Mother (57 page)

Then, six years ago, she’d wanted him to stop Snapdragon’s first annual gay pride parade. He’d refused, saying it was not his place to judge, nor was it hers. That’s when the threats began again. Dave was too old and tired by then to contend with the constant anxiety, so he’d arranged to have his assistant, Andrew Pike, put in charge of Holy Sacramental. When the bishop granted his request, he retired. Andy had been in charge ever since. It no longer mattered if Priscilla told on Dave; he had little to lose.

He looked at the bourbon, nearly picked it up.
Just one more shot before I eat my gun.
Only ending his life would end his guilt. But then he had a thought:
If I off myself, she’ll rejoice. She’ll have won.
And if Priscilla’s grave were ever to be dug, he wanted to help hammer the nails into her coffin.
 

Filled with new resolve, he rose and locked the gun away. He would not give Priscilla Martin the pleasure. He would go on living, and if she gave Andy a drop of trouble, he would reveal her perversion.

Father Andrew Pike slept in fits and starts and conscious or asleep,
Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree
was on a constant loop,
haunting him.
 

When he slept, he dreamed of Priscilla Martin.

She stood in a lush garden of blooming flowers and green vines that climbed looming trees. Stone statues of gods and goddesses punctuated the grounds.

Priscilla Martin stood behind the green curtain of a weeping willow’s sweeping limbs. She was nude, her private parts obscured by leaves and foliage. She saw him approach and her crimson lips curled up.

Andy was struck by a wave of the woman’s perfume - smoky, thick, and cloying.

Priscilla raised her hand and beckoned.

Andy shook his head. He did not want to join her.

Her smile fell, and Andy felt her gaze slithering over his body. He, too, was naked. And fully erect. After searching for something to cover himself, he settled on a leaf plucked from a nearby fig tree.
 

Priscilla laughed, a high tinkling sound that reminded him of shattering glass. “Come here, Father.”

“No. I can’t.”

She batted her lashes. Her pale amber eyes were lined with thick kohl, giving her a deranged, Cleopatra-like appearance. “I never take no for an answer, Father. Come to me.” Priscilla stepped out of the hanging branches, exposing herself.
 

He swallowed.

“Please,” she said, and Andy heard hiss-like sibilance in her voice.

“No. It’s wrong.”

Priscilla held his eyes and brought her hands to her breasts. She stroked them and Andy felt himself nearing climax as she brought her hands down to her genitals. She pinched her labia, spread them, and giggled, moaning as something wriggled out of her opening.

Andy gasped as a long gray serpent slid out of her, hit the earth, and coiled between her feet. It raised its wet head, its tongue flicking in and out. It hissed and slithered up her ankle, leaving a slick trail as it twined around her calf, her thigh, her waist, finally wrapping itself around her arm.

She stepped closer to Andy and though he wanted to run, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even pry his eyes away from the woman and the serpent that bound her arm, like the sleeve of some horrid medieval armor.

Priscilla stood before him. “Kiss me, Father, for I am sin. Taste me. Take me into your mouth.”

“No!” His feet were blocks of cement.

From the heavens, the Andrews Sisters sang,
“Don’t sit under the apple tree …”

“With anyone else but
me,
” said Priscilla, taking his now flaccid manhood in her hand.

He stepped back, moved from her scaly, dry touch, and realized there were no weeping willows now, only apple trees. As far as the eye could see.

“With anyone else but me …” Priscilla’s words were a snake’s hiss. Her pupils turned to narrow black slits. “With anyone else but me …” A forked tongue spilled from her mouth.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Claire watched the ceiling ripple. It was like watching the sea.
A perfectly white, beautiful sea.
Mesmerized, she barely registered the rapping on her door until the knocks became insistent.

Fear shot through her and she sat up. “Hello?”

“Carlene?” Mother entered, carrying a big white night owl.
 
“It’s just me, Carlene. I’ve brought you some warm milk, as promised.”

“Who?” called the night owl. “Who?”

As Claire stared, the owl transformed into a glass of milk. “Milk? Why?” She looked at the clock on the bedside table. The numbers bounced and whirled, but she was finally able to make them out. “It’s almost three.”

