Tress
My first reaction when the cat smacks me is to feel hurt—not actually pain, just hurt. Rule number one of wild animals: don’t forget they’re wild animals. I forgot. I sat here and I cried and I told a panther all my problems and then, like an idiot, I tried to pet him, because I made the mistake of thinking that he understood me, that he was my friend.
Apparently I am very bad at picking friends.
Either I try to kill them, or they try to kill me.
Deep wounds take a second to start bleeding. I know this, having suffered more than a few. The cat was only warning me, but it was enough. There are three slashes on my arm, dark and black, like three mouths opening into a part of me not meant to see light. Subcutaneous fat rolls from the edges, a yellow layer peeking out above the deeper pink of skin. Past that there’s a glimpse of bone, securely fastened to gray tendon and fleshy muscle, which I see flickering for a moment before the blood flows.
Then everything is just red.
Chapter 50
Cat
There are lives outside me
present and past that I
can see
when I am still and quiet.
Go beyond that, past
still
and
quiet
To
stone
and
silence
and there are lives, inside.
I have always been cat
but not always this
Sizecolorshapesex.
Once I was smaller, like a cousin,
and died, freezing, with a girl
in our bed, held tightly together for warmth,
though we had only cold left to give
bone pressed to bone.
I remember that girl, her mouth sounds,
different from this girl’s.
But in all my lives,
humans cry the same.
She leaves, arm curled to her,
metal / salt / sad / smell stays behind.
The door closes, but it is a light thing.
And I am dark and heavy.
Chapter 51
Felicity
There’s a roar above me, a party I was invited to and haven’t quite been able to attend. A swell of laughter spins, loops, goes different directions until it’s not laughter anymore, but the sound of wind, a breeze that plays with my nightgown as I stand on the steps of the Montors’ house, my hand in Annabelle’s, as she stares stupidly at the empty driveway.
“Where’s your car?” I ask, scratching the back of one leg with the other foot. We’d roasted marshmallows earlier in the backyard, and the last of the mosquitoes had some bites off me while I devoured my own snack.
Annabelle doesn’t answer, only jangles her keys in one hand, eyes roaming up and down the street. It’s late. Dark. No one is out. The only light is a rectangle on the lawn, thrown from Tress’s room. I walk out into it, look up. Tress stands there, staring down, still holding the teddy bear.
I wave, half-heartedly.
She does not wave back.
She doesn’t understand, doesn’t know why I’m leaving, can’t figure out what she did wrong to drive me away. And I’m sorry and I feel bad but I have to go and I need to go right now but we can’t go because Annabelle can’t find her car and she’s not worried about me anymore. Her face does not have the worried-about-children look. It has something else. Something I am very familiar with.
The upset-with-your-father look.
And when the car lights turn onto the street and move closer to the driveway I am so happy to see that it’s their car, and Lee is behind the wheel, and now I can go home. But Annabelle is not happy, and Lee is not happy when he sees her.
No one is happy. And Tress turns her lights out, leaving me to stand in the dark.
Chapter 52
Tress
I had a plan. I was going to scare the ever-living shit out of Felicity Turnado and find out what happened the night my parents disappeared, settling a few scores in the process. How I ended up being attacked by a panther and bleeding out while my cousin, Ribbit, became internet famous, I don’t know. But that’s where I’m at.
I’m holding my arm over my head as I go down the back staircase, but it’s not making much of a difference; I’m bleeding so heavily that I actually slip in my own mess on the second step, crashing into the kitchen and knocking the wind out of me. There are black spots in my vision and a metallic taste in my mouth, the sounds of laughter from the staircase are fading in and out, going a little tinny, like when Dad used to insist on trying to find local radio stations when we were on a road trip. I curl up into a ball, willing myself to keep my shit together.
And keeping my shit together starts with keeping my arm together.
I sit up, leaning back against the wall to get a better idea of how bad the wounds are. I kick at a half-full bottle of water, rolling it near enough to me that I can grab it and pour some over my arm. All I get is a quick glance at what I already knew—it’s bad—and then the blood is flowing thickly again, dripping down my arm and soaking the front of my pants.
“Okay, Montor,” I say to myself. “What’s the situation?”
My mom used to say that, whenever I came running to her. No matter what it was, from a bee sting to a broken nose, she always set me down and calmly asked, What’s the situation? I asked her once why wasn’t she like other moms, the ones who said, What’s wrong?
“Because they assume something is,” Mom said, rolling back the hem of my jeans.
“There is,” I argued, wiping my nose. “A bee stung me.”
“That’s what bees do.” Mom pinched the stinger between her fingernails and pulled it out. “So really, everything is perfectly right.”
A cat had mauled me. That’s what cats do. Nothing was wrong. I just had a situation. And situations have solutions.
“I need stitches,” I say, talking myself through it.
But I can’t go get stitches because (1) I’m in no condition to drive, (2) no one else here is, either, (3) I’ll surely be questioned about my wounds, which will lead to the cat’s escape being discovered, followed by the loss of the family business, and, of course, there’s (4) I’ve committed a handful of felonies this evening and will surely be found out if I seek medical attention.
“Okay.” I nod, agreeing with my train of thought. “I can’t get stitches at a hospital. What else can I do?”
Stitching myself up might be an option. I’d closed a few of Cecil’s wounds when he didn’t want animal services getting too interested in us. But I’m not at home. I’m at the Allan house, and the chances of finding a needle and thread are pretty slim, the availability of boiling water or a disinfectant even slimmer. So stitches are out of the question. But I need to close the wounds, and I need to do it fast.
“Okay,” I agree with myself. “But how?”
The room starts to go sideways, so I lean my head back, watching the lights above me fade in and out as my focus shifts, my eyes wandering from the naked glass bulbs to the live wire above them, held in place with staples. I’d helped Ribbit hang the lights this afternoon, following his instructions and grabbing anything he needed out of my backpack.
Pliers. Hammer. Duct tape.
Duct tape.
I scramble, wriggling around to get my pack off with one good arm while trying to keep the other one elevated. I pull back the zipper with my teeth and spot the roll—the edge curled under so that it won’t stick down, like Dad taught me. I grab it and just start wrapping, rolling it around and around my arm, watching the mess of my skin—the open wounds, the dripping blood—covered with length after length of neat, orderly silver tape.