This story-in-parts continues below.
Start from the beginning here, and
find Part 2 in this post and
Marianna drops to the pavement before she’s hit. One knee scrapes the ground. She bends herself over the other knee and shields her head. She prepares for pain. Kenny sweeps an arm toward where Marianna had been instants before. He misses her body entirely. Marianna lunges at the feet she sees before her. She pushes her shoulders into the legs of a person she can hardly see. She uses the knee she planted on the ground to push up and into the stranger. The figure, already a little off balance, slumps over her head and shoulders as Marianna moves upward. The person wheezes. Other feet shuffle around Marianna. Everything and everyone is dark. She thinks there are two other bodies flanking the one on top of her. As she pushes the first person up, he slides to the side, rolling onto one of her shoulders. Kenny twists fingers into Marianna’s hair, pulling her head to the side. Marianna yelps. Other hands are on her now. She feels a soft cotton glove on her face, scrabbling for her mouth. Fingers press her mouth shut. She looks toward where the person’s face should be and sees flat darkness, the light from the nearest streetlamp stretching in such a way as to backlight the figure who is muzzling her. She hears shoes on the pavement and heavy breathing. She hears rain against what she assumes are raincoats. She does not hear anyone talking. Marianna knows these people were after specifically her and had calculated exactly how to take her. She relents and relaxes, hoping the man she’d pushed off her won’t try to knock her out if she does. The hand over her mouth is firm. Finally, she surrenders. She sits on the pavement. The man’s hand presses into her mouth and she shakes her head a little, hoping he understands. The dark figures are still. The one she fought breathes heavily. The hand lifts from her mouth. She searches for faces, but still can’t see. One of them speaks. “What do you do to a tortoise’s shell?” Marianna knows Kenny’s voice. A ringing confusion rises in her ears. She wants to shut her eyes, squeeze herself into a ball. Marianna and Kate have been working with Kenny and Malcolm for a long time, since before Kate had the baby, which makes it more than six years. Marianna knows Kenny is asking for a code. A tortoise shell. What do you do to a tortoise shell? And then she thinks, what do I do to a tortoise shell? As in, my own? No. Of course not. Kate got Laney, her daughter, a tortoise a few months ago for her sixth birthday. Marianna inhales and exhales as she runs down all the conversations she and her sister have had about the new pet, which are very few. These days, they hardly speak of sisterly things. But she did have a talk with Laney. Just last week. While Marianna was at Kate’s one evening, she helped Laney get ready for bed. She remembered asking Laney why she took a toothbrush to her room. “It’s not for me,” her niece said. “I’ll show you.” Marianna followed Laney to her room where the reptile enclosure sat in the corner. Heat lamps spotlighted a round, brown beast nestled in the middle of its home. Laney knelt beside her pet. She lifted the screen top and touched the toothbrush to the shell. She moved the brush in little circles, whispering to the pet as she did. “This is Aunt Mar,” she said. The tortoise’s head wiggled. Little black eyes looked at Laney as she spoke. “She’s helping us get ready for bed tonight.” “It can feel that?” Marianna joined her niece on the floor. “Sure. He likes it.” “Can I pet him?” “I don’t know. Let’s ask,” she said. “Nestor, could Aunt Mar give you a little pet?” Laney and Marianna watched as the tortoise did nothing in response, which Laney decided was its acceptance. Marianna touched the shell with two fingers. Laney rolled the brush around the shell, humming “You Are My Sunshine” off key. Marianna searches the darkness where Kenny’s eyes should be. “You brush it,” she says. She holds her breath and hopes he doesn’t notice. Did she say it in the right way? And why is there a code in the first place? Another voice says, “I had no idea.” Marianna looks up at the third hooded person who, she can tell now, is a wide, bulky woman. Her voice is quiet and high, a complete contrast to her build. Marianna doesn’t know the woman, and she doesn’t know if this response is good or bad for her. “Little girl tells us all sorts of things,” Kenny says. He reaches down to Marianna, offering a hand up. Marianna takes it. “Kate. Glad you’re here.” Marianna stands. She can now see Kenny and Malcolm, their familiarity striking fear in her. Their betrayal drops like a curtain between them. Marianna and Kate never considered the two men friends, but they certainly were close for years. Now Marianna questions it all. Everything. The code, the strange woman. Her twin sister. The four of them walk together down the path. Marianna imagines her sister in this situation. Does she always take the lead when they deal with the two men? Or does she let Marianna? Would she be telling them what to do in this moment? Where to go? Clearly they know she isn’t exactly supposed to be here. So Marianna takes a risk. “How did you find me?” Kenny stops first, then Malcolm and the woman. “No worries,” he says. Malcolm shakes his head and tries to keep them moving. “No worries?” says Marianna. Kenny doesn’t move. “Fine. I apologize.” He shrugs. “You do?” “Listen. It seemed weak. The plan. I questioned it. But you were right. Now we should go.” Marianna moves along with the rest of them to some place she can’t fathom. None of their meeting places are around here. She is here simply because this path is where the woods dumped her. What was Kate thinking?
Thanks for reading.
I’ll be sharing a story soon that my son told me to write. I told him to write it instead, but he refused. He wants me to write it. Coming soon.