Bird box

A side door is locked. Finding only one window, Jules breaks it. He tells Tom that it’s protected. Cardboard. It’s a small fit, but one of them should go inside. Jules says he’ll do it. Tom says he’ll do it, too. They tie the dog to a gutter and both men crawl in through the window.

Once inside, something growls at them.

Tom turns back toward the window. Jules calls out.

“It sounds like another dog!”

Tom thinks it does, too. His heart is beating fast, too fast he thinks, and he stands with one hand on the window ledge, ready to pull himself back out.

“I can’t believe this,” Jules says.

“What?”

“It’s another husky.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Because I’m touching his face.”

Tom eases from the window. He can hear the dog eating. Jules is feeding it.

Then, by Tom’s elbow, there is another sound.

At first, it sounds like children laughing. Then like a song.

Then the unmistakable sound of chirping.

Birds.

Gently, Tom backs away. The chirping quiets. He steps forward again. It gets louder.

Of course, Tom thinks, feeling the excitement he’d hoped for when they left the house the day before.

As Jules talks quietly to the dog, Tom approaches the birds until their squawking is unbearable. He feels along a shelf.

“Tom,” Jules says in the darkness, “be careful—”

“They’re in a box,” Tom says.

“What?”

“I grew up with a guy whose father was a hunter. His birds made the same sound. They get louder the closer you get to them.”

Tom’s hands are on the box.

He is thinking.

“Jules,” he says, “let’s go home.”

“I’d like more time with the dog.”

“You’ll have to do it at home. We can lock them in a room if there’s a problem. But we found what we set out to find. Let’s go home.”

Jules leashes the second husky. This one is less difficult. As they exit the garage by the side door, Jules asks Tom, “You’re bringing the birds?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an idea.”

Outside, they retrieve the first husky and head toward home. Jules walks with the second dog, Tom with the first. Slowly, they cross lawns, then driveways, until they reach the marker they set the day before.

On the front porch, before knocking on the door, Tom hears the housemates arguing inside. Then he thinks he hears a sound coming from the street behind him.

He turns.

He waits.

He wonders how close the tent is to where he stands.

Then he knocks.

Inside, the argument ceases. Felix calls out to him. Tom responds.

“Felix! It’s Tom!”

twenty-six

You’re going to have to open your eyes . . .

“You need to eat, Girl,” Malorie manages to say. Her voice is weak.

The Boy has eaten nuts from the pouch. The Girl refuses.

“If you don’t eat,” Malorie says between grimaces, “I’m going to stop this boat and leave you here.”

Malorie feels the Girl’s hand upon her back. She stops rowing and shakes some nuts out of the pouch for her. Even this hurts her shoulder.

But above the pain, a thought hovers. A truth that Malorie does not want to face.

Yes, the world behind her blindfold is an ill gray. Yes, she is worried she might be losing consciousness. But a much darker reality weaves through her myriad fears and problems, serpentine, clever. It floats, then hovers, then lands at the front lines of her imagination.

It’s a thing she’s been protecting, hiding, from the rest of herself all morning.

But it’s been the focus of her decision making for years.

You tell yourself you’ve waited four years because you were afraid to lose the house forever. You tell yourself you waited four years because you wanted to train the children first. But neither of these are true. You waited four years because here, on this trip, on this river, where madmen and wolves lurk, where creatures must be near, on THIS DAY you will have to do something you haven’t done outside in even longer than four years.

Today you’re going to have to open your eyes.

Outside.

It’s true. She knows this. She’s known this forever, it seems. And what is she more frightened by—the possibility of a creature standing in her line of sight? Or the unfathomable palette of colors that will explode before her when she opens her eyes.

What does the world look like now? Will you recognize it?

Is it gray? Have the trees gone mad? The flowers, the reeds, the sky? Is the entire world insane? Does it battle itself? Does the Earth refute its own oceans? The wind has picked up. Has it seen something? Is it mad, too?