Billie Mosiman: Wireman

After patiently explaining the most rudimentary elements of gathering firewood or climbing a tree to gather honey, her reply was always the same. “No entiendo.”

He suspected she was being deliberately obtuse, the claims of not understanding his orders more examples of a lack of respect. He thought she knew exactly what he wanted, but she wasn’t going to do it. She had from the first refused his rule over her. This was her way of letting him know he did not own her.

He once thought of beating her. He lost his temper early on and after a week of feeding the girl, bringing clean drinking water, and doing all the chores, he asked for her to bring over his spear that stood against the giant umbrella tree near his camp.

“No entiendo.”

He asked her again.

“No entiendo.”

He asked her six times, raising his voice higher in anger each time, and six times she pretended not to understand.

He stood and raised his hand to slap her into submission, but when she lifted her face to him and looked him in the eyes, his hand was stayed as if paralyzed.

I will kill you if you lay a hand on me, her look said . You will die if you ever touch me , her look said, mocking his impotency.

From that time forward when she wouldn’t do as he said, he let it go. Finally he stopped asking anything of her and realized instead of gaining a queen, he had inherited a master. He was the child’s slave.

She was useless to him. She was truly a burden. He knew when she was old enough to mate she would never let him come near her. At wit’s end, he went to the girl’s mother and questioned her.

“Before she died, was your daughter obedient? Did she help you out with the chores?”

“Certainly. Very obedient. She is a good girl.”

“And respect? She showed you respect?”

“Yes!”

“Before she died, did she ever… did she ever scare you in any way? In how she acted or how she looked at you?”

“Never! My baby was full of love, a gentle, loving child. What do all these questions mean?’

“She is not right,” he said simply, and left it at that. He thought of sending the girl back to her mother, but had a feeling Angelique would not go. She cared no more for her mother than she did for him. That was evident in the way she’d left her and how, when the mother visited, she backed away without letting her mother touch her. When called by her name she said, “Call me Angelique!” Then screaming like a wild thing, “I am Angelique!”

As his absolute last resort, and after much inner turmoil and argument with himself about the morality of it, Mujai decided he would have to kill her. He would never be free if he didn’t. He’d tell the villagers she had died of the fever. So many did and no one questioned it. When she asked, as he knew she would, he would tell the girl’s mother he would not raise her again. And then all this would be over. What he had done was so against the law of nature that it had created a creature he did not want around him. He had to fix his mistake. He certainly would never make it again. He was forever through with the raising of the dead.

The day he meant to murder the child, he broke a large shale rock from a sea cliff wall and slipped it beneath his woven sleeping mat in the hut. The rock had a sharp cutting edge and fit his hand perfectly. It would slice into her face like parting water. He would cleave her ruined brain in two.

Though she did not sleep and kept watch over him, she would never expect him to rise up with the rock in his hand to bludgeon her. He had never, after the first time when he raised his hand to her, indicated that he was dangerous or violent. The opposite, in fact, seemed to be his beaten demeanor around the girl—even subservient.

All day he was excited about his plan. He sneaked looks at her as he worked around the camp site, thinking of her dead and buried and out of his life. Then it came to him. He would not bury her! She might in some way be a magical creature after her tryst with Death. She might know how to rise up on her own and had been asking after his secret potion as a ruse. In order to be safe he would throw her into the sea and let the fish nibble her pale little body down to the bones.

If he had to watch her tear into a slab of meat one more time he thought he would go mad. Living with her was like living with the undead monster panther. As far as he could tell there was little difference between them.

That night he went to bed not long after darkfall, as was his custom. He had said few words to the girl all day and had looked into her eyes not once. He feared she might know of his murderous plan if she could see what lay behind his eyes.

After a few minutes she slipped inside the hut with him and sat cross-legged at his back. He could feel her there, her dark eyes staring. But this night he was not unnerved and sleepless.

He bided his time. He wanted to make his move when he had his wrath worked up to killing pitch. He wanted nothing to go wrong. If he missed on the first strike, she might skitter away into the jungle. He would never get a second chance, he understood that implicitly. This was an intelligent, conniving child. A manipulative child. An evil child.

After an hour he had his mind ready. What he was about to do was not a sin. Besides, she was supposed to be dead. He was going to do her a favor and send her back into the dark where she belonged.

He grasped the rock, feeling the rough hardness of it, the cold heaviness of its weight. He must move fast and not falter. He must strike like a snake, without remorse, without a moment’s hesitation. He could not dare look into her eyes.

He flexed the muscle of his right arm that held the rock. He drew in one breath and then he made his move. He sat up and swiveled around in the same motion, raising the rock high above his head. Though he didn’t know it, he was screaming one long, sustained furious scream.

He felt a sudden horrible pain strike him in his midsection, but nothing was going to stop the downward motion of the killing blow.

He swung. But where she sat, she no longer existed. The rock struck the ground so hard he broke two of his fingers and cut his palm. He dropped the rock, looking around in the near darkness for where she had moved. Panic caused him to lose his breath. He had missed! He had failed! But she had been right there a second ago, right there below his raised arm.

A shadow fell over him from the doorway, blocking the moon. He turned and saw her, so beautiful, so small, so perfect. The island child beauty with the long dark hair, the perfect features. The little dead ten-year-old.

“You will die a slow death, my master. Look to your belly for your future.” As were all her words, these were said without emotion or inflection.

He glanced to his lap and saw the long spear sticking from his stomach. Blood poured from the wound, soaking his naked legs.

“What have you done?” he asked plaintively. The unfairness of this situation was so great, greater even than the pain that was now like fire burning him inside out, that tears sprang into his eyes.

“Only what you would have done to me.”

“Death invaded you. You have a soul from a god of the deep down under.” He took hold of the spear, but he could not dislodge it without fainting outright. He knew he was doomed, but his mind railed against the injustice. Hadn’t he given her life? Hadn’t he raised her up?

“Demon,” he hissed. “Monster.”

“I am what you made. You snatched me from the dark and now you ask why the dark has come to fetch you. Goodbye, Master.”

She turned then and walked out of the clearing, leaving him alone. He had no talismans to save himself. He had no potion to bring him to life. He was going to die in her stead. He had cheated death of her presence and replaced it with his own.