Scribbles and Scrawls

by Bethany Votaw

“Because I am always with you.” The voice came from all around them. A man appeared from the fog, his cloak whipping in the wind. He only had one hand.

  “Why are you doing this?” Mike asked. Any fear he had was replaced by his hunger for an answer.

  “You stole from me, and now I am stuck here, unable to leave or collect my hearts and souls. I may as well make you feel like I do. Trapped in an endless world with only a growing emptiness.”

  “I want this to end,” Mike said.

  “Then give me my hand.”

  The eyes of the trio wandered to the spot where the hand once burned.

  “We can’t,” Mike said.

  “Then replace what you have stolen.”

  A thud made the boys jump, and on the ground between the three of them was an ax.

  6

  Crows

  She covered her mouth when she spoke, at least when she was outside. But she had been known to cover her smiles and mouth when near windows too. A strange habit she started as a child, and it was only stranger as she grew.

  She covered her body with thick sweaters and denim. Mittens even in summer. “To keep the birds from splitting my skin,” she explained.

  “They won’t get you.” Cam rolled his eyes. Older brothers always did that though. He pinched her, but it didn’t hurt. The thick coat was enough armor this time.

  “They’ll get my tongue,” she said, her tongue hidden behind her hands. “It’s like a worm to them, ripe for the picking.”

  “No, they won’t.” Cam stuck his tongue out and wiggled it. The pink thing tempted the birds. “See?”

  “Stop it,” she said. “Put that thing back in your face.”

  “I can’t hear you when you cover your mouth like that.”

  She ignored him. He loved to taunt her. But she loved her tongue attached to her mouth better.

  “Grandma says crows know where their friends have died, and they won’t come back to that spot, kinda like how we don’t go to the cemeteries because it’s creepy.”

  “Grandma also says flamingos are pink.” She picked up a sick with her free hand and hit a tree trunk too. The crack spread through the forest, and she hoped it would make the birds flee.

  “They are!” he cried, throwing a rock into a pile of dry and crunchy autumn leaves.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “It’s ‘cause of what they eat.”

  Like pink tongues? “Okay, so what if she’s right about the crows?” she asked.

  “Well,” he threw another rock into the trees, “what if I make a safe space for you?” He held the rock like a weapon, and she took a step back.

  “What do you mean?”

  He chucked the rock at the tree. “I’ll find a crow, put it down.” He fiddled with the rock in his hand, trying to find the best way to hold it. “Then we make all the other crows see the dead one. Then they never come back. A crow graveyard they’ll never visit. You’re safe.”

  “No,” she said, her palm flat against her lips. “No.” She ran inside, the only thing worse than a lone crow was a mob of angry crows.

  “What’s got you all twisted?” her grandma asked as she tore inside, slamming the screen door behind her. She wanted to lock the door, but her granny would make a bigger scene.

  “It’s Cam,” she explained. “He’s gonna kill a crow to make a safe space. A place I can go where the crows won’t bother me.” She had a hand covering her mouth. She was by a window after all. A screen was no barrier to those razor-sharp beaks.

  “Makes sense,” Grandma said. The old woman stood looking out the window and watched Cam throw rocks at the surrounding trees in the yard. She wiped her hands on her apron and faced the girl. “Crows are also an omen. They are thought to bring change, so maybe it would be best to embrace them. They have the gift of foresight after all.”

  Grandma is losing it.

  “Well?” Grandma asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “What are you gonna do? Go back out there and show the birds what’s what? Or show Cam what’s what?”

  The girl went outside, leaving Grandma in the kitchen, muttering things about omens and flamingos. She scanned the tree line and found Cam hunkered at the base of a tree trunk.

  “Ready?” Cam whispered in her ear, pulling her close.

  “What?” she whispered. It was the natural thing to do, when someone whispered it was rude not to whisper back.

  “See those two?” he pointed to the two crows resting on a branch.

