THE CABIN 

I’m waiting in the check-in line for the eleven-fifteen flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles.  It’s two days until Christmas.  This is the worst time to fly and I hate doing it, but Colleen had swore to God she wouldn’t come out of that cabin in the woods for at least a year and a half and damn if she wasn’t sticking to it. 

The corduroy jacket has me pouring sweat, but I have a connecting flight from LAX to Dulles International.  It’s thirty degrees in D.C. and it’ll be colder than that by the time I touch down.  There are at least two-dozen folks in front of me.  I look out the glass wall across the main drive to a row of banyan trees with their roots all overlapping and exposed like tendons. I remember Rosemary’s neck all flung back and drained.  The little ridges and swales of delicate muscle beneath skin the color of ash.

***

Each flight I hope to God that by some miracle I’ll be sat next to a beautiful little creature.  In my head we always hit it off right away.  I call her two days after we land.  We take things really slow at first.  After a few dates she says she’ll go with me scuba diving for a week in Belize.  That’s when I know she’s falling for me.  A few days later we’re diving the Blue Hole on a splendid morning. Afterwards the guides dock at Lighthouse Reef for a picnic of cheese sandwiches and orange Fantas.  The beautiful little creature and I walk down the little spit of beach toward the keeper’s house.  That’s where we kiss for the first time.

***

I make my connecting flight bound for Washington-Dulles without incident.  I put my backpack in the overhead bin and start getting settled for the long, overnight flight.  The middle-aged man who takes the seat beside me on the plane says he’s from Fairfax, Virginia.  He tells me he is not on vacation, but returning from a business trip. He’s very sincere and the kind way he asks about my trip has a sort of apology in it.  He is incredibly overweight, and I don’t know why but I just feel really sad for him.  When the big liner makes the turn and starts to hurtle down the runway, he takes a little picture from his shirt pocket and kisses it.  I can’t make out who it is because of his mustache. He returns it to his pocket. Pats it once. 

***

An hour in, the man from Fairfax gets up and lumbers toward the toilet.  I put on my sunglasses and go to sleep.

***

In my dream, I’m at my mother’s cabin.  The woods have filled up with snow.  Augustus is nowhere around, but my father is inside sitting at the little table.  Dad’s hair is like a silver helmet above his wide, strong face and there’s a raven perched on each of his shoulders.  He takes another sip of his Budweiser.  He’s got the patch on.  The lid of his good eye stays down a second longer before fluttering up.  He’s fighting sleep but not with any urgency.  That’s not what bothers me.  What bothers me is that Rosemary is outside in the snow.  Her arms and legs are gone.  Removed all nice and neat with little rounded nubs of hard, curved flesh where the limbs used to be.  Colleen stands above her.  She’s looking at Rosemary with the fear plain on her face.  Out in the sprawling pine forest darkness gathers, but Colleen points back at the cabin and the old man inside.  There’s this feeling of something coming, something that I want to avoid.

***

It’s five in the morning when we touch down in D.C. The assurance of our contact with the pavement brings a smile to the man beside me.

            We’ve made it, he says.  What a long trip.

            It is a long trip.   

            The plane taxis in, and I imagine Augustus waiting for me, probably at the wrong terminal.  I wonder if he still has the long hair and whether finishing up his doctorate has made him smug.

            Who is it? I ask. The picture you had out when we took off.

            Oh, he says.  He reaches in the pocket and he’s practically glowing.  It’s like a light has been turned on in him. Edna, he says.  My wife. 

            I glance at the picture he’s holding out to me.  It must have been taken long ago because Edna has a broad, youthful face and a sturdy nose. Not a day over twenty.  Her eyes are wide set, her skin taut and fair.  There is softness in her eyes with something kindling behind it that suggests she was fond of whoever took the photo, perhaps even intimate. 

            It’s just this little thing I do, he says apologetically.  Each time I have to fly without her I kiss it for luck.  A silly superstition, I know. Anyway, that’s my Edna.

            You took that picture, I tell him.

            He looks at it a moment.  No, he says.  No, I didn’t take this one.

***

Augustus is not there when I come through the gates. I half-expect him to be at the wrong terminal.  I half expect him to be holding a sign with my name on it at the disembark gate, the total absence of a smile on his face. 

