I swing the flashlight beam toward the woods on the far side of the bridge, where Savannah went, but I can’t see anything except trees. Maybe I should have gone after her. I don’t really know Jack; don’t know what kind of guy he is. He was too old to hang out with us when we were kids. He’d be playing video games with his friends, telling us to fuck off. And he’s eighteen now. I know what they say about older guys. The kind of things they expect from girls.
Henry takes advantage of my distraction to grab for the flashlight again. His hand closes over mine. I swing the flashlight beam so it shines in his eyes. He squeezes them shut but doesn’t let go. His eyelids glow red in the light.
Tonight is magic. Tonight doesn’t count. This is my chance. Savannah will never forgive me if I don’t take it. Henry and I are almost exactly the same height, so all I have to do is lean forward a little and then my lips are grazing his. I close my eyes, too.
There’s a moment of perfect stillness and then Henry presses his mouth against mine. I press back. He lets go of the flashlight, moves his hands to grasp my shoulders. I grab the fabric of his T-shirt in my fists, pull him toward me. It’s like kissing Savannah, only better, maybe, because I think he actually means it. I get this feeling in my chest like when I’m running, like when I’m racing my sister, moving so fast my feet barely touch the ground. Nearly flying, every nerve in my body alive. I feel Henry’s tongue pushing at my lips like a little animal trying to crawl into the earth, and that’s when I hear it.
An unearthly wail. High and pained. So loud and so close.
Not like a baby. Not like an animal either. Henry and I pull away from each other at the same time. His face looks how I’m sure mine does. Eyes wide and startled.
“There it is,” he whispers.
“Shit,” I say, and I am, for a moment, genuinely afraid.
Just as suddenly as the wail started, it stops. I reach out to take Henry’s hand again, but before I can, something comes barreling out of nowhere and knocks him to the ground. Knocks him right over and it’s her. It’s my sister. She’s here, on the bridge with us. Here in her blue dress.
I don’t understand. Can’t believe it. Can’t breathe.
Henry is on his back and she is pinning him down, straddling him, her dress bunching up around her hips. For a second I think she’s going to kiss him, think that she saw me kiss him and was jealous, wanting him too, but then her hands are around his neck and I think of my sister, my sister who I know so well, think of her snatching up rabbits, squirrels, mourning doves, how I’ve seen her a thousand times, her hands so quick, her thin hands snapping their necks like dry spaghetti.
I think of that and I scream.
CHAPTER FOUR
The last time anyone in town saw my mother alive was at the Country Lanes bowling alley in Needle. She sat in a booth eating onion rings, silent, her belly huge, while Logan Cantrell and his younger brother, Brandon, bowled frame after frame. About a week later, Brandon showed up before the sun and banged on Grandma Margaret’s front door. When she answered he shoved a bundle wrapped in a hunting jacket into her arms and ran off.
That bundle was me.
Lee and I are twins. We look enough alike that when I peered out my window one night ten years ago and saw her standing at the edge of Grandma Margaret’s yard, wearing an oversized T-shirt as a dress, legs all mud to the knees, I knew right away that she was my sister.
I was five. I’d believed up until that moment that I was an only child, but at five the world was endlessly surprising, my picture of reality pliable as Play-Doh. In a way I’d already been expecting something like this to happen—for someone to show up out of the blue and change everything. Except I thought it would be my mother, coming back to get me.
Sure, Grandma Margaret told me that Mama had gone to Jesus (or, if she’d been drinking, gone to hell), but I believed back then that if I just wanted it hard enough, she might come back for me anyway.
When I first saw my sister, I thought about running to the bottom of the staircase, calling for Aggie or Grandma Margaret, but I was afraid that if I took my eyes off her she would disappear.
So, instead, I stood on the bed, unlatched the window, and climbed out. It was summer, and the ground felt cool beneath my feet. Crickets thrummed. Fireflies floated up from the grass like shooting stars in reverse.
My sister stood very still, watching me, as I walked toward her. She didn’t smile, didn’t respond to my “Hi.” When I reached out to touch her she flinched.
