When I was young, we lived in an old farm house. I remember my father telling me that it was more than one hundred years old, and that was the cause for the strange noises in the middle of the night. I never believed him. I was convinced that the noises were just David messing around downstairs. But in those early weeks of our friendship, no one in my family believed it was him. I never bothered to question why.
My father had inherited a sixty-five acre pig farm that he and his father had built from the ground up. I can’t remember how many pigs we had, but it was enough to warrant two barns.
I lived on this farm, with my family, (three older brothers, and one younger brother) until I was eight. We moved quite suddenly after a bad accident involving Joey, my younger brother, leaving him paralyzed. I didn’t understand then why my father sold his farm at the time, but I do now.
We had no neighbors to speak of. To our left, you’d have to go down more than five miles of road, and cross a highway before you happened upon the next home. To the right, if you followed the large hill up, and went around the bend, eventually you’d come across Mr. Carlin’s house. I didn’t know much about him other than he owned the corn field that sat on the other side of the street right across from our house. And that he always waved at me when he was on his tractor. My mother, at one point, had informed me that Mr. Carlin had once had children and a wife, but a house fire had killed them all, and left him alone. That was back when his house was right across the street from ours, before he’d planted the cornfield over it.
Now, it’s important to note that Mr. Carlin was nearing eighty, and my mother told me that this all happened when he was a young man. I suspect a good fifty years had passed from the time his home burned to the ground, snuffing out the lives of his family, and the summer that I met David.
It was the first Monday afternoon of summer, I was especially happy because I hadn't had to go to school, and at the time, the first Monday was something of a commodity. I'd taken my pink bike with pretty red ribbons on the handlebars for a ride in the long driveway. But being the spunky six-year-old I was, I’d grown tired of doing circles just outside of my house. I craved adventure. Or at the very least, a chance to poke and prod spiders at the bridge.
I knew there was no chance of my mom or dad allowing me to go down to the bridge by myself, but what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. My dad was off on the farm, doing whatever it was he did, but my mom was still inside, which meant I couldn't go. Not yet.
I bided my time, doing circles in the driveway until I watched my mom drive away, heading toward her church group. I saw my chance, and I took it. It was late afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky, beating down, unforgivingly upon me. Jack, my oldest brother, was shirtless, and tossing large bales of hay onto a wagon. I rode up to him, and sweetly as I could muster, I begged for permission to go, reminding him that the bridge was still in his sight, and barely fifty yards from our home. Jack’s lips pressed together in a thin line, like they usually did when he was thinking. His eyes narrowed and he looked back toward the barn. “Dad doesn’t like you goin’ off on your own, you know that. He'll want one of us to go with you.”
My lower lip folded out into a pout, and I gave him the sad eyes I’d spent weeks perfecting in the mirror. “I know,” I whined. “But you’re busy, and Jim is with dad, and I don’t even know where Johnny is. Please? I’ve been in the houseall day helping mom with cleaning. I even scrubbed the walls, Jack! The walls!” I was acting as if I’d been done a grave injustice, when in all reality, mom and I scrubbed the walls once a month. Between a toddler brother and three older siblings, the walls were always getting filthy.
But Jack didn’t know that.
My oldest brother’s gaze fell upon me. And I looked up into his green eyes, giving him the most pathetic whimper. He looked over his shoulder one more time, in search of our father, who was nowhere to be seen.
I knew I had him in the palm of my hand. The thing about being an only sister in a house full of boys, is that they developed this weird need to keep me safe, and also happy. And sometimes that extended out to them letting me do things I knew I shouldn’t have done.
“Alright, Jazzy,” He said, using the nickname I despised so much. It made me sound like a baby. I wasn’t a baby anymore. “But just this once, and if you get caught, don’t tell dad that I was the one to tell you it was okay. Alright?”
I jumped up excitedly. “Yes!” I cried happily, before hopping on my bike, and peddling as fast I could down the gravel driveway. My plan was to get the hell out of there before Jack came to his senses and realized my dad would have murdered him for letting me go off on my own. We lived under strict rules, no one younger than Jim (at age ten) was allowed to go anywhere on their own. Even if it was just down the road. My father was a strong believer in the buddy system. His worries didn’t stem from an area riddled with crime, but instead, the simple fact that it was summer. Summer meant migrant workers, and migrant workers meant a bunch of people around Mr. Carlin’s house that no one in the family knew.
