Short Story Sunday...on a Monday?

 Update: I'm republishing this on the blog now that the publication period is over for the magazine it was published in.  Enjoy and thanks for reading.









Let us pretend that it is still Sunday, and therefor the perfect day to unleash a new short story on you all.  I wrote this one for a writing challenge with the picture below serving as the prompt.  Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, but mostly I'm just happy to be read.  Please enjoy...

 

 A COLD MORNING

The snow is sparkling beneath the morning sun.  I know there are no diamonds among the drifts, but it glitters just the same.  My feet are bare as I glide over the cold crust of snow to the edge of our gathering.  The group is small, with just a handful of stoic men and weepy women.  They look like pillars, dark and worn and hunched over, surrounding the casket.  Can she really be in there?  Surely she must be dying to get out.  But no, she is already dead.  And she can’t get out.

I see my father, holding tight to Aria’s tiny hand.  His head is bowed, hiding his face beneath a sheet of ash brown hair.  Aria stares at the casket with sleep clouding her eyes.  She does not understand.  She still thinks Mama will take us to the solstice festival in town next weekend and dance with all the boys.  That was one of the few times she smiled, when she was dancing.  She would get lost in the music and whiskey, twirling around the floor of the big barn and forcing all the other partners to the sidelines to watch while she beckoned to them with her eyes. 

But she won’t. 

I start toward the group, but a movement catches my eye.  Over at the edge of the trees, a red blemish on the perfect hunter green sways with the breeze.  Her eyes sparkle like the diamonds on the snow, her hair a golden sheet that billows around her face.  How I wish I didn’t have her fair hair.  I always wanted to be strong and dark, like my father.  But Mama laid her claim on me in golden tresses and icy blue eyes.  That’s why father looks at me the way he does sometimes.  He sees her Saxon fire in me. 

I feel myself being pulled toward her, the gathering growing distant behind me.  I reach the tall pines and see she is wearing the red dress; the one father pretends not to notice.  But everyone notices.  I wonder if that’s what they are burying her in.

She pulls me down into the snow next to her and strokes my curls.  I notice I, too, am wearing red and my skirt is a perfect circle around me.  The color is vibrant against the virgin snow; a jarring reminder of the day Aria found Mama outside the stable, the blood pooled and seeping into the snow.

“Are you really gone?” I ask.

“Yes.  Look how much they all miss me,” she says as she points to the circle of mourners.  “Don’t you miss me?”  Her voice is soothing, all milk and honey, no matter what sharp words come lashing out.

“No.” I reply.  I feel her hands tighten around my shoulders, her nails digging into the silk of my dress.

“That’s not true.  You miss your Mama.  Tell me you love me.”

I pull away from her nails and shining eyes and stand to face her.  The fear that sits like rocks in my stomach fades and I think of little Aria when she used to ask me why Mommy never said I love you. 

“No,” I say again, but firmer this time. 

The cold is beginning to cut through my feet as I place one behind the other.  If I can get to my father, she can’t hurt me anymore.  He won’t let her.  She begins to fade, the red of her dress turning crimson and then brown. 

“You can’t escape.  I am in your blood,” she says, her eyes hardening.

I back away slowly, toward the sunlit snow.  The last things I see before she fades completely are her eyes, a glassy black that shines despite its darkness.  I feel my back hit something hard and open my eyes to the wood ceiling of my bedroom.  There is a moment of panic before I realize where I am.  I look down to see Aria curled up on the rug next to my bed, just like she used to do in our parents’ room.  Mama didn’t want her in their bed.  Her toes still curl and slacken in a steady rhythm while she sleeps, as if she were padding her way through a dream like a cat.

My tongue is so dry it rakes across my chapped lips like sandpaper.  I must have been talking in my sleep again.  I sit up and sip the water next to my bed.  The warm light coming in through the tiny window betrays the bitter chill outside.  I watch it dance across the snow drifts up on the hill, the way it danced in my dream.  She was so clear to me, it could have been any other morning where I awoke to a silent house.  Mama liked to sleep in, usually sprawled on top of the covers, her golden hair tossed wildly around her face.  Aria would be sleeping beneath her on the rug, just as lifeless, aside from her flexing toes.  Father would be out chopping wood or feeding the horses, preparing for another day of sweat and limitless sky. 

But today, Mama is sleeping somewhere else and she won’t be waking.  Father shut himself in their room the day it happened, only coming out to use the outhouse and throw hunks of the rye bread our neighbor Susanna left for us on the table at meal times.  Lucky we have some strawberry jam left in the icebox.  That always makes it go down smoother for Aria.  I’m worried, though.  The bread is dwindling, and father hasn’t hunted in days.  Last time Susanna stopped by, she asked if we had been to town.  He just laughed under his breath and went back into the bedroom.  She was lucky he even came out to greet her.

As I’m contemplating the last quarter of rye on the counter, a turkey struts across the hill out the window.  He’s hard to make out, but he has the look of a fattened Tom.  I can actually feel my mouth moisten as I watch him parade next to the fence, daring me to come out and get him.  I glance down at Aria, again, and brush her matted bangs off her forehead.  She looks so much like our father, with her tiny, sharp nose, bowed lips, and thick eyelashes.  No trace of our mother, a fact she often used against the poor little thing.

