scars across her belly and thighs. She’s been mistreated, this girl has.
“He can’t hurt me any more than I been hurt,” she says and I can see the beatings and the screams and bad times, swimming just below her skin.
You’re a child and you’re wrong, so wrong you can’t imagine. You don’t know about souls and what they worth. Don’t know how much you can lose. You ain’t seen the cupboard.
I say it, but no sound comes out.
No need for Red Rooster now; envious time has fled. The light is changing. It’s dawn, and we’re back at the crossroads.
The Dark Man steps from the high grass, takes off his best hat and gives her a bow. His coat is brushed, his boots polished to a killing shine.
Good morning, my dear, he says.
“Good morning sir. My name is Sally,” she says.
Hello, Sally. How may I help you?
She hands over the cards, and he begins to shuffle. I know what comes next, and head to the oak tree to lie down.
The lesson takes about an hour. All that waiting, for an hour in his company. He hands the cards back to her one last time, and she shows him what she’s learned. He applauds.
A pleasure to meet you, Sally, he says, I hope to see you again. He takes off his right glove and extends his hand to her.
I turn my head away as she reaches her hand over. They shake. Down by the river, Red Rooster screams in triumph.
“Thank you, but I’m heading west,” Sally says, and picks up her bag. She slings it onto her shoulder, coughs with the effort. Then she looks the Dark Man right in the eye.
“Your dog is coming with me,” she says.
He smiles. I don’t believe that’s so, Sally. He can be trouble, that dog, but he is mine.
“He’s coming with me,” she says. “We’re going to take care of each other.”
The Dark Man looks over at me, all quiet in the grass.
Is that so, dog? he asks. You leaving Red Rooster and me for greener pastures?
I look at her. Sally. She pats her thigh in a come-on gesture. I put my head down again.
No boss, I say to him. I am your good dog.
Sally calls me, pats her thigh again. I don’t look up. The Dark Man laughs.
Good day, Miss, I think we will meet again soon, he says. Sooner than you might think.
She calls me one more time. I stand up and walk over to the Dark Man. He grabs me by the back of my neck, where my skin’s rubbed all raw, but I don’t wince. Not a bit. We watch Sally turn and walk down the road, stopping now and then to cough and shift that stinky bag from one shoulder to another. We walk home.
She’s dying. She was a skinny thing at the start, and now that cold has turned on her, rotting out her lungs. I don’t even think she knows it yet, but I can smell the death coming out of her when she breathes. She won’t get even halfway to that bright city before she goes and then her soul’s gonna come flying right on back here, and he’ll put her in a jam jar and lock her away.
And me? Gonna be bad for me. He’s gonna beat me and starve me and send that swaggering fowl to lord it over me. And I’ll have to bear it. Because I know, someday, there’ll be one second he won’t be watching, one moment when I can get close. Mebbe some night when Mr. Moon is full so there’s light for her to fly away by.
I’ll tip that cupboard over, see if I don’t.
Lull
by Kelly Link
There was a lull in the conversation. We were down in the basement, sitting around the green felt table. We were holding bottles of warm beer in one hand, and our cards in the other. Our cards weren’t great. Looking at each others’ faces, we could see that clearly.
We were tired. It made us more tired to look at each other when we saw we weren’t getting away with anything at all. We didn’t have any secrets.
We hadn’t seen each other for a while and it was clear that we hadn’t changed for the better. We were between jobs, or stuck in jobs that we hated. We were having affairs and our wives knew and didn’t care. Some of us were sleeping with each others’ wives. There were things that had gone wrong, and