Bourbon, just to calm me down. I drink it standing out in the yard, watching the neighbour lady’s house. Let her see me.
Dee
She has not had the dream since she moved to Needless Street. Tonight it begins immediately, as if in response to some long-awaited cue.
Dee is walking by the lake. The trees lean over, casting dark, glassy reflections. Damselflies kiss the surface of the water, sending out shining circles. The sky above is an aching nothing. The sand beneath her feet is sharp, a million tiny shards of glass. She bleeds but feels no pain. Or perhaps there is so much pain in her that she doesn’t notice the cuts. She keeps walking. Dee would give anything to stop, to turn, to wake. But she has to get to the trees and the birds and the nests, that’s how it goes. She has to see it.
The treeline draws nearer, the air is shuddering with the force of everything. She sees the birds now, small and beautiful, darts of colour among the trees. They do not call. They are silent as fish in a pond. The lake falls away behind her and she is in the shadowed place beneath the trees. Pine needles litter the forest floor. It is soft underfoot, soft as grave earth, freshly dug. Overhead the birds glide and dart. Dee comes into the clearing beneath the terrible sky and there it is, the white tree. It is a silver birch, slender and lovely. She remembers that sometimes they’re called paper birches. Strange, the thoughts that come to you in dreams. There is an intricate nest built at the juncture of two branches. A crimson bird with golden eyes and a golden beak lands. She carefully weaves the strand of dried grass she has brought into the soft inside of the nest where she will lay her eggs.
Dee begins to moan. She tries to wake herself because the next part is the worst. But she can’t. Against her will she is drawn closer to the tree, to the nest, to the bird. She covers her dream mouth with her dream hand. Even in a dream, it seems, a stomach can feel sick to death.
She tries to turn, to run. But everywhere she turns there are silent crimson birds fluttering among the trees of bone, bearing in their beaks the wisps of grass that are not grass, lining their nests with her dead sister’s hair.
Dee wakes to a soft tapping on her cheek, her forehead, her nose. When she opens her eyes all she can see is fur and whiskers. The tabby cat is very close; her nose nearly touches Dee’s. The cat taps Dee’s nose once more with her velvet fist, to make sure that Dee has really stopped screaming.
‘Sorry, cat,’ she says, then starts. ‘What are you doing in here?’
The cat sits back on her haunches and looks steadily at her. She is thin and ragged, ears torn from fighting. Her eyes are a soft tawny brown. Dee could not call her a beautiful cat. But she is a survivor.
The tabby puts her head on one side and makes an interrogative pprrrrp?
‘Really?’ asks Dee in disbelief. But the cat continues to regard her fixedly, and everyone knows what that look means, from a cat.
Dee finds a can of tuna in a cupboard in the kitchen. She empties it onto a saucer. The cat eats delicately, stirring the air with her tail.
‘Do you have a name?’ Dee asks. The cat ignores her. She licks her lips with a small pink tongue and strolls into the living room. Dee rinses the saucer before following. It only takes a moment but when she comes through she can’t see the cat anywhere. It has left.
Dee knows that her sister has not come back to her as a mangy alley cat. Of course not. That would be crazy. But she can’t help the feeling that the cat pulled her out of the dream. That it is helping her, somehow.
Dee goes to her post at the window. The world is lit by a dim and secret light. She is not sure if it’s dawn or dusk. She hasn’t slept on a regular schedule for some time. She gasps, her heart flurries with shock.
Ted is standing in his front yard. Bourbon drips from his beard. He lifts a slow hand, a pointing finger. His eyes seem to pierce the shadows. Dee wriggles as if his gaze is a touch.
She knows he can’t see through the glass, into the dark house. But she feels the feather brush of fear like red bird wings. With it comes a rush of defiance. I’m coming for you, she tells Ted silently. You feel it, too.
She yelps and jumps as her cellphone rings. She’s surprised it’s charged and switched on. It has been so long since she used it. Dee checks the number. She makes a face and answers.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Delilah.’ Karen sounds even more tired than usual. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Dee says. She doesn’t offer anything else. She makes Karen work for it.
‘Where are you, these days?’
‘I keep moving,’ Dee says. ‘If I stay put I start to think.’ Tears rise as she says this. She hadn’t meant to. She brushes her stinging eyes angrily. Truth is as slippery as mercury. It always seems to find a way to escape. Get a grip, Dee Dee. Get it done. ‘I’m in Colorado, right now.’ Colorado seems safely distant from here.
‘You
