\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t get Mabel to hush it right now, so help me. . .\u201d Jessie throws a glance to the back seat. The hen hasn\u2019t stopped squawking since Mary Frances plucked her from the chicken coop behind the cottage.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe\u2019s scared, Aunt Jessie.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHer brain\u2019s the size of a walnut. Only emotions she has are eat, lay eggs, poop, repeat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMabel squawks. The hen\u2019s body twitches like a live wire under Mary Frances\u2019 hands. \u201cActually, chickens have complex emotions and can predict future events.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nJessie twists around sharply in the front passenger seat. The twitch in her right eye is so bad, Mary Frances thinks it might pop out of its socket. \u201cDiscussing the inner lives of chickens is the last thing I want to do right now.\u201d She turns back around, presses her fingers to her eyes. \u201cIf the people in this town only knew what we go through to keep them safe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMaybe not everyone deserves to be safe,\u201d Mary Frances mutters. Jessie is too busy poking around her fanny pack to hear this, but Mary Frances catches Aunt Fab\u2019s glance in the rearview mirror. Mary Frances ducks her head, sings softly to Mabel, as she runs her gloved fingers along one of the bird\u2019s wings. The hen begins to purr and her plump body stills.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to be alright, Jessie.\u201d Fab pulls over to let a police car, siren yowling, fly down Main Street. Mary Frances shifts forward on the back seat until her head is next to Aunt Fab\u2019s. Fab gives Mary Frances a sideways smile, runs her fingers down the black and white feathers on Mabel\u2019s chest. The hen trills. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be alright,\u201d Fab says. She puts the pick-up into drive and merges back onto the street.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat happened to the Sayre boy at their place last night. . .God knows he\u2019s no angel, but no one deserves that.\u201d Jessie gnaws on her thumbnail.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t know for sure it was the creature.\u201d Fab makes a right turn towards the back entrance to the old shopping mall.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s what you said when the Sayre\u2019s dog got shredded to bits. And what you said about the bloodbath at their goat dairy. What else could it be?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s strange it\u2019s going back to the same place over and over again. The creature feeds more randomly than that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI never should\u2019ve listened to you, Fab. We should\u2019ve cast the darn thing back the day county health said the chicken pox outbreak was over.\u201d Jessie\u2019s gaze flicks to the rearview mirror. \u201cMary Frances, what on earth are you smiling at?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNothing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nJessie\u2019s head whips around. She stares at Mary Frances. \u201cSomething\u2019s gotten into you lately and I don\u2019t like it. I thought your personality would improve once we started teaching you, but you\u2019re weirder than ever. No wonder you don\u2019t have any friends.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cJessie,\u201d Aunt Fab says. The word is short and sharp as a rifle shot. \u201cYour Aunt Jessie\u2019s stressed out about the creature, but she shouldn\u2019t take it out on you. We\u2019re glad you\u2019re helping us. Isn\u2019t that right, Jessie?\u201d Fab\u2019s tone brooks no contradiction.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYeah,\u201d Jessie mutters. She returns to gnawing on her fingernail. Mary Frances looks out the side window while Mabel clucks and nips at her gloved fingers.\n<\/p>\n
\nDaisies are as dumb as dirt, according to the aunts. This makes the strip of land behind the abandoned Kmart and between the surrounding woods the perfect place for the ritual.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSweet baby Jesus. Could it be any colder out here?\u201d Jessie covers her head with the hood of a navy \u201cWomen\u2019s March Charlotte 2017\u201d sweatshirt and tucks errant strands of her rainy-day colored hair behind her ears. She, Fab, and Mary Frances stand on the strip of land, just beyond the last sodium light in the Kmart parking lot. The once well-tended grass is mostly bald and brown now, what green areas remain taken over by tufts of wild daisies.\n<\/p>\n
