The Brand Ch. 13

"Hey!" Victria shouted.

"This is what happens when you give in to desire. You create a negative chaining effect. You wanted. I wanted to fulfill your want. I try to help you understand why you're wrong, and then you become more wrong. Life is all you have. It is the paradise you taint with the toxicity you invite. It defeats the purpose of advancement as a woman, as a human being."

Birds twittered in the sudden silence. A color rose in Glory's cheeks. Breathing deeply, she stared at Victria, her eyes ready, daring. Victria stared back, narrow eyed, her face flushed with the color of both anger and shame, her fingers strangling the grips of her crutches.

"Look Doll Face!" Victria uttered in a measured, patient tone, "Let's just make the best of this bull shit! You were paid to help us, and well: I'm making progress. But, zombie Mel over there, I don't know what to think anymore. Maybe I need to take her out of here, get her back somewhere where they can change her mind with something a little stronger than fucking fruits, dried flowers and vegetables! All I know is, I didn't ask for any eastern philosophical indoctrination. And frankly, I'm not sure I even want to understand the world. It's been a bit too big for me to get my head around lately. I just want-"

Pausing, Victria looked away from Glory, and then craned her head toward Melody. You couldn't just shut up and let me enjoy something real for just a little while, she thought. I don't need this shit, Glory. I don't know what to do. I don't want to take her back to my house. I don't want Vance or Mom taking care of us for the rest of our fucking lives. Oh my God, this sucks.

"Why did you think it was okay," Glory said suddenly, "To scream those things at Melody the way you did?

Victria looked down.

"So you heard that." She said.

"I heard it. Grandmother heard it. Why?"

Victria met Glory's gaze again.

"Because she's mine." Victria answered, her eyes narrow and glaring, "Because she belongs to me."

Glory stared, fury in her own eyes.

"There is only one woman in the world," she said, "And she is Grandmother. There is only one woman in the world and she is Melody. There is only one woman in the world and she is you."

Victria's brow furrowed as she stared at the tall, beautiful woman.

"Which means?" she asked, sighing.

Glory smiled a small, confident smile and said:

"It means that I can't wait until you get back up to 100 % so I can kick your ass."

Victria raised an eye brow. Was that code, she thought, that actually meant that you can't wait to jump my bones?

A moment passed. Neither spoke as Victria held herself up with her crutches and Glory held the bag of junk food and soda before her chest.

"Can I have a sip of soda, please?" asked Victria, not looking away.

It was Glory who then gave an exasperated sigh before extending the food and the cup. Victria took it and nodded in gratitude. Glory stepped away, glanced toward Melody, but then suddenly turned her gaze again and bolted past Victria.

"Spanky! No!" growled Glory when she'd arrived at the ruined oriole nest.

The little dog rose quickly from where he'd been lying beside it, the fishing line hanging from his mouth. Oops, thought Victria. Weird shit. And just imagine. If I wasn't here that wouldn't have been my fault. It would have been all on Mother Nature. Maybe that's it. Everything's her fault, and I'm totally innocent because the great Mother has her plan. Victria watched Glory carefully pulling the fishing line from Spanky's gullet. Dumb ass dog, she mused. Glory shouted for Spanky to stop chewing on the bird's skull. Reluctantly, he gave it up, and then returned to his big stick by Melody. The woman examined the scene and what remained of the oriole's head.

"Shit Victria!" Glory sang sorrowfully, turning to meet her gaze, "Where's the rest of the friggin' bird?"

"Actually," Victria answered, "A big ol' crow took it."

Glory sighed, and then got back to her feet. She moved off toward Melody. Victria, her appetite more or less intact, continued to devour her burger and fries.

"Grandmother said it was high time you ladies washed up," Glory intoned, "She wants me to take care of you guys like last time."

"But Maw, I don't want to take a bath." Victria uttered in her own mulling sing song.

"You two haven't washed in a month. You both smell like ass."

"I guess." Victria sighed, "I can wash myself this time."

"Fine." Agreed Glory as she found the remote to Melody's chair, "You do that. Come on Mel. Let's go.

It wasn't as if Victria hadn't washed herself the last time. At least that was how she'd ended up. Glory had carried her into the cabin's bathroom, which looked exactly like a home version of what one might find as an accommodation at some public beach, cement floor, cedar planks, and rails around the walls, sink, toilet and a single, curtainless shower.

