Black Wings

by Megan Hart

  And then she was awake.

  Muzzy-headed, her mouth a trash can. No, a slaughterhouse, she thought. In her mouth, she tasted thick, greasy slabs of meat and cheese, the sort of meal she’d been unable to eat for months.

  She wasn’t screaming, but someone was. “Briella?”

  Was the girl watching something on TV that she wasn’t supposed to? The screams sounded breathless, whistling and far away. Shit, was she boiling water? That was a kettle, not a person. What was going on?

  Marian couldn’t think straight. The blankets had tangled around her feet. She was trapped. The screaming faded. She’d been dreaming, right? She fought to get herself upright. Failed. Fell back against the pillows.

  The doorbell rang. Then again. The bell itself had been sounding like a dying cat for the past year or so; Dean had changed the battery and the wiring, but nothing had helped. Now it wailed, urgent and demanding, and Marian couldn’t get herself out of bed to reach it.

  She made it out of bed. Lumbered, confused and disoriented, toward the source of the noise. She hit the bedroom doorframe with her shoulder, hard enough to send her spinning back into the room before she gathered herself sufficiently to move forward again. She wanted to shout out to the person ringing the bell so incessantly that she was on her way, but she was too out of breath. By the time she got to the front door, the bell had stopped.

  She opened it, expecting a delivery person, maybe a door-to-door evangelist, someone she could pointedly dismiss. Instead, it was her neighbor, Hank, and in his arms was a shivering and whining Briella. Marian blinked rapidly, not sure what to do or say. Her stomach lurched and her gorge rose. Her head pounded.

  “She ought to have stayed in her own yard,” Hank said. “Rufus didn’t mean anything by it. But she ought to have stayed in her own yard. I’ve told you all that, over and over again. All you kids, you never listen.”

  Marian grabbed her daughter from the man’s arms, mindful of the weight and how it made her back ache. “What happened?”

  Briella squirmed to get her feet on the ground. She held up her hand. She’d grown a lot over the past few months, sprouting up at least two inches, but in this moment her hand seemed as tiny as a doll’s.

  It was covered in blood that oozed out between her clenched fingers. Marian gasped and grabbed at the girl’s hand. Briella cried out – in pain or fear, Marian didn’t know and didn’t care. She pulled the girl inside the house and behind her, putting out a hand to keep Hank from coming any closer, even though he hadn’t made so much as a move to do so.

  “I just wanted to play with the dog.” Briella’s hitching breaths made it hard to understand the words, and Hank cut her off almost instantly with a shaking, breathless retort.

  “She was trying to take him. She had him by the collar, and she was dragging him over the electric fence. That hurts him, you know. Rufus knows he’s not to go beyond it. It shocks him if he does. She had him—” Hank broke off and took a few steps back, off the porch. His hands were trembling. “By the collar. He was yelping and trying to get away. He must’ve bit her then.”

  “Briella, is this true?” Marian put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, her grip tight. She was up and fully out of bed for the first time in months. She could only guess that the adrenaline was keeping her upright. “What were you doing?”

  “I just wanted to play,” Briella said stubbornly. “My hand hurts!”

  “C’mon. Let’s go.” Marian straightened. “I’m sorry, Hank. Your dog bit my kid though, so I’m not sure what to do about that.”

  “She ought to have stayed in her own yard,” he repeated.

  Marian closed the door on him and took Briella into the bathroom, where she washed the wound carefully, taking her time. Breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. She had to stop once, thinking she would vomit, but she managed not to. There was a lot of blood, but the injury itself turned out to be two small punctures on the back of Briella’s hand and palm, as though the dog had nipped, for just a moment.

  Stretching to pull a package of adhesive bandages from the medicine cabinet, Marian caught sight of her own face. The scars had faded, but she could still find them if she wanted to. A series of ragged holes along her chin and into her cheek. She’d needed fifty-seven stitches. She remembered hearing her mother once say that if Marian hadn’t hit the dog as hard as she had, it would have torn off her jaw. She didn’t know if that was true, but the memory of the pain flashed back to her hard enough that she had to grip the sink to keep from falling over.