\nFab tugs a green wool hat over her short dark hair and wraps her arms around herself. Mary Frances shifts back and forth on her feet, Mabel tucked into the front of her bomber jacket. The hen\u2019s purring warms Mary Frances\u2019 chest but her body still shivers in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.\n<\/p>\n
\nJessie looks up from her fanny pack, gives a defeated sigh. \u201cFab, do you have the knife? I thought I put it in here before we left the cottage, but now I can\u2019t find the darn thing. . .\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFab pulls a brown leather scabbard from her coat pocket, along with a scrap of chamois. She murmurs as she removes the knife from the scabbard and wipes the five-inch blade, down one side, then up the other. When Fab stuffs the chamois back in her coat pocket, the blade gleams as if it\u2019s caught the light from a moonbeam, even though the moon is hours away from rising. She beckons to Mary Frances. \u201cIt\u2019s time. Hold Mabel to the ground. Let\u2019s do this quick.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMary Frances\u2019 stomach tightens when the hen\u2019s distressed squawks cease as Fab slices the knife across Mabel\u2019s neck. Hot blood spurts from the hen\u2019s neck onto Mary Frances\u2019 gloved hands and the dumb daisies, the dead grasses. Jessie dips her fingers in the fresh blood, makes a wide circle on the ground, and draws the creature\u2019s symbol inside.\n<\/p>\n
\nFab gently nudges Mary Frances with her shoulder. \u201cI\u2019m sorry about Mabel. I know she was your favorite.\u201d Mary Frances shrugs, lets her gaze drift to the Kmart building. The trees sway and rustle with an odd insistence. A tall shadow emerges from the trees, moves toward Mary Frances and the aunts. As it passes under the closest sodium light\u2019s cool flare, the shadow becomes the creature. The aunts\u2019 inhales are sharp and simultaneous.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s so tall,\u201d Jessie says. Her body is rigid as a telephone pole. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be this big.\u201d There\u2019s a dark unspoken thought in the glance the aunts exchange and they miss the small smile that flickers across Mary Frances\u2019 face. There\u2019s a heavy grinding sound as the creature makes its way towards the circle. The wet tang of clay, rainwater, and crushed pine needles fills the air. The closest sodium light flickers, then goes out.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe light change breaks Jessie\u2019s stunned daze. She speaks, unleashing a flash flood of words, and the blood circle and symbol she made begin to glow. The creature emits a low, rumbling moan that makes the daisies quiver.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNow!\u201d Jessie stands, legs spread wide, fists on hips. Blood trickles from one nostril.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs it bound?\u201d Fab says.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYes.\u201d The creature moans again, louder. \u201cDo it. Do it now! I can\u2019t hold it forever, Fabia!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTake my hand, baby girl,\u201d Fab says. \u201cYou remember the words?\u201d Mary Frances nods, winces when her aunt clasps her gloved hand. The creature moans and cowers. The aunts link hands and speak in a rush of long, winding words which, at first, rise and fall on independent, discordant strands before cleaving together in one otherworldly voice. When Fab nods at her, Mary Frances joins in, her voice wrapping around her aunts\u2019 words, strengthening the magic. The blood circle and symbol pulse and flare as if they\u2019re made of collapsing stars.\n<\/p>\n
\nJessie presses a hand against the creature\u2019s chest. The creature\u2019s groans get louder, as if it\u2019s resisting the weight of her hand. Jessie\u2019s eyes widen and her mouth parts. The creature roars. There\u2019s a sudden wave of uplifting pressure and Mary Frances and the aunts fall to the ground. Then footfalls, loud, inhuman, and moving surprisingly fast back to the woods. The sodium light flickers back on and Aunt Jessie scrambles to her feet.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt has a different name stone.\u201d Jessie\u2019s voice punches up into the night sky with the urgency of an emergency flare. \u201cFab, how the fuck does it have a different name stone?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMary Frances gazes towards the woods, not bothering to hide the gleeful smile spread across her face.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe aunts gave Mary Frances the idea to take control of the creature in the first place.\n<\/p>\n
