When I explained to my grandmother why I took the job, I told her it was because they offered to pay off my student loans, which was the truth. My housing and transportation were provided; I was given a separate stipend for necessities; health, dental, vision – all of it. The money I was making from the salary was pretty much all going into personal entertainment and accessories. With this job, I would have no bills, no debt, no uncertainty about future or quality of life.
Which definitely sounded too good to be true when it was originally offered. I’m not stupid; I assumed it was some kind of scam or sex trafficking thing. But when I was contacted, multiple times, by very public officials from Washington, I figured why not at least listen to the full offer.…
They don’t tell you about what lingers after – not the pollution or those fiery regurgitations but the wispy krakens, the spiders and their webs. Cracks in the window of the sky. Desire lines circumvent the cumuli, trails forging intersections before they ever burst, and the sky goes lighter each time these paths retread. You know that there is no such thing as independence.
You remember the first time you saw the show. After years of just hearing them through the walls of your bedroom and seeing them on the local news, trying to match them up, your parents finally took you, and it seemed that day that you had grown to their equal. Not just awake when the night sky finally overtook the summer, but outside and celebrating, and the symphony played that sophisticated sound, each song heralding the coming display, red-white-and-blue carpet unfurling.…
To talk about this book, we must start with the mountain. Close your eyes.
You are a thousand feet tall and thousands of miles wide. Many things crack and spurt and shoot across your back, all monster magic words: bloodroot, spotted skunk cabbage, blackberry cane, poison ivy. You feel the hushed step of deer, the turkeys raking through the mud. You see the man, moving through the brush like a “diseased fox,” stalk and kill two women in the woods. You are the only witness to their deaths, and the violence of this act sinks into you like a splinter. Things split and break loose. Things that live deep within you slip out. This is where the book begins: a murder, a trembling, a magic shaking out of the mountain and upending the lives of our main characters, sisters Sheila and Angie. …
The faces behind the trees wither ……………With the radiance of will-o-the-wisps. To the uninitiated eye this blood ……………As thin as moonlight ribbons loss. For those who have lost more than life ……………There are rivers deeper than oceans Ascending these hills and hollows. ……………Bone is a dull bell the winter rings Into shapes of haunting, melodies ……………That compose your specific gravity. Returning limb for limb the weight ……………Of absent children. The pregnant womb Emptied by the callous moon. Eyes ……………Of bloodshot destiny, hands made cradle. The flower of youth that will never bloom. ……………The earth turns away from such use. Tell me, am I wrong to pull ……………The dead into conversation, seeking the name She would have carried among ……………Their number?…
Wednesday, when the gardeners come, Big Mama pops in her ear plugs. (She swears by Mack’s Snoozers, made of silicone putty, uses them for sleeping normally.) Lawn mowers are notoriously noisy and these green-thumb guys also bring in a gas leaf blower. Even operated at half-throttle like our city law requires, they blast a big sound. But when I asked why she wore them, Big Mama said she turned to ear plugs because grass screams when you cut it and she couldn’t stand the noise.
Mom is a short five foot three, strong but skinny body, with race as mixed as a cake recipe—dark chocolate coming out on top. But she’s terrified of getting fat. She frowns at me every time I call her Big Mama, but we exist to tease each other.…
I dreamt that I had a baby girl. In the dream, I cried cinnamon and birthed a fairy from my belly button. I held her in my hand, struck by her smallness and the intrusive desire to crush her in my fist.
Instead, I circled my thumb over her tiny cherub belly. Yellowed wings like an old book slicked to her back, and bloody ringlets dampened her head. She had my grandpa’s nose in miniature, a grumpy little mountain.
She was funny looking, fat and small like a bee. The way boys look like old men shrunk down— she looked like everyone I’ve loved got in a mirror and shattered and we glued it back together wrong.…