Glory had carried Victria's half naked body to the toilet, and then sat her there. She was vividly embarrassed and uncomfortable. She'd gently pushed Glory's hands back and asked for her poncho. She'd undressed the rest of the way underneath it, and washed herself that way too. Meanwhile, Victria was acutely aware of Glory having undressed herself down to her bra and panties, and then removing all of Melody's clothes. Victria watched as Glory's eyes never left Melody's as she undressed her and then effortlessly carried her to a stool she'd set on the cement floor of the shower.

The experience was awkward and depressing for so many reasons. It hurt Victria, broke her heart, to be so close to Melody, to have her naked body at an arm's length and to be unable to touch it out of respect for her physical lack of cooperation and out of respect for Grandmother's maternal generosity. It cut her heart to observe how gently, like a lover, Glory handled Melody, moving her parts apart, washing her lovely skin and hair with her ginger hands. There was Melody's mental distance, Victria's negative self-perception, Glory's attractiveness, her strength, her health, her body, Victria's desire to touch and be touched by someone, anyone, her guilt, her ragged, scarred, lower legs that she herself didn't want to look at, it all devastated her so. The proximity of their three bodies together in the small bathroom had agonized Victria so profoundly that she was certain that she would wait her turn next time and wash alone. There had been born an ache in Victria's chest, a weighty fear of the prospect of even coming close to going through such an experience again. She'd even gone so far as to wish that she too had retreated to some deep, dark emotionless place inside herself.

At a leisurely pace, they walked the three quarter mile back to the cabin. They stopped at the ridge that looked over Grandmother's, where Glory and Victria watched the old woman steadily working at cleaning out what remained in her winter garden. Grandmother's cold frame was a low sort of green house, its glass roof facing the east. Its rear wall, the highest side, had its back to the north. Due to its construction and size, forty by forty feet, Grandmother grew fresh greens all winter for their consumption. It had amazed Victria, having gone out on some of the coldest mornings ever, in spite of the sun's light, and seeing the lush greens of summer thriving, surrounded by snow and ice, beneath gleaming panes of glass.

As she, Glory and Melody approached, Grandmother was filling the space with fresh beds of seedlings and newly seeded peat pots. Victria, as she was stowing the remainder of her unauthorized meal at the base of the passenger seat of Glory's Nissan, met the old woman's gaze. There was little more than disappointment and disapproval in her old teacher's eyes. She'd never once spoken a single word for the entire time of their company. But, Grandmother had said so much through action; off hand gestures, nods for yes and wags for no, quick glances and extended stares, how she cooked and cleaned almost non-stop, what she'd shown her in the winter garden and to the few pages from her journal she'd let Victria read in order to convey one lesson or another.

It was through Grandmother's silence and patience that Victria now understood what to put together for an optimal diet and how to cook it up. She also knew how she should treat herself and others: no poisonous food, no poisonous behavior and no poisonous relationships. There it was, all inside her head and yet still miles from her heart. It was if her heart was encased, bound by barbed wire, its veins and arteries reaching out like the arms and franticly wiggling fingers of some Nazi prison camp child. What if I want my prison, Victria thought. What if I want my fast food? What if I want to make Voodoo dolls of Melody and me and keep us alive and in pain with gleaming pins and bright red ribbons? What if I want to start a new life, all by myself? What if I just want to walk away? Because it still hurts to bad, inside and out, to walk away.

Victria looked away from the old woman and followed Glory around the side of the cabin. Once inside, she threw herself upon her bed and gingerly pulled her legs up behind her. She lay there for a time, staring at the bare oak walls and listened. She knew what the sounds were: Glory undressing herself down to her skivvies, undressing Melody down to nothing, picking her dead weight body out of her chair, and then carrying it into the bathroom. Victria stared at the wall, at its fine grains, and wondered what Melody might be thinking, if she was thinking anything at all, over what Glory might be thinking. Had she undressed herself down instead to her own nakedness?

Would she do that in the bathroom, behind the door? Would she touch Melody differently, just even a little bit differently? Had Glory looked back as she stepped toward the bathroom? Victria suddenly heard the door being closed, its quiet wood to wood brushing together, like dry naked skin to dry naked skin. It filled her mind with its finality. What would she do? What could she do? Slowly, she closed her eyes and conjured a fantasy of the Melody she knew, aware and engaged, giving herself up to Glory, the tall, beautiful woman holding her face between her hands and kissing her with slow deliberation.