\nFirst was Aunt Jessie, four days after the Sutland County health department declared the chicken pox outbreak in Holystead contained. Mary Frances came home from her after-school job at the Dollar Tree to find the aunts in the kitchen, knee-deep in argument.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t keep the creature here any longer, Fab. High time to send it back.\u201d Jessie opened cupboard doors and shut them in syncopated rhythm with the pops and smacks from her nicotine gum. She dumped some biscuit mix into a mixing bowl. \u201cWe won. Yay.\u201d She made a half-hearted wave with a teaspoon before plunging it into a can of baking powder. \u201cMary Frances, make yourself useful and crack two eggs into this bowl.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFab rolled her head to one side, stretched her neck. \u201cIt\u2019s a pointless victory,\u201d she said as Mary Frances cracked eggs and let them fall with wet plops into the mixing bowl. \u201cYou know another outbreak will pop up soon enough, and the way things are, it\u2019ll be worse than what came before. A lot worse.\u201d Fab rolled up the hem on her liver-colored nursing scrubs, propped a foot across her knee, and began to massage it with her thumbs from ankle to toes.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhy can\u2019t we let the creature stick around?\u201d Mary Frances asked.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCreature\u2019s made of rock, right? Rocks hold impressions,\u201d Jessie said and stirred water into the biscuit mixture. \u201cHere,\u201d she pointed down, \u201cwas once part of a mountain range.\u201d It took Mary Frances a moment to understand her aunt was talking about the land and not the faded kitchen linoleum. \u201cTallest in the world, higher than the Swiss Alps. But then there\u2019s time, wind, rain. Mountain gets ground down, not so mighty anymore. The rock remembers, though. It remembers how powerful it used to be. And if it gets the chance, it\u2019ll work hard as hell to be that powerful again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMary Frances pictured the creature bursting through Holystead High\u2019s foundation and continuing upward and outward to splinter apart the cafeteria, the gym. The creature as tall as a fast-food sign making Beeman Sayre cower in fear.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe creature needs to be controlled. Without control, it won\u2019t be satisfied with feeding on a virus. It\u2019ll keep feeding on more and bigger fare, getting stronger and larger.\u201d Aunt Jessie lit the stove burner with a match, greased the cast iron pan with oil. \u201cThe name stone I put in the creature helps, of course. Longer it\u2019s here, though, harder it is for me to keep it under control. That\u2019s <\/em>why we always have to send it back to the earth after we\u2019re done with it.\u201d She spooned batter into the pan, flattened it into a pancake. \u201cIsn\u2019t that right, Fab?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSomething dark and unpleasant flickered across Fab\u2019s eyes. \u201cSupposed to be clear skies tomorrow night. We\u2019ll do the ritual then.\u201d She stood, then trudged down the hallway away from the kitchen and towards the bathroom.\n<\/p>\n \n \nLater that night, Mary Frances wheels into the parking lot of the abandoned Kmart on her bike. Loose gravel and bits of broken macadam pop up as she brakes hard, catches her breath. The tops of the pine trees bend in the breeze, stroking the bottom of the rising moon like the tips of paintbrushes. Faint hush of traffic from the main highway, where winter tourists blow past Holystead on the way down to the South Carolina beaches.\n<\/p>\n \nIt was easy to get away from the cottage. The aunts are distracted, hunkered around the kitchen table, picking up every moment in the evening\u2019s ritual to banish the creature, examining it, and setting it back down again, none the wiser about what went wrong.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances adjusts her backpack, walks to the side of the Kmart building. She carefully picks her way through a broken window and uses a flashlight to skirt around the detritus. Mannequins with half-melted faces and spray-painted with genital parts. Used condoms. Sweet, syrupy aroma of dried-up beer spills. Old cigarette smoke that seeps from everything, even the concrete. Then she catches another familiar scent that makes the back of her neck tingle.\n<\/p>\n \nSomewhere, water drips onto metal with a steady, resonant plonk. In the open center of a smashed-up jewelry counter, a shadow rises, defines itself. The familiar scent gets stronger: wet clay, pine resin, rainwater.