The Eye Unseen (30 page)

Tippy continued licking her bowl, oblivious to my problem. Even with her excellent hearing, she didn’t notice sudden turmoil. Or the non-stop cries that came from our appliances.

The freezer contained nothing but cans. Matted with ice.

When I cracked the refrigerator door, the screaming crescendoed.

And there they were, the heads. Why Mom had chosen to put them here, unless she just wanted to terrify me, I could not guess. They were boisterous, some tainted a pale green, others dripping fresh blood from their wounds. I recognized Ms. Antoinette’s sweet face immediately, barely visible under the other heads mounded on top of her own, pushed all the way in the back corner on the top shelf. Her beak opened and exploded with her anger. If she’d had wings, I’m certain she’d have been pointing one at me, accusingly.

I’d promised not to eat her. And here I’d gone and fed her to my best friend.

I closed the door. Didn’t know what to do. The damned chickens wouldn’t shut up, and I was starving. I wanted more than anything to find something to eat.

My whole body bolted upright when Mom’s voice creaked from behind me.

“Merry Christmas, Lucy.”

“Huh?” I asked, when what I really wanted to do was die at the sight of her.

Mom looked wretched. Like she had been in a car wreck and miraculously survived. Her face was mottled eggplant, her left eye drooping and bloodshot.

“So it’s a few days late, but we can celebrate now, I guess.” When she smiled, Mom flashed me one less tooth than usual.

“That’d be great.”

“Let’s see what we can make for dinner.”

She pushed me out of the way and opened the refrigerator. There, on the top shelf, sat a plump chicken, ready for the frying pan.

Her scabby arms reached for it. “Well, I guess that answers my question. I don’t even remember buying this one.”

I was aghast. That the heads were gone. That Mom was up and talking to me. That Christmas had evaded me and I hadn’t made Tippy a thing.

When I glanced at my dog, Mom was feeding her another can of soup. Mom’s socks were wet from walking through the enormous pool of pee Tippy had left on the kitchen floor, but she didn’t even seem to notice. Mom moved to put the can in the trash, and I caught glimpse of her neck, bruised and decorated with slashes, crisped with infection.

Everything was surreal. The piss, the chickens, Mom and the flesh that seemed to be rotting right on her, my mental state.

She pulled out the frying pan. Found some potatoes in, of all places, the flour canister. Had I looked there? Why would I even try?

The world swooned about me. Snow started to fall. Right there, in the kitchen, the room crowded with flakes. They were huge and filled the room, Mom’s hair turning white as if she had donned a fancy Christmas wig, Tippy almost swimming through the pile. I couldn’t believe our luck, that God would cherish us enough to shower us with this bizarre holiday treat, but Mom and Tippy didn’t even notice.

When I stuck out my tongue to catch one of the big flakes, I gagged.

The sudden storm wasn’t snow at all.

Feathers. Everywhere. Thousands and thousands of them, covering the kitchen, my family, even the bird Mom was preparing.

Mom caught me off guard when she turned to me, anger flaring in her good eye. “What the hell happened to your hair?” Her body tightened as she realized I no longer looked like Brandy.

“God—“ 

Mom shut me up with the skillet.

When it hit my head, I realized that she was still alive.

Definitely still alive.

But I, probably, was not.

*  *  *

Tippy. Pippy. Nippy. Zippy.

Where was my dog?

I reached for her, but found only my hip bone. Her little body was not beside mine.

Tippy. Slippy. Clippy. Skippy.

Where was I?

I couldn’t see. Could open my eyes only for a split second. My head held a rock band on a stage surrounded by ten thousand jack hammers, all vying for attention.

The smell of wood. Had she put me in one of her old trunks? Was I in a cabinet? The closet?

A casket?

I freaked at the thought of the shed. Banged against my comforter with my feet, trying to kick my way out.

Then I realized that I wasn’t freezing cold. That the shed would not give off the scent of wood. And that my bedding would only be in one place. My room.

My breathing calmed. I recalled the small bookcase I had, pushed against the windowless wall. My dolphin poster, hanging above my headboard. The rag rug I had found at Goodwill, the many colors complementing my pink and blue wallpaper.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t lift my head, or I knew it would crack open and spill my brains out like yolk into the pan.

The pan. Mom had clobbered me with the frying pan. No wonder the parade of elephants stomping around in my head wouldn’t go away.

But where was my dog?

Tippy. Toppy. Tappy. Tuppy.

Tippy

I became an earthworm, tunneling through the snow. My stamina wasn’t what it used to be, but I was propelled by the thoughts of my girl. Locked away, again.

Dying.

We were all doing a pretty good job of that. Once my tummy was full I could smell it everywhere. The very walls oozed the sweet sticky stench of death.

But you were still alive, this I knew. After your mother had gone to bed, I’d sat outside your door and listened to you breathe. Whatever she’d done to you had left you sleeping for nearly a day.

Whatever she’d done to you had left me panicked for nearly a day.

Burrow, burrow, burrow. Maybe I wasn’t so much an earthworm as a rabbit. Or a badger.

Yes, I was a badger. Not cute and meek. Not an eyeless, limbless, bit of fish food.

I ate fish food for breakfast.

As a badger, I was no longer cold. The snow tomb was my safety. My paws were ten times more powerful than a house dog’s. In fact, I didn’t have to burrow anymore. I was so brawny I could swim through the snow-packed yard.

And swim I did.

