Page 20 of Our Crooked Hearts
Marion went still. No, shesteadied,drawing herself up and in like a flame clapped under a hurricane glass. When she spoke, the words came low. A cadenced murmur that played havoc with my heart.
“Let all his thoughts be seen.” Her voice gained volume, grew sure. “Let their dark matter touch the air. Let them trouble him from without.”
The two men exchanged a look. “Yeah, I’m out,” said Ferret, clapping his hands to his knees. “Fuckin’ weirdos.”
As he stood, something fluttered onto his cheek. It had the crunchy, iridescent heft of a cicada, with wings of red lace and a black carapace. He swiped it away.
A second insect landed on his temple. This time he slapped it, killing it in a messy crush that smeared over his eyebrow. “What the hell,” he muttered, looking at his palm.
Now came a third, cutting itself out of the backlit night to settle onto his jaw.
And another.
And another.
Their wings a sickly whir, their tendril legs flexing over his forehead and cheeks and neck, and the V of skin showing abovehis button-up. He swept them away, skin reddening and pricking with sweat.
“What is… what are you…” An insect landed on his mouth. He dragged an arm across it, whimpering, then screamed as a fresh drift settled over him. “No,” he said. “No no no no—”
Then he stopped talking, mouth seamed tight against the onslaught. He was down, he was screaming with his lips closed, he was mashing his face into the sand. I didn’t know whether the insects were stinging or biting or just crawling over his skin, but they kept coming.
I hung back, horrified. Fee kicked sand at the guy, I think in an attempt to drive off the bugs. Marion stared. Her mouth was open, her face like a room someone had just walked out of, slamming the door.
“Help!” Sunburn screamed. “Help us!”
Down by the water a man in a backpack slowed down to watch. On the path a pair of cyclists swung off their bikes, peering across the sand.
“Time to go.” Fee was gathering our stuff, her voice calm but rising. “Let’s go now, now,right now, Marion, mueve tu culo!”
Marion snapped back to life. Her eyes were hot with shock, taking in the scene as if she were blameless. Then she ran.
“Wait!” yelled Sunburn, kneeling close but not too close to the man writhing on the ground. “Come back!”
We pounded over the sand. Marion’s boombox was in my arms. My eyes were watering, my legs rubbery with shock, and by the time we hit Morse I could barely stand.
“Stop,” I said, “stop.”
We held on to each other, we held each other up, the soundscoming out of our mouths something like laughter. Marion cut out abruptly and turned, vomiting French fries and Malört over the grass. When she was done we held her up, rubbing her back while she cried.
What did you do?
“I don’t know,” Marion kept saying. “I don’t know.”
How did you do it?
There was vomit on the toes of her shoes. She scuffed them against a curb. “Please. Stop asking.”
We could hear that she meant it. We were quiet for as long as we could stand it. Then:
Could we do it, too?
We were sitting at the edge of the Dominick’s lot, empty snack bags sifting around our feet. Fee had run in to buy Marion water and came back with Bugles and Pop-Tarts and Cool Ranch Doritos. All of it tasted sogood, so electric, blasted with fake flavor that singed my tongue. We kept laughing with fresh surprise, mouths full of sodium crumbs, remembering the way the Ferret had fallen to his knees, then farther, embracing the sand.
“Yes,” Marion said. She said it so shyly. Like an old-fashioned bride. “If you want to. We could do it together.”
If, she said.Ifwe wanted to learn how to be ferocious, how to havepower, how to bring shitheads to their knees. We’d never wanted anything as much as we wanted this.
