Page 26 of Scythe & Sparrow
Even when I’m at work or running through town or at the gym, Rose will suddenly appear in my thoughts. I’ll hear her voice, that desperate, whisperedhelpstill a barb in my mind. Or I’ll see her face, like her startled expression when I pulled the door of her motor home open for her, the way her eyes glimmered in the summer sun when she realized it was me. I came here to Hartford in the hope that I would isolate myself from the things that made me weak, that made me want to poke and prod the hidden dark corners of my mind. But from the moment Rose showed up, she’s invaded my thoughts as though she’s stripping my immunity, cell by cell.
But it’s not me I’m worried about.
It’sher.
I lower the blanket I’m working on and pan my gaze across the room. Simple furniture. Nondescript paintings. Impersonal details on display, all of it dull and unoriginal. Nothing that would provoke any emotion or raise any concern. Nothing you’d look at and think,This belongs to a man who covered up a murder yesterday. Or,This belongs to a man who nearly bludgeoned a farmer to death with a wrench. And certainly not,This belongs to a man who killed his own father, and nobody knows it was him.
I set the blanket aside and brace my elbows on my knees, pressing my palms to my eyes as though it will push those thoughts back where they belong.
But they never truly fade away.
I still see my father in his drunken and drug-induced rage, still remember with vivid clarity the disappointment I felt when hereturned after a week of being missing, those glorious few days when I’d started to believe he’d finally been killed as the ultimate consequence of his shitty life choices. After all, I was the one who discovered who he owed, who he stole from. It was me who thought if I let the Mayes family know that he’d taken money from them, they would get rid of my father for good. With every day that had passed that week, I realized I didn’t feel the way any decent person would for selling out their own father. Me? I felt relief. Evenpride. I felt fucking invincible.
But I was just a kid.
I underestimated my father’s ability to get himself out of trouble. All that growing hope and serenity I felt was suddenly washed away when he reappeared on Saturday afternoon, slurring and cursing as he shoved my brother Rowan into the kitchen of our childhood home in Sligo, demanding a meal. He smacked Rowan across the face when my brother protested. When I tried to intervene, he shoved me against the counter and knocked my head against the cupboard hard enough that I saw stars. But through the flashing light, I still caught the way my brother’s eyes turned black with rage. How he looked to Lachlan where he stood in the living room, his fists curled at his sides. It was as though there was a secret switch that had been flipped between them with that fleeting look. When the last conflict with my father erupted, I slipped a knife into my hand when no one was looking. And I remember how a single word stood out like a beacon as my brothers kicked off the brawl that would end Callum Kane’s miserable life.
Finally, I thought.
Finally.
Even now, I still feel the rush of adrenaline. Hoping that it would be the end.Knowingit, as though it were part of my blood and bone, my DNA.
I’ve spent every day since trying to prove those instincts wrong. I’ve tried to be worthy of my brothers’ devotion, to be worthy of their sacrifices. I’ve wanted to make up for my role in his death that day, one my brothers didn’t even realize I played. And yesterday, it was like I simply …succumbed.
With a deep sigh, I check my watch. Eleven thirty. Eric Donovan has been dead for over twenty-four hours. If he hasn’t been reported missing already, it’s not going to take much longer. The tracks of our vehicles would have been washed away by last night’s downpour, if anyone even bothers to look on that deserted patch of land. His vehicle is submerged beneath murky gray water. Maybe, if we’re lucky, he’ll never be found. Wouldn’t a normal person feel remorse?
I don’t.
That’s the real reason I’m avoiding the woman across the hall. Because despite what she’s done, I’m not afraidofher. I’m afraidforher.
And I think about that as I set my crochet project in my bag and slide into bed, chasing sleep. I don’t feel remorse. My last conscious thoughts are questions that have no answers. What if I’ve spent all these years trying to cultivate something within me that just doesn’t exist? What if I’m just as much of a monster as the man who made me?
When I wake the next morning after a night of restless dreams, Rose is either asleep or out. Both of these options are strange. She’s usually up by six, always before me unless I’ve taken onan early shift at the hospital. I’ve gotten used to the smell of waffles and maple syrup and bacon in the morning, and though she makes enough for both of us every time, I always opt for a probiotic shake. But the scent has become welcoming. It feels like home. And Rose seems to enjoy spending the mornings in, making conversation that I try to keep to a minimum, or laying out the cards of her tarot deck to stare down at them with a crease between her brows. She plays with her wavy fringe when she has trouble interpreting their meaning. Sometimes she whispers “ta-da” and twinkles her fingers when she figures it out. Or she hums off-key. Or talks to the deck. Or catches my eye and grins at me as though she knew all along that I was watching like the fucking blue-balled hermit I am. I try to stay professional. Detached. But I feel like I’m caught in her orbit, sucked in by her gravitational pull.
And now I’m trying to sense that gravitational pull from outside her door, like some kind of fucking weirdo stalker.
I hear … nothing.
I rap the door with my knuckles, softly at first. When no sound comes from the other side, I knock again, a little louder this time. “Rose …?”
Against my better judgment, I open her door. And it’s like I’ve stepped into a room that belongs to someone else’s house.
The bedspread I bought for her is perfectly smoothed across the mattress. The yellow pillows are propped against the headboard. But there are extra pillows too, not just a few but maybe half a dozen of them, in floral patterns and stripes and polka dots that are all mismatched yet somehow work together perfectly. There are framed photos and knickknacks on the nightstand. There’s apainting I don’t recognize that’s propped up on the dresser. And plants. Plantseverywhere. A monstera near the bed. Ivy on the shelf. Orchids on the windowsill. Three spider plants hang suspended from the curtain rod. In a matter of a few days, and entirely without my realizing it, Rose has transformed a once bland and lifeless room into something that feels like a home.
It leaves me with many,manyquestions. Such as,Where the fuck did she get all these plants? And when? How? She couldn’t have done it by herself. So who helped her?
And where the fuck is she? And why does it worry me so goddamn much that she’s not here?
I stop in front of one of the plants lined up on the dresser next to a mortar and pestle, the inner surface of the bowl stained with purple streaks. The first plant I don’t recognize. It has small indigo flowers and glossy dark berries. Beside it, there’s a small shrub with blossoms that look like pale pink stars. The third plant in the row has hood-shaped purple flowers clustered around a vertical stem. This one I know. It’s monkshood, also known as wolfsbane. A highly poisonous plant.
I take a few more steps into the room and lean in to look at the photos on the nightstand. Teenage Rose in her motorcycle gear, flanked by twin boys. Rose a few years older, her arm around a woman in an elaborate costume. One of José Silveria, standing proud beneath a curved sign of lights.Silveria Circus, it says. His voice surfaces from a few weeks ago, when he wrapped me in an unexpected embrace in Rose’s hospital room.Take good care of our Rose, he’d said.She needs this. She just doesn’t know it yet.
I don’t know if anyone needs a broken leg or a hospital stay or to be left behind in an unfamiliar town. But I nodded anyway.
I’m about to leave when I notice a postcard from Colorado Springs leaning against one of the frames. I turn it over.
Dear Sparrow,