I don’t start worrying until I’ve been sitting on the bench for an hour.  Maybe he’d gotten lost.  I could call him if he had a cell phone.  Calling Colleen or Dad would be pointless because they were preparing the cabin for Christmas and there was no electricity in it. That’s why preparation, as Colleen had explained in her letter, was very important. 

I look out through the glass doors, watch the silent comings and goings of cabs and of buses destined for various color-coded parking lots.  A black man wearing a tattered army coat runs by.  His dreadlocks are unfurling from his winter cap, and he’s rolling a red hula hoop beside him. 

In absolute silence it begins to snow.

***

I call an acquaintance from college who lives in Falls Church.  I’d expected to wake him up, but he sounds wide awake, wired even.

How did you find me? he asks.

Phonebook, I explain.  He agrees to come and get me. 

Although I didn’t anticipate a hug, he gives me one when he arrives. I stick my Kelty backpack in the rear seat and we pull off. Even though he came out after midnight to get me, I can’t muster up the decency to match his enthusiasm at our reunion.

            I can’t believe you’re living in Hawaii, you bastard.  What’s it been, three years?

            I guess.

            He smiles broadly.  Do you like my car?

            It’s nice.

            He rubs the seat beside my leg to demonstrate the softness of the material.  It’s the new Nissan Maxima, he says.

            Impressive.

Do you keep up with any of the old gang? he asks. We turn on Union, running over to the Square.

            No.  I haven’t kept up with anyone.

            He laughs into his fist and asks if I remember the time Billy Cants slung those tiles from the roof of the Theta house at all those hotties.

Yes, I say.

Oh my God, he says.  It made no sense.  I mean here were these gorgeous girls that Billy would have given a testicle just to talk to and he goes and tosses slate tiles at them.  I mean why the hell would he do that?

He was drunk, I guess.  High maybe. 

Hell yeah he was.  Do you know what he’s up to now?

No. I don’t.

***

In the morning, I get up before my host to call Augustus. I catch him at Hallman Street on the first ring.  He hasn’t even left South Carolina. 

Where were you? I ask him.

Sorry, he says.  I got held up.

It would have been better if you’d let me know that before my flight, I tell him.

I called but your roommate said you were already gone.

I don’t have a roommate, I say.

He lets go a heavy breath.  I guessed wrong, he says.

What is this going to be like?

What?

Going to this cabin in the woods for Christmas.

He waits a long time to answer.  His breathing is slow, comfortable.  I don’t know, Buford, he says after a while.

You’re the only one who knows what it’s like, I say.

What?

Being their child.  I don’t mean that to sound-

I know what you mean.  Do you have presents for them or would you like me to write your name on mine?

You don’t wrap them, I say.

I know.

You carry them over your shoulder in a trash bag.

I know that.

I have presents.

We make plans to meet in Charlottesville. 

***

Around noon, my friend takes me to the bus station over on Denby.  I shake his hand and then step from his car to the curb.  I get my backpack out and put it on.  He rolls down the window.

Give me a call, he says.

I can’t say with much certainty that I will, I tell him.

***

Halfway to Charlottesville the heater stops working on the Greyhound bus. 

The passengers had all been talking a lot while the heat was good, but now they’ve gone quiet.  They’re all bundled up in their jackets and silent and I’m glad for it.  I look out the window as the landscape slides by—dark trees, stretches of yellow field grass.  I see a plastic bag caught in the tines of a branch and start thinking on Colleen’s letter—the one about the mailbox she and my father erected in the middle of the forest. 

The farm is roughly two hundred acres and the spot where Colleen had set the cabin was a solid mile from the main house. She’d told Dad he couldn’t come, that he was part of the thing she was going out there to get away from. Sure, Dad was worse, but his spells were infrequent and short. 

When Colleen moved to the cabin she’d told Dad he was going to bring her the mail everyday.  Dad had kindly told her that he was not going to bring her the mail everyday, especially with his new chores of tending to the house and having to do some figuring on the bills, which he’d not done in nearly four decades. So they agreed that Dad would go in and purchase an electronic measuring wheel.  They ran the wheel in a line from the house to the cabin.  Then they wheeled it back and marked the exact middle point between the cabin and the main house. The mid-point was in the heart of a bunch of big hardwoods on a hill slope. 

