The Perching Moth

The Perching Moth

1.

The summer break was far too long for those children's devil-hands to remain idle. Mischievous to the core they were, but never would I've thought their play would take them to that evil.

I seldom watched beetle-bugs crawl the bark of the old pecan tree in our backyard. That summer afternoon, the July sun's blasting heat had caused me to shelter in the cool shade of its low boughs. The vivid, bright scene of the town, dispersed with low-rise homes, panoramad my sight. The local news channel reported the month to be the hottest in the past decade, and the mild temperatures of the past weeks had fermented to a blistering scorch - the air hung thick, still, and suffocating. I'd pictured the mercury within Dr Hugiers thermometer to be writhing, bursting to escape.

I'd snapped out a red, checkered blanket on the cracked dirt skirting the tree, plodding myself down with a book, and a bottle of cooled cola yanked from the fridge. In horrid fever the day ordained a greedy gulping of chilled drinks. A boiling day like this, you went about empty handed at your own peril - an easy trip to the store quickly turning to a fight with relentless, hot sunbeams pocking phantom holes in your arms, on the back of your neck, piercing into your brain and making all a little hazy, like I was wrapped in cling-film with a torch light shoved against my eyes. Not long after a swig of the cola, sucked between sweat-trickled lips, and my throat laid parched as the coarse sand of the Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado. The skies had spread an electric-blue, seeming to have a texture beyond gaseous atmosphere, as if solid to the touch, the bluest of eyes only the iris was a white blazing sun. It certainly was a luridness which made you squint and scowl, and itch, someway agitated in each moment. The shade was as good as paradise that day.

I cracked open the book picked from the upper shelves of my mother's bookstand, nestled at a height which required not only that I stood on a flimsy chair, but that I warily strained on the tips of my toes. That chair. It was certainly a feeble and menacing chair, ominously wailing under my foot. The creak of the assortment of wood, its joints pocked with steel nails, quickened the drumming in chest but I'd managed the snatch. Age had yellowed the pages, and the first page of the book narrated circumstances I had heard from whispers in the school yard, usually accompanied by mouth-covered giggles. I reasoned this traversing across a land of behaviour I found not entirely alien, but unseemly, explained why the book had lain out of my reach. The calls of adulthood were strong those days as I peeked out from the age of late-teen. Sat in the shade reading, I threw an occasional furtive eye towards the kitchen window. Mother's rattling of pots splintered the black-print of the pages. I found myself yanked too by the bark of the neighbour's dog.

Children had started their long break from school, and that old summer joy was heard in their distant cries. Two miles south, down at Mortley Park, the annual fair had arrived. For a whole week its rides and prized-games and exotic sweets became the hive of the town. The children I heard while sat below the tree were likely the ones who could not put together a dime to attend. A brief thought of Little Arnie and Millie broke in.

The bug's glossed shell gleamed a yellow hue as it scuttled into a grove in the bark. It reappeared, crawling around the trunk and out of sight. I took a sip of the cola, bathing the dryness in my throat with the sweet nectar before returning to the book, reminding myself to look up the word --_Fornication_.

That afternoon, I sat there for a while, occasionally bookmarking a page with my finger, and flinging my eyes towards the sky, considering why any person would grow such suffocating desire for another, let alone a boy. A foul-stenched, dirt-riddled boy. That would change in the years ahead I was to find.

When mother would holler, I stuffed the book under the blanket and hurried to the kitchen. I whisked the egg and flour and kneaded the dough while berated by mother. Her strained voice bounced off the yellow walls and shot at me from every direction. It was as if Principle Henry's tannoys were installed in all four corners of the kitchen. She again requested for me to trip out south, to Aunt Helen's house for the summer. There I would find girls who would show me quickly and astutely my faults, which contrast the ways of a good, respectable and well postured woman. I wondered what they knew of the pages I had read in that strange book.

A few more rounds of help, and I padded back over to the blanket, unfolding the crease of the page at which I had stopped. It was around this time that I heard the voices of the two near. A string of indiscernible words - shouted whispers. A rustling of twigs before the bark of the dog. A reprimanding Ssshh!.

I buried the book under the picnic blanket and edged towards the low wooden fence. Crouching, I peered over at the row of backyards, which at a quarter of a mile off, ended at Mr Ronnie's yard. The dog lapped around the concrete of Ms Haines' garden next door, resting in the shade of the fence every so often. Beyond that yard, I caught the heads of Little Arnie and Millie. The two were stood below the chinaberry tree of their Aunt Margerie's yard. And after what seemed a brief instructional assembly, the boy jumped and reached for a branch while the girl shoved him up by the legs. The boy's hand grasped air and he fell out a sight. A short cry emanated from the behind the fence. The girl seemed to disengage from the boy's antics and pushed her hand through the shrubbery at the other end of the garden. What amusement had these two rascals found now I wondered. A week ago the two had played on the streets with a bicycle wheel they had found abandoned, without a frame. And not long before that, I'd caught them throwing iced peas at pigeons in an attempt to feed.

