Bird Box (16 page)

Then, by Tom’s elbow, there is another sound.

At first, it sounds like children laughing. Then like a song.

Then the unmistakable sound of chirping.

Birds
.

Gently, Tom backs away. The chirping quiets. He steps forward again. It gets louder.

Of course
, Tom thinks, feeling the excitement he’d hoped for when they left the house the day before.

As Jules talks quietly to the dog, Tom approaches the birds until their squawking is unbearable. He feels along a shelf.

“Tom,” Jules says in the darkness, “be careful—”

“They’re in a box,” Tom says.

“What?”

“I grew up with a guy whose father was a hunter. His birds made the same sound. They get louder the closer you get to them.”

Tom’s hands are on the box.

He is thinking.

“Jules,” he says, “let’s go home.”

“I’d like more time with the dog.”

“You’ll have to do it at home. We can lock them in a room if there’s a problem. But we found what we set out to find. Let’s go home.”

Jules leashes the second husky. This one is less difficult. As they exit the garage by the side door, Jules asks Tom, “You’re bringing the birds?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an idea.”

Outside, they retrieve the first husky and head toward home. Jules walks with the second dog, Tom with the first. Slowly, they cross lawns, then driveways, until they reach the marker they set the day before.

On the front porch, before knocking on the door, Tom hears the housemates arguing inside. Then he thinks he hears a sound coming from the street behind him.

He turns.

He waits.

He wonders how close the tent is to where he stands.

Then he knocks.

Inside, the argument ceases. Felix calls out to him. Tom responds.

“Felix! It’s Tom!”

twenty-six

Y
ou’re going to have to open your eyes
. . .

“You need to eat, Girl,” Malorie manages to say. Her voice is weak.

The Boy has eaten nuts from the pouch. The Girl refuses.

“If you don’t eat,” Malorie says between grimaces, “I’m going to stop this boat and leave you here.”

Malorie feels the Girl’s hand upon her back. She stops rowing and shakes some nuts out of the pouch for her. Even this hurts her shoulder.

But above the pain, a thought hovers. A truth that Malorie does not want to face.

Yes, the world behind her blindfold is an ill gray. Yes, she is worried she might be losing consciousness. But a much darker reality weaves through her myriad fears and problems, serpentine, clever. It floats, then hovers, then lands at the front lines of her imagination.

It’s a thing she’s been protecting, hiding, from the rest of herself all morning.

But it’s been the focus of her decision making for years.

You tell yourself you’ve waited four years because you were afraid to lose the house forever. You tell yourself you waited four years because you wanted to train the children first. But neither of these are true. You waited four years because here, on this trip, on this river, where madmen and wolves lurk, where creatures must be near, on THIS DAY you will have to do something you haven’t done outside in even longer than four years
.

Today you’re going to have to open your eyes
.

Outside
.

It’s true. She knows this. She’s known this forever, it seems. And what is she more frightened by—the possibility of a creature standing in her line of sight? Or the unfathomable palette of colors that will explode before her when she opens her eyes.

What does the world look like now? Will you recognize it?

Is it gray? Have the trees gone mad? The flowers, the reeds, the
sky
? Is the entire world insane? Does it battle itself? Does the Earth refute its own oceans? The wind has picked up. Has it seen something? Is it mad, too?

Think
, Tom would say.
You’re doing it. You’re rowing. Just keep rowing. This all means that you’re going to make it. You’ll have to open your eyes. You can do it. Because you have to
.

Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom.

She yearns for him more now than she ever has.

Even in this newer world, here on the river, as the wind starts to howl, cold water splashes across her jeans, wild animals stalk the banks, where her body is broken, her mind is a prisoner of the grays, even here Tom comes to her as something bright, something right, something
good
.

“I’m eating,” the Girl says.

This is good, too. Malorie finds the strength to encourage her.

“Well done,” she says between heavy breaths.