Together Colleen and Dad went to work on it. Colleen went into great detail about it in the letter.  Dad made use of the posthole diggers and then settled the post in. Colleen positioned it with the leveler and then they rimmed it with rocks and used an iron tamper to set the post. The bright yellow mailbox was as big as four shoeboxes stacked two by two.  The massive head of a Morgan stallion was painted on either side.

This is where Dad would come to place Colleen’s mail. Each time he did, he’d raise the red flag.  Sometimes he’d bring her fresh water in a jug, sometimes he’d bring her tomatoes, or corn, or salad greens from the garden.  Sometimes it was toilet paper.  Colleen would put the letters she’d written to me—or to Augustus—in there for him to post.  Each time she’d raise the red flag, too.

A few jokes came to mind on the two occasions Augustus and I spoke of it over the phone.  I chuckled a little when Augustus mentioned the idea of marriage being about compromise.  When I added that successful relationships were about meeting in the middle, I was smiling and rubbing my chin and guessed that he was doing the same.  But when Augustus asked if this situation should raise any red flags, we were surprised to feel the humor sort of run out from it.

Shit, Buford, he’d said.

I know, Augustus, I’d said.  I know.

***

I step off the bus at the Charlottesville Greyhound station and just stand a moment to get the feel of the place beneath my feet. When we were in high school, Augustus and I used to drive up here for parties.  Miller’s was the one bar that never bothered you about fake IDs.

I put my sunglasses on and then thrust my hands in my pockets.  It’s cold as hell. Above me the daylight is stretched like soiled silk, and there’s a wheeze in the wind’s frigid throat like it’s about to give out all together. 

It’s already four in the afternoon.  I shoulder my pack and start walking.

*** 

I stroll over the herringbone pattern of the bricks and the whole pedestrian thoroughfare seems to lead me right to Miller’s door.

I step in and spot Augustus at the bar.  His blonde hair is still down to his shoulders, but his beard has gotten long.  It has red in it now so that he looks like a Norseman.  I’m a little late, but don’t have reason to feel guilty about it.  There are two empty pints in front of him and he is working on a third.  He hasn’t removed his sunglasses, so I don’t either. 

I walk up and put my bag down beside the barstool and sit beside him.  I order a beer.

Would you rather get going? he asks.

Just one for the road, I say.  He nods.  I think about patting his shoulder but don’t. 

You’re wearing carpenter jeans, I say.

I know.

And you’ve got a little hammer in the hammer loop. 

This is a rough place, he says, motioning around. This makes us like the working stiffs.  Charlottesville is an elegant little city and in general the restaurants and bars follow suit.    Miller’s is an exception.  Despite the trendy location, it is a grungy, smoky place with a rough crowd.

I shrug and ask him about the dissertation defense.

I’m done, he says.  It’s over.

That’s good.

I guess, he says.

A beer is shoved toward me. 

 

***

We sit in Miller’s drinking slowly.  We have three for the road and then a few more.  The working stiffs start coming in around six and they all seem to be smokers.  Augustus and I move to a little table in the rear.  Our eyes move behind our sunglasses but our mouths don’t move at all.  It’s hazy and a few of the customers have on too much cologne. 

Finally, we stand up.  Augustus picks up my bag and straightens.  He might be looking at me.

Have you been to it yet? he asks.

The cabin?  No.  You?

No.  Never.  Shit, Buford. He says.

I know, Augustus.  Shit.

I go over to the bar to settle up.

***

It takes an hour or so to get to Ragnarok Farm. It’s in Appomattox. Augustus takes us the back way through Scottsville because he doesn’t like driving on big roads.

When we drive over the horseshoe bend of the James River, I look longingly at the water.  I know if I get in a canoe I can make my way on the James east to Richmond by nightfall.  Another two days and I’d be paddling through brackish, tidal water just west of Norfolk where the cormorants come to pick off the migrating white perch and shad.  Then the Chesapeake Bay.  And beyond that? 

Augustus?

Yeah?

If there was a picture that you kissed who would it be of?

If there was a what?

I think of the fat man on the plane, of the light turned on in him.  I wonder if Augustus’s picture would be of Rosemary, too.  I know that it would.

Nothing, I say.  Nevermind.

We ride in silence the rest of the way. 

***

We pull up to the house and it’s getting dark now. The gray clouds are fat and high. Augustus takes off his sunglasses, so I do too. He turns his head toward me slightly, holds it there.

            What? I ask.

He shuts the truck off. 