4

Victria woke in the dark. I was tired as hell. What woke me up? She sat immediately upright and looked right. There was light in the dark, but she couldn't tell from where. Melody was in her bed, looking not unlike a pretty corpse on a mortician's table. Spanky was curled up by her feet. Victria listened to the silence and stared around the softly glowing darkness. What happened?

Hours ago, Glory had washed and dressed Melody. Grandmother had come in to prepare dinner while Victria washed herself. Glory had stayed on long enough to eat with them. Then she'd left and Grandmother had handed Victria a watering can, and then pointed toward the cold frame. Victria did as she was directed, came back into the cabin and found Grandmother seated in her rocker by Melody, busily writing in her journal. At some point, bored with her own doodling in a sketch book, Victria had fallen asleep. Now, she began to hear the distant howls of dogs, and came to realize that the front door was wide open.

She reached down to the floor beside her bed and pulled up her crutches. Dressed in one of Glory's old sleeping gowns, one that Grandmother had altered for Victria's height, she carefully made her way around the room, and then to the open front door. Victria smelled the night air, peered out into the bright night scape, glanced once over her shoulder, and then stepped out of the cabin. Once at the foot of the ramp, she looked left and then right. The wind, out of the north, picked up then. There was the sudden clucking purr of one of the chickens. Victria headed in that direction.

What the hell. Where's the old lady? She's not feeding the fowl at this hour, is she? She looked up at the moon then and had to squint slightly from its intensity. It was beautiful. Victria could make out craters. She'd never seen craters before nor, for that matter, had she ever taken the time to stare so long at a full moon. Maybe Grandmother's out somewhere on the trail, taking a leisurely stroll. God, you can see everything out here. But, why would she leave the door wide open?

The moon peered down at her like a great red tinged eye, its blue crater iris, staring off just left of center. Victria looked down, and then ahead to the chicken's coop. Just outside the gate, a few of the dogs laying at her feet, stood the old woman. She had her back to Victria and she was staring at the bright moon. The dogs were looking up too, all silent and alert. There was something else, some other element to the scene. There was a stump, the same stump that had always been there, at least for the time that Victria had been there. It was ahead of Grandmother and off to the right, in front of the chicken's pen. Only this time, there was a hatchet, the bottom corner of its blade deep in the stump's surface, its handle up and angled and waiting to fit in someone's hands.

Victria thought to speak, but a howl in the distance, but not as far away as she'd first heard, echoed through the night. Another followed. The dogs around Grandmother's feet began to growl deep in their throats. Suddenly, from Victria's right field of view, Spanky came around to sit beside one of the larger dogs. Melody scowled at him. You little shit, she thought, you left her alone. Presently, Victria turned her attention back toward Grandmother, at the great bright moon, and then at the old woman again.

Watching the woman's long grey moss hair, Victria realized that it was shaking, and then she saw that her arms were shaking to, not quite epileptic but as if possessed and poised to speak in some holy tongue. Oh no, she thought. What's happening now? It was then that the dogs around the old woman got to their feet. In the instant after that, Victria saw the line of gleaming grey coyotes form along the ridge that overlooked the cabin. There were maybe eighteen or twenty that she could see. Grandmother lumbered forward, toward the chicken's gate. The old woman's dogs stayed close, but moved with their backs to her, peering up at the coyotes, their growls rumbling in their chests.

Victria couldn't decide where to look next or for how long. The coyotes advanced down the hill. The cabin's front door was still open. Grandmother's dogs advanced to meet the coyotes. The old woman had opened the gate and was heading for her one rooster, a big black rogue of a bird. Victria recalled how he'd always come threateningly close as the old woman went in to gather eggs to watch her, to peck at her hands if he didn't approve. But he never did. He only crowed as cocks crow, pompous and eager at an ungodly half past four in the morning.

No, no, no! Hold on, Victria thought. I can see everything as clear as day under this moon, and the old lady's cock wasn't black. She thought again. Was it a trick of the night? No. Her rooster had been brown and his comb wasn't as full as this one, and this one somehow shown. It's the moon Victria. Don't be crazy.