I asked her a thousand questions, that first night. Where did she come from? What was her name? Was her favorite color the same as mine? She didn’t answer, just stared at me, and I worried that maybe she couldn’t talk, but when I asked if she was hungry, she said yes, and when I asked if she wanted to come inside, she said no, and when I asked if I should go get Aggie to make us some food, her eyes went very wide and she turned around and ran back into the woods.
The next night, I climbed out my window again and I waited at the edge of the yard and sure enough, she came back. I gave her half a bag of Skittles I had saved for her and she took my hand and led me into the trees.
I didn’t think it was so strange at first, to have a secret sister. I’d sneak out at night, spend a few hours with her, sneak back in. Sometimes I’d bring toys out to the forest, sometimes we’d just chase each other or play hide-and-seek. When Aggie and Margaret noticed the scratches on my legs, the mud between my toes, they thought I was sleepwalking. They bolted guardrails to my bed, fed me hot milk with whiskey. When I said I had a sister, they told me not to be silly.
When I said, No, really I do, she comes to see me at night, Aggie told me not to talk about sisters to her, that I didn’t know what it felt like to have your heart ripped in two and I was lucky I never would.
Grandma Margaret told me lying was a sin and did I know what happens to sinners? I did, of course, because she told me every chance she got. God struck them down in their tracks and sent them straight to hell.
Do you know how hot it gets in hell? she asked me once. When I shrugged she took me by the wrist and dragged me to the kitchen. She switched on one of the stovetop gas burners and pulled my hand closer and closer, until I felt the heat, until the edges of the flames licked my fingers and I shrieked and Aggie came running from the other room. The two of them shouted at each other and I slunk away to my bedroom and pressed my throbbing fingers to the cold glass of the window by my bed, wishing my sister would come and take me away.
Eventually I realized.
It is strange. She is strange.
Nearly everyone in town knows the story of Brandon bringing me to Grandma Margaret. They differ on the specifics. Dawn. Midnight. His coat covered in blood or not a drop of blood on him. A wicked smile on his face or a look of terror.
But nobody has ever said a thing about another baby. On this detail, everyone agrees. Brandon brought one bundle that day. One baby.
The police could never get much out of him. He changed his story each time they asked him. Sometimes he said strange things, about devils or aliens. No one could agree on whether he was crazy or just a liar, but as far as I know he never mentioned another baby.
The best I can figure it is that the Cantrells kept my sister, hid her from the police somehow during the investigation into Mama’s disappearance. I’ve asked Lee about it many times, but she won’t tell me. Did Logan and Brandon raise you? I’ll say, and she’ll shake her head or shrug or ignore me. Who raised you? I’ll say, and she’ll point to a tree or a rock or a dead squirrel caught in one of her wire traps, just to fuck with me. If I keep asking, she’ll clam up for the rest of the night. I tried to trick her once, told her I’d heard Logan was out of jail and on his way home, just to see if she’d react. But it was no use. She could tell I was lying. She’s pretty much the only person in my whole life who I can’t lie to. I half believe she can s
mell it.
I suspect her early years were rough. Maybe really rough, and that’s why she won’t talk about them. All I know is this: by five, my sister was already terrified of people. She was terrified of being seen, of being caught. She told me that people were bad, that they wanted to hurt her. She made me promise not to tell anyone about her. I tried to convince her that some people were okay. I told her about Savannah, about Aggie. I’d point at characters in the picture books I brought her, say, They don’t seem so bad, right? Sometimes, I tried to make her come inside with me. I thought if she could just once sleep in a bed, take a bath, eat a bowl of mac ’n’ cheese, then maybe she would transform into a normal girl. We could be normal sisters.
But it made no difference. If I pushed her too hard, she’d stop coming around for a week or two. I would cry every night, sure I’d lost her for good. Eventually I stopped trying. To this day, my sister believes that everyone other than the two of us is evil. She has made me promise over and over that I will never let them see her, never let them get her.