Mom hasn’t left that cabin for a year straight, he says.

            I know.

            I mean she hasn’t gone out at all.

            I know, I say.  Why are you saying it like that?

            I just mean don’t expect anything for Christmas.  She hasn’t been out.

            Well, I hope she didn’t get Dad to shop, I say.

            I agree, he says.  I’d rather get nothing than something he bought. He drags a hand through his long blonde hair. I don’t mean I don’t appreciate his…

            I know what you mean, I say. 

            They haven’t seen us in a year, he says. They might hug us a lot.

They might hit us.

Either way, he says, you should brace yourself. 

            A peacock screams from down near the barn and Augustus flinches.

            Damn it, he says.  I can’t stand those fucking things. It’s eerie.

            I know, I say.  They sound just like Colleen when she found Rosie—   

            Don’t say it.

            Why not?

Just don’t.

Okay.

***

We go inside the house and there are no hugs in it. There’s no hitting, either. It’s empty and there’s no note. We make use of the bathroom and then go and stand outside behind the house where the steep hill is split by ravines that fall away toward the creek.  We look into the big hardwoods.  It’s freezing cold and all I have is the corduroy jacket.

Augustus stamps his feet on the gravel. 

They know we’ve never been to this damn cabin, he says.

Maybe they forgot.

There’s not even a note. 

They’re sure not making it easy, I say. 

What do you think its been like for her?

I don’t want to think about it, Augustus.

Me either, he says.  Wait here.  He goes back inside.  The peacock screams again but I’m listening to the crows calling a meeting way off. I catch the familiar sent of Cub Creek rising on a breeze from the low land.  Tomorrow is Christmas Day. 

Augustus comes back out with a big coat for me. It’s Dad’s field jacket.  It smells strongly of him.  I slip it on and notice Augustus has stuffed a beer in each pocket.

He looks out into those woods, too.  Woods whose secrets our feet read through the years. A story told through ages, the individual parts unchanging, only the arrangement being remade, renewed, but never retold.

He puts his hand on my shoulder.  Good thing it’s only two hundred acres, he says. He pulls the little hammer from the loop.  Don’t worry, he says.

We’d better get moving if we want to find it before nightfall, I say.

            The Hefty trash bag is at his feet. Each year he comes with the trash bag full of unwrapped presents.  Here, he’ll say, tossing one at you.  This is a coffee mug.  You won’t like it.

            Above us the sky is dragging its belly with snow, but it won’t fall.  We crack the beers.  Budweisers he retrieved from Dad’s shelf.  Silently we raise them to each other. I go over to the car and get my backpack.  Augustus walks over with the trash bag slung over his shoulder. 

            Do I look like Santa? he asks.

You look like a Norseman, I tell him.

Do you know what an actual Norseman looked like?

No.

Maybe you mean a Viking.

Maybe.

We head out together into the woods—our destination firm, our route uncertain.

***

            It’s not until we stumble across the mailbox that we’re sure we won’t freeze.  The trees are packed tightly on the hillside and with the light failing, Augustus doesn’t see it.  He steps around a big black oak and walks right into it. 

Ouch, he says.

We stand there looking at it.  Big as hell.  It’s an ugly mustard color, but the painting is worse.  The stallion’s mane is wild and its eyes completely white.  

Just a mailbox in the middle of a forest, I say. Nothing distressing about that.

He nods and points.  The red flag is up.  Augustus steps around and opens the mailbox.

            Nothing’s in it, he says.  Why raise the red flag when there’s nothing in it?

            I finish the rest of my beer.  I come around and gently place the can in the mailbox.  I take out the other crushed can from my pocket and put it in there too.  I wish I could take Rosemary’s picture from my breast pocket, kiss it, and put it in there.  But there’s no picture that I carry.

            What are you doing? he asks.

            I don’t know, I say.

            He looks at me a moment then takes the crushed cans from his pockets. That’s ten by my count.  I wonder if he’ll pass out before we get there.  He places them in the mailbox.  He shuts it, leaving the flag up. 

            Now if we just get a general sense of where the house is, I tell him, line it up with the mailbox and walk as straight as we can onward, we’ll find it.

            I point in the direction I assume we should go. 

            All this wandering around, he says. Seems like Colleen and Dad would have helped us find the way.

            We’ll find it, Augustus.

            He shrugs.   