I managed to get my little butt all the way down to the bridge without Jack calling me back, or dad coming out of the barn, and throwing a tantrum.
Once there, I spent my few precious moments of freedom twirling thin sticks into the sticky spider webs. At the first few nudges, the spiders would get excited. They’d glide across their webs in a graceful display that I can only describe as beautiful. Their small, shiny front legs poked and prodded at the stick, as it tried to decide what was invading its space, and ruining its home. After several seconds of trying to decide what it was, the spiders would often limb off their web, and explore the stick, giving me a chance to put my palm below them, and wait patiently for it to descend down, and tickle my skin with their tiny prodding legs.
My mother was terrified of spiders. My brothers, not wanting me to inherit her debilitating fear, had taught me that they were nothing more than hairy bugs. I thought them to be endearing, which was admittedly strange for a small girl.
I was about to let my fifth spider of the day go in the weeds beside the metal posts of the bridge when a small voice drew me out of my own musings. “Is that a spider?” It asked incredulously. I stood up and turned around only to find a boy, probably a year or two older than myself standing just a few feet away from me. His eyes were locked onto the spider that was now dangling from my fingertip. He gave me a toothy grin as I stared up to him. “Yep.” I answered, very used to people being overly critical of a weird girl who liked arachnids.
“That’s cool. I love bugs.” He admitted.
My eyes lit up. “I do too!” I gushed happily. “My name’s Jasmine. What’s yours?” I asked, using the same old introduction they’d taught us in kindergarten and first grade. “David.” He answered, pronouncing the word funny. He said it Dah-Veed. It took me a full minute to put together that he was Mexican. Which made sense, given his dark hair and skin, something not often seen in the area I lived in.
“Wanna play?” I asked, handing the boy a stick. He said he did, and there we stood, shoulder to shoulder, disrupting webs, and talking about the pretty designs on the backs of the spiders.
Soon enough we’d run out of the large, black-furred arachnids to play with, but that didn’t stop David. He went wandering over to the other side of the bridge, and found a sleek, bulbous, fat spider to poke at. “Come here, Jasmine!” He called, laughter in his voice. “Look at how pretty this one is! You should hold it! I’ll pretend to take pictures!”
I was filled with a sudden, tingling sort of fear that started at the base of my spine and moved up to my limbs. My tiny hand reached out, and slapped the stick away from David’s hand. “Ow!” He shouted, glaring at me.
“You can’t touch those David.” I explained, trying to keep my sudden fear and anger in check. I did what I could to explain this to him like my father explained everything to me. Calmly, quietly, without anger or judgement. “You see that red dot on its back? If you look at its belly, it’ll have a red hourglass on it. That means it’s poisonous. It’s a black widow.” I explained. “You can’t touch them. If you get bit, you could die.”
David only laughed, shaking his head. “Who told you that?” He asked. “Whoever it was is lying. My dad I catch these all the time.” He insisted. He spoke with such conviction, and such surety, that I remember thinking that perhaps I’d remembered wrong. Maybe it was the spiders with the yellow dots on their backs that I shouldn’t play with.
I looked over to him. “Are you sure?” I asked. I waited for a nod before I picked up my stick, and began the slow process of twirling it along the web.
The spider had just started poking at the twig when a familiar voice called for me. I spun around, eyes on my house, where Jack stood, waving his arms. “Come inside! It’s time for dinner!”
“Can I bring my friend?” I shouted back.
Jack paused for a long time, eyes on David and I before he nodded. “Sure. Why not?” He asked. “I’ll ask mom to set another place.”
I threw the stick to the ground, abandoning the spider. I turned back to David, who for one reason or another, looked a little angry. I brushed it off, not knowing, or really caring why he might be upset. “Do you want to come inside for dinner?” I asked.
David’s features slowly began to melt into the same pleasant look he’d worn since we’d met. He gave a nod. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Do you need to ask your mom or dad?” I asked, as I lifted my bike from the ground. David shook his head. “No. My dad won’t worry unless I’m out past dark.” He promised. At only five pm, there was still plenty of summer sun left in the sky.
Together, we walked down the road, and across the driveway. I left my bike in the garage, and then the two of us went inside. “Hey mom!” I shouted, as I entered the home. I pointed over to David. “This is Dah-Veed.” I said, using his pronunciation of the word. “I met him by the bridge.” I explained. “His dad won’t care if he’s here as long as he’s home by dark. Can he stay for dinner?” My mom turned to us, her eyes sparkling with amusement and happiness, probably because for the first time in forever I’d brought home a friend. I knew from experience, that because David was a boy, the whole house was going to be making jokes about us dating or getting married, but I didn’t think I cared. “Sure he can stay.” Mom answered, with a nod.