Little Millie pulled out a twig from the bushes. She held it aloft. Arnie shook his head in disapproval, but still snatched it out of her hand. He kneeled down onto the mud and began scratching at the dirt. A few seconds later he aborted the task and the two sat on the dirt, crossed legged, their chins' resting against bridged palms.

The two had not caught my watching, but mother had. She was stood by the back-door. Following a contemptuous, nostril-raised shake of her head, she stepped back in. The clanging of pots returned, now with an ear-aching venom.

Strings of pain shot up my legs as I remained crouched, clutching the sides of my dress so as to not to dirty its trimming, a thing mother had scorned me regarding only the week before. I padded around our house to the front lawn before darting left towards Aunt Margerie's home. Only, I remembered I had stashed a few dollars for the two in my room, enough for a afternoon trip to the summer-fair. My father worked as an attorney, mostly representing clients across the southern towns - oil barrens jostling for monopoly, willing to butcher old familial ties with merciless offerings. His pocket held a liberal opening to meet the cravings of my sweet tooth.

Not wanting to be flurried with words by mother, I entered through the front door, ascended the stairs in stealth, and shoulder-barged into my room. $6 dollars laid in my drawer, beneath my socks. It was enough for at least three rides each, and ice-cream cones. Those two rascals were certainly a nuisance for some, or even most within the neighbourhood. But for me they were intriguing things, two wandering pigeons pecking at all that held any substance of matter, cocooned in a world of unbounded curiosity. Two menaces who'd squeezed into the crevices of my heart.

2.

A brow of stubby fig trees skirted the side of Aunt Margerie's house. That devil-sun pummelled down, roiling the sweat on my scalp. I stepped along the parched, mudded footpath and as I edged the corner of the house, I tilted a peek, stealing a looking. The two were still sat there in the yard: quiet and unassuming. Their infantile, pudgy cheeks certainly had a weight to them, drooping as if they were melting under that hellacious sun. Their bare arms hung coated with a gold sheen, and from their heads unruly hairs shone a hot-white. Arnie's fingertips were browned and caked with dirt. He made a feeble effort to poke the ground with a twig. Their small mouths made no attempt at speech and their eyes wandered into the distance, squinting against the afternoon's stark, generous light. The cries of children in play rose from the east and west, summer joy rippling through the heat.

"Boo!" I stepped out, smacking my shoe onto the concrete, a sharp clap cracked the air.

Their eyes raced towards the sound, Arnie's body jolting back. Millie scurried and fell against her brother, clasping his arm, her eyes wide with terror.

Grinning at their fright, I hurried towards them. "What you doing kids? No good it seems."

"Nothing," spitted Arnie, recomposing himself as he pushed Millie away.

A strangeness lingered in the boy's eyes which peered out murky like billiard balls staring from the depths of an ocean - a matured and weighted look I found difficult to crumb with knowing. Like the look my father held at the dinner table after he had managed the sale of Mr Snapler's land to the Redmeyer Oil Company, it was a _once in a lifetime offer_ he'd told the man.

Arnie snapped his eyes away when he caught my heavy attention.

"Well it seems like something to me," I'd said.

"We're not doing anything Mary-Ann," said little Millie. Her blazing eyes scoured the dirt. "We're just playing with sticks," her mouth punched, pinching a stick from the mud and fencing it in my direction, her brows dipped. Millie seemed to catch herself in a fall and quickly masked on innocence, calm, her lips stretched on a reassuring smile. Her eyes stitched to Arnie before turning away towards the blue horizon, trying to catch the laughter of children kiting the air.

The girl was a good girl, for the most part, though hard-headed. Man's clay of independence is malleable during childhood, we're tugged in one direction or another, mindless feet pulling our craniums this way and that. Then with age one's will petrifies; solid. This girl escaped her mother's womb a stone, ossified and straight even in the last tempest. I 'd once caught her scuttling out of Walter's Grocery Shop, flinging glances over one shoulder then the other, her little shoes bounding forward. I'd arrested her by the arm, and under my inspection, she'd with unblemished coolness denied anything to be out of the ordinary. And all the while she raised her chin towards, uttering her honeyed words of innocence, her shorts' pocket bulged at either end - an assortment of gorgeous loot, a shrub of penny sweets mottled the colours of a rainbow. She'd offered the most sincerest of apologies to Ms Walter as I had seen from anyone, lips downturned as if about to just fall of her face, brows arched, head tilted towards her fidgeting feet. That afternoon, as we walked back to the neighbourhood, the girl scoffing down a bag of sweets, I'd betted on her to become an award-winning actress.

