Dwellers

3

Louis says he found three dead birds in the backyard. He picked up all three with a shovel and buried them in the garden.

            "Remember when Grandfather got sick?" I tell him. "Three of his favorite dogs died, and then he got better. Like the dogs suffered his illness for him."

            Rule No. 3. "Jonah," Louis says.

            "Maybe I'll get better."

            "You will get better."

"But those birds aren't mine. And Grandfather ended up dying anyway."

"What's wrong?"

I am in pain. I have just taken my medication but it has yet to take effect. I understand the importance of pain. It is the body's defense mechanism. Get burned and you learn to stay away from fire. But prolonged pain? What's the point? I am injured – I get it. Why continue to make my body suffer?

Pain is bad for the heart, my mother used to say.

Louis offers his hand and I squeeze it, hard. I didn’t know it was possible to suffer pain such as this.

"Maybe we are not who we think we are. Maybe this is really my body," I say. I feel delirious.

"Stop it, Jonah."

But it hurts so much, I want to say, but there are things you don't say out loud to preserve your dignity.

Louis places an ice pack on my knee and sits with me until the wave of pain passes.

"What are we doing, Louis?" I say.

"Biding our time. Resting."

"We've stayed in one place for too long. We're sitting ducks."

"When you get better we'll move again." He takes a deep breath. "We haven't seen her. Maybe she doesn't know where we are."

"But what if I don't get better?"

"Stop thinking like that."

We fall silent. I see an image of a young girl sitting in a yellow kitchen, her back to me. Chair of blonde wood. Black dress, black hair, hands on her knees. I experience it like a flash, a burn. Pain is bad for the heart. I think her name but don't say it out loud. A sacred word. Celeste.

"I'm sorry, Louis," I say.

"You didn't force me to help you," he says.

I think Louis thinks we are secluded and safe, as though he has already forgotten what real seclusion means and what my former life is like. (Look at me, breaking Rule No. 3 again.) The hush of a huge century-old ancestral house, surrounded by nothing but trees and fields, that's what seclusion is. At night, I still dream of gleaming wooden floors and capiz shells. The narrow passageways surround the living room and lead to the kitchen. I follow these passageways but cannot find their end.