“Thanks!” I chirped.
“Thank you, ma’am.” David said, a smile on his lips, using the title that most kids used when speaking to an adult.
“You’re welcome!” My mom sang back, as she grabbed up a heaping glass bowl of potatoes from the counter and walked them into the dining room. Everyone else was already sitting, expectant eyes on David and I as we walked through the threshold.
Confusion washed over the faces of my older family members, while Johnny – who was only two years older than myself - laughed, and mumbled something under his breath about me not being able to find a real friend.
I looked over to David, who, to my dismay, looked entirely ashamed. I had never been so livid in my whole life. Johnny’s friends were all terribly racist, and while my mom and dad did what they could to stop the behavior, a racist comment, much like this one, occasionally slipped out. I glared at him, but my father was the one to speak. “Johnny!” He snapped. “That isn’t nice! Apologize!” He demanded.
Johnny looked back at us with irritation written across his features. “Sorry.” He sneered. He didn’t mean the apology, that much was positively certain, but no one else bothered to tell him off, so David and I simply took our seats quietly, right beside one another. David glared at Johnny for several seconds, but Johnny made a point of completely ignoring him.
“So, David, where are you from?” My mother asked.
“Mexico.” David answered. “My dad and I come here every year in the summer so my dad can work. Sometimes I help too.” He answered.
“Oh, that’s very interesting!” My mother chirped, before looking over to meet my eyes. “How did you and David meet?” She asked.
I knew exactly where this was going, and I wasn’t having any of it. “Mom! We aren’t dating!” I insisted.
My mother raised her arms in surrender. “No one said you were. I just asked where you met.”
“By the bridge.” David answered, I glanced over to him, my mouth filled with my mother’s famous herb and garlic mashed potatoes. David was sitting politely with his hands folded in his lap. For one reason or another, he hadn’t touched his food. In fact, his eyes were still locked on Johnny, who only now seemed to even notice us. His brows furrowed in response, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Yeah, by the bridge.” I answered, once my mouth was no longer filled with potatoes. I watched slow anger rise up in my dad’s face, and Jack shift uncomfortably in his seat. My father opened his mouth, probably to ask why I thought it was a good idea to go out to the bridge by myself. Suddenly I remembered the spider, and while I hadn’t intended to cut him off, I also hadn’t grown enough to develop the patience needed to wait for someone else to speak while something so pressing was searing into my brain. “Hey, what spiders are the black widows?” I asked, are they the ones with the yellow dot? Or the red dot?” I asked.
My father’s brows shot up. I watched Jack visibly relax into his seat. He tossed me a grateful look. “Red dot.” Dad answered, his voice leaving no room for argument or uncertainty. I could tell, in that moment, that he’d entirely forgotten the bridge, his mind now on spiders, and keeping me away from the more dangerous ones. “Why? Did you see one?” He asked.
“Yeah, David thought we could play with it, but I told him we couldn’t.” I left out the part where I decided to do it anyway. I hadn’t touched it after all. There was no chance it had somehow bitten and poisoned me.
“You and David stay away from those.” Dad said, his eyes narrowed to the two of us.
“Yes, sir.” We echoed. My father didn’t often look angry, so, in the rare occasions like this one, I was sure to listen to him.
Dinner passed quickly, and David and I were told to go outside and play, but to stay clear of spiders. David was acting really weird that night, almost angry. I wondered if it was because dad had yelled at us. I put the thought out of my mind, and played until the sun touched the horizon, when David said he needed to go, and my mother called me inside.
The next several weeks passed without incident. David started coming over every day, becoming a regular fixture in the house. We’d play outside, we went with Jim and Jack a few times to go fishing, we even accompanied mom into town once to go shopping. Mom was nice enough to buy us both an ice cream. Unfortunately, the moment we got outside, David dropped his. He looked so crushed, and so embarrassed about the whole thing that I quickly offered to share my own. He took me up on the offer, and my mom was sure to tell me how nice I was being.
I started drawing pictures of David and I together. I was rather talented of an artist at my meager six years of age. What I mean by this, is that my stick figures had both the proper color of skin and hair. And we were both clothed.