More movement from the woods to the left. Sounds like an animal. Could be the man with the boat. Could be a creature. Could be a dozen of them. Will the rowboat interrupt a pack of hungry bears, searching for fish?

Malorie is
wounded
. The word keeps recurring. It’s on a swivel, too. Just like Tom. Just like the gray colors behind her blindfold. Just like the noises of the river and the new world. Her shoulder. Her
wound
. It’s happened. The very thing people would have warned her about had there been anyone around to warn her.

Take the river if you have to, but just know you might get hurt
.

Oh, I don’t know if I’d do that. You might get hurt
.

That’s too dangerous. What would become of the children if you were to get hurt out there?

It’s an animal’s world now, Malorie. Don’t go out there. Don’t take that river
.

You might get hurt
.

Hurt
.

HURT
.

HURT!

Shannon. Think of Shannon. Hold on to her
.

She tries. A memory elbows its way into the crowd of black thoughts already upon her. She remembers herself and Shannon on a hillside. It was sunny then. She shielded her eyes with her little forearm. She pointed to the sky.

It’s Allan Harrison!
she said, meaning a boy from class.
That cloud there looks like Allan Harrison!

She was laughing.

Which one?

That one! Do you see it?

Shannon inched toward her on the grass. She laid her head beside Malorie’s.

Yes! Haha! I see him, too! And look at that one! That one is Susan Ruth!

The sisters lay there for hours, picking out faces in the clouds. A nose was enough. An ear. Maybe the top of one had curls, like Emily Holt.

Do you remember the sky?
she asks herself, still, incredibly, rowing.
It was so blue. And the sun was as yellow as it would be in a child’s drawing. The grass was green. Shannon’s face was pale, smooth, white. So were your hands, gesturing toward the clouds. Everywhere you looked, that day, there were colors
.

“Mommy?” the Boy says. “Mommy, are you crying?”

When you open your eyes, Malorie, you’re going to see them again. Your entire world will come to light. You’ve seen walls and blankets. Stairs and carpet. Stains and buckets of well water. Rope, knives, an axe, chicken wire, speaker wire, and spoons. Canned goods, candles, and chairs. Tape, batteries, wood, and plaster. For years now the only thing you’ve been allowed to see is the faces of your housemates and the faces of your children. The same colors. The same colors. The same colors for years. YEARS. Are you prepared? And what scares you more? The creatures or yourself, as the memories of a million sights and colors come flooding toward you? What scares you more?

Malorie is rowing very slowly now. Less than half the speed she was going ten minutes ago. The water, piss, and blood slosh at her ankles. Animals or madmen or creatures move on the banks. The wind is cold. Tom is not here. Shannon is not here. The gray world behind her blindfold begins to spin, like thick sludge inching toward the drain.

She throws up.

At the last moment she worries if it’s a terrible thing, what is happening to her. Passing out. What will happen to the children? Are they going to be okay if Mommy just passes out?

And that’s it.

Malorie’s hands fall from the oars. In her mind, Tom is watching her. The creatures are watching her, too.

Then, as the Boy is asking her something, Malorie, the captain of this little ship, passes out completely.

twenty-seven

M
alorie wakes from dreams about babies. It is either early morning or very late at night, she guesses. The house is silent. The farther along in her pregnancy she gets, the more vivid her reality becomes. Both
With Child
and
At Last . . . a Baby!
briefly discuss home deliveries. It’s possible, of course, to do it without help from a professional, but the books are wary of this. Cleanliness, they say.
Unforeseen circumstances
. Olympia hates reading those parts, but Malorie knows they must.

One day, the pain your mother and the pain every mother speaks of will come to you in the same form: childbirth. Only a woman can experience it and because of this all women are bonded
.

Now that moment is coming.
Now
. And who will be there when it does? In the old world, the answer was easy. Shannon, of course. Mom and Dad. Friends. A nurse who would assure her she was doing fine. There would be flowers on a table. The sheets would smell fresh. She’d be doted on by people who had delivered babies before; they’d act like it was like removing a pistachio from its shell. And the ease they’d express would be exactly what calmed her impossible nerves.