  Compared to what had happened to Marian, Briella’s injury looked like almost nothing.

  The girl had stopped crying, anyway. She’d watched her mother cleaning the wound carefully, with an avid fascination. She held still while Marian pressed the bandage over the small punctures. They weren’t even bleeding anymore.

  “Can you curl your fingers for me?” Marian asked.

  Briella did, holding up her hand. “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t look too bad.” Marian settled herself on the edge of the tub, thinking for a moment that she might lose her balance and flip over backward. She caught herself on the edge and let her head droop, eyes closed. The rush of fear had faded, leaving her shaking internally and ready to collapse. She’d be lucky if she made it back to bed.

  Briella, seated on the closed toilet lid, turned to her. “It hurts.”

  “Want to tell me what happened?” Marian closed her eyes again. Buying time. If she could sit here long enough, she might be able to make it without passing out or throwing up. She’d consider it a win if she managed only one.

  “I was just playing with the dog. I wanted him to meet Onyx. I thought maybe they could be friends and have a playdate or something.” Briella had slid into that plastic tone of a much younger child, that bright and empty voice. She could be telling the truth or straight-up lying to her mother’s face. Marian had stopped being able to tell.

  “You know you’re not supposed to go out into Mr. Hank’s yard.” Marian cracked open an eye.

  Briella nodded. “I know.”

  “He said you were trying to take the dog.”

  “I knew I wasn’t supposed to go into his yard, so I thought if the dog could come play in ours, that would be better. But I didn’t know he had a bad collar on,” Briella said in the babyish voice, too young for her age.

  It set Marian’s teeth on edge. She could no longer bear to sit on the edge of the tub with her ass aching. She heaved herself to her feet, one hand on the enormous mound of her belly, the other on the edge of the sink to keep herself steady. She desperately had to pee.

  “Don’t talk like that,” she said.

  Briella gave her an innocent look. “Like what?”

  “Like a baby,” Marian snapped.

  Briella’s smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed. In the months of Marian’s sickness, and even for a while before that, the girl had been pleasant and obedient and helpful, but here was the flash of anger and defiance Marian had been expecting.

  “You’re not a baby,” Marian said, trying to soften her tone.

  Briella’s lip curled. “If I was a baby, would you like me better? You would, wouldn’t you? If I was the one making you sick, you’d be angry and hate me, unless I was a damn baby!”

  “Move,” Marian managed to croak out, gesturing at the toilet. “I’m going to—”

  She couldn’t finish before she was gagging, bile flooding her mouth. Briella flew off the toilet and out of the bathroom, leaving Marian to flip up the seat and lean over to unleash the hot liquid that scalded her throat. She heaved a couple times, bringing up little more than air. Yet, when she stood to rinse her mouth at the sink, despite her sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes, she felt…better.

  Better than she had for a while, anyway. She brushed her teeth, expecting that simple task to start off another round of vomiting,
but it didn’t. In fact, she felt good enough to go to the kitchen and pull out the bowl of soup Dean had left for her before he went to work. In the two minutes it took for her to heat it in the microwave, Marian went to the back door and looked out at the yard. It was lush, overgrown, a jungle. Dean wouldn’t have had much time to mow lately. She searched automatically for signs of the raven. Birds dove in and out of the pokeweed that had grown as tall as her head all along the tree line, feasting on the purple berries that were poison to humans, but she saw no sign of an oversized black bird.

  She thought about calling for Briella to come down, but could not make herself do it. She spooned soup slowly into her mouth, savoring it, making sure not to eat too fast. No more than a few bites was plenty, but at least she was keeping it down.