David had quickly become my best friend. It wasn’t odd for him to come over and stay from daybreak to sundown. Sometimes he’d be waiting for me outside when I woke up, I’d run to the door, fling it open, and tell him to come in. He always helped with chores, even though mom said he didn’t have to.
We’d been friends for nearly two full months when he first breached the subject of a sleepover with me. I agreed, and hastily ran inside to ask my mom and dad, who were sitting at the table discussing bills. They agreed, but on the condition that he slept downstairs on the couch, and that he and I cleaned up after ourselves.
That evening, after dinner, and a few more snarky remarks from Johnny (Who was good at making David feel bad about himself. Something that pissed me off to no end.) we got to work on making David’s bed. We made a veritable fort, that we decided we’d play in before we went to bed. We’d decided we were in the ocean. David and I were pirates, looking for buried treasure. We searched high and low, crash landing on no less than five islands, before our fun was cut short at around nine pm, nearly a full hour after my normal bedtime.
I fell asleep with thoughts of our adventures dancing through my mind. We’d done so much in the past two months. I felt so lucky to have met David. I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I will now. I had quite a crush on him.
I was woken from my slumber in the middle of the night by a large crash, and a howling scream. Fear, the likes of which I’d never experienced before, coursed through my body as I threw my blankets off myself, and joined the ranks of my parents and older siblings as we rushed down the hall. Joey, my only younger brother, could be heard crying from his bedroom. Jim was quick to rush to him, his soothing voice could be heard through the hallway as he assured the three-year-old that everything was okay.
I remember my Jack stopping me just as I’d hit the banister. “Whoa there, Jazzy.” He said, his voice was too quiet, too calm. Everyone else sounded frantic, and someone downstairs was crying. I was terrified that David had gotten hurt.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Jack paused, his eyes moving back to the staircase before looking back at me. “Johnny just fell down the stairs. He’ll be okay.” He promised.
I watched him carefully. If he was okay, and nothing was wrong, then why couldn’t I go see? It didn’t make any sense. And then, one shouted sentence made everything clear. “I CAN SEE MY BONE!” Johnny wailed from the base of the stairs.
Jack winced, and my heart skipped a beat. “Liar!” I hissed. “He’s not okay!” Unshed tears began to well up in my eyes, as Jack tried to direct me back to my bedroom. I wasn’t having any of it. I tried to push my way back toward the stairwell, but I was barely forty pounds, standing several inches shorter than most of my peers. Jack had taken after my father. He was more than six feet tall, and weighed at least one hundred fifty pounds. After several long seconds of squirming, and struggling against his vice-like grip, I took to screaming. “I wanna make sure Johnny’s okay!”
“What if I come with you?” A very groggy David asked from the staircase, as he walked up, dodging body after body of worried family members..
I looked up to Jack. “Is that okay?” I asked, wiping new tears away from my eyes with the sleeve of my pajamas. “Can I go to my room with David?”
Jack swiped black hair back with his hand, and gave a nod. He leaned down, and kissed my forehead. “Sure, Jazzy. Sure.” He answered. “Dad and mom are gonna take Johnny to the hospital. If you or David need anything, you can come and get me. Okay?” He asked.
David and I nodded, before heading back to my bedroom. We laid down in my bed, head to foot, and talked. We talked about how Johnny’s arm looked. David had seen it on his way up, he said the bone was jutting out of the wrist, and looked whiter than anything he’d ever seen. He told me my mom put his arm the pink pillow that we all hated, and she and my dad ushered him outside. We stayed up until sunrise touched the dark sky. David talked, all the while, trying to make me feel better. He assured me that Johnny was fine. He’d be okay. He just needed a cast, and probably some stitches.
David had a really funny way of always making me feel better.
Over the course of the next few days, Johnny went on and on and on about how he’d been pushed down the stairs. He blamed Jim, but he and Jack shared a room, and Jack assured him that he’d been sleeping the whole time. He’d only woken seconds after Jack did. All the same, Johnny was certain it had been Jim, because he said he saw someone just a little shorter than himself, right behind him when it happened. Despite Jim being a full two years older than Johnny, Jim, like me, was short for his age. While Johnny and Jack were both giants.
