Flash3
A Deer in the Light
Alicia is missing. Our Alicia Felicia. I'm pacing. Bill says, "Calm down." He doesn't understand, doesn't see the deer.
At fifteen, I wanted to name my first daughter Alicia. Such a pretty name, much better than my stupid name, Anna Lee. Kids still called me Anna Lee Wannabe Wallaby Waddle-bee. Waddle-bee as if I were fat. I was a little chunky, but not fat. Never really fat. I wanted the name Alicia for myself.
But then, the most popular girl in school, Alicia Sandstrom, disappeared. She made the national news. They searched for her for weeks. When they found her, she was only a few steps off my path to school through Higsby Woods. Because I usually went home for lunch, I walked past her body four times a day. I smelled her from the trail. Rotting. A horrible stench. Almost sweet. I thought it was a deer, like the one in the ditch by the road, neck twisted to the side, tongue swollen and distended. I no longer wanted to be Alicia or jinx a daughter with her name.
Before we met, Bill knew none of this.
After my children had grown and gone, after menopause, I became a mother again. To Alicia. Alicia Martin was six when she and Bill showed up on a hawk count at Derby Hill. I helped keep her small hand in the oversized glove to feed the hawk I was demonstrating and showed her the mist netting. She took and held my hand. All trusting. Bill smiled at me. With those dimples. Called and invited me, at Alicia's request, to her first slumber party. To act as the Official Mom since Kate had died a year and a half before in an auto accident. We're a family now. Alicia's mine, ours, our Alicia Felicia; I adopted her. I love her.
She's 15 now and she's missing. Bill puts out a hand to stop my pacing. "She's just lost track of time. She's fallen asleep somewhere. She's fine." I repeat his words, but my images are different. I pray. I'm not much for praying, but grasping her picture, I say, Please, God, let her be okay. She doesn't look like Alicia Sandstrom. She's tall and lean like Bill, with Kate's long red hair. No blond curls, no big breasts. Maybe that will protect her, I think. But those big dark eyes, that startled look . . .
When the phone rings, I can't pick it up. I see that long-ago deer, with its twisted neck. The tongue swollen and grey. The side split open.
I put out my hand to stop Bill's pacing. Clutching mine, his hand is clammy with sweat. When I pull him to me, he leans into me. Heavy. His muscles quiver and go slack.
"The cops have her," Bill says, letting out his breath. "Picked her up in Virginia, hitchhiking. She's cut off her hair. She was with a man, but they say she's safe. She's safe." His mangled deer, tongue lolling, slips to the floor with a thud.
Mary Stebbins, published in the Juky 2004 issue of edificeWRECKED (or see sidebar).
Not Killing Conseilla
After we found the redbird on the mountain, Marialita took Annie and me to the next stage of Nagual school, where we hoped to learn the deep magic. The entrance exam was pretty rough; we first had to learn to dream. She left us with Conseilla for that. But Conseilla had one fault (or two, maybe): she was ceremonious to a degree, and would never speak to us but in the third person. This was sometimes annoying, often not downright provoking. Annie thought the test was actually to not kill Conseilla. Then we would pass. For her part, Conseilla, locked us in a chamber of mirrors. The mirrors surrounded us: above, below, and on all four walls. Everywhere we looked, we could see only an infinite number of ourselves and hear only her insipid voice droning instructions-in the third person-as if we had essentially ceased to exist. After a while, I thought we had.
It was then that my face began to change. When I looked where it had been, I saw my grandmother's face. She died in 1962. I had a Halloween party and came to me that night in a dream that night to say goodbye. I woke and rushed in to tell my parents, but they didn't believe me until morning when they got the call.
"Amperio hora, ella sue�a con su abuela," Conseilla intones.
"Ah, she dreams of her grandmother," Annie interprets from inside the other cubical. Not only does Conseilla speak in the third person, but also in Spanish, which I don't understand. I have no idea how to write it. Of course, Marialita speaks Spanish, but I must have some psychic connection to her and always understand what she says. Conseilla is like a prune. Who could talk to a prune? Or listen to one?
My grandmother looks a little like Marialita, or did, when she was alive. Mexican, Italian, they're a little alike, right? Dark-skinned, in some cases. She never grew old enough to look like Conseilla. Died of cirrhosis of the liver, but I never saw her drink. Maybe she ate too much sugar.
Inside the cubical, though, my grandmother is alive. She starts telling me stories about hands. Tells me to watch my hands, to hold them in a cup and drink the invisible water inside them. I am suddenly desperately thirsty. We're out in the desert in the blaring heat sitting in a tiny cubicle. "Drink," she says. I do. It tastes like spring water from Whiskey Hollow, where she used to take us when we had no well. Flavored with pomegranate.
"Ella debe escuchar su abuela y comer de la semilla de la
Between the cubical mirrors, I hear Annie say, "'She should listen to her grandmother and eat of the seed of the pomegranate. This is the mother-fruit of dreams.' She emphasizes the word "she." I wonder if Conseilla means Persephone. “Do Nagual women know about Persephone?” I ask Annie. “
My grandmother holds a pomegranate. "Swallow the seeds," she says. "Bite them, suck them, swallow them." They are incredibly sweet. And tart. At first, I see Donald Duck. He wanders around puffing himself up and being important. He is wearing a tuxedo.
"Ella debe ir dentro y m�s all� de Sr. Historieta," Conseilla mutters, almost under her breath. I can barely hear her.
"She must go inside and beyond Mr. Cartoon," says Annie, much louder. I am surprised that Conseilla knows Donald Duck. And I don't know what she means. But as Donald Duck quacks and babbles inanely, I enter his words, I enter the darkness at the back of his throat and it opens into flowers of darkness, each petal a layer of dream. I have come to the portal, and I will know magic.
Outside the cubical, I hear Conseilla chuckling. It sounds like dry plants rattling across the desert, but it's a happy sound. I decide I like it.
by Mary Stebbins
For Rosalita
Published in August 2004 issue of edificeWRECKED (or see sidebar)
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