* * *
—
Which is why I don’t understand.
On the bridge.
My sister. Henry.
He saw her. She let herself be seen.
Her hands are on his neck. He must have hit his head when he fell. He’s not moving. She is leaning her face down to his neck.
I think again that she is going to kiss him. I don’t understand.
I step forward and throw myself against my sister. Just fall on her, really. Knock her sideways. We tumble, roll. She tries to hit me. I get my arms around her, hold tight. We could just be wrestling. Playing like we did as kids. Lee kicks wildly. Her foot clangs off the bridge railing. Her elbow stabs into my ribs.
I hear Savannah’s voice in the distance, shouting my name.
Lee jerks her head forward and pain explodes through my left wrist.
I cry out, let go.
In an instant, she is up and running. I point the flashlight in time to see her disappear into the trees, a tail of torn lace trailing in the dirt.
I swing the flashlight down. Lee’s teeth left two arcs of indents on my wrist, some of them already filling with blood.
And Henry. There’s blood on his neck. I drop to my knees beside him.
“Jo?” Savannah says again, much closer this time.
Henry isn’t moving. His eyes are closed. I touch his neck. Try to wipe the blood away. I can feel a pulse hammering under my fingers, as fast as mine. His neck isn’t broken. Maybe she was trying to tear out his windpipe with her teeth. I’ve seen her do that with rabbits. But humans have bigger necks than rabbits. She’s not that strong, is she? And I got there in time. Her teeth only broke the skin a little. She didn’t hit an artery.
“What the fuck happened?” Jack’s voice is very close. In another moment he is pushing me aside, dropping to his knees. Did he see her? Did either of them see her? I fumble at the sleeve of my black hoodie, pull it clumsily over my bleeding wrist.
“Call 911,” Jack snaps at Savannah. He presses one ear against his brother’s chest, listening to his heart.
His heart.
I hadn’t even thought about his heart. Savannah has on Jack’s jacket. It goes down to her knees. She’s fumbling in the pockets.
“What the hell did you do?” Jack is shouting at me. I scoot back against the railing of the bridge, hide my wrist behind myself.
“An animal,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. “It was an animal.”
I shine the flashlight on Henry’s face. His hair glows white. I can see small veins on the pale hills of his eyelids. Henry. His heart. He died once when he was younger. He told me he didn’t see anything. Just darkness.
“I don’t know,” I hear Savannah say. “He’s bleeding.”
He’s fine. He’s got to be. We kissed. Jack is back on his feet, yanking the phone out of Savannah’s hand. She hugs herself. The ends of the jacket sleeves hang loose, as if she has no hands.
“He’s got a weak heart,” I hear Jack say into the phone. “Congenital.”
My own heart is pounding so loud it nearly drowns out everything else.
“A wolf,” I say. Did they see her? I don’t think they saw her. They can’t have seen her.
“Off County Road 407,” I hear Jack say. “You’ll see a car parked. Gray Nissan.”
“It was a wolf,” I say.
Jack is beside me again. Kneeling, he scoops his brother up in his arms. I am jealous for a second. It should be me. I should be carrying Henry in my arms, struggling through no-man’s-land toward our foxhole as mortars hit the dirt and explode behind us. Like I imagined in history class. I should press my lips to his. He should open his eyes, wrap his arms around me. Poor Henry. I’ll save you.
My hands are shaking, though it isn’t cold. I push the sleeve farther over my wrist, press my other wrist against it, though it hurts so bad I gasp. I try to apply pressure, try to stop the blood leaking out. I want to hide too. I want to run. The stars are so bright out here, with no light from the town to compete. They stare down at us. A thousand angry eyes.
A wolf, streaking through the night. Silver fur and yellow teeth. Are there wolves in Ohio? My sister and I thought we saw one once, in the distance, but it was dark and so maybe it was only a dog.
I’ve asked her before, is she ever afraid? Of animals in the woods? She says no. She’s only afraid of people. She keeps a small folding knife in her plastic purse. Thank God she didn’t use it tonight.