  Dean had texted to check in with her, and she took the time to answer him. She was feeling better. She loved him; he loved her. Briella had been bitten by Rufus, but although the bite had bled a lot, it didn’t look that bad. They’d keep an eye on it, see if it started to look infected. If so, Dean could take her to the urgent care center. Marian was not to worry about it, not to even think about trying to get in the car and drive.

  ILYSM, Marian typed. I love you so much.

  The sound of footsteps scraped on the ceiling overhead. Marian drank some water drawn from the tap, waiting again for it to revolt, but it stayed settled. She put both hands on her big belly, feeling the baby inside. The press of its foot, what was surely a rump. It – she could not refer to it by a gender, since they’d determined not to find out – was not permanently head down yet, but the OB doc had assured Marian that it would be, soon enough.

  If I was a baby, would you like me better?

  The truth was, she had liked Briella better as a baby. She would never say so, but she didn’t have to, did she? The kid had it all figured out.

  Halfway up the stairs, Marian heard the distinctive sound of muffled sobs coming from the girl’s room. For a moment much longer than it should have been, Marian considered turning around and going back downstairs. Briella hadn’t called out for her. She could pretend she hadn’t heard.

  She was a terrible mother.

  Marian closed her eyes, one hand gripping the railing hard, as her shoulders slumped. One foot in front of the other. That was all she could manage right now. One step at a time, until she got into the upper hallway.

  The sobbing was louder up here, and Marian’s heart broke a little at the sound. A few more steps took her down the worn paisley runner to Briella’s closed door. Marian put her hand on the knob. She told herself to turn it.

  She didn’t. She took a step away from the door, her heart squeezing and a fire rising in her throat. She put a hand to her chest, pressing against the pain. If Marian didn’t take care of herself, she couldn’t take care of her child. Right? It didn’t mean she didn’t love Briella. It didn’t mean she cared more about this unborn baby than she did for the one she already had. Just because she didn’t like her kid, that didn’t mean she didn’t love her.

  The sound of the door opening stopped her at the top of the stairs, and Marian tensed, eyes closing again as her jaw clenched. She didn’t turn at first. She waited for the small, sad sound of Briella calling out to her.

  Then she put on a smile and went to her daughter.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  There wasn’t much room in Marian’s lap for anything but her belly, but she managed to get Briella settled in it. The girl’s sobs had fallen off, but her face, hot and moist, pressed to the scoop neck of Marian’s shirt in a way that made her want to pull away in distaste. She forced herself to hold her daughter as close as she wanted to be held, soothing and rocking. After a minute, her own eyes closed as she fell into the back-and-forth rhythm.

  This was how it had been when Briella was young. Before, Marian thought, but could not be sure what she meant by that. Before what? Before this pregnancy, before Parkhaven, before Briella had started becoming so…different.

  But she had always been different.

  “I didn’t mean to make Mr. Hank mad,” Briella said now. “I was so bored, hanging around the house all day with nothing to do. I just wanted to play with his dog.”

  “I know, honey. But you can’t let yourself into someone else’s yard like that. You never know if someone’s dog is nice or not. And you know for sure that you were never supposed to pet Rufus without Mr. Hank there.”

  Briella held up the hand Hank’s dog had bitten. The wound, cleaned and bandaged, was hard to see, but Marian knew it was there. Her stomach turned at the thought of it. Guilt sawed at her nerves. She gathered Briella closer, shifting her even though there really wasn’t enough room for both of them on this chair.

  “Does your hand hurt?”

  “A little.” Briella squirmed and looked up at her mother.

  Snot had crusted in her nostrils and there was more crusty ooze in the corners of her eyes. Her hair smelled sour, unwashed, full of tangles and frizz that broke Marian’s heart. Dean had been doing his best, but he didn’t know how to take care of Briella’s hair while Marian had been too sick to even think about it. Her breath was stale with an undertone of something rotten. God, all the smells. Marian had to swallow hard against them. The truce she seemed to have made with her stomach earlier was in danger of being broken.

