The Centaur's Wife

by Amanda Leduc

  Tasha pulls the greenhouse door shut, then runs to catch up. “If stories are never only stories,” she says, “then why do you tell the twins about fairies stealing babies from their cribs?”

  Heather laughs—a high, clear sound that makes Tasha shiver.

  “That story wasn’t for them,” she says. “It was for me.”

  THE JEALOUS BIRD

  Once there was a bird who was jealous of the sun. No matter how high the bird flew, the sun was always higher, and it made the bird angry.

  “Why should the sun fly higher than we do?” he said to his fellow birds. “We work so hard to stay in the air but the sun sits up there and does nothing. It’s not fair.”

  “The sun has always flown above us.” The bird who said this was much older than the jealous bird, and had seen much more of the world. “This is how it has always been.”

  “Why should something stay the same just because it has always been that way?” said the jealous bird.

  The old bird said, severely, “The sun is higher. We are lower. The sun warms us when we’re cold and sends us light to see worms in the grass, and asks of us nothing in return. You should be grateful for this, not angry.”

  “I will be grateful when the sun sees how much higher I can fly!” cried the bird. He threw his head back and crowed, and many other birds, massed around him, threw back their heads and did the same.

  “You cannot fly higher than the sun,” the old bird warned. “It is foolish to even try.”

  But the jealous bird would not be swayed, for he knew a secret his mother had told him long ago: the birds themselves had come from the sun.

  When he was a fumbling chick in the nest, his mother had said, “You have sunlight in your wings. All that we are comes from the sun. We are the same. Before the world was born, when we all spun round in the sky together, the sun’s fire was also your own.”

  And so the bird gathered all those who were set on fire by his words and told them they would fly to the sun and reclaim their place in the sky. “We have the sun in our feathers,” he said. As one, they spread their wings and lifted from the trees.

  The birds flew high, and then higher still. They flew so high the air became thin; some birds gasped, but kept on struggling; other birds gave up and dropped back, far down to the ground. The jealous bird and a few close friends kept flying.

  They flew so high the air was hard to breathe; they flew so high the sun began to burn their wings. One by one, the birds burst into flame and fell, screaming. When they hit the ground, the earth went black with mourning.

  The jealous bird’s wings burned too, but he held his mother’s words deep inside and pushed on. He flew until the sky curved, until the great dark belly of the universe came into view.

  The sun, the bird saw to his surprise, was still so far away. But the sun saw him, and knew who he was instantly.

  “I have been waiting for you,” the sun said. “I have been waiting for so long.”

  “I’m here to take my rightful place!” the bird cried. He puffed out his chest and waited for the sun to come at him, full of anger.

  But the sun only smiled. “How long have I been here?” it said. “I have watched the world spin for millions of years. I have waited alone in the dark sky for company. You and your kind were content to fly amongst the trees and dream without daring to reach—to make me into a monster—when all along it is I who’ve been waiting for you.”

  The jealous bird, shocked by this, almost fell. “You have always flown higher than we have,” he said. “Had I known that you were lonely, I would have come much sooner.”

  “The kindness of your heart is not what brought you close to me,” the sun said. “You are here because you thought you were better than the best. I am here to tell you: you are.”

  The bird was filled with joy at this. But then he thought of his friends who had fallen back to the earth and burned. “Does that mean my friends are weak?”

  “Your friends are not weak,” said the sun. “But they did not believe. The world is so much bigger than the tops of your trees, and in the depths of their hearts, they were not sure. You understand that now, yes?”

  The bird looked back down at the world from which he had come, and then at the sun. “Yes,” he said, and he no longer sounded jealous.

  “Good,” said the sun. “There is still much to learn.”

  And the jealous bird, no longer jealous, caught fire in truth this time, and shone as bright as any star had ever done.

  6

  The girls smile at two months—both of them at the same time, their mouths curling up as they watch one another. Their eyes follow her everywhere. On the rare days when sunshine filters through the front window, Heather spreads a blanket on the living room floor and lays them down. They stretch their arms to the ceiling. She whispers silly things into the soft cups of their ears.

  On the rare evenings when the girls aren’t colicky and he is home from scavenging, B lies with her in the living room and makes funny faces at the babies. He calls them beautiful and gorgeous and Daddy’s favourite flowers. He picks them up and twirls them in the centre of the floor until their faces split with smiles, and then he goes into the kitchen and makes dinner for them all. His eyes say beautiful and gorgeous to Heather when he’s too tired—and they are both of them almost always too tired, now—to say the words.

  He brings her wildflowers from the southern edge of town; tall daisies and tulips, irises and snapdragons. She throws the dried amaryllis into the backyard and this time B does not bring it back; the next day it is covered by Boston ivy.

  B says he loves them in the food that he cooks, in the way that he dances with and sings to the girls. His voice soaring high and sweet, sounding so much younger than she feels.

  At night he reaches for her again and again and weeps his hot tears into her hair. This, too, is a kind of love.

