my mother did not tell us stories.
I was tucked up in bed nice and neat with my blankets pressed all the way up to my chin and my breathing coming out in an even flow. A smooth inhale, exhale, inhale again, it had all the trappings of real sleep. I’m the oldest so I have to tuck myself in neatly and wait for the others to follow suit. Though, I would guess most of them didn’t have to pretend.
Time must have slipped by, minutes, hours, the silver slash of the moon crossing the sky with a gradual ease of movement. I was somewhere between bruised-eyed wakefulness and a frantic dream trying to suck me down with the force of sticky tar.
Something banged from down below.
A crash like pots and pans, silverware tossed down stone steps, breaking flower vases on concrete. My eyes were fully open and my feet swinging out of bed before I knew what I was doing.
I can’t let the Pastor see this, that’s the type of thoughts I was having at the time. I was the oldest after all.
I pushed my way out of the blankets just as two little heads poked up from the covers on the beds next to mine, “what’s going on?” Tom slurred his words and asked groggily.
“Sh,” I hushed him, “I’ll take care of it.” I was already out the door and down the stairs that groaned under my steps.
The lights were off in the house and a draft pushed through my thin pajamas. I shivered and rounded the living room to find the kitchen quiet and empty.
“What was that?” More voices came from upstairs, but none of them were the Pastor.
I looked left and right, but all of the kitchen cabinets were firmly shut. I took a step forward and wetness hit my toes.
My eyebrows rose and looked down to see puddles of water across the floor. They were neat silver pools that dribbled from the door to the middle of the kitchen. And then simply stopped. I took a deep inhale and it smelled of damp soil.
I gawked at it for a long second before I heard a wizened voice. “What’s that, Cathleen?”
I turned quickly, “Nothing, Pastor Kirk. A stray cat!” I frowned at the wet spots on the floor. “Let me tell stories to the children and get them back to bed.”
My own mother never told stories even when I knew her, but I had a few left. I told one about a ghost that night.—————-It was a week later and I had a toothache that dully worked its way through my jaw and took up my whole head space. That was probably why I forgot to bow my head at mother Mary when I walked in the door that day. We were always supposed to show our respects.
“Do you show disrespect?”
“No disrespect, sir.” I squeaked.
“Do you want the devil to possess your carelessness? Huh?” I shook my head vigorously and looked for an escape route as little Lilly glanced over at me and mouthed some words.
“I’ll go get dinner started.” I said quickly before the flood gates really opened, “I’ll go collect more eggs. We’ll have cake.”
He just watched me carefully as I fled out of the back door and into the thick grasses. I was breathing hard by the time I was free of his hateful gaze. I slowed when I approached the hen house and paused as I saw Margaret standing besides the little door and not going in.
She was a stoic girl with a handsome chin and small watchful eyes.
I gave her a wary look and examined the brown coop: it seemed the same wooden structure with a steep roof and little ramp up to the door. “Um,” I glanced to Margaret who had not spoken since she arrived at the home. “Is something wrong?”
Margaret pointed carefully toward the door and I shuffled over to look at the small tin handle. It was wet.
I slowly reached out to touch the moisture clinging to it, but jumped when the chickens burst out with a series of loud clucks and noisy bocking. I wrenched the wet door open and the chickens came flooding out. “Girls, girls!” I tried to calm them but all six of the ladies came charging out of the house and into the yard.
Except for one. I stuck my head into the dim little space that smelled of sawdust and animal warmth. And wet soil.
There was one chicken left in the house. She was standing over a very large egg and when I went over to her the egg broke open as if made of a chalk. Easy and strange.
One green scaly leg stepped out, and then another. I cocked my head to the side as a lizard seemed to be looked back at me. A chicken seemed to have laid a lizard.
“Shoo,” I waved the chicken off and looked at the strangest green creature I’d ever seen.
“Cathleen!” Someone called for me. “Cathleen, what are you doing?”
I grabbed the lizard with both hands and stuck it in my pocket. “Nothing!” There were more drops of water near the coop as I exited it.
The Pastor gave a small lecture that night about young woman who stray from the path of the righteous: ones who were did not listen well or have good in their hearts. He finished with his usual speech about the end of the world and judgement coming to us all.
I wasn’t sure about the rest of it, but I remembered what the chicken had just birthed and for once I almost agreed.—————“I can’t hear you!” It was late. The night sky had long since been glittering above and my eyes drooped.
“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you.” Our voices joined together as we repeated the phrases and knelt and then stood and then knelt again.
“Louder!” He said with a look in his eyes you might see in race horses on their last lap. Lilly softly wept beside me.
It was long past our bedtimes and Tom’s knees were bleeding and leaving marks upon the floor.
“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you.”
I was shaking slightly. I was the oldest. But I had already tried to reason with him to release the younger ones, but he just spat “do you want to see your siblings go to hell?” I knelt and then stood again.
My throat was raw and hoarse and I had forgotten in what way we had angered him this time.
My head was bent down and hair loose around my face when color bled across the floors. A rose-red slant of light that spilled and spilled out onto the kitchen tiles.
I looked up just as the full moon was colored a hazy, distinctive crimson. It bathed the entire fields outside like a battlefield. And the grass was wet.
“What is that?” The Pastor’s eyes went wide and he took a step back. My cheek still stung from when I had tried to talk to him earlier. I turned to him now, knees trickling blood and a defiance I didn’t know I had shining through my face.
Bang
The other kids jumped as the loud noise crashed from outside.
“Cathleen?” One of the younger kids reached for my hand and the Pastor backed away toward the corner.
“It’s fine.” I said and looked toward the door expectantly. The smell of damp earth and overturned soil permeated the air.
Bang
It was coming closer. All the signs were there. It had been coming for awhile now.
“What devils have you brought to my door, child?” He looked directly at me and I couldn’t help but be filled with it. Remade in the terror on his face.
BANG
Something banged on the door and shook its very hinges. “Margaret,” I turned to my foster sibling, “let her in.” I glanced back over to the Pastor with my head raised, “mom’s back.”
My mom never told us stories. But she was one.