\n<\/p>\n \nThere\u2019s a slick sudden heat between Mary Frances\u2019 legs. Here, in the old Kmart at night, she\u2019s a different Mary Frances. This Mary Frances isn\u2019t mocked by Beeman Sayre when she brings homemade sausage rolls and pickles for school lunch. This Mary Frances doesn\u2019t go silent when Beeman Sayre drowns out her opinion about The Scarlet Letter <\/em>in English class with his stupid misogynist views. This Mary Frances doesn\u2019t have to go to the 2nd floor girls\u2019 bathroom and sit in a stall until her knees stop shaking after Beeman Sayre, whose breath reeks of something sunbaked at low tide, corners her in the basement library during free period. This Mary Frances doesn\u2019t have to hide the thin scratches she makes on the soft flesh along her inner upper arm. This Mary Frances doesn\u2019t turn the other cheek.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m here,\u201d she whispers. The creature goes still, waits until Mary Frances takes off her backpack, denim jacket, and flannel. She peels away the winter gloves that hide the burn marks on her right palm, the tips of her fingers. She puts her arms around the creature\u2019s smooth cool mud outsides. With what could be a mouth, it sucks at the scratches on her upper arms, the burns on her right hand. Limbs clutch and bind Mary Frances\u2019 waist and backside, a dry unvarnished murmur in her ear. Her undershirt and pants rustle, leave her body.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances falls into the deep sleep she always falls into after being with the creature. She dreams she\u2019s standing on top of a tall, craggy mountain. Before her, a pine forest blankets a long stretch of valley. Mary Frances squints, tries to make out the valley\u2019s end, but an unseen force yanks her aloft and away from the mountain top. She tries to fight it off, get her feet back on solid rock, but there\u2019s another yank, a sharp pain in her hand and then she\u2019s awake.\n<\/p>\n \nTwo pairs of familiar eyes, tired and grim, stare down at her in the semi-darkness inside the abandoned Kmart. Mary Frances\u2019 mind says \u201crun\u201d but her body won\u2019t obey.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou were right, Fab,\u201d Jessie says and squeezes the burn marks on Mary Frances\u2019 hand. She yelps and the creature rises, grinding and growling, to its feet.\n<\/p>\n \n \nIf Aunt Jessie\u2019s explanation about the creature\u2019s power was the match, then Aunt Fab\u2019s story later that night was the spark that lit Mary Frances\u2019 determination to take the matter of what to do about Beeman Sayre into her own hands.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen Mary Frances stepped into her bedroom after dinner, Fab was perched on the edge of the unmade twin bed, legs still speckled with water droplets from her shower. She wore a men\u2019s flannel robe, sleeves rolled up, and her short hair lay in a sleek, wet cap against her skull.\n<\/p>\n \nFab held out her cigarette for Mary Frances to take, but it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. A curse, blurry around the edges, tumbled from her aunts\u2019 mouth. Mary Frances snatched up the fallen cigarette before it could burn the high-traffic carpet Aunt Jessie had scavenged from the public housing unit down the road before they demolished it to build the Dollar Tree where Mary Frances now works.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOne time, when I was around your age, I called a creature. It was a bad time to do it.\u201d Fab\u2019s tone seesawed between defiance and regret. She motioned for Mary Frances to hand her the cigarette, took a long drag. \u201cIt was a bad time to do it,\u201d she said again. \u201cBut I could not help myself.\u201d She tilted her head to look up at Mary Frances. \u201cSo many women, good women, rounded up, tried, hung. And if they did not get the noose right. . .well, then they would slowly strangle.\u201d She took a deep breath. \u201cMe and Jessie could do nought but stand and bear witness. I hope ye never hear that sound. Aye, nor see rows of women\u2019s mouths gaping like fish drowning.\u201d Fab\u2019s speech pattern reverted to what she and Jessie called \u201cthe time before we came to Holystead\u201d whenever she drank more than her usual single glass of coconut vodka after her shift at the hospital.\n<\/p>\n \nShe patted the bed next to her. Mary Frances sat down, rested her head on Fab\u2019s shoulder. Raindrops pinged against the bedroom\u2019s skylight, the one Aunt Jessie had made from scraps of wood and old wine bottles the previous summer. A reminder that she\u2019s not all sharp tongue. Aunt Jessie sees the unexpected beauty in discarded things.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tip of Fab\u2019s tongue rested on her bottom teeth. \u201cIt was the guilt that made me do it. My anger at all the sins so-called good men hide. So, I went down to the village\u2019s shoreline and made a creature from sand and broken seashells and foam and my blood. And I told it to take the ugliness away. . .