Songs of Love and Death

small corpse into the grass.

Steven did not talk to me. He headed for the barn. I didn’t ask why. I went into the house, trying not to trip on cats, and set my shotgun down on the kitchen table. Blinds had been pulled. Henry sat on the couch in the dark room. He still wore the quilt. Kittens squirmed in his lap, chewing the fingers of his right hand. In his left he held a small heart carved from wood.

“I wondered, all these years, where this had gone,” he said softly.

“You could have asked.”

“Maybe I was afraid of the answer.” He tore his gaze from the heart, and looked at me. “You had it hidden under your mattress.”

I tilted my head. “Been going through my things?”

“It was an accident,” he said, unconvincingly. “Why was it there?”

So I could touch it at night without having to see it, I almost told him. So I could remember watching your hands as you made it.

Instead I said, “Today went badly. But we both knew it would.”

Henry stared down at the kittens. “I hoped otherwise.”

I hesitated, watching him, wondering how so much had changed. Seemed too far in the past—too painful— but I remembered, in clear moments: fishing on Lost River, eating corn fresh from the stalk under the blazing sun; holding hands, in secret, while hiding under the branches of an oak during some spring storm. We had loved being caught in storms.

I walked to the cellar door, grabbed a candle off the shelf, and lit the wick with the butane lighter. Down the stairs, into the cold dark air. Shadows flickered, some cat-shaped; fleeting, agile, skipping across the cellar floor, in and out of the light as they twined around my legs. I passed crates of cabbage and potatoes, and dried beef. Walked to a massive chest set against the wall and knelt in front of the combination lock. A new shiny lock, straight from the plastic; part of a good trade from an elderly junk woman named Trace who rode through a couple times a year.

Cats butted their heads against my hips, rubbing hard, surrounding me with tails and purrs. I opened the chest. Held up the candle so that I could see the boxes of bullets, and guns wrapped in cloth. Two pistols. One rifle. One hundred boxes of ammunition. Twenty alone were for the shotgun, making a total of two hundred shells. My father’s stash. He had been a careful man, even before the Big Death.

And now I was a rich woman. But not in any way I wanted to make public.

“Going to battle?” Henry asked, behind me.

“Make love, not war,” I quoted my father, and shut the chest, nudging aside paws that got in the way. I locked it one-handed, and turned to face Henry. He still wore nothing but the quilt. Candlelight shimmered across his smooth chest and face. His gaze was cold. Had been for years, since the change.

“Been a while since I saw you without a beard,” I said.

“I never could bring myself to shave it,” he replied softly. “I didn’t want to look unmarried.”

I tried to smile. “Too bad. I’ve heard you’re a catch. Aside from an aversion to the sun, and all the blood.”

“Aside from that.” Henry’s own faint smile faded. “About today. Whatever happened, I’m sorry.”

“Talk to Steven.” I walked to another metal chest, this one unlocked. Inside, clothes. I set down the candle and pulled out my father’s jeans and a red flannel shirt. Musty, old, but no mice had been in them. I fought back a sneeze, and held out the clothing to Henry. He did not take them. Just stared.

“You’re a dead man,” I said bluntly. “To them, you’re dead. Would’ve been that way even if your father hadn’t set you on fire. You couldn’t pretend forever.”

His gaze was so cold. “That doesn’t change who I am.”

I tossed the clothing at his feet. “You changed years ago, even before what happened in the woods. You’ve just been slow to admit it.”

I picked up the candle, stood—and his fingers slid around my arm. Warm, strong grip. I closed my eyes.

“Wife,” he whispered.

I flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

Henry tried to pull me closer. I wrenched my arm free, spilling hot wax on the stone floor and myself. Cats scattered. Upstairs, a door banged. Footsteps passed overhead. I stopped moving. So did Henry. My eyes burned with tears.

“Amanda?” Steven called out from the cellar door. “Henry?”

“Coming,” I croaked, stumbling toward the stairs. Henry grabbed my arm again, and pressed his lips against my ear. He whispered something, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar in my ears and my thudding heart.

“Not again,” I finally heard, clearly.

“What?” I mumbled.

But Henry did not answer. He let go, and passed me. I heard him say something to Steven, but that was nothing but a buzz, and I pushed him aside, running up the stairs, from the darkness, from him.

Steven stood in the kitchen. He had been crying. His eyes were red, same as his nose and cheeks. He glanced from my face to Henry—who appeared behind me at the top of the stairs—and his expression twisted with grief or anger. I could not tell.

“I made a bed in the barn,” he said.

“I’ll cook something,” I replied, because it was the right thing to say, and I couldn’t think. “Then we’ll talk about where to put you. The attic will be too cold in winter, but so will the barn.”

“Won’t be here that long,” Steven said. “Not me, not any of us.”

I stared at him. Henry said, “Steven.”

But the young man gave us a look so hollow it chilled my bones. He backed away, across the living room to the front door, whipping off his hat and crushing it in his hands.

“I see what I see,” he said, and then turned, stumbling from the house. Henry started after him. I grabbed his arm, yanking hard.

“Sun,” I said.

“I don’t care,” Henry replied harshly, but stayed where he was, staring at the door. I did not let go. My hand slid down his arm until our fingers entwined. He squeezed, hard.

“What happened?” he whispered. “Out there? What changed us? We were human, Amanda. And then we weren’t.”

“We’re human,” I said. “Just different.”

“Don’t be naive.” He tried to pull away from me, but this time I was the one holding on, stubborn.

“It wasn’t our fault,” I told him. “Everything was out of our control.”

“Not everything,” he replied, and grabbed the back of my neck. “I made a bad choice. Crawled on my stomach back to what was familiar and normal. I should have stayed instead. Stayed for good, instead of returning to you only when something was wrong.”

“Something was wrong almost once a week,” I reminded him. “I pushed you away. We both needed time.”

“And now this.” Henry’s fingers slid into my hair. “What do you want, Amanda?”

“Nothing,” I told him. “You’re here only because you have to be. You’re like a fox smoked out of its den. Secret marriage, secret life. You’re good at pretending to be something you’re not. Ask yourself what you want, Henry. But don’t ask me.”

I pulled his hand off my neck, and walked toward the front door. He didn’t stop me. I escaped into the sunlight.

I WALKED THROUGH the fields and ate a tomato fresh from the vine, biting into the red flesh like it was an apple. I ate a carrot, too, and then some raw ripe corn, but threw down the cob after only a few bites. Restless, aching, heartsick: a man in my house, a boy in my barn, and the world beyond the fence, threatening me now, in more ways than the woods could harm me.

I stood on the border of my land, staring over the fence at the dense shadows beyond the trees. Cats twined around my legs and climbed the boards and posts. Watching the woods.

You’re not free, I told myself, holding still, holding my breath. It had always been