Over breakfast you tell me that you cannot do this anymore. 

I look up from my toast – thin-sliced white with margarine – and ask what you mean. You are sipping black coffee, small of dressing gowned back pressed to the kitchen sink, holding the pretty china cup in two hands. The cup is bone white, delicate, intricately painted with twisted vines. Whenever we move, and we move a lot, you wrap the pretty china in our clothes, swaddle plates in jumpers, and place them in bags and boxes. It makes you feel nice, you tell me as you unpack them, to have nice things. 

Mum? I say when you don’t reply. What can’t you do? 

You sigh, lift your gaze from your cup. You look about the room, our living-sleeping-eating room, following the cabin’s sloping beams, the pile of chequered bedding, the squashy, beaten-up sofa bed. The sofa was here when we arrived, stained and threadbare, but you adorned it with throws, with beautiful cushions. My favourite cushion was the silken green one, which you spent weeks embroidering with a great golden bird. It’s a buzzard, you told me, eyes glittering. A golden bird for my golden girl. It looked so real that, more than once, it caught the corner of my eye and for a heartbeat I could’ve sworn a bird was in the room watching me, considering me, about to take flight. I loved that cushion. But then I spilled Fanta over it so you cut it to scraps with nail scissors. I cried and you said sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry over and over again, unable to stop, like you were choking on the word, like it was stuck in your throat. That night I stroked the back of your head until you slept. You like to sleep with the curtains open and, in the moonlight, your fine straw hair turned to pale, cold gold under my fingers. 

Poppet, you say, your gaze finally landing on me. I can’t do this. 

* 

When I come home from school you have locked yourself in the toilet. I don’t feel well, you say through the door. I cook beans on the camping stove we keep on the floor, but you don’t want it so I eat both helpings. When you won’t come out, I wee outside in the warm summer dark, squatting in the rustling foliage round the back of the cabin. 

I needn’t hide myself like this, nobody ever comes down here, but I conceal myself all the same. 

The cabin is Mac’s holiday rental – though I can’t imagine it’d be much of a holiday – and he lets us stay here in the off season. It’s set deep into the woodlands, about a quarter mile from the village and only accessible by a muddy track burst through with bulbous tree roots. When there’s no wind, and the leaves go still, I imagine I can hear the trees humming, groaning, growing. I’m pretty sure Mac lets us stay here because you used to have sex with him when you thought I was asleep. 

I pull up my school trousers and come back inside to find dark grey splotches have bloomed at my ankles where I’ve made the hem pissy. I scrub them with washing up liquid and hope for the best. 

* 

In the early hours of the morning I am pulled out of my half-sleep by the sound of the bathroom door unlocking. You have been in there for two days, but your record is a week so I haven’t worried too much. You pad softly to join me on the sofa bed and slip under the sheets. The mattress creaks in acknowledgement of your return. I turn to face you, to wriggle closer to you, in the hope you’ll wrap yourself about me and whisper-sing into my neck the way you sometimes do to let me know you’re back. But you are unmoving in the gloom, except for the shallow flutter of your ribcage. 

Mum? I whisper, and move a little closer. For someone who’s spent two days in a bathroom you smell bad. Bitter and softly acrid. I reach for you in the darkness, hand searching for your hand, find myself brushing your forearm. You jerk yourself away, but not quickly enough. I’ve felt the boniness of you, the lack of you, the sharp, angular snap of you. A dizzy heat swells in my stomach. I sit up, fumble clumsily for the lamp until the lightbulb flickers you into focus with a thick, electric buzz. You’re thin. Not just two days of no eating thin but impossibly thin, wiry and sinewy, skin tinged a sickly yellow. I try to speak, to ask what’s going on, but words turn to ash on my tongue. You look at me, eyes large and watery. Your head cocks. 

I’m fine, poppet. Your voice is hoarse, harsh, far away. Go to sleep. 

I switch off the light and we lie, unspeaking, waiting for dawn to unfurl itself through the open curtains. 

* 

It feels wrong leaving you for school each day but I do. I’m good at school, just like you were. I’ve been at this new place almost a term and it’s going surprisingly well. I get top grades and the popular girls like me, though I’m not sure why. They say my look is vintage (I didn’t know I had a look) and they invite me for sleepovers where the mums cook pizza and the dads say hey kiddo and we paint our nails different colours until my head spins with polish fumes. Sometimes Kelsey or Fatima or Jessica H ask about coming to mine and I say yeah, wicked, next time for sure. 