Johnny and Jim fought for days after that. Always arguing. Always shouting at each other. At one point, Johnny actually took a swing at him. Jim managed to dodge the blow, but dad had to intervene. He took them both to the kitchen to talk. No one was supposed to listen in when someone got in trouble, but I was curious kid, and decided Ineeded to know what was being said. David and I stood in the long weeds that had once been part of the flower garden. The beautiful bursts of violet, red and pink had eventually been taken over, and drown out, by chickweeds and dandelions, after Joey was born, and mom suddenly didn’t have time to tend to flowers. Our backs were against the front paneling, just below the opened window. We made no noise as we listened intently to what was being said.
Dad questioned Jim over and over about what had happened, but Jim insisted he was asleep. Johnny called him a liar a few times, and eventually, Jim broke down. I’d never heard Jim cry before. It was heartbreaking. He asked over and over why no one believed him, reminding dad that Jack had vouched for him.
Dad apologized, but Jim wasn’t having any of it. He asked to go to his room. I could tell dad felt bad, just by the way he fell silent, likely nodding his head in response. The squeak of the chair against linoleum was suddenly the only sound in the kitchen. After a solid minute of silence, Johnny’s voice rang out. “Someone shorter than me pushed me.” He insisted. “It had to be either Jim or Jasmine.” I’d heard enough at that point. Looking back, I wish I would have paid more attention to what was being said. But as it was, I began to step away. I stopped, when I caught sight of something moving in front of me.
Suddenly, the world ceased to exist. Every noise, except the rush of my own blood behind my eardrums, faded away. I was hyper-aware of my own heartbeat, and the rapid, ragged breaths that tore through my chest.
I’ve always loved the way snakes move. It’s so pretty. So graceful. They have a quiet elegance about them. But this snake made that dizzying, heart-pounding sort of fear creep up on me. My hands went numb, my breath hitched, and I let out a small, distinctly feminine squeak. David looked down, a wide, genuine smile brushed across his lips. “Hey! Look! A King snake!” He said happily.
“That’s not a King snake.” I whispered, keeping myself as still as possible. “It’s red, yellow and black. It’s a Coral snake. They’re poisonous!” My voice was tight and pinched. I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. I kept imagining it rearing up and striking. Biting me down to the bone, and stopping my heart with its poison.
“No it isn’t.” David insisted, as he reached down to grab it by the back of the neck. Aside from becoming very still, it didn’t react. It acted as though it hadn’t even noticed his presence. “See?” He asked. “They’re nice. I catch these all the time back home in Mexico. You can pick it up. It won’t hurt you.”
I looked at him with hesitance in my eyes. He’d been wrong about the spider. Why wouldn’t he be wrong about this? David rolled his eyes, and began to pet it with his free hand. “See? It’s fine. Just pick it up. I’ll keep its head steady.” He promised.
I should have listened to my gut. I should have walked away right then and there. But I didn’t. My six-year-old brain was insisting that if David could touch it, so could I. Slowly, so as not to scare it, and make it wiggle free of David’s grasp, I bent down, my arm outstretched.
“Jasmine!” Came a frantic shout from my left. David and I both jumped up. The snake bolted free, heading straight toward me. I shrieked. Looking from the snake to my now terrified brother. Jack grabbed a nearby shovel, and sprinted toward me. “Stay still! Stay still!” He shouted. David was halfway across the driveway. “Run!” He shouted. “Run! Before it bites you!” Had I been thinking clearly, alarms would have been going off in my head. If it was King snake, if David knew this, then why did I have to run?
But I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was caught in the moment. My heart was in my throat. My hands were clammy and shaking. I felt like I was going to puke. Jack was too far away to help. The snake rose up on its belly, bobbing back and forth as most snakes will before they strike. “RUN!” Came David’s command again.
I did.
I got two steps away when I felt something hit the back of my shoe. I let out a howl of terror.
THWACK
Before the snake had a chance to strike a second time, Jack’s shovel buried its head into the ground. The snake’s body writhed and struggled beneath the heavy metal. Its tail whipped the ground beneath it, and flattened out chickweed. Jack stomped on the metal part of the shovel over and over, causing the crunch of breaking bones to echo into the pseudo-silence.
The familiar sound of the screen door slamming caused me to jump, and spin to face the front of the house. My dad rounded the corner, trailed by my mother, both demanding what the noise was about. Jack lifted the shovel and hit the snake a few times just to be certain before he scooped up the corpse and showed my father. “Dummy nearly got herself killed. She tried to pick this thing up.” He answered.