***

We cross a pasture and enter the woods on the other side. We arrive at the cabin as darkness settles the land. 

It’s a little one room thing.   I’d helped cut and skin the pine logs the summer before I moved.  Dad and I stacked them to dry in the pasture.  It was a year or so before Colleen and Dad picked a location and started to build.  He’d gone downhill pretty fast.  My Dad, I mean.

We approach the cabin from the rear.  We round to the front porch and Colleen and Dad are just standing there in the cold. 

Hey, says Augustus.

Hello children, Colleen says.  She doesn’t move.

We take the three steps up the porch, Augustus in front. Pop moves over, pulls us both into him.  He’s got his patch off.  The socket’s empty, the lid slack.  My boys, he says. He lets us go and then we’re all just standing there. 

Tree looks good, Mom, I say.  She’s decorated a little spruce in front of the cabin with a string of popcorn.  There might be other things on it, but it’s too dark now to tell.

Thank you, she says.

There’s a yellowish film over Dad’s good eye. He’s lost, looking around as if he’s trying to figure out something.  It’s painful to see.  That surprises me.  I’m not ready for him to be this bad.

He leans toward Augustus. 

Where are we, son? he asks.

We’re in the forest, Dad.  These are your woods.  We’re safe here.

Dad relaxes.  Then he puts his rough hands out around our necks.  He’s still got the vice grip. 

Never forget your roots, boys, he says.  They belong here.

Okay, Augustus says.

Dad, I say.  You’re hurting me a little bit.

Colleen turns her back to us.  Maybe her shoulders are shaking.  Maybe they’re not.

***

Colleen had cooked dinner over the fire earlier. 

She’d sat it on the woodstove in the corner and covered it to keep it warm.  She is the lord of details.  She is the queen of preparations.  Had to be. 

We have potatoes and green beans for supper.  The venison is sweet, but the hours of warming it on the stove have made it tough to chew.  We don’t talk much.  Throughout the meal, I feel like all of us are standing on a ledge.  No one wants to take that step with their words except for Dad, but he just keeps asking the same questions. Augustus and I answer politely each time, but Colleen won’t respond.  Seems to me she’s glaring at us.  There are dried herbs hanging from the rafters.  Of course, she’ll have flowers pressed between the pages of the books that line her shelves.  I can nearly hear the moisture leaving them in the silence.

Colleen begins clearing the table.  I ask if I can help but she waves me off.  The smell surprises me.  It smells good in here.  Like timber and herbs and healthy food.  Not at all like the dying.  The dead.

Colleen asks if we’d like coffee.

Do you have beer, Mom? Augustus asks.

No.  Only coffee.

Then no, he says.

***

I fill the fire with green wood to pass the long night. Green poplar to smoke and hiss slowly into nothing, but never explode in flame.  Augustus and I squeeze into the top bunk, Colleen and Dad below. Augustus and I have to lie on our sides just to fit. 

This isn’t awkward or anything, I whisper.

Augustus doesn’t answer.  There’s a five-bedroom house just a mile away, but I don’t think on it.  I lay real still. I think Augustus is pretending to sleep, but I can’t be sure.  Tomorrow doesn’t feel like Christmas.  It feels more like tomorrow will be the day for the absence of something.  I want to mention it to Augustus.  I want to ask him if he remembers the daisies in Rosemary’s eyes, but the silence is a weight I lack the strength to lift.

***

I wake up in the night knowing that Dad has wet the bed. I know it not because of the smell, but because of way he is moaning and saying our dead sister’s name. 

Then Colleen is shaking him.  She whispers to him.

Odell, she says.  Odell.

She’s gone, Dad whispers.  Tell the boys the sweet one’s gone.  Then he’s snoring again. 

God damn it, Colleen hisses.  God damn it to hell.  She sounds far off.  She sounds alone in all the world.

***

I awake with Augustus and Colleen already at the table with their coffee.  I sit up. 

Where’s Dad? I ask.

Outside, Augustus says.  Just sitting out there. 

I climb down.  Is he all right?

It snowed last night, Colleen says.  It’s nice to have snow on Christmas Day.

He’s all right, Augustus says.  I put a coat on him, wrapped a blanket around him.

