the birches and cedars unscathed by axe or fire. Until I reached the yard and the house. Both worse for years of neglect, but both whole. Both there.
I released a pent-up breath.
Home.
The front lock held, which surprised me. I rattled at the doorknob, but the noise only inspired a scurrying inside. A stir of scrabbling feet.
Raccoons, I thought, relieved. Or squirrels. I could handle vermin and I could handle a barred door. These were the least of all evils I’d envisaged. At the back of the house, my bedroom window was slightly ajar. I had no praise for useless gods, just gratitude to the carpenter who’d constructed frames prone to contracting in the heat. After jimmying it with a stick, the glass slid easily in its tracks. The casement was low—any higher and I don’t think I could’ve managed it. My entrance wasn’t graceful, but it did the job.
Inside, the air was close and rich with decay. Fluorescent orange splotches of possum piss dotted the sheets and area rugs; brown pellets covered every flat surface and led like a breadcrumb trail out of the room. Slumbering and still, the house wrapped me in its embrace. I walked down the hall carefully, quietly, lest I wake it. The living room was darker than whiskey dregs. My feet crunched across the floorboards, snapping and popping on unseen twigs. At the far side, I stubbed my toe on the corner of the woodstove—it never felt so good letting loose a blue streak of curses.
Heavy woolen curtains, three layers deep, were draped in front of the windows. These were … new? I fumbled at the unexpected fabric, trying to recognize it, trying to situate it in my memory of this room. Light streamed in through the windows the night they came. I searched for the split between panels. Light streamed in through the windows the night Ma died. In the end, I felt my way to the edge: the material was fastened to the wall with staples or pins. Furious, I dug through the layers, through the metal. How dare they? I thought, tearing to unveil Ma’s picture window. How dare they.
“The light! Close it, close it!”
Her voice was a hot poker up my spine. I jumped and spun to see Ma cowering on the couch. She crab-walked into the shadows, looking at me between strands of lank hair. Her figure was wizened beyond recognition. Bones protruded from her chest and shoulders, visible through her threadbare gown. The curve of her stomach was the inverse of mine, despite the litter of rabbit and cat bones on the floor. She continued to plead that I cover the windows—I responded by standing and staring. Her mouth, double-fanged like a panther’s, stretched wide; it unleashed a wail of illness and starvation that sent me scaling a rickety chair. Hooking darkness and silence back into place.
Despite my efforts thin shafts of light oozed in, sluggish with dust. Ma’s eyes were glassy as she moaned, “Stop haunting me.” Knees pulled to her chest, she rocked back and forth mumbling, “Oh Ada, oh my Ada. Jesus Christ, stop haunting me.”
Ice water ran through my veins. “I’m here, Ma.” She continued her mantra, her rocking. “Ma, I’m here.” I hurried to her, arms outstretched. “I’m home. Look: I’m home. I’m home.”
“Liar!” The force of her anger was enough to give me whiplash. “That’s what you always say—and it just ain’t true, Ada. It ain’t true…”
My knees buckled and I dropped to the couch. “No, Ma.” I spoke softly to keep the tremble from my voice. She looked at me sideways, sniffed and tasted the air. “Liar.”
“That’s the hunger talking, not you.” I inched closer, gently laid my hand on her shoulder. I wanted to pull her to me, to fill the gaps between her bones with my tears. But I recognized the look on her face: Mister Pérouse wore it each time my bloods drew near. “Look at me.”
She turned away.
“Look at me.” I cradled her chin in my hand, not pressing too hard for fear of breaking her. Forced her to see me. To accept me as real. Thinking of the jars I’d kept stacked beneath the front porch, I repeated, “I’m here, Ma. I’m here, and I’ll feed you.”
Her hallucinations must’ve never made such an offer. She blinked slowly, focusing her gaze.
“Ada,” she croaked. When she frowned the tips of her teeth caught on her bottom lip, distorting her mouth in a maniac’s grimace. I wondered which of her