  Her blood ran cold, like a river freezing in her body, holding her in place. She pulled her thick coat close around her neck. “No, don’t,” she said, pulling Cam’s hand.

  “What?” He pinched her arm, hard. It stung through the coat. “Kill a crow, get a safe spot. Simple.”

  “But Grandma said they have the gift of foresight.”

  “What the hell is that?” He lifted his hand, cocked his arm back, and let the rock fly. And one of the crows fell. The other flew away. A small thud hit the dirt.

  Cam ran to it, picked it up by its wing, and searched the trees for the second crow. “See, the other one is gone. It’s true, they won’t come back.”

  The girl didn’t feel much better, but she slowly lowered her hand from her mouth, leaving her lips and tongue exposed. She muttered something about foresight, which apparently crows had. But if she’d had that gift, she might have seen the crow waiting in a tree. She might have known she needed to have her eyes closed tight. But she didn’t have the gift of foresight, and never would, because the black bird swooped down and plucked out her eyes.

  7

  Salamanders

  “Well, hello there, Miss Missy,” Gunner called from across the lot.

  Missy’s head snapped up and searched for the origin of that long drawl, but she knew the voice’s owner long before her eyes fell on the shaggy, brown hair of Gunnar Gibbs. She nodded, hoping it would be enough, but he shuffled over, his boots scraping across the hot asphalt.

  “What have you got going on here?” he asked, watching the young high school kid load her truck with fifty-pound bags of feed. Mostly grain for the horses, a few packages of feed for the chickens.

  The sun was nearing its high point in the sky, and she thanked the young kid working, begging him with her eyes not to go back into the store. He left anyway. She chalked it up to his youth and inexperience. It was unreasonable to hope that a sixteen-year-old farm kid would be able to read the signs of a woman in distress.

  “Hi there, Gunnar,” she said, a polite smile on her face. She didn’t know what else to do with it. Do I know how to scowl? She clutched the keys in her hand, hoping she’d manage a good grip if she needed to aim for an eye.

  “What have you going on here?” he asked again, hands on her truck. It was like his hands were on her skin, and her stomach rolled.

  “Just some feed. Normally I have enough to last a few months, but the old lady is struggling to keep weight on.” She thought of the mare. Her old teeth made it hard for her to chew the hay and grass these days. She’d been eating double, sometimes triple, the amount of grain just to help avoid her ribs poking through. That old horse was also the only thing pulling her out of bed these past few months.

  Missy hopped in her truck, hoping he’d release his hold on the truck bed so she could be on her way.

  He kept a hand on the truck and made his way to the driver’s side, tracing his hand over the door. He leaned in through her open window. “Gonna be a lot for you to unload this yourself since the mister passed and all.”

  “I’ll manage.” She tried to start the truck, but her hands fumbled, and she dropped the keys.

  “Such a shame.” He shook his head. The smell of vanilla tobacco from his lips filled her nose. It was the same brand Lucas used to smoke.

  “Thank you for your condolences,” she cleared her throat, “but I’m just fine.”

  His hand gripped the truck’s door, fingers sliding into the cab. “Such a shame. Strange that not o
ne, but two, salamanders made their way into the lemonade. Was it only months ago? At the church potluck?”

  Missy swallowed hard. He was there. He knows.

  “Miss Missy—”

  “Mrs.,” she corrected.

  “If that’s what you like. What is the title for young, pretty widows like yourself?”

  She found her resolve and started the old engine. She said a silent prayer in her head, willing the old beat-up truck to make it the winding drive back to her home. This was her husband’s truck—late husband. Why late? Was it some sort of poetic prose people used, believing deep down they’d come back, they were simply running a little late? Lucas was always late.

  The truck still smelled of him at times. She’d get just a whiff of that vanilla tobacco, and it gave her a moment’s smile. She smelled it now, coming off of Gunnar, and her stomach soured.

  She looked at his hands still gripping her door, his dirty finger sliding into her space. “It’s Mrs.”

