The Weight of Blood (87)

PLEASE SHELTER INDOORS IMMEDIATELY

AND CLOSE ALL WINDOWS

PLEASE STAND BY

June 1, 2014

Squirrels fell out of trees like large gray rocks, smacking the pavement, their guts spilling out on the sizzling road. Maddy stepped around them, the familiar threads pulling her around the corner, down the blackened street, her heels worn to nubs. Behind her fully dilated pupils, a nerve twitched. The fire hydrant in front of Mrs. Mobley’s home blew, water gushing up like a volcano, raining wet lava. Somewhere nearby, a little boy screamed. All night, so much screaming. Did any other noise exist?

Despite the heat and thick smoke, goose bumps riddled her arms. The paint and blood had mixed into a sort of muddy paste.

All she wanted was one night to be normal.

Now, all she wanted was to go home.

Kendrick was dead. They’d killed the one good thing that had come into her world. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. She could remember every detail of his lips, the grip of his hand on her waist, the way he coveted her like a precious jewel. No one had ever made her feel so safe. Acid burned her esophagus. He was gone.

Maddy’s legs stopped, and she turned to her left. In the windows, flickering gold flames invited her inside. She stumbled up the familiar wooden steps and through the door, collapsing against it to shove it closed, muting the world outside.

She took a deep, choppy breath, gripping the white lace door curtain with both hands, the scent of home a salve, before peering over her shoulder. Church candles lit up the dining room, living room, and kitchen, but the shadows still seemed to swallow her whole.

“Papa?” she whispered, her voice raspy. It was the first time she had spoken in over an hour.

She took off her shoes, her feet bloody, and tiptoed through the house.

“Papa?” she called softly. The house moaned, the wood creaking like an open-mouthed yawn.

Maddy stood at the bottom of the stairs, a light flickering above. She took the steps, painfully aware of her own heaviness. She shuffled through the pitch-black halls toward her bedroom, the disquiet rippling through her. The hurricane candle haloed in the darkness, the spot on the ceiling a reminder of how far she had come. She blinked, turning to her vanity mirror. Even in the low light, she could see the paint dried on her face, her hair sticking out in every direction, a thick black jungle, her soggy dress frayed. Fingers rattling, she touched a spot of blood on her cheek. It wasn’t Kenny’s blood. It was someone else’s. She gasped as the fog lifted, eyes flaring.

God . . . what have I done?

You made them PAY!

A long creak in the floorboards made her spin. Papa emerged from the shadows near her prayer closet, a ghostly figure. In the hours since she’d been gone, he had aged a hundred years.

“Papa,” she whimpered.

He stood motionless, seeming to be looking through her, and she almost questioned her own existence. Something about his gaze made her stomach tense, but she was desperate for any sort of comfort he could provide.

“Papa . . . I think I’ve done something bad.”

He stared at her, his expression giving away nothing.

The power plant alarm blared in the distance, her neck craned toward the sound. Was this the first time it had gone off? She couldn’t remember anything after they killed Kendrick. What did it mean? What should they do? She was lost without her lone parent. Maddened by his silence, she fisted her own hair, clotted with blood, the paint drying it to matted thick clumps.

“I need help, Papa! Please.” She hiccupped a sob. “Please! Say something. What do I do?”

After several ticks of the cuckoo clock, Papa blinked, then sat on the corner of her bed, staring at a spot on the floor.

“I thought . . . things would be different,” he mumbled. “I thought, if I kept you close, raised you right, with good wholesome Christian values, taught you to have pride in your true history, gave you inspiration to live up to, like all these classy women . . . that you wouldn’t end up like her. But I was wrong.”

Maddy swallowed. The gnawing at her spine returned.

“Mama got the cancer, and I hired your mother to take care of her. No one else wanted the job, and she had nowhere to go.” He stopped to look around. “Your mother stayed in this very room.”

Maddy thought of her mother’s journal, tucked under the pillow behind him.

“But Mama was so cruel to her. Spat at her, slapped food out of her hands, struck her with a cane, poured her bedpan over her head. When Mama passed, I thought it was finally over. But then your mother . . . I gave in to temptation. I prayed you wouldn’t have it, prayed you’d have more of your mama’s blood in you than mine, that it’d skip you like it skipped me. But I knew the day you were born that you had it. Because we fornicated before marriage, and God was punishing me.”

Blood rushed to Maddy’s feet, her face going numb.

“My mama . . . wanted so badly for me to be just like her. I favored her most of all. But it was clear . . . pretty soon, I didn’t have what she had. What you have.”

He rubbed his thigh with one hand, softly rocking back and forth.

“Papa had promised Mama a different kind of life. One with a nice house, clothes, and money. But we were barely scraping by. So when Papa wanted to invite this new Negro family to the church . . . well, Mama wasn’t going to be a poor reverend’s wife sitting next to some Negroes. She grew tired of pretending to be something she wasn’t. One day, she took one look at Papa and . . . he just fell dead. She stopped his heart with her eyes.