  It’s a miracle that any of them survived. This family they have—a miracle.

  The girls shine with a sticky magic that pulls her toward them, a force that feels older than love. Her children. The dark matter of her mind and heart is in constant, uneasy orbit around their flaming heads.

  They are three months old, then four, then five.

  She grows thinner. Everyone does.

  * * *

  Summer has given way to autumn. Daylight gives way to the dark. Heather and B go to bed earlier and wake up when the light comes, turning themselves toward the remnants of the sun. The sky is grey-tinged, with faint rust at the edges. There is no power in the city save for the generator that keeps Tasha’s clinic refrigerators going.

  The girls have finally started to sleep for stretches at a time without wailing. Three hours here, five hours there. Still Heather walks them, and sometimes B comes too. He carries one twin, she carries another. Sometimes they even hold hands—the way they did before the girls came, when she was pregnant and life spooled in front of her, boring but safe. They walk up and down the streets and nod to the people they see. Everyone knows who B is, and they call out to him and smile.

  One day, B finds a battery-powered radio in a heap of rubble and brings it back to the house. At night they put the girls down, then turn on the radio and search for news, all of which is ominous. One city has been hit with an unknown sickness—the doctors gone, the food almost nonexistent. Please, somebody help. We can’t do this much longer. A voice-over at another station complains of what they call the greening—the vines that crawl up to choke the buildings and the vegetation strangling the roads.

  It’s a fucking referendum OF THE TREES, people! This from a man who identifies himself only as Nate. If you haven’t noticed the way the trees are taking the world back, you haven’t been paying attention! Hoard your matches! Don’t be burned—make sure you DO THE BURNING!

  B doesn’t like Nate. B doesn’t really like the radio at all. Inevi
tably he is the one who goes to bed while Heather sits at the kitchen table with the volume low and searches for other voices.

  Every night, B reaches for her when she finally comes to bed. His hand between her thighs and then his cock, his tears against her shoulder, his frustrated grunting in her ear. She looks out the window and up to the mountain. She does not make a sound.

  “Where have you gone?” he whispers. “I feel like I’m fucking a ghost.”

  Once, when she is feeding the girls dinner from jars of mushy peas and puréed carrots they’ve hoarded down in the basement, B comes across a station that is playing cello music. The notes burst into the kitchen, mournful and dark. The girls stop fussing, instantly. The only music they’ve ever heard is their mother singing to them in the forest. She watches, transfixed, as their eyes register the sound, as they twist their heads around to find where it is. B watches them too. As the music becomes more urgent, they break into open-mouthed smiles, and then they are laughing with joy in a way they’ve never done, and suddenly Heather is laughing too, then crying, and B comes to her, gathering her into his arms as she sobs into his dirt-encrusted shirt.

  “It’s okay,” he whispers. “Heather, we’ll be okay.” After the cello trails away, the girls stare at her, and then at B, uncertain.

  That night she is the one who reaches for his cock, his face, his lips. She straddles him in the darkness of their bedroom and rocks in utter silence, the only sound the creaking of the mattress, B’s laboured breaths.

  He laughs as he comes inside of her, soft and incredulous.

  In the days after this she often turns the radio on. She lets the girls roll around on the floor as she looks for the music again. She finds the cello once or twice, here and there a violin or trumpet. She never finds anyone singing.

  She burns through one pair of batteries and then another, and then B takes the radio away.

  “We have to make our supply of batteries last,” he says. Even B has given up hope of someone coming to the rescue.

  The next day, Heather goes to the strip mall, to where Annie is taking inventory in the clinic, which is filled with tired mothers and sniffling children. Tasha is nowhere to be found.

  “Batteries,” Heather says by way of hello. “I want more batteries, Annie.”

  “Everyone wants batteries,” Annie says, not looking up. She is borderline skeletal now, as they all are.

  “I just want a couple,” Heather says. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Annie laughs. “A secret like all the other secrets you’re keeping?”

  Heather blinks. “I’m not keeping any secrets.”

  Annie snorts. “Sure. Sneaking off to that greenhouse by the mountain is what, exactly?”

  Inside of her, a sudden bloom of irrational betrayal. “How do you know about the greenhouse?” She knows the greenhouse does not belong to her. Tasha can talk about it with anyone.

  Annie rolls her eyes. “You’re not the only person sneaking away from work, it would seem.”

  “I have children to take care of—”

  “And I have an entire city to take care of!” Annie slams her palm down on the counter. “Do you care about that? Does Tasha?”

  “Annie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you go to the greenhouse,” Annie hisses. “I know that Tasha goes there too.”

  “Tasha?” Heather asks, now thoroughly confused. “Alone?”

  “Everyone is working so hard,” Annie says. “Tasha most of all. She won’t sleep, I can barely get her to eat—but she disappears into the forest and goes to a fucking greenhouse? For what—so she can pick some fucking flowers that no one can eat?”

  “Maybe she just needs some time alone,” Heather says.

