By Anne Heitbrink (900 words)
Margaux dropped the knife on the table and walked out of the building. All of a sudden she was so hot. She needed air. She heard Mavis calling out, “Wait, what are we going to do with him?” But for that moment she didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of these people. What was she doing here? How had her life spun into this web of strange narratives?
So many thoughts swirled in her brain. She had carried these secrets for so long. As if she was born to be a vessel for others’ pain. She was good at it. Way too good.
When Jimmy was born she was already well honed at understanding danger. Her mother’s drunken rants. Hiding in the closet when her mother brought home random strangers. The wondering, day to day, what would need fixing. When Jimmy was born her life began anew. She felt a sense of purpose. She knew that it would be her job to care for this tiny human, to hold him and clean him and protect him from the dangers of life as she knew it. Who knew who his father was? He was always small, always vulnerable. Her aloneness and fear became her shield, her claws of protection. No one messed with Jimmy. That was her job, her responsibility. The shoes she walked in were always bigger than his, leaving room for him to walk safely behind. Or so she thought.
The nerve of Nonny to ask, “Won’t you ever let him be free?” When did she ever get to be free? Just yesterday she was walking into town for that whiskey that Jimmy needed. Because he could barely tie shoes on his own. His freedom seemed like a joke to her. She was a good sister. She protected Jimmy. Wasn’t that what this so-called writer’s retreat was about? Giving him a way to jump-start his career? Even though she wrote the last two books, and provided plot lines for most of the other ones too. Being a good sister meant creating a life story for him. Because her story felt like a lost cause from the beginning.
The Matricide Murder series grew out of stories they used to tell each other when they were little. When times were bad at home they used to hide in the closet and imagine ways their mother could die. Marjie was the inventive one, always ready with the next plot twist in a tale that released them from the mayhem that was their mother in a final and absolute way. A clear and unimpeded path ahead. That was the dream in her child’s brain, not realizing then that life is ten percent of what happens to you and the rest is what you do with that.
During that brief stint in juvenile hall she remembered the counselor with all the teddy bears in her office asking her what would make her comfortable naming her needs? She hated that kind of question. It made no sense to her, just the kind of question that busybody grownups asked. But it stuck in her brain, a worm of curiosity that she always stuffs down deep as soon as it arises. There is no room for her needs. Times when she allowed her need to surface, like going to those gay bars in her twenties, she only met with more chaos, like when she met that buffoon Ficinelli who is now sitting in the lodge smirking with all his innuendo and analysis about the group. She should never have gotten in the car with him. Too much cocaine. That one night she can’t even remember. Who was there? Who was left the next morning? Too many years ago, and now here he is, making a claim on her that she thought was successfully buried in every way.
She needs to find Jimmy, I mean Jasper. Is this weekend even salvageable? Where is everybody anyway?
As Margaux looked up toward the cedars surrounding the lodge she heard the ravens. The trees were blowing about in the wind and she saw the black birds flying low against the grey sky. Their chatter was insistent. As she turned to head back into the lodge she heard it, a burst of what – an explosion? And then, was that a gunshot? This darn place. How will she explain this? And when will the caterers show up? No matter what, she needed to keep food and wine flowing for this group.
***
Ed turned toward the fire. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal parts. And then his Navy training kicked in. His mind started to think about what was needed, to wonder if there were people in harm’s way. He thought about Lucy and Jen and the men in the barn. And the other writers at the Lodge. And the very real danger that a fire in these woods imperiled them all. He couldn’t even think about what sounded like a gunshot. Did he really hear that? What did he know for sure? He knew his cellphone hadn’t worked since he got here. He had to find a phone that worked. He had to alert authorities about the fire before anything else. He turned away from the spectacle and started down the trail toward the Lodge, hoping and praying there was a live phone line somewhere to reach help.