Grandmother's dogs, more having joined the first contingent, were moving to flank the coyotes. Spanky took up the rear. The night became deafening with the dogs howls and yips. The coyotes uttered not a bark. They only stared back at the dogs, at Grandmother, at Victria, their mouths open like evil joker smiles, and their tongues long, blood red and gleaming wetly in the moon's light. Victria turned, provoked by the sound of the cock. He squawked and screamed, his wings madly beating, stabbing his beak into the back of Grandmother's hands, those very hands gripping the cock's taloned, scratching, feet.

Victria stared wide eyed at his struggle. She looked wildly toward the hatchet. She turned to watch the coyotes moving into an attack formation inside and around the old woman's dogs. She glanced toward the cabin's open door again. Had one gone in? No. Why would it? Victria turned again. Grandmother took up the hatchet in one hand and slammed the cock down onto the stump with the other. Still, the big black rooster screamed.

Pairs and trios of coyotes were dancing around the old woman's shepherds, huskies, and mastiff and wolf hound. Spanky had disappeared. Maybe he went back in, thought Victria. Turning again, she watched Grandmother raise the hatchet, and then watched her bring it quickly back down. The old woman's body shook with rage, with spirit, with possession, Victria had no idea what, as she raised the rooster's flopping, writhing, headless body. Victria was struck perfectly dumb as she stared at Grandmother pointing the cock's still fighting carcass toward the moon overhead, its blood having begun to spurt high and higher from its neck. Then, as the coyotes and the dogs barked and growled with relentless fury, the old woman barreled toward Victria and proceeded to shower her with streaming gouts of the black cock's blood.

She couldn't move, caught in the surprise of the hot essence, black in the light of the moon. On an on, the blood came, soaking her hair, staining her face and drenching the front of her gown. Suddenly seething and tingling throughout her body, Victria stared. She felt her crutches fall away. She heard the yelping and vicious growling of the dogs. She watched Grandmother's face before her. Her eyes were wide and swollen with emotion. She was mouthing something over and over, not speaking. The old woman still held the dead rooster in her hands, looked down at it, and then pulled it close to her breast.

Victria then watched her fall to her knees. She watched the woman hold the dead bird close, cradle it in her arms and begin to rock forward and back. Victria then looked down at her own legs, her own feet. She wiggled her toes. She couldn't remember the last time she was able to wiggle her toes. What in the name of all that is sacred is happening? Victria spun on her feet. She saw that the coyotes had killed or severely wounded most of Grandmother's dogs. Ten or more were eyeing her with their black eyes and wide toothy grins. She breathed deeply, smelling the rooster's blood all over her face.

Abruptly, she dashed back toward the stump. The bloodied hatchet lay on one side. She could see Spanky scampering away from the other side, the rooster's head gripped between his teeth. She flung her night shirt from her body. Naked, Victria took up the hatchet, and returned to where she'd been. Victria was just in time to put herself between Grandmother and the first wave of coyotes. There was no hesitation as she met the first's eyes, and swung the hatchet into the back of his neck.

Effortlessly, she withdrew the blade, and then immediately caught the next in his mouth. A third backed away. The fourth took the blade in his chest as he thought to jump at Victria's throat. Then, as the fifth sprang to put his mouth around one of her upper thighs, Spanky flew from between her legs and caught him in his jugular. Once she'd pushed the forth coyote's carcass off the hatchet, Victria cleaved a great hole in to the side of the sixth.

Grandmother's mastiff, though wounded on the right shoulder and left hip, joinedVictria at her side. He took down the eighth while she chopped at the ninth. Spanky retreated back to the stump and looked on at the fray, the sacrificed cock's head in his mouth. Once the tenth coyote went down, Victria having hacked at its neck until she could pick up its head and throw it at the remaining twelve or so animals, the remaining coyotes stopped their advance. They did not regard each other as they lowered themselves to their haunches or laid down.

Only one creeped forward. Victria knew it was a female. Tentatatively, the coyote advanced toward the mastiff and he advanced toward her. When just two feet apart, the alpha coyote rolled onto her back. The mastiff approached her, sniffed heartily at her sex, and then moved around to nuzzle at her face. Then, as he circled her once, his erection poking long and red from his loins, the former alpha coyote turned again and faced her rump toward the mastiff. Victria held the hatchet tight in her hands as she watched the great dog mount the other.