Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

She puts on her coat and boots. Her twisted foot aches as she pulls the leather over her ankle. Lesya wrenches the boot on hard, jamming the deformed limb into the straight, rigid shape. She pulls her mittens on and limps outside to do her chores.

The night is blue and still. Drifts cling to the house, a new landscape sketched by the wind. The tops of the fence posts peek from shallow hollows. Barbed wire holds back walls of sheared snow. As she drags her foot over the uneven terrain, her thigh begins to quiver. It shudders down to her knee, gaining strength as it tremors into her foot. She stops and places her hand on her knee to quell the shake. As soon as she touches the leg, it quiets. Lesya steps forward and the quivering starts again, surging upward from her toes, rippling under her skin, flushing her heart with panic. She breathes deep, trying to remain calm.

Stop it , she orders. She steps down hard on her twisted foot, a jab of pain mixes with the vibrating nerves. She runs to the coop, pulls aside the log pole, and ducks inside. She is greeted by the sweet smell of hay and feathers, tainted by the pungent stench of shit. Her foot rustles the straw. She crouches down, wraps her arms around her legs, but then the rest of her body begins to tremble.

The hens look at her quizzically, unaccustomed to night visits. Only Happiness bobs and coos, overjoyed by Lesya’s surprise arrival. Its feet high-step, up and down, it bows its head and lifts its wings, dancing to music only it can hear. It is roosting in one of the other hens’ nests. The displaced brood hen is perched nearby, clucking its indignation.

“What are you doing up there? Get down.” She swats Happiness off the nest. It jumps to the ground in a tornado of wings. It tries to hop on her. Lesya kicks it off. “No.”

She wants to get the eggs and get out of there. She is so tired. She reaches into the nest; her fingers ooze into a thick, hot slime. Both eggs are broken. Happiness jumps up on the roost, balancing on one foot, the other twisted backward. It softly pecks at Lesya’s hand.

“Look what you’ve done.” The bird cocks its head at the finger waving in front of its beak. “Bad bird. Bad!”

Lesya scoops out the mire of yolk, shell, and straw and throws it on the floor. Happiness steps into the clean nest. Lesya shoves it aside.

“This isn’t your nest. These aren’t your eggs.” Happiness rubs its head against her arm and tries to worm its way back onto the roost.

“No! You think this is funny? You think it’s funny if we starve?” The bird rubs against Lesya’s arm. “You think this is a game? You do nothing. You get fed, get taken care of…”

The chicken lifts its lame foot to Lesya, an offering. She grabs its claw, the bird tries to pull away, but Lesya holds on tight. “Look how fat you are, eating all their food, stealing their eggs, you’re supposed to make your own eggs! You’re not even any good to breed. Look at you.” She holds its foot up. “Look how ugly you are. Useless.”

The bird squawks, frightened by her intensity and her grip on its bad leg. Its wings flap in distress, its coos alarm into squawks.

“You think I’m always going to take care of you?” She shakes the bird, her own leg jittering uncontrollably. “That you’re always going to be safe?” The bird pecks her hand, drawing blood. “You think you’d survive out there alone?”

She wrenches the bird upside down, gripping it by its crippled leg. She carries it outside. “This is what it’s like out here.” She swings it through the darkness. The bird flails and claws her arm; beats her with its wings. “There’s nowhere to hide. Nothing to protect you!” The bird cackles hysterically, its neck and head dangling inches from the ground.

Lesya marches to the woodpile. “You have a job.” Her entire body quakes. “You have a duty.” She grabs the ax. “You don’t get to live for free.” She holds the screeching hen down on the block and swings.

The headless bird teeters around in circles, falling onto its side, its wings flapping, its body tripping over its crooked foot.

ANNA WAKES TO A SMALL WHIMPER. LESYA AND PETRO are fast asleep. A fire blazes in the stove. She hears the sound again. A soft cooing, like the wings of a bird trapped in the rafters. She looks around the room, sees the soapbox on the floor beside her bed. A nest. She wonders if Lesya has brought her chickens inside. She peers into the box and sees a rabbit squirming.

“Are you hurt?” Anna strokes its fur. Soft, white down.

“Poor little thing.” The rabbit calms to her touch.

“Don’t be afraid.” She picks it up. Cradles it in her arms. “Are you lost?” The rabbit has a child’s face. Wide gray-blue eyes look up at her.

“You shouldn’t have come here. It’s not safe.” The little mouth sucks. Anna offers her a finger and the lips nurse strong and hard.

“Are you hungry?” she asks the rabbit-child. She opens the front of her blouse and lets the creature suckle her nipple. She looks at its feet. Its paws are hairless, the skin soft.

“How will you survive?” she asks the strange, magical creature. And she knows that something this beautiful cannot survive.

Its tiny fingers knead her breast. Anna pulls the fur skin over the top of its head. The baby squirms and mews.

“Shhh,” Anna coos. “I’ll take you home.”

MARIA STARES OUT THE WINDOW INTO THE NIGHT. SHE can’t sleep again and this time it isn’t the baby. The baby is quiet. She rocks slightly on the stiff-backed chair, massaging her stomach. Someday, she’ll ask Teodor to build her a real rocker, so she can pull it outside on the stoop when the long summer nights return. She’ll sit with her baby draped over her shoulder, pressed against her chest. Heart on heart. Rocking in rhythm with the frogs and crickets.

The chair creaks and Maria looks over her shoulder to see if she has woken Teodor. He doesn’t stir. He returned home exhausted. Silent. He ate, rolled a cigarette, and crawled into bed, not even bothering to get undressed. When she prodded him as to where he’d been, he didn’t answer. He told her: Tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. He was asleep before the children.

Ever since this morning, she has had a bad feeling. It began when she saw two crows facing the house, their feathers ruffling in the gusts. They stood there so long she thought their feet had frozen to the ground, and when she opened the door they didn’t fly away. They stared at her with black, glassy eyes. Not until Myron clapped his hands did they slowly lift and glide away, swooped up by the wind.

Then Teodor didn’t come home. She tried to convince herself that he was waiting for the storm to blow out, or perhaps he and Anna were finally talking. When she knelt to pray for his safe return, a surging gust shook the house, and the picture of the Virgin Mary knocked against the wall, decrying its sacrilegious use. When Teodor finally emerged from the windswept land, she didn’t feel relief. If anything, her fear increased. Maybe it was just the storm setting her on edge.

Maria shivers, even though the fire is still burning strong. Her fingers worry against her wooden cross. And there weren’t any rabbits today either. Myron checked this morning and at dusk. There haven’t been any rabbits all week; perhaps the coyotes have driven them away. She’ll have to start rationing the food better. It’s been difficult to estimate how much they need to conserve to allow for Anna’s needs. She worries that she hasn’t been sending enough to her sister-in-law. She worries that she’s been overcompensating and sending too much.

The bacon is already gone. They’ve used a pound of sausage and two pounds of roast. There’s only enough flour to make three more batches of pyrohy, and there’s three months of winter left. Self-pity wells in her throat; Maria prays it away, attributes her rawness to her pregnancy.