  “That dog shouldn’t have bit me,” Briella said.

  “No, Bean. It definitely shouldn’t have.”

  They rocked a bit longer. Briella was growing too heavy. Marian was going to have to shift her again, or ask her to get down. Her back ached. Her arms ached. Hell, there weren’t many parts of her that didn’t.

  “The baby’s kicking,” Briella said against her skin.

  Marian tipped her head back to get a little breathing room. The places Briella’s face had pressed felt sticky and gross. “Yes. I feel it.”

  “Did I do that?”

  “Yeah. You were a little squirmy worm.”

  Briella laughed and squirmed, but too hard. Marian couldn’t hold on to her. Her strained back complained as she tried, and failed, to keep the girl on her lap. Briella slid off and ended up on the floor with a thump.

  “Briella, damn it,” Marian said, her patience once again worn to a nub. “Be careful. You’re going to hurt me, and hurt yourself, too.”

  “Sorry.” Briella got up, dusting off her bottom with her uninjured hand.

  Marian softened. “It’s just that you’re such a big girl now.”

  “But I’m not. I’m small. I’m smaller than all the kids at school. Am I going to be the right size? Ever?”

  “Of course you are. You’re small, but that doesn’t mean there’s something…wrong…with you.” Marian hesitated on the words.

  There wasn’t anything wrong, physically. Hygiene issues aside, Briella was tiny but as perfect as she’d always been. If anything, she was becoming more and more beautiful as time went on. Beneath the boogers and the tangled, dirty hair, it was still possible to see the young woman she was going to be in just a short time. Before Marian would be ready for it.

  At sixteen, Marian had clashed with her mother over dates and curfews and the length of her skirts. Normal arguments. Once, Mom had forbidden her to go out with friends, but Marian, furious at what she’d felt then was relentless parental interference, had stormed out of the house without even pretending she was trying to be obedient.

  It was the only time she’d done that. Her mom had waited up for her until she got home, and they’d talked it out. They’d made compromises.

  “There’s a time,” her mom had said, “when you realize that you can’t actually make your children behave the way you want them to. You have to hope that you’ve already raised them to make the best choices, and then you have to let them make theirs.”

  Marian had never forgotten that conversation. She could not get it out of her mind
now. She could not make her child behave the way she wanted her to, that was clear, but had she raised her to make the right choices?

  “What are they going to do about Rufus?” Briella asked suddenly.

  Marian chose her response carefully, gesturing for the girl to come closer and stand by the side of the rocker. She pulled Briella close into a one-armed hug. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to put it in the pound?”

  “I don’t think so, Bean. Rufus made a mistake. He was hurting from his shock collar, and he might have been scared.” Briella had called the dog an “it”, not a “him”, but Marian had deliberately done the opposite.

  “What did they do with the dog that bit you?”

  Marian pressed the small lump of a foot or a bottom that bulged up from her belly. The ache in her joints intensified as she shifted in the chair with a small groan. “That was totally different.”

  “What did they do to the dog, Mama?” Briella tugged at Marian’s arm until she looked at her.

  “They put it down,” Marian told her reluctantly. “But, Briella, that dog viciously attacked me without warning. It was a bad, bad dog. Rufus was just scared and…he made a mistake.”

  She never would have dreamed she would defend a dog for biting anyone, particularly her child, but the memory of Hank’s face twisted in fear and sorrow as he carried the screaming Briella toward her was still fresh and strong. Rufus was not a bad dog, and Marian knew it. She might never have stopped to pet him, and yes, she’d often warned Briella away from the yard where the dog was kept, but that was from her own fears and not because of anything the mutt itself had ever done.

  “Put him down.” Briella seemed to muse on this a moment. “You mean they killed him because he bit you.”

  Marian shuddered, not wanting to flash back to the snarls and slashing pain and smell of blood. The sound of her own screams and of her mother’s. The baby inside her kicked harder, maybe sensing her upset.