Page 11 of The Wilderwomen

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She shut the door behind her and took off running after Nora. When she reached the edge of the woods, she called for her mom, but her words were swept away by a sudden gust of wind. Then out of the corner of her eye: an apparition. In a clearing at the edge of a ravine, what looked like a statue of her mother had been erected. If it weren’t for her hair blowing wildly in the wind, Zadie would have believed Nora had been turned to stone.

Zadie felt a hot surge of fear in her chest as she tentatively made her way toward her. “Mom? What are you doing out here?”

The statue—her mother—did not answer. As Zadie drew closer, she realized just how close Nora was standing to a precipitous drop into the ravine below. Silhouetted against clouds that bloomed violet like bruises, Nora bore a striking resemblance to a heroine on the cover of a Gothic novel. The cliff edge was her widow’s walk, and it was unclear whether her sorrow would move her to jump.

Zadie’s heart was a drumbeat in her ears. “You’re scaring me, Mom,” she said unsteadily as she inched closer, afraid that any sudden movement might startle Nora out of whatever trance she was in and cause her to lose her footing. Her mom didn’t acknowledge her presence. She continued to stare out at the horizon, the dividing line between flight and flightlessness.

The wind picked up and with it, Nora’s arms. She stretched them out to her sides in a T formation, her cardigan billowing beneath them like a sail. Nora had asked Zadie once where she would go if she woke up one day and could fly. “Anywhere in the world,” she’d added. Zadie couldn’t recall what she’d said exactly, but she remembered her mother’s response: “Can I fly there with you?”

“Mom! Stop!” Zadie grabbed Nora’s shoulder and twisted her around. Her mother’s face, one she knew almost as well as her own, was barely recognizable. “Mom? What are you doing? What’s happening?” Zadie realized that she was trembling.

Nora looked directly at her daughter in a way that frightenedZadie, like she was looking into what she thought was a mirror but was really two-way glass. Without a word, Nora stepped past her in the direction of their house. Zadie tailed her mother all the way home, tears silently running down her cheeks and collecting in the corners of her mouth. When they got close, Zadie hurried ahead and opened the door. Nora wafted into the house along with the cool night air, and once inside, settled herself on the couch in front of the TV, which was in the middle of aLaw & Orderepisode. Almost a minute later, Nora finally spoke. “Shoot. I’ve seen this one already. I think I remember it being pretty good, though.” She turned to Zadie, who was standing in the kitchen, watching her. “Hey, hon. Do you want to snuggle with me? We can watch something you want to watch. I promise I won’t say anything snarky.”

Zadie didn’t know what to say. Either her mom had no memory of what had just happened or she was messing with her. All she knew was that she needed to get as far away from her as possible.

“Zadie? You feeling okay?”

“I have homework to do,” she finally blurted and hurried down the hall toward her bedroom. She had already finished all her homework in study hall earlier that day. She just wanted to put on her headphones and try not to think about what she had just witnessed. On her way, she stopped in front of Finn’s room and peered through the crack in the door at her sleeping sister. She decided not to tell Finn about that night.She was probably just sleepwalking,Zadie told herself, although in her heart she wasn’t sure if she believed it.

FOURPSYCHIC KARAOKE

(PART 1)

Nora looks up

A colorful canopy of wings

Too many to name

Not that she could if she tried

Darting, chittering amongst fan-shaped leaves

She has seeds in her cupped hand

Offers them to the sky

Her daughters watch

Too nervous to hold out their own hands

Something yellow flits down from the trees

And lands in her palm

She sings to it, the bird

A song about itself

And she thinks:

How easy it would be

To open the door to its cage

And let it fly free

But the bird doesn’t even look at the door


Tags: Ruth Emmie Lang Fantasy