When I ran into the shed, I turned to the left and came up for much-needed air. Your mother tended to forget about me when she left me outside, and while it usually annoyed me, today I needed that extra time. First I had some personal business to attend to, as I was horrified by the presents I’d left under the dining room table and didn’t want to put myself in that position again.

Then I needed to find my friends.

I yowled. Put on my best warrior stance, even though my lips barely crested the white ocean surrounding the house, and tried to appear brave and strong so they knew I’d never falter.

Perhaps, in my weakened state, I was not loud enough.

A badger has no difficulty maneuvering through the densest soil. Would my friends consider me worthless if I could not pull myself completely from the snow?

 This time I burrowed around the backside of the shed. Found the stump of an old elm tree that had gotten some weird bug in it and died. Stood on it and was able to push most of my body into the cold morning air.

When I howled again, I got a better response.

They were hunkered down in the trees. More than twenty of them. More than fifty. More than I could possibly count.

My army. I gave instructions, draining the last of my energy as I shouted to my soldiers. They would have to brave the remnants of the blizzard. I had. And they had quite a size advantage on me.

Not to mention thicker pelts.

The time was here. The time was now. At any moment I might need their help. And I wouldn’t be able to open the door and escort them in.

I didn’t believe in God. At least, not this beast that visited my girl, Lucy. I didn’t care about His rules concerning the windows. And this would be the only way they could get in.

Not an easy task, given the freak weather conditions.

But at least no one would see them coming.

The big guy huffed back at me. They understood the urgency; they welcomed the challenge.

In the end, I thanked them for their service. Let them know how much Lucy loved them, and shared her gratitude as well. Put my badger face back on so they’d know I meant business.

Going home was easier. My tunnel had held, and I slid on my belly half the way to the door.

She was waiting for me when I made it to the back porch.

“Get in here, you damned dog. What do you think I am, your personal butler?”

Her foot pushed against my butt, causing my wet paws to slide across the linoleum.

I gave her my badger’s eye. Grumbled, low and with a hearty warning.

My plan was in action.

Lucy

The dark never gave way.

For a while, I was convinced she had locked me in a wooden casket. Was I already underground? How had she managed to dig through all the snow and the soil, frozen beneath it?

Maybe she’d been waiting all this time to kill me. Maybe Mom had dug my grave months ago.

But none of it made sense. When I finally managed to raise my head off the pillow, I made my headache a hundred times worse by vomiting over the side of the bed. Not that I had anything to bring up but bile. But that’s when the dots started to connect.

I was on my own bed. In my own room. When I stretched out my arms in all directions, I couldn’t find the walls of the coffin she had locked me in. Surely if she’d buried me alive, she’d have tucked me into the smallest space possible.

How could I be buried if I was in the house?

I rolled off the side of my bed. Worried, for a second, that I’d broken my arm, but it held my weight when I crawled on all fours to the closed door.

Strength evaded me. Just the simple task of turning the handle became an extraordinary chore. I couldn’t balance my body and reach for the knob at the same time. Eventually I gave up and wedged my face between the knob and the door. Turned the handle. Found myself locked inside. Again.

My heart tripped. This time the door had no give in its frame, like it had before. It felt welded shut. No air seeped around its edges. Only a thin line of light eked over the threshold.

My fingers made their way across the wallpaper. Past the section Tippy and I had pulled down. Over the closet door. To the corner.

The smell of wood was stronger here.

I started on the wall with the window. Almost knocked the ceramic angel off its perch, the one Brandy had given me years ago for my birthday, a promise that someone would always look over me in my sleep.

When I hit the window frame, I knew. She had boarded it over. Taken the planks piled up in the basement and nailed them over my only escape. Mom had performed excellently. The seal allowed not even the faintest bit of light to seep through, the wood so thick and tight I’d never be able to pull it off with only my hands.

I couldn’t imagine Mom’s carpentry skills being this proficient. She had always used Brandy for the manly work around the house. But then I remembered who might have helped her.

God, intent upon my not escaping. His only son, a carpenter. Would He have called upon him to ensure I did not get out?

My despair came out in full force.

I made it back to the bed. Didn’t have it in me to cry anymore. Just curled under the blankets and went to grab my girl, so I’d have someone to share my sorrow.

But Tippy wasn’t there.

Where was my dog?

*  *  *

The granola bars were a lifesaver. I ate two, parceled out some water, took a mental inventory of everything I had hidden in my room.

Six packs of raisins. A couple boxes of dried soup, which might not be bad with a dab of water and a vigorous shake or two. Four more bars. Twenty containers of water, all shapes and sizes but enough to keep me going for a while. Some old hard candies I’d found while on my great search for weapons. The plastic bucket of pretzels Mom had thrown out when they expired but that had made their way into my closet before she hauled the trash to the cans beside the shed.

The pretzels were rock hard and would probably break my teeth, but at this point that didn’t matter. What did I need teeth for if I had nothing to eat? No one to talk to?

Tippy and I had stashed several batteries. In fact, Brandy had for some reason kept an entire box of them in her room and we had confiscated it for our own. The flashlight would come in handy in the pitch black that was now my life.

Otherwise, all I had was Evelyn’s book. No dog. No chickens. Just a world full of blackness and no one to share it with.

*  *  *

Sounds amplified in my gloomy cage. Mom rattling around downstairs. Tippy making an agonizing trip to the top of the steps, then turning around to go back. I could hear Mom cleaning. She used the vacuum, ran water in and out of the sink, opened the back door time and time again. Was she shoveling? Had the snow melted enough that she could maneuver through the arctic wilderness to the car? Would she be able to get to the grocery store for food?