All the color leaked from my parents’ faces, as they stared down at the three-foot behemoth. “Jasmine!” My mom shouted, her eyes alive with fear as she stared over to David and I. “You know what a Coral snake looks like!”
My bottom lip quivered and tears spilled down my cheeks. “I thought it was a King snake.” I insisted. “I really did.”
“Jasmine, we don’t have king snakes around here.” My father explained, the fear had been replaced by a quiet sort of anger. I knew I was in for it, and as shameful as it is to admit, I didn’t want to go down alone.
“David told me it was!” I shouted. David’s eyes widened, and he glared death at me as I confessed to everything. “He told me it was King snake! He told me to pick it up! He told me to run!”
“Enough!” My dad shouted. “If David is going to get you hurt, then he can’t come over anymore!” He boomed. It was the sort of angry shouting that seemed to shake the whole world. I’d never heard my father yell before. To say I was terrified is an understatement. “You hear that David?” My father asked, glaring daggers at the two of us. “You aren’t welcome here anymore!”
David grabbed my hand, tears in his eyes. He pulled me toward the end of the driveway. “Lets go!” He shouted. I tried to stop, but David was strong. So much stronger than I remembered him being. He pulled me across gravel, forcing me to go.
“Get your ass back here, Jasmine!” My father roared. He’d never sworn before that point. Suddenly, I stopped struggling, and began sprinting right beside David. I’d never been spanked. Not once. But I knew from the stories Jack had told me about when he was little, that that’s what was about to happen.
“Where are we going?” I asked, as our shoes bounced against the pavement of the road. My heart was clawing at my chest, begging to be freed. My whole body thrummed with excitement and fear. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down my face.
“Into the cornfield!” David shouted back. “We’ll go find my dad! He won’t let your dad hurt us!” He promised. Looking back now, I know that under normal circumstances, I’d never run from my father. I’d never been abused, and had no reason to fear him. But in that moment, I was terrified. Heavy footfalls exploded from behind us, but I never looked back. I slipped into the cornfield behind David. We dodged large stalks of corn, running this way and that, trying to put as much distance between us and the footfalls as we could.
I shrieked when something hard grabbed my shoulder. Whoever it was, forced me to stop. David continued to pull at my arm. It felt as though he was going to rip it from its socket. I howled in agony, my limbs wildly swinging as I tried to prevent myself from being stolen away from my best friend, and the promised safety of his father.
“Holy fuck!” Jack breathed. It was, with those words, that sudden clarity settled over me. Something was very wrong. Jack didn’t swear. My father forbade it. Jack's arms suddenly wrapped around my waist. “Holy fuck!” He repeated. Dread filled my small body. Jack wouldn’t have sworn unless something was terribly wrong.
I stopped thrashing. I looked up to Jack. I’ll never forget what I saw in that moment. Jack’s eyes were wide with fear. His mouth was agape. His hands were shaking. Sweat glistened upon his brow. I’d never seen my older brother afraid of anything. In my eyes, Jack was just as superhuman and invincible as my father was. They were both massive men, more than six feet tall. Both rippling with muscles. Both with beards, and calloused hands.
Something had frightened Jack, and as far as I was concerned, if it was enough to frighten him, we were all in trouble. I scanned the field around us, but saw absolutely nothing. My eyes landed on David, who must have seen the same thing Jack did, because he let me go, and ran away. “NO!” I shouted. “David! Come ba-“
Jack clamped a hand over my mouth, stifling my urgent cries. If there was something in the cornfield with us, David shouldn’t have gone off alone. I considered biting Jack’s hand, just so I could call out to my friend. But just as I managed to get a small piece of flesh between my teeth, Jack began to swear again. “Shit!” He squeaked, tightening his grip on me. The absolute fear in his voice stopped me from my endeavor. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but his hand was still firmly clamped against my mouth. “DAD!” He shouted, as he sprinted toward the road.
“What? Did you find her?” Dad shouted back. I was being jostled back and forth, the motion of it all making me sick to my stomach. I tried to reach the ground, so I could run beside Jack instead of being carried. But Jack had me pressed against his chest, my feet dangling helplessly above the dirt. “DAD!” He shouted again. “DAD!” His voice broke, and I looked up. A fresh wave of nausea washed over me when I realized he was crying. “DAD!”
