Page 145 of Mazywood

(No. I’m the one who’s sorry, sweetheart. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know how much it would hurt me to see those memories propped up from a projector, like no time at all had gone by. That anger wasn’t meant for you. But it wasn’t all anger, Johnny: It felt like I could climb back through that screen and all those people I knew would still be alive, my mother and daddy most of all. It’s like if someone had died and you saw them buried and then they knocked on your door as if they never died. It was a shock to me, Johnny. I’m sorry, child. I wish you could have known me when I was still a little girl, before this world ruined me. I wish we could have both played with Scout before I ruined him too.)

Mazelle visited with her grandson in her head for hours to help her forget her pain.

Thirty-Seven

PRESENT DAY

THIS TIME, TASHA WOULD BE ready for Not A Bear.

She’d finally quieted Imani’s desperate fantasies that Not A Bear was their friend and only wanted to hug them, or keep them warm. Cloying fantasies, since Tasha would love to release her terror too. Instead, she’d told Imani to scavenge this nest for sticks large enough to serve as clubs or spears for when it returned. Not if it returned—when.

Imani had told her about a cavern stuffed with bones, which was all Tasha needed to know. Their bones might be next. Her left foot’s bone was already peeking with savage waves of pain to remind her that she was made of bones. Resting a hand warmer atop the fabric wrapped around her foot felt like a grim mistake, since her waking nerve endings were screaming in waves that rippled up and down her frame, from her toes to the base of her neck. But better this agony than her foot freezing off, she thought. If she survived today, she wanted her foot to survive too.

And Imani. Most of all, Imani needed to survive.

How could any mother live on knowing that her youngest daughter had died trying to save her? Tasha suspected that her impulsive child might have peeled away from Johnny and Sharise, since it wouldn’t have been the first time. That made more sense of their separation, and even in this dark, with pain-glazed eyes, Tasha had detected the rapid blinking that was Imani’s “tell” when she wasn’t revealing the full truth. Imani’s work in therapy to stop lying had worked so well that dishonesty genuinely seemed to trouble her.

“Here,” Imani said, breathless, as she returned to Tasha’s side. Since the nesting materials in this nook were so small and soft, Imani had ventured out into the wider recesses to search for bigger branches. But by decree, her flashlight glow had never been out of Tasha’s sight. Imani handed Tasha a three-foot staff that fit perfectly in her hand, tapering slightly at the tip. “I knocked off the smaller branches. I could only find one without going farther out.”

“Never mind, then—we’ll make do with one,” Tasha said.

“I have a pocketknife,” Imani said. “I’ll sharpen the tip.”

“Good,” Tasha said. “And keep that knife in your hand.”

Tasha hoped she wouldn’t have to argue with Imani over the importance of taking precautions despite her daughter’s fantasies about Not A Bear’s good intentions, or even sentience, like it was a character in a damn Disney movie. Managing her pain took all of Tasha’s will. She didn’t want to tell Imani, but the pain relievers were too weak to help, or hadn’t taken hold yet. Just like she needed more than alcohol, she needed much more than Tylenol.

“Okay, but we shouldn’t hurt it unless it tries to hurt us…” Imani began.

“It’s already hurt us,” Tasha said between gritted teeth in a guttural growl driven by pain.

“I know, but…”

Imani went silent, knowing better than to push it. With a sigh, she squatted and began whittling the tip of the staff with her knife’s tiny blade, shaving off flecks of wood with learned strikes. She might not like the task, but she was carrying it out with the same urgency and focus she’d exhibited when she started the fire in the fireplace last night. If they’d had a place to vent the smoke, Imani said she would have started a fire for her now. They had plenty of kindling.

“I wonder if she gave it a name…” Imani whispered while she sharpened the staff’s tip.

Tasha could think of a few names for it, all right.

“Don’t,” she said, a warning. Every word she spoke caused shooting pains, but this was important enough to withstand the torrent. “Stop it, Imani. Don’t think of it like a pet. If it was a pet, it was hers, not yours. It’s just a wild animal now. Don’t… hesitate to defend yourself. Promise me.” Pain squeezed tears from her eyes.

“I promise,” Imani said. “Don’t cry, Mom. I almost shot it with the rifle. I missed.”

Relief bathed Tasha. Imani might be the most imaginative person in the family, even more than Johnny, and if she were too swept away by her fantasies, it would be hard to rein her back in. Tasha could picture her daughter reaching out a hand to try to pet Not A Bear like countless social media videos of people acting foolish with wild animals.

“I think I smell it,” Imani said.

The whole nook stank of Not A Bear, like mud and rotten eggs, but Imani was right: The smell was sharpening. Tasha’s heart throbbed, sending more sizzling pain through her body. She reached for Imani, grabbing her wrist to still her whittling.

“Give me that,” she said. “Get behind me.”

Imani held the finished spear out of her reach. “Mom, you can’t even stand up.”

“Now,” she insisted.

Around the hidden bend, wood crackled from a churning motion in the dark. Slithering. The sound awakened every instinct in Tasha’s hind brain to flee. But they were trapped in this nook with nowhere to go.

She grabbed the sharpened staff while Imani stood behind her with her spotlight raised toward the murky void. Not A Bear wasn’t in view yet. “Help me up…” she whispered.