August Ansel - The Attic

“It’s dark,” Renna whined. “Night light.” The childish quality of her voice made the hair on the back of Arie’s arms prickle.

“We’re right here. Sleep.”

“You never do it,” Renna said, her voice trailing out. “You’re always mean.”

Arie nodded in the dark. “I am.”

Since she’d had some rest, she took first watch. Handy stretched out on the Packard seat sofa, but Arie knew he was awake.

“What did you see down there?” she asked him.

“Downstairs? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing much,” he said after a moment. “The dead dogs. Something at them.”

“The raven?”

“Nah. Bigger. Not too big.”

“Raven probably got enough. Coon, maybe,” she said. Talking to him, she found herself falling into the cadences of family patois, a certain squatty rhythm that they all used, being short on outside influence and long on their father’s daily rap.

“Maybe. Something smallish and hungry is all.”

It was quiet for a few minutes, nothing stirring, only Renna’s small snore.

“William, why did you come?”

“Handy,” he said. “I prefer it, if you will.”

“Sure, then. Why are you here in the bottoms, Handy, running after the black sheep?”

“The family,” he said. “The old man wants you. He had a vision.”

She snorted. “Yes, that’s his way.” She was on the floor, leaning against an upright post, not quite trusting herself to lie on her bedroll. The spinning turbine vent hummed in the darkness, showing the slightest glint of silver at its edges, a moonlit flicker show.

“You’re not a black sheep, anyway. More like—” He faltered there.

“A cautionary tale.”

“No. A fable, I suppose.”

Arie started to laugh, quietly at first, then harder, until her head was thrown back and tears were on her face. “A fable,” she repeated. “One more famous harlot, is that it? A middle-century Jezebel? Famous reprobate and prodigal.” She wiped her nose and eyes on her sleeve. “Or would I have to come back to God’s Land to be a prodigal, do you reckon? Will Daddy Mack order up a fatted calf?”

Handy stayed mute, and the silence rose up around them.

“Who’s left of them?”

“Garrett,” he said. “Jubilation. They live in the big house with Father. Auntie Lulu is alive, and Morgan and Big Zach.”

“Tallula’s your sister, not your auntie.”

“I’ve been calling her that right along.”

“I suppose. She’s old enough to be your ma—might as well be an auntie. Like me.” She thought for minute. “You didn’t say Mercy.”

“Mercy’s gone. Thomas and Harold, too.”

“Ah,” she said. It was a little arrow in her heart. Her last memory of Mercy was the day she, Arie, bugged out. Mercy and Tallula were her only confidants, and Mercy had stood at the south gate in tears, watching her go, early sun brilliant on her blond head. “Awful hard for Morgan,” she said, “losing his twin. And the other pair? What about Hanna and Gerta?” Mammy Delonda had had two sets of twins and claimed it was lucky, like rolling double sixes when they played Monopoly. Since Mammy didn’t actually do much with babies but birth them and nurse them awhile, Arie supposed that was as good an analogy as any.

“Hanna is…she’s still alive. Gerta’s gone a long time ago. I never knew her.”

Arie sighed and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I didn’t know,” she said tiredly. “That’s a terrible shame. Little Gertie-birdie—she and Hanna were just sprouts when I left. Creigha, too.”

“Pretty Pox took Creigha the very first.”

“Pretty Pox—that’s what you call the Pink?”

“Big Zach heard a doctor call it that.”

“Zachary saw a doctor?” She felt stunned. Daddy Mack had always vilified medical providers in the extreme. Arie hadn’t seen a doctor until she was sixteen, when Granny had insisted she have a physical.

“He was down the hill the day it started, picking up a tank of fryer oil at the Snack Shack. He had a couple of his grandkids with him. When people started dropping, some park rangers set up a sort of clinic at the forest service office. The fry cook at the Snack Hut is on the volunteer fire crew. He and Zach ran the grandkids over there. Probably shouldn’t have.”

“They didn’t make it.”

“No. He couldn’t even take them home. Their bodies. They kept all the dead in an equipment shed.”

“You know, they wouldn’t have lived anyway.”

“No. They didn’t want to let Zach leave, either. He said one of the rangers, an old guy with a belly over his belt, got all puffed up and stood in front of the doors with his hand on his gun. You know Zach, though.”

“I did,” she said. It was strange to imagine her eldest brother with children old enough to have children. He was twenty-three when she ran away, not even mated yet. Generations had been sown in her absence, had sprouted up and been mowed down as if never here at all. “Pretty Pox,” Arie mused. She thought about her neighbor’s baby, how beautifully flushed and ruddy he looked the day he died in her front yard. The striking beauty of the dead was remarked on without fail during the few days that news could still be accessed. That, and the ruthless efficiency of the virus. The last numbers she heard before the world went dark was a kill rate of over 90 percent. She did the math: seven of her thirteen siblings survived. “Near half of us still here,” she said. “Long odds.”

Handy got to his feet with a grunt. “I’d like to have a knock of that shine you used on her leg this morning.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s back on the shelf over there.” He made his way in the dark without any trouble. She heard him pull a cork, sniff, and pull another. Sniff again. Then he was getting a mug from the work table, moving around the attic as though he’d been here for months, sure-footed and almost silent. “You see in the dark, Brother?”

He chuckled under his breath. “A little. Not owl. Dog, maybe. Want some?”

“No. And go easy. All I have is all I have.” The attic was stuffy after a long day and with the three of them shut in. “I’m going up top a minute,” she said.

“What about the watcher?”

“I’ll have a look first. I always do.”

She had the sky panel open and the ladder standing when he said something so low she almost didn’t hear. “What’s that?”

“Why did you leave her in the bedroom like that?” he said. “To let her lie there and…and spoil away.”

“Ah,” Arie said, “Granny.” She stepped onto the ladder and took a deep breath of the cool night air. A gibbous moon, waxing and well past the meridian, put the time somewhere after midnight. “That was her idea.”

On the roof, a damp chill rushed over her skin. She savored the sensation. As Handy had said, there were several small animals working over the bodies of the dead dogs. The low, fat moon provided plenty of light. She took her time with the binoculars but saw nothing. She laid them aside and busied herself with small tasks, things she would have done during the day if she hadn’t been otherwise occupied—checking the filter on the water barrel, pulling a few weeds, turning the compost pile. When her joints began to thrum in protest of the temperature she knew she had to go back inside or risk being very stiff come morning.

She stood in the one sheltered corner where angle met angle, looking west. Full moon in three days. She wondered if she’d be able to slip out for the ritual, if Handy would interfere. She wished them gone, Renna and Handy, though it was unthinkable that the girl could travel anytime soon. She closed her eyes and counted, calculating how soon she could send them away. “My life is my own,” she whispered. She imagined the mandala in front of her. Her hands rose and traced the labyrinth in the air.