“Hey, can I come in with you?” Lexi asks, hopping out before I can answer. “I’ve always wanted to see inside this house. You know, Marilyn’s grandma or… great aunt or something… Owned this house? I’m pretty sure she died in there, too. People said it was haunted before y’all moved in. How many rooms does this have, anyway? It’s so big.”
“Uh… Yeah,” I say, not moving. “So, my stepdad’s actually hurt, and he doesn’t really like people coming inside…”
“Oh, right,” she says, nodding. “I heard about that. Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, he’s fine. He just… He doesn’t like people seeing him that way.”
“Bummer,” she says, reaching back to open the truck door. “Maybe next time?”
“Yeah,” I say. “For sure. Sorry.”
She climbs back into the truck, and I wait for them to speed away and leave me standing on the sidewalk alone. But she waves a hand impatiently. “Go get your clothes, homegirl. There’s only so many Monster Ballads I can listen to before I punch this idiot to remind him it’s not the 80s anymore, and he dumps me on your doorstep, and then I’ll have to stay the night with you instead.”
That gets me going in a hurry, and I rush up the front steps, since I can’t exactly skirt around with them watching. But I stop at the door, realizing I can’t go in anyway. I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder and then hurry around the side of the house. Hopefully they’ll just think the door was locked and my key is in my backpack.
When I’ve circled the house on the wraparound porch, I jog down the back steps and hurry across the soggy backyard to the shed. It’s been raining for weeks, like it does this time of year, and a thin layer of water sits in the yard under the dead grass. The floor of the shed is dirt, which has turned to mud from me going in and out. All my clothes are damp, and the sleeping bag has gotten a little muddy too. I know I need to find somewhere else to live, that once Lee gets better and starts coming out to see his precious pool, he’ll notice the footprints and find me.
I’m so busy fretting I don’t even notice that the shed door is cracked open until I get there. It has a hook for a padlock, but it’s never been locked. I always make sure to push it closed so rain doesn’t come in, though.
I’m shaking even before I see the black feathers at my feet.
Then my blood turns to ice.
I don’t know how long I stand there, the cold rain beating down on me, soaking my hair and clothes. I can’t move. I can only stare at the feathers, anguish twisting inside me.
She must have only been stunned. That’s it. She woke up and flew out…
I know it’s impossible, but I can’t consider another possibility.
I hear Lexi calling my name, and it snaps me out of my trance. Gulping down my nerves, I slowly ease open the door. My heart stops.
I rush in and fall to my knees in the bed of black feathers. Her body is mangled, nothing left but a few bones and so many feathers…
“Poe!” I scream, frantically gathering them up, as if I can put her back together, make her whole again.
A sob catches in my throat, and even though I know it’s stupid, all I can think is that it’s my fault because I was going to abandon her, go spend the night with a friend and leave her here alone.
“Poe,” I sob, grasping at her downy feathers.
“Oh! My god…” I hear Lexi’s voice behind me, and I know I should be embarrassed about… Something… But I can’t remember what it is.
All I can think about is Poe. I’ve lost her. She’s really gone. I can’t pretend anymore.
“Shit,” Billy says, his voice practically in my ear. “Don’t touch that.”
“Yeah,” Lexi says. “I mean, I support anyone’s right to go all Ozzy and bite off bat heads and shit, but for real, those things carry diseases.”
“She doesn’t have a disease!” I yell, gripping her tighter, like they might pry her bones from my fingers. “Go away!”
“I’ll get help,” Billy says.
He backs away, and I fold over her, crying at the hollow that’s been carved out inside my chest, trying not to scream from the pain and the fury that the one thing I had in my life, the one thing that’s mine, is gone. I want to tear the shed to pieces, throw the rain back up into the sky, rip the covering from the pool, fill it with water, and slam my hand into it so hard it makes a tidal wave that washes away the house, the whole fucking town.
“Okay,” Lexi’s says behind me, her gentle hand settling onto my shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay,chica.”
“It’s not okay,” I whisper, raising my tear-streaked face at last. She’s looking at me like… Like I’m everything I never wanted to be.
Weak. Broken. Pitiful.