My dad’s voice became frantic as the two of them searched for one another. Finally we broke free of the cornfield just as my dad took a step in. “DON’T GO IN THERE!” Jack shouted, tears streaming down his face. My dad’s face paled for the second time that morning. I don’t think he’d ever seen his adult son cry. My mother was in a panic behind him, demanding what had happened. Jack shouted again that dad needed to get out of the cornfield. My father eventually stepped away, humoring my brother. My parents flanked him as we all sprinted back toward the house.
Jack practically dropped me onto the kitchen floor, but I didn’t really notice. I was too busy watching him cry, and shake, and try to stutter out things that just weren’t making sense. Eventually, my eldest brother, that I’d come to think of more as a god than a man, collapsed onto the ground. He cried into himself. Curled up in a ball like a scorned toddler. That image is forever burned into my brain. The utter helplessness that radiated off him. The agony that was etched into each of his features. It’s maddening to think of, even now.
After what felt like hours of my brother sobbing on the ground, my mother rubbing his back, and cooing soft words, he composed himself enough to speak. “Look at her arm! Look at her arm!” He shouted, his hand shot out to grab my own. He pulled me toward himself. My father stepped toward us. I shrank away, unsure of what to expect from him. But the look of worry in his eyes, quelled any fears I had of physical punishment.
“What happened?” He asked, staring down at the hand-print shaped bruise that David had left on my arm. I hadn’t noticed it until that moment. Once pointed out to me, I remember feeling more confused than frightened or angry. I eyed it curiously. I’d never bruised so easily before. What’s more, I’d never gotten a bruise that large before. “Jasmine?” My dad asked, cupping my chin in his hand, he forced my head up, and stared down at me with green eyes. “What happened?”
I gazed back at him dumbfounded. Why was he concerned with a bruise? Odd as it may have been, it wasn’t important. Jack and David had seen something terrible in the cornfield. Why weren’t they storming outside, guns in tow? Why weren’t they shooting whatever had my brother so frightened? Mountain lions were prevalent in the area, I assumed he’d seen one of them stalking us. Or perhaps he’d seen a raccoon, wobbling with the tell-tale signs of rabies. My dad had shot one of those once in the backyard. My mother had cried for hours afterward. It seemed logical that if it brought her to tears, it would do the same to Jack.
Despite the utter confusion that plagued my young mind, I answered him. I just assumed we’d get to whatever it was that happened as soon as he knew I was okay. “David tried to pull me-“ I had intended to tell him the whole story about how David and Jack had treated me like a ragdoll and played a quick game of tug of war, before whatever it was that was in the cornfield had scared him away.
“No! Jasmine, tell me what really happened!” Dad shouted again. I jumped, pulling my arm back, not really understanding why I was in trouble.
“That is what happened!” Jack said, his voice obtund, and distant. He sounded distraught, broken, and a little angry.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s what happened’?” My father demanded. My mind was spinning. Why were we talking about David? Why did anyone care about what happened between me and David? Why was this what we were talking about?
“I MEAN WHAT I SAID!” Jack shouted, burying his face in hands. I jumped, letting out a small squeak as I put a few feet between myself and the cluster of family members. No one yelled at dad. No one That was suicide.
But dad didn’t get angry. He didn’t shout. He didn’t threaten to kick Jack out. Instead, his features crumpled, and he looked back to me. “Jasmine, tell me what happened.” He said, there was something about his voice that made my stomach hurt again.
“I JUST TOLD YOU!” Jack shouted. Standing up suddenly from his place on the kitchen floor. He stabbed a hand at the refrigerator, to the picture of David and I holding hands. “He looked just like her fucking drawings!” My heart leapt. Jack swore again. But as my eyes went over to my dad, I realized he wasn’t angry. He acted as though he hadn’t even heard the word. His features were pale, and his hands shook at his sides. “Skinny kid, brown skin, black hair, jeans, red shirt.” It was in that moment, that something struck me. I’d never thought much about it before, but the way Jack shouted about David’s clothes made me realize I’d never seen him outside of the red t-shirt and dirty jeans. “But…” Jack’s voice drew me out of my thoughts. “But…” His voice broke, and he buried his face in his hands again, tears streaming down his face.
“What?” My mother asked. “Jack! What!”
Jack looked up to them, his face white as sheet. Tears stained his cheeks, and ran into his beard. His voice trembled. “He didn’t have any eyes.”
Submitted December 02, 2016 at 11:54PM by TheLovelyFreja http://ift.tt/2gVCIbn nosleep
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