Now I wasn't one to probe till the sun came down, prodding and pricking, sticking my nose in the two ferrets' business, at least not beyond the little which made my soul tinkle anyway. No, I liked to take the poor things to the periphery of agitation, and then no further, not anger, not hurt. I kneeled down, picked up the stick and scratched into the dirt. A circle. Two dots. A smile. As our eyes rested on it, I put forward my hand, opening my moistened palm mounted with dollars. "Who wants to go to the fair?" I shouted, a smile bursting on my face.

A drop of sweat skidded my cheek and plodded onto the thirsty dirt.

They'd not said a thing.

3.

"And why would you not want to go to the fair Millie?"

"We just don't Marie-Ann. We're busy today. We got stuff to do," she'd said, holding my stare.

"Oh yeah, what kind of stuffy missy? Busy kicking a rock?" I 'd said pinning my fist to my hip.

"Just stuff. Go away!"

"And you Mister, sitting there without a squeak. Why would you not want to go?" I'd swiveled to Arnie, my dress jostling at my shins. The boy hadn't plucked his eyes away from the horizon.

"I...we can't go Marie-Ann. Not today. We'll go tomorrow." He spoke.

I knew them kids to be upto no good many times before, enough times to count on one of those fancy scientific calculators, find the sum of seven hundred and sixty eight squared. But not once had they batted away my hand. A day at the fair and ice-cream, that's a summer dream. The park infested with grand, mechanical machines promising delight. A place sizzling with smiles, bubbling with laughter, a tannoyed voice enticing to joy, the music trampled by the sea of chatter, the yo-yo of screams threading the air as all whirred and clanged. Prizes, and haunted rooms, and face paint, and candy canes, and ice cream. A summer dream.

I stepped around the two in my furrow-browed inspection, my mind scurrying for a reason. The dog barked. The air hung heavy. My eyes snagged on Arnie's hand shifting to his trouser pocket.

"And what do you have there Arnie?"

"Nothing."

"Don't tell me nothing Arnie."

I can't say what it was. Their _No_ to the _Summer Dream_. The agitation coiling my body because of that scorching heat. The raucous bark of the dog. Or the fear I'd picked up on their darling eyes. My two honeybees sitting their all frightened about something. I bolted for his pocket, clawing away his hand and ripping the thing out.

"We hate you!" Millie screamed.

"And why do you have Aunt Margerie's sleeping pills," I'd said, holding the white medicine tub out.

It was empty.

The boy sat silent with a sour, sullen look on his face. It was as if that Fat Bully Bill had socked him in the stomach again. The girl now stood and watched her brother's face.

"And digging into the dirt. What's going on Arnie?"

"We're burying treasure," spitted Millie, trying to wrestle it from my clutch.

"Alright. I don't know what silly game you two are playing, but we're going to the fair. And that's final." I walked to the single step of the backdoor. "Have you had your dinner?"

"Yes, yes we have," Arnie shot up like a squished spring released. "Let's go to the fair now. I'm feeling better. Stomach ache that's all."

"Is that right? Stomach ache. How was the fish stew?"

"It was good," said Millie, "I had two plates," she threw up two fingers.

Now, I had known Aunt Margerie hadn't served up fish stew that day. She'd told me to buy her stock cube seasoning for her chicken stew that morning when mother had sent me to pick up a bag of flour and icing from the grocers. Now why had these two lied about what they'd had for dinner?

"Where's is Aunt Margerie?" I asked, tugging the shutter of the back door. Before I could open the door and step in, the girl hurtled for my dress, yanking it with both hands, an intense grimace on her face.

"Come Marie-Ann, let's go. Let's go now. Or, or we'll miss it," said Arnie, eyes wide, brows high on his sweating head.

The girl lost her grip and fell against the dirt.

The two's eyes stuck on each other.

"Now, why would you not want me to speak to Aunt Margerie?"