***

            We take our coffee outside to the porch. It did snow.  A light dusting over everything.  It’s freezing but we’re all wrapped up good now.  Augustus is in the rocking chair.  He’s put his trash bag down beside him.  I go and get the gifts from my backpack and then come back out.  I hadn’t noticed the two brightly wrapped packages on the porch bench last night, but I do now.  I wonder if Dad did the shopping.  It doesn’t seem like he could have this year.  I don’t even think he could bring the mail anymore.

Dad is looking at me.

            Something got the tree, he says.  He seems worried.

            There’s running cedar wrapped around the tree, and I see a few decorative berries remain, but nearly all the popcorn is gone.  The snow’s been knocked off.

            Birds? Augustus asks.  He’s rocking now.  Not out of anxiety but gently with the little hammer in his lap. He’s all bundled up and his red beard and tangled hair spreads like a stain from his face.  He’s already found his sunglasses.

            Not birds, Dad says. Something else.  Something that comes skulking at night. Something that can’t abide pretty things.

***

We give our gifts to one another.  There is a solemnity about the giving that I don’t remember from Christmases before.  Dad gives us things he’s found around the house: pliers, a tattered western by Louie L’Amour, a set of keys that don’t go to anything we know of. We thank him warmly.  When Colleen opens his gift for her, I tense up.  From an envelope she removes a little piece of paper. 

Look, Dad, I say.  This one is to Mom from you.  He looks at me, but I can tell he doesn’t know who I am. 

Colleen unfolds the paper and stares at it.  I don’t read anything on her face. 

            What is it, Mom? Augustus asks.

            A list.

            What kind of list? I ask. 

            A list of things he likes about me, she says.  It says he wants me to read it to him everyday so that he doesn’t forget.

            Jesus Christ, Augustus says.  He looks off into the woods.  Dad is looking off, too.  I wonder if they’re both looking for the thing that comes skulking at night.

            How many things are on it? I ask.

            Seven, she says.

***

Augustus passes out his unwrapped presents, but there’s no humor in it this year.  He gives me mine last.  There’s no box or anything.  It is a small electronic device the size of my palm.  It’s got a little screen with some numbers on it.  It looks like it might be an air pressure gauge or a heart rate monitor. 

            Thanks, Augustus.

            You’re welcome, he says.

            What is it? I ask.

            I’m not sure, he says.  I found it like that.

            I sort of thought the hammer was for me, I say.

            He draws the hammer up to him protectively. This is my hammer, he says.

***

Mom gives her gifts last.  She prefaces it by saying she didn’t leave the cabin for anything and not to expect much.  Augustus has a long narrow present in bright blue paper that looks about the right size for a rifle.  My present is in red paper.   The image of reindeer pulling Santa in his sleigh is repeated over and over.  There are lots of Santas because the package is about the size you’d expect for a mini fridge.

            Augustus looks at her.  Where’s your gift to Dad, he asks.  She doesn’t answer.  She glares at him with such fierceness it startles me.  He hadn’t waked when Dad cried out. If he had heard the hushed curses as Colleen changed the soiled sheets—if he’d heard her soothing Dad as she changed him, then he’d never have asked that question. 

Finally Augustus looks away and opens his gift. It’s a big limb that appears to have fallen out of a maple.  It’s dead all right but not too dotty.  The lichens that span the entire arm are a spectacular range of pale blues and sea foam green.  The colors are beautiful. 

            Thanks, Mom, Augustus says.  I like it. 

            I do, too, she says.  They both look at me.   

            I shrug.  Here goes, I say.  I take off the bow, run my finger in the seams to undo the tape.  I have to pull really hard on the box because Colleen’s taped it up good.   I tear it open and lift the flaps and peer inside.  It’s a stump.  It’s about the width of my waist and a foot and half tall.  A mass of thick roots keeps it propped at an odd angle. 

            What is it? Augustus asks.  He’s leaning in a little.

            It’s a stump, I tell him. 

            Damn, he says.

            I struggle to lift it from the box. I pull it free and dirt scatters off the roots.  It’s not even been brushed off.

            Thanks, Mom, I say.

            She nods but I can tell she’s thinking on other things.  I don’t know what to do so I just lay it on its side in my lap.

            Is it a beech? I ask.

            No, she says.  The big ash.

            Not Rosemary’s ash tree, Augustus says.

            She nods.

            God damn it, he says. 

I feel sick.  I feel like the whole world is on my lap.

            Dad puts his hand on my leg. 

That’s a good stump, boy, he says. 