“Yes, it is. I haven’t been able to sleep.” Mother sat down on the bed and Claire felt as if she were sinking - it wasn’t unpleasant exactly. “I just need to know you’re okay, dear.” She held out the glass. “Drink up.”

She drank quickly then said, “Three in the morning.”

Mother gave her a sad smile.

“You know what Ray Bradbury says about three in the morning, don’t you, Mom?”

Mother shook her head. “No, dear. What does Ray Bradbury say?”

Claire thought. The words were butterflies, fluttering just past her grasp, but then she recalled them. “He said,
‘Three in the morning …
 
Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be, save dying.’
”

Mother shook her head. “You always read too many frightening books when you were growing up.”

“Ray Bradbury knows everything.”

“He’s dead and gone. Come now. Drink your milk.” Mother shoved the glass toward her and for a moment Claire saw wasps and bees floating up from the bottom, bobbing at the surface. “There’s something wrong with it.”

“It’s just milk,” said Mother. “Pure, white, warm milk. It’s good for you and the baby.”

“Yes.” Claire took the glass and watched as the insects disappeared. “The baby.” She drank it. It was like swallowing silk.

Moments before the alarm sounded, Jason awoke to silence. He heard no cars out on the highway, no planes in the sky. The world slept, muffled and blanketed by the night.

The alarm went off, startling him. He silenced it and hopped from bed.
 

After using the bathroom, he padded out, intending to call Jake, but the silence was so thick he went to the window and pulled back one drape.

A kaleidoscopic flurry of snow danced outside. It lay heavy on the ground, quilting the world in white. Even in the darkness, it was bright.
 

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

There was no way they were making it out of Denver - not for several hours, even if they were lucky. “Son of a bitch.” He found his phone and tried Claire.

There was no answer.

“Shit!”

Outside, the wind began to howl. The blizzard had arrived early.

Claire lay on the bed watching a movie on the ceiling. John Wayne, in a tutu and cowboy boots, was getting a pounding from Batman. Big Technicolor words - BAM! BOOM! ZOWIE! PURR! - flashed over the images, then a yellow submarine plowed through them as Gomer Pyle sang
Rocky Raccoon.
She watched in fascination, knowing none of it was real. It couldn’t be real.

What the hell is happening to me?
She’d never had a fever high enough to do this to her, and she felt fine, except for these hallucinations.
I’m not sick! I know I’m not!

Then she heard music rising up through the vents.

“… the woods today …”

Panic seized her. She squeezed her eyes shut, suppressing the memories that threatened.
“No. Shut up. Please shut up.” She clamped her hands over her ears, but it was too late. A memory came, crushing her beneath its weight.

“Drink it.” Mother stands, arms crossed.

“Please, Mother, no.” Timothy grimaces at the glass she holds out to him. Though nearly a man now, he cowers from Mother, avoids her eyes.

She smacks him. Hard. His head jerks to one side. “I said, drink it.”

Carlene stands in the kitchen doorway, weeping. Mother turns and smiles. “Your precious little sister has come down to join us, Timothy. Now show her what happens when you take the Lord’s name in vain in Mother’s house.” She smiles. “Potty mouth deserves potty mouth.”

“I can’t. I’ll get sick. I’ll throw up.”

“I don’t care if you
do,
Timothy. This is a punishment, and punishments aren’t meant to be pleasant.”

“Stop, Mommy.” Carlene sobs and Mother takes her by the arm, yanks hard. Carlene hears a
Pop!
and pain shoots up her arm, into her neck. She screams as Mother shoves her into a chair to face her older brother.
 

“Be still and watch, Carlene.” Mother faces Timmy. “I’ll ask you one more time, Timothy, and then I’m going to give you the Bad Punishment, too.”

“No, no, no!” Timothy takes the glass, drinks it down in heaving gulps.

Carlene can’t tell what’s in the glass, only that it’s yellow. The pain in her arm is agonizing. It won’t move. She bites back her anguish, bites her lips so hard she tastes blood.

Timothy puts the empty glass down, then vomits on the table. It splashes on Carlene’s pajamas and she recognizes the smell: pee.

Mother laughs, grabs a roll of paper towels and tosses them to Timmy. “Now, clean up your sick. And if I ever hear you talk like that again, I’ll drink a whole pitcher of water and you’ll drink every drop of Mommy’s potty!”