I opened the door and stepped into the narrow shadowed hall, taking the first left into the stuffy kitchen. The counter was riddled with pans, and foods, and cutlery. A dining chair was out of place. The tap was loose with drops knocking at the basin. "Aunt Margerie?" I called out not finding her there. I tightened the faucet, and as I was about to make for the dining room, my eyes snagged on an item on the kitchen table. Amongst a carton of milk and a packet of flour, the stock cube seasoning still sat wrapped in the brown paper bag, it's squared edges pushing against the paper. I'd never known Aunt Margerie to leave out the seasoning on her chicken stew. I thought maybe she'd cooked something else, maybe the children really did have fish stew for dinner. But then I caught the chicken breasts' soaked in a steel bowl by the kettle. The water was only a little around the chicken. It must been there for a while, evaporating in the heat-rays pushing in through the kitchen window. My eyes squinted as they snagged on a silver spoon on the counter top. I shifted to it. I lifted it against the sunlight. It was coated with a white powder. The white dusted the counter, and a little trailed the yellow linoleum. "Aunt Margerie?" I called again. It was then that I felt a chill up my spine. It was then that I knew this was a new evil.

The back-door creaked and the two shuffled in, their steps mere patters. They stood at the door jamb, silent. Millie's nostrils flared, her little chest rising with each breath. Arnie's jowls had dropped as if the fat of cheeks had tenanted around his jaws, pulling down at his eyelids.

I placed the spoon back on the counter, and turned towards the two. Now I still could see the hurting in the two's eyes, stood there like two dead-eyed hand puppets, but for the life of me I could not curdle in myself an iota of care. I pushed through the two, sending the girl buckling against the hallway wall. The boy gripped my arm as I turned for the dining room, nails crescented with dirt clawing into my skin. That cold chill roiled in my limbs, my heart stabbed against my chest. The boy's knees scraped the carpet as my arm dragged him to the door of the dining room. She wasn't in there.

"No!" The boy screamed when I started for the stairs.

By the back door, the girl had found her footing and darted towards me. She burst into a frantic cry, lips upturned, eyes squinched. "No Marie-Ann please." She clung onto my leg. It was a terrifying balling which escaped the two. Those true, visceral cries you know to be beacons of a horrendous evil. It grew in me a stomach-churning fear, a hollow-legged fear. My limbs struggled under their weight, and I ripped ferociously at the staircase's bannister. Their wails hammered against my ears.

"Marie-Ann don't go. Please, please," the girl cried.

I turned my head, catching the tears strolling down both their mottled, gleaming cheeks. Uglied faces with lips twisted, jaws stretched, eyes shut and seeing blackness, pushing away the truth.

The cries tornadoed through the house. I struggled up those steps.

All had stilled when I stood before the door of her bedroom; the crying, the pulling, the rippling of that chill in my veins. A calmness fell on me and the two stood behind. I palmed open the door.

There was Aunt Margerie; eyes wide, mouth agape, an arm flopped off the side of the bed. The woman was dead. An empty glass sat on her nightstand.

The searing heat pushed in through the open window. I stepped towards the bed and placed a hand against her chest. Nothing drummed there. I shoved her. A brown moth crawled out of her mouth, and perched on her lip.

She was gone.

With their mother having felled to heroin, walking the streets a gaunt sickly thing, and their father having abandoned them while they laid in their cribs, that woman was the only thing close to a carer those kids had. And they'd killed her, crushing a month's worth of sleeping pills into fine powder and stirring it into her water. What was the woman to know? The mouth sucked down any fluid pushed against it at this heat.

I stood there, beside her, for a silent moment. My head bowed. I sent a prayer for her.

My throat had coiled dry and scratchy.

My eyes turned onto the two.

Those two eviled monsters.

Always putting their hands where they don't belong.

Murderers.

My two honey-bees.

I started on the work. I wiped the glass with the hem of my dress before pushing Aunt Margerie's limp hand on it, as with the medicine container I ripped from Arnie's pocket, placing it at her torso, its lid rolled under the bed. And it was then that I caught my father's navy corduroy shirt, under her bed. Mother's book came to mind. I pummelled down the stairs and washed that telling-spoon, stuffing it back into the drawer between others. The counter, floor and chair were wiped, the towel drained then stuffed into my dress. I wet my palms and wiped at those two faces, and cleaned those hands at the sink. I straightened a chair at the kitchen table. Then I took a breath, a deep stomach-bulging breath. We stepped out into the sun, our faces bare under the hot light.

"Here, take the money. Go to the fair. Don't ever mention what you did. Never you her me? Never." I gripped Arnie's shoulders and rattled him.

After a while the boy nodded.

I sat on the stoned step footing the back-door, out of sight. Twenty minutes had passed when I walked back into that house, when I walked back up those stairs. I stood in the bedroom and readied my lungs for the scream of my life.