  “I’ll follow you back, make sure you don’t break your back unloading those bags.”

  She should have said something, gotten out and told him what’s what, made a scene in this public place full of witnesses. But she didn’t. Instead, she just drove home.

  She chewed on her lip, her gut told her this day would come, the way he would look at her. The way he let his hand linger too long on her arm as he passed by, the way he would squeeze behind her in a crowded space. He would press his body against hers just for a moment.

  Gunnar’s truck followed close behind her. He looked like he was in no hurry at all. He smoked a cigarette, and when she occasionally cast a glance in her rearview mirror, he would smile and wave.

  When she reached her long gravel driveway, she slowed to a crawl, prolonging the interaction. Eventually, time caught up with her, and she parked the truck near the small barn. The two horses bickered but stopped their foolishness when she stepped out. They trotted over, hoping for some treat. She walked over to the gate and patted them on the nose, but they lost interest when they discovered she had no carrots or sugar cubes hidden in her pockets. They went back to grazing and bickering. She tried to ignore the door slam of Gunnar’s truck, but it made her flinch.

  She felt him come up behind her, a weight pressing against her backside despite him still being several feet away. She turned, determined to have an air of authority. “You can put them right in there.” She pointed to the open barn door.

  The sun beat down on the pair, but Gunnar smiled despite the sweat and heat, lobbing the heavy bags over his shoulders and carrying them to the barn. He was done in only a few trips, and she stumbled over her thanks.

  “Anytime, Missy. Despite this being a small town, we like to take care of our own. If there is anything you need during this trying time for you, you just let me know.”

  Missy nodded. “I appreciate that.” For a moment, she thought it would be over.

  He took the end of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his brow. “It sure is a scorcher today. I would sure be obliged for some of your famous lemonade.”

  “Have none,” she snapped.

  “Ah.” He gave her a slow smile. “Makes sense, after all, you know... But you could make some.”

  “I have some sweet tea,” she admitted, already walking toward the small house.

  “That’s mighty fine.” His smile was the same one he wore at the church potluck. A hyena’s grin. He was rarely there, at church, but he occasionally came with his mama to the picnics and harvest festivals, gabbing with the other boys in town about his work or prospect of new work.

  He lingered over the food, eating triple helpings from Missy’s casserole, hovering near her and the other ladies. He got drunk off the punch but stared unblinking as her Lucas drank the lemonade.

  “It was a miracle that newt didn’t make its way into the pitcher, only the glass,” the preacher’s wife had commented.

  Others had nodded. Two salamanders dancing in a pool of lemonade in the bottom of a dead man’s solo cup. Lucas’s cup.

  “One of those critters could’ve gotten into the soup, maybe even the salads,” others had exclaimed.

  Gunnar followed her close then, and he followed her close now. She thought she could feel his hand reach out to tug on her hair. She forced the goosebumps to flee. It was sweltering, but they stayed prominent and bumpy on her skin. Just like a rough-skinned newt.

  She stomped the dust from her shoes on the porch and marched in, Gunnar close behind. She didn’t flinch when the deadbolt give its signature click.

  “Have a seat there.” She pointed to the table.

  He did, leaning on the back two legs of the chair. For a moment he looked as if he were going to put his dirty boots on the table, like he was making this his own space.

  “I figured you’d drop by, so I made it sweeter than normal. You prefer things on the sweeter end, right?” She poured a large glass of the sweet tea from a cold pitcher.

  “That’s right.” He licked his lips.

  She handed him the glass, ignoring his dirty fingers rubbing against hers. She watched him take four long swigs. Some dribbled down his chin.

  She couldn’t bite her words back. “I know what you did, Gunnar. I know it was you who put those newts in the lemonade. Why? Why would you do that?” Her voice wobbled, and bile crept up her throat.

  Gunnar chuckled. “That sounds crazy, Miss Missy.” His eyes darkened, and the hyena’s smiled disappeared, leaving only a row of teeth. “I would be careful who you would be spreadin’ that story to.”