What the hell was she thinking?
Did she think he was hurting me? Was she protecting me?
Jack is carrying his brother across the bridge, down the path through the woods. Savannah is trailing behind him, the empty ends of the jacket sleeves flapping at her sides.
I run after them, shine the flashlight beam on the path so Jack won’t stumble. I scan the dark forest around us, try to catch a glimpse of blue.
The cry. I remember the cry. We heard it on the bridge and I thought it was a ghost. For a moment, I had believed in ghosts.
But it wasn’t a ghost. Of course it wasn’t. It was her. My sister.
Maybe she didn’t misunderstand.
Maybe she wasn’t trying to save me.
Maybe she was angry. I told her I wasn’t going to come out to the forest at night anymore, but here I was. In our forest. At night. With strangers. I was worse than Savannah bringing boys to Myron’s. Maybe she meant to punish me. I knew she’d be mad at me, when I said I couldn’t run every night, but I’d never thought—
I hadn’t thought—
“Oh man,” says Savannah beside me. She turns big eyes on me, the mascara streaked beneath them, so it looks like she has two black eyes. “We are so fucked.”
* * *
—
The walk feels longer on the way back, though we hurry. I make Savannah take the flashlight. Under the cover of dark, I clamp a hand over my wrist, squeezing tight, gritting my teeth. The bleeding stops, but the pain does not. It feels far off, though, almost like it doesn’t belong to me—the numbing effect of whatever was in the Mountain Dew bottle. We reach the road, stand on the shoulder long enough for Savannah to say how fucked we are a few more times, and then the ambulance is there, a storm of flashing lights.
I feel as though I’m watching all this on TV: the EMTs placing Henry onto a stretcher, sliding him into the back of the ambulance like a tray into the oven; one of the EMTS lowering an oxygen mask onto Henry’s face, the other pushing a needle into the crook of his elbow; Henry’s eyes fluttering open; Savannah trying to cling to Jack’s arm, Jack pushing her away.
A cop car goes whooping past. It brakes hard and swerves over to park just in front of Jack’s car. Two cops get out. This isn’t a dream. Isn’t magic. This counts.
“What do we tell t
hem?” asks Savannah. Her eyes meet mine for a moment. She looks scared. My gaze drifts down to my left sleeve. The blood that soaked through is dried now, barely visible against the black fabric.
“Tell ’em the truth,” says Jack.
I run and leap up into the back of the ambulance. Before anyone can stop me, I crouch beside Henry. He looks up at me, eyes wide and wet as egg yolks. I’m happy to see him awake. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.
“It was a wolf,” I tell him. He saw her. He must have. For an instant, before she knocked him over. I don’t know if he’ll remember, don’t know if anyone would believe him. “Or a dog. A big dog. It attacked you. I tried to stop it.”
“Get her out of there!” shouts one of the EMTs. The next moment I’m being pulled backward, an EMT gripping one of my arms, Jack the other. The doors of the ambulance are being pulled shut. Jack is climbing into the passenger seat.
I can see through the little window in the back door like a TV screen. Henry glows in the middle of it all. The ambulance screams away.
Then it’s just me and Savannah and the two cops, one old, one young. I recognize the older one. He’s come into the bar a few times, gotten raging drunk and ranted at length to anyone who will listen about how Lester cops are only paid eight bucks an hour and there aren’t enough of them and yet everyone acts like it’s their fault that there are still meth houses sprouting around town like dandelions on untended lawns, and heroin trickling down from the cities to fill the gaps left by prescription painkillers that got too pricey. How would you feel, he’d like to know, if everyone treated you like scum until suddenly they needed you?
I clasp my hands behind my back, to hide my wrist. Savannah reaches for my right arm and I let her grab it, let her squeeze it too hard. I know how she feels about the police. Her family is huge (Aggie likes to say that half the town is related to Savannah), so even though her mom stays resolutely on the right side of the law, they still have to deal with cops pounding on their door at all hours, looking for uncles or cousins who don’t.
Some Kind of Animal Page 4