\u201d she raised a hand, let it float into the air and follow the thin line of smoke drifting upwards from the cigarette\u2019s tip. \u201cIs Beeman Sayre at it again, baby girl? Do we need to come down to the school and-\u201d Fab\u2019s hand grazed the bruises on Mary Frances\u2019 forearm.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo, Aunt Fab. I\u2019m ok. Really.\u201d The words were thick and curdled in Mary Frances\u2019 mouth. Meetings with school staff, come-to-Jesus talks with Beeman Sayre\u2019s parents, never made anything better. What will make it better the aunts refuse to do.\n<\/p>\n \nBut recently the aunts had begun to teach Mary Frances about their work. It occurred to her as she rested her head on Fab\u2019s shoulder and inhaled her aunt\u2019s scent, a mix of homemade black soap, artificial coconut, and cigarette smoke, that maybe she didn\u2019t need the aunts\u2019 help to deal with Beeman anymore.\n<\/p>\n \n \nIt takes both aunts\u2019 magic to bind the creature to the floor of the abandoned Kmart. As Mary Frances puts her clothes back on, one thought runs through her head on repeat: the mighty mountain remembers. When the creature realizes it is bound to the floor, it grunts. The sound reminds Mary Frances of what a cartoon villain makes when an unexpected twist foils their plans, and the thought sets her to giggling until Jessie slaps her across the face. The creature growls and tries to lunge towards Mary Frances, but the aunts\u2019 bind holds it in place.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow could you?\u201d Jessie says. \u201cWe thought we did something wrong, but it was you all along. . .when I think of that blood bath at the Sayre\u2019s dairy farm last night. . .all those poor goats. . .and Beeman all banged up, not to mention the dog. . .thank God, thank God, the police don\u2019t believe a word of his story. You realize what you\u2019ve done? The danger you put us all in?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances doesn\u2019t feel sorry for what the creature did to the goats at the Sayre\u2019s farm. She doesn\u2019t care about Beeman Sayre\u2019s broken arm. Even the thought of the disemboweled dog leaves her numb. The place where Aunt Jessie slapped her throbs with a thrilling, electric feeling. As Jessie continues to rant, Mary Frances looks up through a raw hole in the Kmart roof at the cloudless night sky. She wants to smash a fist into the stars and make them tremble and scatter.\n<\/p>\n \nFab puts a hand on Mary Frances\u2019 shoulder. Her touch is light and warm and a hairline crack opens in Mary Frances\u2019 stony anger. \u201cI just. . .Aunt Fab, it was like you said. I wanted the creature to take the ugliness away.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nUnderstanding dawns in Fab\u2019s gaze as Jessie whips her head around. \u201cYou told her that story? Oh, Fabia. . .\u201d Jessie\u2019s shoulders slump and she stares at Fab in a way that gives Mary Frances a glimpse of a different, long-ago Aunt Jessie, someone impossibly young and sensitive and uncertain. Fab gazes up at the creature as it moans and struggles against the bind.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBeeman Sayre is a bad person. He\u2019s been bullying me since grade school.\u201d Mary Frances feels as fragile as a piece of old paper. \u201cAnd you\u2019ve never done anything to stop him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nFab winces but Jessie\u2019s eyebrows shoot up. \u201cNever did anything? You have got to be kidding.\u201d Jessie\u2019s tone turns brittle. \u201cWe went to your school and talked with the principal. We talked with Mr. and Mrs. Sayre, I don\u2019t even know how many times. We did all we could.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo, you didn\u2019t!\u201d Mary Frances insides feel like they\u2019re boiling over. \u201cYou could\u2019ve used your magic. You could\u2019ve stopped Beeman hurting me a long time ago, but you didn\u2019t.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe use what we know only to help and heal, never to hurt or take revenge on people. Ever. That\u2019s how we\u2019re allowed to do our work. You know that.\u201d Jessie says.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat about my hurt?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201c\u2019What about my hurt?\u2019\u201d Jessie\u2019s voice is a mocking whine. \u201cThat\u2019s what a little girl says. Mary Frances, you\u2019d better stiffen your spine, if you want to follow in our foot-\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cJessie.\u201d Fab\u2019s voice is quiet, but there\u2019s an edge to it that draws Jessie\u2019s gaze. The aunts regard each other for a moment and then Jessie throw her hands up, turn away.