  “I know what you did to the lemonade.” There wasn’t a shake in her voice.

  He laughed and licked his lips. “You know? I wasn’t really in the mood for lemonade anyway. And this is finer than any lemonade you made for any potluck.” He grinned, reaching out to touch her bare arm. “What did you put in this?”

  “It’s just black tea that’s been steeping in my fridge for two days.” She pulled away, looking at the locked door. “Along with an unholy amount of sugar. And not one, not two, but three salamanders.”

  8

  Fresh Ink

  The bell chimed as I walked through the familiar doors. The scent of ink and blood filled my lungs. I stretched them in and out as I breathed in deep, finally getting a feel for them. I was sure I saw the particles floating in the air as I sucked them down. I walked to the counter where a bald-headed man asked for my name.

  “Legion,” I said.

  His eyebrows rose. His tattooed arms pointed to the back booth. I walked the familiar path.

  “Same thing, same place?” her burgundy lips asked.

  We both knew what I wanted. It was just a strange formality she must keep up, a way of asking “this again?” but more polite.

  I took my usual seat, stretching my hand open and closed. I didn’t bother asking how she knew it was me; she just did. Maybe this was something she did for the others. Maybe there were more of me walking earthside than I’d thought.

  The familiar buzz of the machine reached my ears. She didn’t need to sketch out the art anymore. It was probably like a signature to her now, repeating the same image over and over and over.

  The needle pierced the flesh and injected blue and black ink, a constant song of skin splitting and tearing.

  My free arm wandered. I let my fingertips trace over this new face. It was cold. I rolled my tongue over the teeth, slicing it against the sharp points. I didn’t feel the warmth of blood or taste the iron. I didn’t feel anything. The needle continued to tear at the skin.

  “You still don’t bleed, man,” she said, holding the buzzing machine in her hands.

  I yearned for some adrenaline to surge this body and push blood through these empty veins. I wanted it to pound in my chest and pulse in my ears. I needed it to drown out all the noise. A faint outline of a tree emerged from the ink. A lone pine tree. I could have had a forest by now. If they were on the same body, that is. She had tattooed dozens.

  “Thin
k you’ll keep this one?” She knew I wouldn’t.

  I shrugged. The once unblemished skin was a smattering of blue ink on the cream canvas. I’d come back for another. On a fresh arm. But maybe she was right, maybe this could be the body for me. The more I wore it, the more it grew on me. This one had very pleasant skin.

  9

  A House By The Sea

  THE WOMAN

  I never thought funerals could be so cheerful, but there I was, surrounded by the people I loved and the scent of fresh tulips permeating the air. Orange tulips. Everyone must have known those were my favorite. The tables were full of them, gifts from thoughtful friends.

  It seemed odd at first, a reception after the service, but as I lifted the fork full of cheesecake into my mouth, I couldn’t disagree with the practicality. What better way to replenish your strength after standing for hours, watching a coffin lower to the ground, than standing around some more to hear the sniffles and eat your fill of cheesecake?

  I couldn’t wait to get out of this place and forget the faces of pity everyone shot at me. But I couldn’t blame them; I gave my kids the same look.

  Erin, my friend of twenty years, stopped my search for more cake. Chocolates would do, and I popped a few from my pocket into my mouth.

  “So, you still going to go through with it?” she asked.

  I had my speech prepared. “Yes,” I said. “You should really see it. It’s just something else.”

  “But you’re fixing it up all on your own?”

  “Mostly cosmetic stuff, but yes. Jerry said the foundation was firm and the walls were good, so nothing to worry about but paint and flooring and the fun stuff.” I felt myself start to ramble.

  “I’m sorry you have to do it alone.”

  “I don’t have to do it. I want to. I think time away from—” I lost the word, so I just gestured around me, and she nodded. “I just need time,” I finished. An ocean of time.