I step over my sister and pull my pants and wool sweater on over my shift.  My warmest pair of socks is waiting for me by the hearth, where I left them.  The coals are still glowing, and I long to sit and warm my hands before I go out, but remember the Tom outside and yank them on over cold toes. 

My father’s hunting jacket is hanging by the door and has been for days.  I stick my arms through the holes and only fingertips peek out the ends of the sleeves.  It hangs to my knees, but will keep the chill out better than anything else.  I slip on my mother’s boots that still sit by the door like immovable relics.  These relics are everywhere; in the woody smell of her herbs hung up above the counter; in her crocheted shawl draped over the chair; in her paints and brushes that take up all but a corner of the desk.  Even in the clouded mirror above the bathroom sink.  No one can bring themselves to touch her things.  She would like that, holding power over us even in death.

It’s freezing outside.  The kind of cold that latches onto your bones and won’t let go.  I make my way around the house to the shed out back, high-stepping through the snow and praying the turkey has lingered along the fence.  The door is squeaky, so I have to pull it open slowly and every extra second gnaws on my empty stomach.  The growing light floods the dank interior of the shed, reflecting off the metal hung on the wall.  I pick out the shotgun and pull it down into the crooks of my arms.  It’s lighter than I thought it would be, but still weighty in my small hands.  I knew it would be loaded.  Everyone keeps their shotguns loaded ‘round here.  The only way anybody is afraid of a loaded gun is if it’s staring them in the face. 

I search the fence where I spotted the turkey through the window and find nothing but white.  The weight of another day of bread pulls my shoulders down.  He must have moved on.  I move to the east side of the field, where the sun is blinding now and blazing pink and orange across the snow.  I catch movement over by the stable and see the turkey watching me.  His eyes are wide, but he makes no move to flee, so I advance, as slow as I can manage in my oversized gear.

I stop about ten yards away from him, shocked that he hasn’t run away yet, and crouch down in the snow.  My hands move on the gun of their own volition, my finger twitching over the trigger.  My father taught me how to shoot years ago, but Mama never, once, let me use the knowledge.  Guns are for boys, she had said.  That’s why the pistol resting in her hand in the snow had looked so out of place that morning; I had never seen her hold one before.

I fight the urge to close one eye as I do my best to aim the barrel.  The Tom is much bigger than a can, so I have that in my favor.  His eyes look wild, though, as if he could fly at any moment.  The image of my mother in her red dress materializes in my peripheral, fluttering into view like a bird.  She is smiling at me.  It is not an encouraging smile, but a derisive sneer. 

You are of my blood.  See how I spilled it for you?

Her honeyed tones ring in my ears. 

Not for me, Mama.  Never for me. 

I squeeze the trigger and shatter the silent morning.  The crack rings so loud in my ears, it sounds like I’m underneath a tractor.  Feels like it, too.  The force of the gun knocked me backwards into the snow.  I’m not sure, but I think it smacked me in the face, too.  I lick my lips and taste the salty rust of blood.

There is a voice on the air, but I can’t quite place it as I lay on the snow, staring up at the cloudless sky.  It sounds like my father, but I know that can’t be right.  It’s not noon yet.  I lift my head just enough to scan the field by the stable.  The turkey is gone, but there is red marring the snow.  The ringing subsides in my ears and I hear the voice again.

“Isobel!”

The shrieking pulls me back to the morning Mama left us.  It was the same kind of shrieking, the same crimson blood on the snow, in the same spot by the stable.  It had been Aria that found her.  She had stood in her nightshift, staring at Mama all covered in blood while our father shouted her name over and over again.

“Isobel!”

I don’t realize he is shouting for me; shouting my name until he is on top of me, blotting out the bright sun and pulling me into his arms.  He squeezes me so tight I think I might burst and holds me there for a long while.  I find my voice locked away somewhere and pull it out.

“Daddy, I’m fine,” I say and pull away.

We study each other, as if we are old friends that search for visible differences from our time apart.  His eyes are sunken into his face and there are lines around them that I don’t remember.  His hair is long, falling around his face in clumps.  He has whiskers I have never seen on his face before.  I’m not sure what he finds in mine, but he smiles.  It looks sort of painful.

“What were you doing?” he asks, calmer now.

“There was a Tom.  A big one.  I just thought Aria might want a turkey sandwich,” I say, hoping I won’t have to face the belt later on.

He smiles again, slightly more natural this time, and I can’t help returning it.  He scans the field with a hand over his eyes.

“Well, where is it?”

I point to the spot by the stable, where the blood leads away into the trees.  I see him wince just a little at the sight of the blood on the snow, but he recovers quickly.  He stands and pulls me up to my feet, surveying my attire.  His fingers pull my chin up and he checks my lip.  I feel it fattening by the minute, but it doesn’t hurt much. 

“Come on,” he says, starting back for the house.

“But the turkey…” I start, but he cuts me off.

“We can’t leave your sister.  Go get her up and dressed.  I’ll put on some coffee.”

He looks out to the field again, glancing right over the spot where Mama had appeared to me and moving on to the west.  There is no trace of her on the glittering snow.

“We’ve got a turkey to hunt.”