is torture. But I knew I couldn’t use hints with him. If I don’t say it, he’ll never know what I’m talking about. “Unless I tried with someone else, and it didn’t work. Then I’d know.”
He pulls his hand from mine and wipes it on his jeans. “Doralice, I’m real flattered, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying.”
“I don’t know what you think I’m saying,” I say, picking up my fork.
“I—I apologize,” he says, picking up his own fork. His tan cheeks have gone a little pink. “I thought something else. I’m not real good at reading people for clues. That’s what Ira says.”
“Oh, Galon, it’s okay,” I say, feeling suddenly guilty. “I know you’re gay.”
“It’s not that,” he says quickly. “I mean, I am. But I could make a baby. I could. You know that. Just not…well, Ira’d have to agree. And Owen. I can’t do something like that behind their backs.”
Why did I make such a heavy dinner? I’m sweating. “I didn’t mean right now,” I lie. “I just thought…si
nce you and Ira can’t have a baby by yourselves…that then we’d know at least if I could have one. And maybe Owen would want to try again, if he knew it wasn’t me.”
“Oh.” His face is as red as mine feels. “I’m sorry I thought… That wasn’t what you were thinking.”
“It’s okay.”
He finishes his food and pushes his plate away. “I’m real sorry,” he says. “But I do hope we can do this again. I know I could use a friend or two, now that Ira’s gone off with Owen so much. And maybe you could, too.”
“Right.” I remember Owen telling me to make friends. And even though Galon’s not one of the wives, he’s not a threat to Owen’s manhood, either. If only he knew what I’d tried…my blood freezes with humiliation at the thought. I’m such a fool. What made me think I could seduce a gay man, when my own husband doesn’t even want me?
“I haven’t had a friend of my own since I moved here,” Galon says. “I got Ira, and Owen, who’s Ira’s friend. But I haven’t made my own friends.”
“Then we should definitely be friends,” I say with a smile that’s not completely forced. “Because I have no friends, either.”
“Ah, come on, that can’t be true. You’re the queen.”
The thought makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I remember when Owen called me the queen of the beasts, a hundred years ago, before the first baby.
“Hey, don’t look so sad,” Galon says. “We have each other for a friend now, right? And hey, if we’re friends, I can share my secret with you.”
“What secret?” I ask, remembering the speculation of whether or not he was kidnapped and dragged here for Ira’s amusement. I’m not sure I want to know that secret.
“You know how you said you believed me, that I could keep a secret? Well, you’re right. I can.” He sits back and smiles, his huge legs spilling from under the table, his thighs like tree trunks. Is it wrong that I am imagining them crushing mine? He was always big, but he wasn’t that big when we met. I try to remember what it was like being with him, but I can’t. It was something I endured then, not enjoyed.
The Raven Queen: Fairy Tales of Horror (Villain Stories Book 1) Page 7