***

In the night the peacock’s scream sounds out from the main house and carries in the clear, cold air.  Augustus starts beside me.  He brushes me as he sits up and his skin is all clammy and cool. 

You okay? I whisper.

Yes.  He breathes in deep a few times.  Outside the snow scatters grains of moonlight through the cabin window. It’s so damn quiet here it scares me. 

I was dreaming of Rosemary, he says.  She was talking in one of those scary voices.  Do you dream of her?

No, I lie.  Augustus, we’ve got to get out of here.

Remember how she came in and kissed us right before? She’d said she’d do it.  She outright told them.  They just went to bed like tomorrow would make it different. 

Keep your voice down, I say.

Did you hear her, too, when she went in there?

Stop it.

I swear I heard the blade sliding through.  I never told you.  There were no other sounds so it must’ve been that.  I heard it, but I just lay there.

Be quiet.  You couldn’t have known.

How many goddamn times did she tell them she’d do it?

It’s Colleen who answers.  Seven times, she says.  She told us seven times.

***

In the morning we don’t say goodbyes, but stand in the snow just off the cabin porch.  Augustus is holding the branch like a staff and the stump is on its side at my feet.  Augustus and I are pretending not to realize how separate we are from them, how it has to be like that.    When Rosemary was with us, it was different.  She was a beautiful little creature who wove among us, drew us in together somehow.  We were all wrapped up in this thing Rosemary spun, and we all had a sense of becoming something better.  She’d stand before you listening, filling the room with the scent of flowers and cut grass.  At night you’d lay there hearing her talk in the voices of other people—old men, demented ladies, babies mewling at the moon.  Sometimes we’d wake with a start because she was screaming out unfamiliar, ancient names: Jormungand, Skoll, Surt and Garm.

Sometimes we still do. 

I lean over and grip the stump.  I get my knees under it and bring it up.

Where’s Rosemary? Dad asks.  Today he has the patch on, but he’s just as lost.  Above him, two dark birds are drawing circles in the sky.

Colleen is staring right into me.  I try not to look at her.  What the hell does she want us to do anyway?  It’s terrible for her, but we can’t stay. We are preserved by our separateness.  It’s all we have.

Again Dad asks where Rosemary is.

She’s out in the pines, Augustus says.  She’ll be back with a bundle of kindling soon and you and Colleen can build a good fire.

That’s good, Dad says, but Colleen is waving us off.

Go on and go, she says.  It’s what you want, anyway.

The stump is heavy.  My arms hurt with the weight of it.

***

We cross over the sprawl of the pasture.  It hadn’t seemed so wide when we’d walked it last night.  We get to the other side, and I stop and look out into the big pines.  I set the stump down just inside the edge of the woods.

What are you doing? Augustus asks.  You don’t want your roots?  He says it as if it should be funny but it isn’t.

I step back and look at the stump.  It rests there on its side all silent as death—the woods brimming around it with untrodden snow.  Augustus seems to fade away in the nothingness behind me. I think of my father crying out for Rosemary in the night, of Rosemary’s pretty body all cut and drained.  I study the stump lying on its side in the snow—the bark with its ridges and swales.  Roots that will never find soil, and a trunk all rounded now and hardened that will never know limbs. I think of Colleen’s fierce look and allow myself to feel the anger it holds, but that’s not what bothers me.  The roots of the ash stump, all gnarled and dark, point like grotesque fingers back to the little cabin, but that’s not what bothers me either.  What bothers me is the darkness gathering out in the pine forest.  What bothers me is the big, shifting form hunched among the treetops.  How it sniffs the air.  It drops to the ground, skulks toward us through the trees. Other dark forms follow at its heels.  I want to run. I want to tell Augustus to get his hammer ready, but they’re already upon us.      

                                                                                                                                       Seth Clabough (MA, PhD—ABD) has taught English and/or Creative Writing the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the University of South Carolina. His most recent publications can be found in the Oak Bend Review, The Hidden Anthology, Aesthetica: The Arts & Culture Magazine, The Griffin, The Armchair Aesthete and elsewhere. He has scholarly publications in Women’s Studies (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group) and online as a contributor to the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ Encyclopedia Virginia. Seth recently received a Research Grant from the University of Wales to complete his first novel in Costa Rica and spent three months on the Peninsula de Nicoya while finishing the project. He currently teaches English at Sweet Briar College.