Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day(37)

I don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. “Stop!” I yell, and my voice is wind and agony, and there is nothing I can do, nothing I can do to stop them, nothing I can do to save her.

“Stop,” says another voice, softer than mine, older than mine, wearier than mine. I turn, and there’s Brenda, her guitar over her back as it always is, her eyes hidden in the shadow. The ghosts stop moving. So does the corn. Teresa’s struggles no longer stir it; it hangs, frozen as a knife on the verge of dropping, as the world waits to see what will follow.

“Terry, girl, I thought we taught you better,” says Brenda. The weariness deepens as she wades into the green, brushing ghosts aside like we were cobwebs. We were drawn into a fight bigger and wilder than we are, and I find I can’t even be angry that the end of it isn’t mine. We’ll survive. That’s all the victory I need.

“Corn’s not enough anymore,” says Teresa. There’s a little fire in her words. Of course the corn isn’t enough. It never could have been.

“It’ll have to be,” says Brenda. She takes her daughter’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, studying the younger woman’s eyes before she leans in and presses a kiss against her forehead. “From now on, it’ll have to be.”

The change is so swift and so inevitable that for a moment, I don’t see what’s happening. Their skin roughens, ripples; their clothes grow green with husks. Still together, still touching, they burst into cornstalks and continue to rush upward, until they tower over us, until the field is spreading out to claim the theater, pulling it down one brick at a time. Brenda’s guitar falls. I rush to catch it, becoming substantial and grabbing it by the neck before it can hit the ground.

By the time the ghosts and I reach the street, the theater is gone. Only the corn remains. There is no sign of Danny. Maybe it’s better that way.

“How are we getting home?” asks a ghost.

“Anyone know how to drive?” I reply, and laugh, filling my lungs with Mill Hollow air, watching the cornfield spread all the way to the ravine. A few people will be mighty surprised when they wake up in the morning. Or maybe not. It’s hard to say, in a place like this one, on a night when the moon is like a panther’s eye and the corn stretches out to the end of the world.





14: Make It Up Both Long and Narrow


A couple of the ghosts knew how to drive. It’s been five days, and we’re all home, and the world is exactly like it’s always been, and the world is totally new.

Delia and Avo were glad to have me back. The cats didn’t really notice. Delia has been in and out of my apartment since that night, feeding them, learning their little ways. She never asked if it was all right with me, and I’m grateful for that. She’s been around a long time. I think she has her ways of knowing things.

I think she might have known before I did.

It’s almost midnight, and I’ve been walking for hours, following the alleys, following the rustle of little rat feet on the concrete. It’s almost anticlimactic when I come around a bend and there she is, Sophie, tucked down between two trash cans with a nest of ratlings in her lap. She looks up at the sound of my footsteps. She relaxes when she sees who they belong to.

“Jenna,” she says. Her gaze sharpens, becoming puzzled, then sad. “That’s Brenda’s guitar.”

“Brenda had to go.” I offer the guitar to her. She takes it reverently, glancing at me to be sure it’s all right, that I truly mean it, that this isn’t some cruel joke. “I thought you might like this.”

“Yes, yes; thank you, yes,” she says. Then she frowns. “Did you want something in return?”

“I’d like to ask for something. It’s on you whether you give it.”

“What do you want?”

I take a breath. Am I really ready for this? I could stop now. I could wait a little longer. There’s always more time, if you’re willing to take it. That’s one of the beautiful things about being outside the normal flow of things. It’s easy to see that there’s always more time.

But I’m tired. I’ve gone home and I’ve seen that there’s nothing left to run from, and I’m done. This is right. This is how it finishes.

“I’ve earned it,” I say softly. “I’ve earned my last day. I want to take it from you.”

Sophie’s eyes widen. Then, wordlessly, she nods, and offers me her hand. Her fingers are smaller than mine, delicate and soft; it’s like holding hands with a child. The time flows out of her and into me, and I am a day older, I am a day closer to the grave, and there it is, finally, finally, after all this time, after all this running; I’ve reached the border of my dying day.

Sophie’s eyes widen further still, until I have to wonder what she’s seeing when she looks at me. Something has changed for her; I know that much. Something has changed for both of us.

“There you are.”

I turn and there’s Patty standing in the alley behind me, a smile on her face and a plastic flower barrette in her hair. I don’t think. I just run, yanking my hand away from Sophie and throwing my arms around my sister, burying my face against her skin. She smells of salt and peppermint soap. She caresses my hair, and everything is all right. Everything is going to be just fine.