Page 83 of What Rough Beast

“We’ll make sure he’s a good one,” I say.

“Yep, yours too,” she agrees. “We can contribute two to the world, at any rate.”

I don’t correct her, don’t see the point. Typhus isn’t mine any more than he’s anyone’s, but once I moved into the Zedeker home to manage Restoration Acres while Widow recovered, the three of us had become a collective we, the resounding us.

“How are you?” I ask Hailey, returning the favor.

“Oh my God, I’m just gorgeous, thanks for asking,” she says, flopping back into the grass, throwing one arm over her eyes.

“I’ll try again,” I say, repeating her words. “How—”

“Tired and scared. I’m a mom now, that’s all I get to be.” She sits back up, restless.

“Tired I get,” I say, knowing well enough what long nights with Typhus can be like. “But scared?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a kid,” Hailey says, pulling her hair up into a messy bun. “It’s like I put my soul in another body and it’s running around outside of me, and I’ve got to keep it safe somehow.”

I’m quiet, focusing on the grass as it ripples over my scar.

“Oh . . . sorry,” Hailey says. “Really bad choice of words. I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not,” I tell her, which has been a surprising revelation. Hailey is sharp as hell and whip smart, not to mention gritty right down to her spine. She’d waded into the skunk pen at eight months pregnant to help me catch one that needed to go to the vet, although her contribution was mostly to sit in front of the shed door, her enormous bulge blocking the only exit. Still, she hadn’t blinked when the skunk tried anyway, climbing her body and making it halfway over her face before she grabbed it, holding it out to me by the tail while scrolling through her phone with the other hand.

“You going out there today?” she asks me now.

“Was just getting ready to,” I tell her, brushing off my legs as I get up. Typhus disentangles himself from Brady, comes to me, hands in the air. I swing him onto my hip and wave to Widow, who nods.

We pass out of the sunlight, into the shaded part of the yard. Tripod runs to the edge of his enclosure, matching us step for step on the other side, Typhus turning his head to look at the fox as we pass. Arch screws his head around when he spots us but doesn’t come down from his perch. He no longer toe-dusts me, and will even perch on my arm, take a mouse from my hand, something we both had to learn to adjust to while Widow was incapacitated.

“You’ll be fine with the birds,” she’d told me the first time, teeth gritted in pain while she settled herself out of the wheelchair and onto the couch. “That thing isn’t in you anymore; they don’t think your soul is going to slip loose any second.”

We pass into the back meadow, reach the fork in the path. I lift my mouth to Typhus’s ear. “Which way?” I ask. “Is it that way?” I point to the east, where the old carcass pit is, covered over this spring, what was left of Ethan Brimley folded in with the rest.

Typhus smiles at me, knowing his role. He shakes his head, points to the west.

We follow the path into the woods, and I eventually put Typhus down, his fist wrapped around my index finger as he negotiates the bumpy ground, trips over an exposed tree root. He goes down hard, absorbs the impact, opens his mouth to wail, then looks at me.

“That was a hard one,” I tell him. “You don’t always have to be strong.”

Permission granted, he throws his head back and wails. I let him cry; it’s something we do out here together often. When he finishes, I wipe his face and we keep going.

The graveyard gate squeaks as I open it, Typhus, back on my hip, grabs at the wrought iron, flakes of rust coming off in his hands. I close us in, letting him down to wander as I sit on the folding chair Widow made Hailey haul out here for me, when it became clear I wasn’t going to stop.

There’s no stone, and we didn’t dare make a marker.

“Hey,” I say. It’s all I could manage in the beginning, even the one word not quite making it out, breaking the silence. I’ve gotten better, able to say more as time passes. Right now, it’s only I’m sorry and thank you, repeated a thousand times, but never enough. Because Micah Harding did something to me, something terrible, and then something wonderful.

“Oh, he asked for something big,” Hailey had said afterward, the Zertrenner looping through her fingers, slipping between them like a snake, lacking a duty, a threat to no one.

“It’s tired,” she’d explained, then slipped it into a glass jar, ready to go into hibernation until needed again.

I thought it was the shock at first, the weight inside of me temporarily suspended, waiting to fall again once I noticed. I moved cautiously through life, ready for disappointment to pounce, sadness to creep in. But it didn’t, and I came to a tenuous understanding with the universe.

I was happy.

Happy to wander Restoration Acres, my cat threading between my feet, tail whipping my knees, Panda loping on the other side, no longer lagging behind. Happy to push Widow’s wheelchair as she healed, bring Hailey Doritos—Cool Ranch because she dubbed everything else ass leakage—when a craving struck. I’m happy to walk these fields, be among these trees, breathe this air.

I’m happy to be alive.

And I’m sad that Micah Harding isn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I say, biting the inside of my cheek as tears rise.

“Thank you,” I say as Typhus finds his way to me, little hand resting on my leg.

Sometimes I see him there, in the baby’s eyes. There will be a flash of deep understanding, a shared glance, the moment when he first wakes from sleep, consciousness floating free, not quite aware yet. Then he’ll smile at me and I’ll say whichever I’m feeling the most—regret for what I’ve lost or joy for what I’ve found.

I’m sorry. Thank you.

The last of the hot days is sliding into evening when I get to my feet, Typhus coming to me, raising his arms to be carried. I lift him, closing the gate behind us, turning to say one last thing.

“Aus dem Nichts—”

“Erheben wir uns,” Typhus finishes for me, whether it’s the repetition or a deep knowing inside him, I don’t question it.

A breeze kicks up, swirls the first of the falling leaves around my feet, touching the hair around my face. I lift my head.

And I feel everything.