  “Well that’s too bad!”

  Heather and all the people in the clinic stiffen in shock.

  Annie flushes, shakes her head. “Come with me,” she mutters to Heather. She leads her into the back of the clinic, but then stops and uses the keys at her belt to let them into a small room, a tiny space with a window that faces west. When Heather follows her in, Annie closes the door behind them. The walls are stacked to the ceiling with shelves, which are full of boxes and bundles and who knows what else. Annie turns to face her.

  “Why do you go to the greenhouse?” she says. “Why does Tasha?”

  “I don’t know why Tasha goes,” Heather says. “But it reminds me of my dad—he’s the one who built it.”

  “You know something,” Annie presses. “I see the way that Tasha looks at you.”

  “Look, Annie—why don’t you ask her?”

  “I do, but she doesn’t tell me.” Something in her flat tone reminds Heather of B. “She acts like we’re meant to be here when we could just as easily go anywhere else.” She reaches up, yanks a box down from a high shelf. “I was there for her,” she says. “The whole goddamned time after her parents died. She wouldn’t have gotten out of bed if it hadn’t been for me. I didn’t complain. I didn’t say anything. Because I love her.” She stares at the box in her hands. “I thought about leaving her. A hundred times. But that’s not what you do, is it—not when things get bad. And now the world actually falls apart and where is she? Playing the lone saviour and taking off whenever she can to a fucking greenhouse?” She swipes an angry fist across her forehead and fixes her gaze on Heather again. “Why do the people here talk about you?”

  Heather clears her throat. “The batteries, Annie?”

  “Is it the mountain? Everyone says that no one has been up there except for you. What’s the big fucking secret?”

  “My father died on the mountain,” Heather says. “After he fell, the city made it a law that no one could climb the mountain.”

  “You went up with him?” You, her face says. You, with your twisted feet?

  Heather nods.

  “Why?”

  “I wanted him to believe that I was strong, that I could keep up with him. It was the only thing he wanted for me.”

  “So what’s the big deal? What’s up there?”

  “Nothing, Annie. Nothing is up there.”

  “Then why do people keep talking about it? What did he do—jump?” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Annie freezes, a look of horror on her face. She won’t meet Heather’s eyes, and begins to fumble through the box, then grabs a small package of batteries and holds it out to Heather.

  “He fell,” Heather says, not taking her eyes from Annie’s face. “He didn’t jump.”

  Annie nods. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. When Heather takes the batteries, Annie moves past her, head down, and goes out the door.

  Alone in the closet, Heather stares around her at all the boxes. She shoves the batteries in her pocket and reaches for another box on the shelves.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” a voice says. When Heather spins around, she sees Elyse, pale and thin in the doorway, breathing hard.

  “Annie let me in.”

  Elyse shrugs. “You shouldn’t be here now,” she says. “All of this is private.”

  “Private?”

  “We don’t know what the winter will bring,” Elyse says. “We all need to go without so that everyone can have a little. Annie and Tasha know what they’re doing.”

  “No one knows what they’re doing,” Heather says. She brushes past Elyse, doesn’t wait for an answer.

  The next day, after B leaves in the morning, she finds where he stashed the radio and plays it once more for the girls. The cello music bursts forth from the speaker as if by magic. Their smiles are bright, their laughter uncontrolled.

  The town that had the sickness does not broadcast anymore.

  * * *

  When the last pair of batteries dies, she walks the girls in the forest more. They are five months old now, and she works to carry both of them. Their e
yes are now bright and curious, ready to take in everything around them. Ravenous monsters. They reach out for the trees and brush their tiny hands across the bark; they reach forward to the deep-orange flowers that twine through and hang down from some of the trunks. She’s never seen these orange flowers before. She guides their hands away.

  Everything in the forest now feels poisonous to her, even the plants that she knows. Still, she walks. She tamps down the tangled grass and roots and holds her hands out to brush the branches away. They reach the field with the sunflowers—husks now, disrobing for winter. They walk across the field and into the forest on the other side and eventually reach the greenhouse.

  She opens the door and the smells spill out. The orchids, the lilies, the jacaranda tall and blue in the middle of it all. The air in the greenhouse still feels hot and heavy, waiting for what, she doesn’t know.

  The amaryllis bob at her, fiery red and sweet. The girls reach out their hands.

  * * *

  She is twelve years old and she and her father are going up the mountain to celebrate her birthday. It is a secret—no one knows, not even her mother. Her mother thinks they are going into town to see the flowers Heather’s father has planted in the square, and then to a movie and dinner. A father-daughter date.

  “Have fun!” her mother calls, and waves to them both from the door. They walk to the end of the street and turn left as though they are heading downtown. Then they double back along the street parallel to theirs and make their way to the base of the mountain.

  Everyone has heard the stories, but Heather’s father isn’t afraid.

  “Who died?” he has often said to his wife and daughter. “No one knows anyone who has actually been up here. I’m the only one who’s even been close to the mountain in years.”