But this isn’t the answer anymore. Now the labor Malorie expects sounds like that of a mother wolf: brute, mean, inhuman. There will be no doctor. No nurse.

No medicine
.

Oh how she imagined she’d know what to do! How prepared she thought she’d be! Magazines, websites, videos, advice from her obgyn, stories from other mothers. But none of this is available to her now.
None!
She’s not going to give birth in a hospital, it’s going to happen right here in this house. In one of the rooms of
this house
! And the most she can expect is Tom assisting while Olympia holds her hand and looks on in horror. Blankets will be covering the windows. Maybe a T-shirt will be under her ass. She’ll drink from a glass of murky well water.

And that’s it. That’s how it’s going to happen.

She shifts onto her back again. Breathing hard and slow, she stares at the ceiling. She closes her eyes, then opens them again. Can she do this?
Can she?

She has to. And so she repeats mantras, words to get her ready.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if it happens in a hospital or on the kitchen floor. Your body knows what to do. Your body knows what to do. Your body knows what to do
.

The baby-to-be is all and everything that matters.

Abruptly, as if they’re imitating the sound of the baby Malorie prepares for, she hears the birds cooing outside the front door. She withdraws from her thoughts and turns toward the sound. As she slowly sits up in bed, she hears a knock come from the first floor.

She freezes.

Was that the door? Is it Tom? Did somebody go outside?

She hears it again and, amazed, she sits up. She places a hand on her belly and listens.

It comes again.

Malorie slowly swings her feet to the floor and rises before crossing the room. She stops at the door, one hand on her belly, one on the wood of the frame, and listens.

Another knock. This time it’s louder.

She walks to the head of the stairs and stops again.

Who is it?

Beneath her pajamas, her body feels cold. The baby moves. Malorie feels a little faint. The birds are still making noise.

Is it one of the housemates?

She reenters her bedroom and grabs a flashlight. She walks to Olympia’s room and shines the beam on her bed. She is sleeping. In the room at the end of the hall, she sees Cheryl on the bed.

Malorie walks slowly down the stairs to the living room.

Tom
.

Tom is asleep on the carpet. Felix is on the couch.

“Tom,” Malorie says, touching his shoulder. “Tom, wake up.”

Tom rolls to his stomach. Then he looks up, suddenly, at Malorie.

“Tom,” she says.

“Is everything okay?”

“Someone is knocking at the front door.”

“What? Now?”

“Right now.”

Another knock comes. Tom turns his face toward the hall.

“Holy shit. What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Late.”

“Okay.”

Tom gets up quickly. He pauses, as if attempting to wake up entirely, leaving his sleep on the floor. He is fully clothed. Beside where he was sleeping, Malorie sees the crude beginnings of another helmet. Tom turns on the living room lamp.

Then the two are walking toward the front door. They pause in the hall. Another series of knocks come.

“Hello?” a man says.

Malorie grabs Tom’s arm. Tom turns on the hall light.

“Hello?” the man says again.

More knocks follow.

“I need to be let in!” the man says. “I have nowhere else to go. Hello?”

Finally, Tom steps toward the door. From the end of the hall, Malorie sees a shape move. It is Don.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Someone is at the door,” Tom says.

Don, hardly awake, looks confused. Then he snaps, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

More knocks.

“I need a place to go,” the voice says. “I can’t handle being alone out here anymore.”

“I’m going to talk to him,” Tom says.

“We’re not a fucking hostel, Tom,” Don says.

“I’m just going to talk to him.”

Then Don is walking toward them. Malorie hears shuffling from upstairs.

“If anyone is there I could—”

“Who are you?” Tom finally calls.

There is a moment of silence. Then, “Oh, thank God someone is there! My name is Gary.”

“He could be bad,” Don says. “He could be
mad
.”

Felix and Cheryl appear at the end of the hall. They look exhausted. Jules is here now, too. The dogs are behind him.