Mud Vein(61)

My reaction is internal. The very essence of me writhes as if I am an open wound and someone has poured salt over me like one of those snails the kid next door used to torture. I hobble forward and lean over the box. Please God, please, don’t let it be blood.



Not blood.



Not blood.



My hand is shaking as I reach down to touch the words. I go for the V, slicing it in half. It has dried, but some of it chips away on the tip of my finger. I place my finger in my mouth, the flecks of red clinging to my tongue. All this, and Isaac has been a statue behind me. When I bend over, letting my crutch drop away, moaning in some sort of grief, I feel his arms circle my waist. He pulls me back into the house and kicks the door closed.

“Noooooo! It’s blood, Isaac. It’s blood. Let me go!”

He holds me from behind as I twist to get away from him.

“Hush,” he says into my ear. “You’re going to hurt your leg. You can sit on the sofa, Senna. I’ll bring it to you.”

I stop fighting. I’m not crying, but somehow my nose is running. I reach up and wipe it as Isaac carries me to the living room and sits me down. The couch is barely a couch. We hacked parts of it away to burn when we discovered that there was a wooden frame underneath the stuffing. The cushions are gouged; they sink beneath me. The back of the sofa is gone; there is nowhere to rest my back. I sit straight, my leg poking out in front of me. My anxiety climbs every second that Isaac is gone. My ears follow him to the door, where his breath hitches as he lifts the box. It’s heavy. The door closes again. When he walks back into the room he’s carrying it like a body, his arms stretched around its sides. There is no coffee table to set it on—we hacked that up too—so he places it at the floor by my feet, and steps back.

“What’s MV, Senna?”

I stare at the blood, the part of the V that I smudged with my finger.

“It’s me,” I say.

He tilts his head forward. It feels like he’s lining up our eyes. Truth. I’m going to have to feed him some truth.

“Mud Vein. I’m Mud Vein.” My mouth feels dry. I want to purge it with a gallon of snow.

His eyes flicker. He’s remembering.

“The dedication in his book.”

Our eyes are connected, so I don’t need to nod.

“Would he…?”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

“What does it mean?” he asks. I lower my eyes away from his, and to the blood letters. For MV

“What’s inside?” I ask.

“I’ll open it when you tell me why the zookeeper addressed that box to Mud Vein.”

The box is just out of my reach. To get to it I’ll have to use something to pull myself up. Since the couch no longer has a back, there is nothing I can use for leverage. Isaac, I realize, is being very strategic. I take a breath; it is broken in half by a sob that never reaches my lips. My chest convulses as I open my mouth to speak. I don’t want to tell him anything, but I must.

“It’s the black vein that curves around the back of a shrimp. Nick called it the mud vein. You have to remove it to make the shrimp clean…” My voice is monotone.

“Why did he call you that?”

When Isaac and I ask each other questions it reminds me of a tennis match. Once you’ve sent one over the net, you know it’s going to come back, you just don’t know the direction.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

He blinks at me. One second, two seconds, three seconds…

“No.”

“I don’t get you,” I say.

“You don’t get you,” he shoots back.

We have resumed our eye transmissions. I’m glaring, but his stare is more candid. After a minute he steps over to the box and opens it. I try not to lean forward. I try not to hold my breath, but there is a white box with the words For MV stenciled on the lid in blood. I am aching to know what’s inside.

Isaac reaches down. I hear the gentle whisper of paper. When his hand comes up he’s holding a loose page that looks as if it’s been torn from a book. The corners have soaked up some blood.

For MV

Blood soaked pages, for MV…

Who knew that Nick called me that, besides Nick himself?

Isaac starts to read. “The punishment for her peace was upon him, and he gave her rest.”

I hold out my hand. I want to see the page, know who wrote it. It wasn’t Nick; I know his style. It wasn’t me. I take the blood-stained page, careful to keep my fingers away from the red parts. I read silently what Isaac read out loud. The page is numbered 212. There is no title or author name. I read through the rest of it, but I have the feeling that those are the words I was meant to see first. Isaac hands me another page, this one with a spot of blood the size of my fist blooming out from the middle of the page like a flower. The font is different, as is the size of the page. I rub it between my fingers. I know this feel; it’s Nick’s book. This is Knotted.

Isaac pushes the box closer to where I’m sitting so that I’m able to reach inside. The pages are all pulled from their binding, lined in four rows. I lift another page. The style lines up with the first book, lyrical with an old-fashioned feel to the prose. There is something strange about the writing, something I know I should remember, and cannot. I start pulling out pages at random. Separating the pages of Nick’s book from the new one. I work quickly, my fingers lifting and piling, lifting and piling. Isaac watches me from where he leans against the wall, his arms folded, lips pursed. I know that underneath his lips his two front teeth slightly overlap. I don’t know why I have this thought, at this time, but as I sort pages my thoughts are on Isaac’s two front teeth.