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAunt Fab?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nFab smiles, cups Mary Frances\u2019 cheek and pulls her close. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry, baby girl,\u201d she whispers. Mary Frances lets herself sink into Fab\u2019s calm comfort and the creature sighs.\n<\/p>\n \n \nSummoning the creature was both easier and harder than Mary Frances expected. Easy: a bloody tampon in a plastic bag, thanks to it being her time of the month. Hard: wrapping her tongue around the creation incantations from the spell book the aunts stored in the hall closet, the same spell book Mary Frances had taken photos of with her phone. Harder still: binding the newly formed creature to herself. It was, as the aunts liked to say, a whole other ball of wax.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances chased the creature through the grove of bore beetle-infested pines behind the cottage, leaving a trail of churned-up soil in her wake. The creature was short and wide and faster than Mary Frances expected, considering the dense Carolina clay mud and water-logged pine needles from which it was made. But Mary Frances moved fast too, spurred on by an urgency that vibrated from the center of her bones.\n<\/p>\n \nShe cornered the creature in a place where the sickly pines gave way to sparse brush at banks of the Bald Cypress River. It wouldn\u2019t cross the water and paced along the riverbank and whined and ground its parts together. It sounded like a car engine revving and made Mary Frances\u2019 pulse race. She sliced her finger with a paring knife, used the blood to trace the symbol she\u2019d seen her aunts use in previous summonings on the ground. The creature went still, and so did everything else: the rushing river, the wind shush-shushing through the pines, the vibration in Mary Frances\u2019 bones. She pressed one hand against the creature\u2019s chest and after a moment of resistance, it sank into cool muddy flesh. Mary Frances\u2019 fingers collided with something round and hard. Aunt Jessie\u2019s name stone. The girl grasped the stone, cried out in surprise as it burned her fingers and palm. There was a wet, sucking sound as she wrenched the stone from the creature\u2019s chest and threw it away, into the river.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances leaned against the creature, and took out a small, smooth stone with her name symbol on it her pants pocket. Her burned fingers throbbing, she pressed her name stone into the creature\u2019s chest. It began to hum, low and soothing and its muddy flesh enveloped hers in tender coolness. Mary Frances shed her clothes so she could feel that comforting sensation all over. She crawled on top of the creature, which let her sink and fold herself into itself like a secret. Downriver, the alarm at the textile thread plant called out the shift change.\n<\/p>\n \nAfterwards Mary Frances told the creature what she wanted it to do to Beeman Sayre, and it stilled against her nakedness and listened.\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Aunt Fab whispers and kisses Mary Frances\u2019 forehead. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry for your hurt. But now what\u2019s been done must be undone.\u201d Her voice turns flinty and when Mary Frances tries to pull away, Fab holds her fast by the shoulders.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe undoing will hurt less if you take your name stone from the creature yourself.\u201d There is an unyielding tautness to Fab\u2019s face that Mary Frances hasn\u2019t seen before. It is a hard look for hard times. It is a look that says her aunt will not hesitate to force Mary Frances\u2019 hand.\n<\/p>\n \nThe creature groans and the soft yearning in it makes Mary Frances\u2019 heart lurch. She looks up at the creature that looms over her and the aunts in the decrepit building\u2019s semi-darkness. As she takes it in, this blocky form that is nearly as tall as the defunct industrial lights hanging from the Kmart\u2019s ceiling but quakes and rattles in fear, a feeling sneaks up on Mary Frances. It\u2019s like when there\u2019s a pop quiz at school and what surprises her isn\u2019t the test itself, but the fact she already knows all the answers.\n<\/p>\n \nTrue or false? Her hurt doesn\u2019t matter at all.\n<\/p>\n \nTrue or false? Push comes to shove, the aunts will always make her turn the other cheek.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances moves past the aunts, kneels at the creature\u2019s feet. She says the words she\u2019s heard the aunts use before, and the creature lays down like an obedient dog and starts to hum in its low, soothing way. Keeping her voice sweet and steady, Mary Frances thrusts a hand into its cool slippery insides and pulls out her name stone.