The memory dissolved, and as it faded, Claire recalled her mother’s words that night, after she’d jerked Claire’s arm back into its socket:
“You’ve hurt your shoulder again, Carlene. You’re just lucky Mommy can fix it herself so we don’t have to take you to the big, mean doctor. You’re such a clumsy little girl. You didn’t get that from
Mommy’s
side of the family! I wish you’d been born with Timothy’s grace.”
 

On the bed, Claire gasped.
So, that’s why my shoulder aches so often. How many times did she dislocate it?
 

On the ceiling, new shapes began to form, distracting her from her anger. There were clicking sounds and the images flickered as if she were watching an old film reel. Claire saw herself, age six, giggling and smiling as Mother pushed her on the backyard swing. Tim was in high school, too old for swings, but he usually pushed her, not Mother. He was way more fun.

Carlene pumps her legs, moving faster, and the swing goes higher and higher as Mother pushes. Carlene loves it. She’s coming almost even with the crossbar on the swing set and she wants to see over the top. “Higher, Mommy, higher!”

Mother pushes hard and Carlene laughs, delighted, as she swings back and forth.
 

She sees above the crossbar but the swing jitters and swoops, too hard, too fast. “Stop now!” she calls. “Stop now!”

But Mother doesn’t stop. “Don’t you want to swing all the way over the top, Carlene?”

She wanted to before, but not now. “No! Make it stop! Make it stop!”

Mother laughs as the swing set shakes and jolts. She pushes harder and harder.
 

Carlene screams as the swing flies over the top of the rail. Time goes into slow motion as she watches herself lose her grip on the chains and fly through the air while Mother looks on, smiling. Carlene sees images from her brief life as she flies, Timmy’s last birthday party, an award at school for a picture she drew, Mother spanking her. And then she crashes to the ground so hard it takes her breath away.

She lies in a crumpled heap, trying to catch her breath as Mother approaches, hands on hips, and looks down on her in disgust. “Clumsy girl,” she says. “Let’s get you up and clean you off.”
 

She bends and puts her hands under Carlene’s arms, then lifts. Carlene screams in pain, then faints when she sees a jagged bone sticking out of her wrist.
 

On the bed, Claire realized she was sobbing. She forced herself to stop as she sat up. Lifting the sheet, she looked down at the cast on the leg she couldn’t remember breaking.
 

Could Mother be behind my leg?
No.
No, that’s ridiculous.
Isn’t it?
She’d simply fainted in the shower and fallen wrong. It wasn’t like the fall from the swing. She remembered clearly that Mother had pushed too hard, and though it was technically an accident, for that, Mother
was
to blame. She knew better than to push a little kid so hard, to encourage her to swing in a complete circle. But she’d done it anyway, and the look in her eyes…
Glee. She was happy
!

Claire wished Jason were here. He’d know what to do, wouldn’t he? A sudden wave of colorful dizziness washed over her, taking away her clarity, blasting her with an explosion of salty tastes, high-pitched sound, and neon colors. She blinked it away. “It isn’t real, it isn’t real.”
 

Her eyes lit on her cast and she caught strange movement. Her breath stopped dead when she saw fingertips working their way out from beneath the cast. With dirty, cracked nails, the fingers clawed at her skin, pulling themselves along, crawling like spider’s legs. “No!” She slapped at it - it was a full hand now, a white, bloodless hand with dried blood and dirt crusted under its nails. It crept up her thigh.

Claire shot to her feet and grabbed her crutches. She looked down. The hand was gone, but now the room swayed, tilted to one side then the other, like a funhouse. The floor beneath her felt like marshmallows.

Downstairs, the teddy bears continued their picnic at full volume.

“I’m not dead.”

Startled, Claire swiveled her head and saw no one.

“I’m not dead, and I’m coming back.”

Almost sure the voice wasn’t in her head, she hobbled to the door. It was locked. Claire screamed. “Let me out.”

“I’m coming back.” The low voice came from the closet. It was Tim’s. It had to be.
 

With trepidation, Claire moved toward the closet. She pulled the door open … and saw nothing. “Timothy?” Her whisper shook. “Are you here?”