The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (the two towers ebook .TXT) 📗

best of all. The biting was the same all over the lake; same fish schooled in the same habits. But here—despite the risk of snagging in the crowded trees—here, she could feel alone.

Josie held the feeling close and shoved thoughts of a day’s work aside, of Mama at home, and cast off. She waited, the lure lying there, a dot of red against the dark water. A pair of ducks squirted by, clucking their complaints. She watched, made sure they were clear of her line, and reeled in. She resisted the urge to look at her watch even though Mama would be wondering soon, and when Mama wondered, Mama wandered.

And she couldn’t be late to work, not again. That new supervisor, she liked her time sheets neat. One more, she decided, and cast off a third time, the plop of the lure on water like the tinkling of the sweetest bells.

And then, there it was: the cormorant, its snake-head peeking from the water. It stopped before her line and turned and paddled toward her. It hopped out, inches from her feet, and shook its wings. Water hit her, splashed her face, touched her lips. She was so close she could have reached over and stroked its wet back.

The bird pulled its wings in, cocked its head, piercing her again with that bright blue eye. “Josie,” it croaked, opening its orange beak, “help me.”

She fell back again, this time landing hard against the rocky ground. For a moment she saw nothing but black water, felt her heart beating in its cage.

That bird…it spoke. She drew in a deep breath, another, and turned her head. The bird had vanished. But it had spoken. And it had used Mama’s voice.

Josie stood in the doorway, staring at the curl of Mama on the floor by her bed, so small under the thin nightdress. Her head was turned, as though looking beneath the bed for something lost—her slippers, a dropped pill bottle.

Eventually, Josie rolled her over, took a pulse, even as those wide eyes stared up at her. Mama’s skin was cooling—how long had she been lying there? Josie closed her mother’s eyes with a blind hand—not able to bear their accusation.

Blue eyes, that orange beak: Josie, help me.

She’d be late for work now, she knew. This time, though, there’d be no arguing with her excuse.

It was the silence of the apartment, the emptiness, she found hard to endure on those days off work, her mandatory bereavement leave. It still surprised her, Mama dead, and Josie drinking water alone in the kitchen. Even with Mama sleeping, Josie had known another body was home, warm and breathing. Now the only things breathing were the steam radiators ticking over the muffled voices of the new family downstairs, old Mr. Blake’s television set to top volume next door.

Was that better than the not-silence of a knock on the door—someone coming to pay respects, ask after? Living in one building your whole life, you knew people whether you wanted to or not. And everyone had known Mama—even after she’d stopped coming down to do the shopping, the weekly laundry. It had been her and Mama in this apartment, alone, near thirty years. Her and Mama. And earlier, when she was still in braids, Pop-Pop had lived there with them.

Pop-Pop lived there but he lived elsewhere too, that old stump in the park, the drinking men by the marsh. He would disappear for a day, maybe three, but always come home, joking that it was Mama’s snoring keeping him away. And then, one night, cold, rain lashing the airshaft window that opened onto Josie’s bedroom, she heard Mama cry out, the door slam, and Pop-Pop stopped coming home at all. Pop-Pop had gone to the drinking men in the park, Mama said, and good riddance.

It was three days she missed work but it was almost a week before she returned to the lake with her fishing pole, her kit bag.

The night before she’d dreamt she was swimming deep into the cool of the lake, tapping sleeping fish on their silvery backs, waking them with the heat of her hands, bidding them rise, come. When she woke that morning, her heart thudding, pillow cold with sweat, she knew she needed to go to the lake that day or she’d never go back at all.

So there she was, walking into the park, her legs gone to rubber, her heart a steady thump. She’d start where she always did—the lookout spot that jutted into the water. She felt like she’d been on a long run on an empty stomach. That bird. She didn’t know what to do if she saw that bird again.

It was early, earlier than usual. She hadn’t slept well—not with that dream—and once awake there was no turning over, finding sleep again. The sun was still behind the trees, if you didn’t know up from down you could easily guess it was dusk and night just around the corner.

She paused, looked left and right. The benches were empty, no overnighters or early risers, birders out to catch the return migration. She breathed, and the air was thicker now, warmer than that last morning. Spring finally pushing through.

She looked toward the tree trunk half in the water, scanned for the outline of black wings, the snake neck of the cormorant. But the tree was just a naked, dark finger dipping into the water as if to test its temperature.

She entered the woods, her feet finding the way even as the light from the lampposts struggled to reach through the branches. She walked, crunching the wood chips underfoot, startling something small and squeaking with her boot. She walked until she emerged again, at the wooden pavilion at the peninsula’s tip. No one sleeping there either on that long sheltered bench. The air was damp but warm and full of the anticipation of growing things—the kind of spring air that drew people into the park,