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances pulls out her name stone and the creature howls. Its howls become keens that make her feel as if all her skin is being peeled away from her body and slapped back on inside out. As the creature\u2019s clay limbs tumble and crumble down into the trash on the Kmart floor, Mary Frances feels a part of herself crumbling away too. In the space of a handful of heartbeats, all that remains of the creature is the faint scent of rainwater and pine needles.\n<\/p>\n \nJessie holds out Mary Frances\u2019 denim jacket, but Mary Frances ignores her, so her aunt drapes it over her shoulders. Jessie opens her mouth, starts to say something, gives a tight shake of her head, and turns away. Flashlight in hand, she picks her way toward the broken window at the side of the abandoned Kmart.\n<\/p>\n \nFab nudges the trash, pebbles, and pine needles in the place where the creature stood. \u201cThere will always be ugliness in this world. I wish it wasn\u2019t so, but. . .\u201d she pauses, \u201ceven when you take revenge on the cruel and the wicked, the pain and anger stays with you. These feelings will be your constant companions and, if you keep using magic to feed them, they\u2019ll take more and more of you until there\u2019s only pain and anger left. You\u2019re going to hate us for a while. God knows I hated your Aunt Jessie when she made me do the same thing you did tonight. In time, you\u2019ll see it was the right thing to do.\u201d Fab gives the trash and rocks one more nudge with her tennis shoe. \u201cGod meant for us to walk in the sun, baby girl. Don\u2019t dwell in the shade.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nMary Frances pretends. Pretends she\u2019s learned her lesson. Pretends to be good.\n<\/p>\n \nThe aunts are extra tender with her. Jessie\u2019s love slinks in like a shy, feral cat. Cheap hot cocoa magicked into something richer and finer and left on the stove top in the morning. A pretty fleece blanket draped across Mary Frances\u2019 bed with the Dollar Store tag still on. Fab teaches her how to make protection spells. \u201cWe will do everything we can to protect you,\u201d her aunt says, her voice shimmering with a forced brightness.\n<\/p>\n \nFab turns out to be wrong. Mary Frances doesn\u2019t hate her aunts. What she feels for them is sorry: for the way Jessie\u2019s eyes droop at dinner when Fab brings up a possible measles outbreak in the county, for the hard lines of distress that appear between Fab\u2019s eyebrows when she talks about caring for an ER patient whose boyfriend broke her arm in two places. Mary Frances feels sorry for them because they don\u2019t know what she knows: that if God had meant for them to always walk in the sun, he wouldn\u2019t have created the shade.\n<\/p>\n \nBeeman Sayre still bullies Mary Frances, but she doesn\u2019t cut herself anymore. Cocooned within a protection spell, she drinks in his taunts, absorbs his liquid snickers. She drinks it all in, every, last bitter drop and she bides her time.\n<\/p>\n \nMary Frances bides her time for the day when she\u2019s learned enough magic. When that day comes, she\u2019ll crack her thin veneer of goodness and push it away piece by piece, the way a newborn chicken breaks through its shell. She\u2019ll dip the shards in her blood and call forth creatures and terrors to right all the wrongs, hurt the ones who need hurting. When the time is right, Mary Frances knows she\u2019ll make them all dwell in the shade.\n<\/p>\n Nicole’s short fiction has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Apparition Lit, Apex’s Strange Machines anthology, and The Future Fire, among other publications. Her work has also received an honorable mention from Writers of the Future. She is a member of SFWA and Codex and currently does all her living and writing in North Carolina. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cIf you don\u2019t get Mabel to hush it right now, so help me. . .\u201d Jessie throws a glance to the back seat. The hen hasn\u2019t stopped squawking since Mary Frances plucked her from the chicken coop behind the cottage. \u201cShe\u2019s scared, Aunt Jessie.\u201d \u201cHer brain\u2019s the size of a walnut. Only emotions she has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20136],"tags":[20137],"class_list":["post-140332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-51-spring-2024","tag-the-colored-lens-51-spring-2024","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140333,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140332\/revisions\/140333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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