      It’s been a week since you came out the bathroom. You look more spindly and jaundiced each day, your skin draped loosely about coat hanger shoulders. You spend your days shuffling about the cabin, muttering quietly but not unhappily. Mostly you ignore me but today you stop and extend a papery palm. I take it and we stand in silence as you rub strands of my hair, hair the exact shade of yours, between gossamer fingertips. You turn your face up to mine and as you stare at me, I notice there’s something wrong with your left eye. The hazel of the iris is, ever so slightly, bleeding into the white. I swallow dryly. I know better than to suggest you go to a doctor. That’s what Raj did, the man we lived with for a while, and you roared and threw a photo frame against the wall. Then you grabbed our things, your pretty china, and bundled us into Raj’s car as he chased us down the street. We drove around and around and around a car park as you screamed into the night. 

Mum, I say, gently guiding your hand from my hair. Don’t you think you should eat? Always you smile at me, that same unfocused yellow smile. 

I’m fine, poppet. I’m good. 

* 

I hear Mac before I see him. The heavy trudge of work boots, the jangle of keys. He comes at the end of the month to collect rent, or whatever it is we can give. I peer out the window. Mac’s stomach strains against paint-splattered overalls, his pink, piggy face shiny from walking in the afternoon sun. Despite the day’s heat, you are curled under blankets, eyes closed and shivering. The cabin is stuffy and putrid since you won’t let me open a window. I slip out the front door and run along the path. 

Mum’s sick, I say, before Mac gets out a hello. Can you come back? 

Sick? He frowns a piggy frown, looks over my shoulder. She looks alright to me. I follow his gaze. You are on the doorstep, blankets shed, leaning against the frame with a smile. In the sunshine you look… normal. Tired, but normal. I look from you, to Mac, to you again. 

Mr Macdonald, you call from the doorway. Nice of you to drop by. Your voice is high and tinkly, the way it often is with men like Mac. Poppet, you say without looking at me, be a good girl and go play in the woods. Mac and I need a moment alone. 

Mac grins, walks towards you, and I do as I’m told, cheeks burning as I slip deeper into the cool stomach of the forest. I wander for what feels like a long time, questions ricocheting through my mind. Are you better? Were you ever sick? Was your recovery a trick of the light? Will Mac notice your skinniness, your scent of decay? I jump as a branch snaps beneath my foot. Perhaps, I think, he’ll make you see a doctor. Perhaps he’ll kick us out. The leaves sigh and swish as birds take flight overhead. The sun splinters and lands dappled on the forest floor. Something nameless tugs at my sternum. I need to be with you. 

* 

I start towards the cabin, walking turning to running before I realise. I stumble onto the path and I can hear Mac whistling. He’s there, further down, shiny head retreating as he heads back to the village. I sprint in the opposite direction, to the cabin, to you. I turn the corner and there you are. You are statue still, back to me, arms limp by your side. You don’t turn as I shout for you. My throat is salty and raw. 

I grab your shoulder as I reach you. I pull you to face me and stagger back. You’re not better. You’re shrinking, shrivelling, cheeks slackening, loosening, yellowing before me. The capillaries of your nose have burst, blood pulsing black against translucent skin. 

Poppet? you whisper, inflection trailing upward to the sky. Your eyes bulge, the hazel fully spilling into the whites, rivers finally breaking their banks. You squeeze them shut. You’re here, you sigh, and pitch forward. I catch you, bring you to the muddy ground, cradle your head in my lap. You are ice cold and doll light. I push your hair from your hollow face and it comes away in clumps. 

Mum, I hear myself say with a strength and urgency I don’t recognise. You need a doctor, you need to eat, you need – 

Eat? Your eyes snapper open. They are now completely brown, except for the inky pinpricks of your pupils. You reach out a stick arm, run your fingers over the dark, peaty earth beneath us. They close around something and you hold it high. A worm. 

Mummy, I breathe, or perhaps I only say it in my head. A heartbeat and its pink, writhing body disappears into the black behind your chapped, parted lips. I clamp down your arms. Thrumming panic courses through my limbs but I won’t let you go. You struggle but you are not strong enough to escape my hold and eventually you stop resisting. We stay here for a while, me rocking you gently, silent except for the murmur of the leaves. Dusk falls and you shiver, goosebumps rippling. I rub your forearm, try to warm you up, and my finger pricks as if with a needle. I roll up the thin sleeve of your jumper. There is something, a tiny something, protruding from your flesh. A splinter? A thorn? I pull it gently, prizing the stubborn thing from you. Slowly it eases out and there it is, small and perfectly formed between my fingers. A shimmering, golden feather. I look down and you are smiling softly. Poppet. Your voice is soft. My poppet. Your head rolls back and you lose consciousness. 

* 

I am running again, legs pumping like pistons, brambles whipping my thighs, my cheeks, as I hurtle toward the village lights. I thump on Mac’s door and lean, panting, against the pebbledash wall, blood thundering in my ears and sweat tanging in my eyes. I’ve only been here once before and I’ve never been inside – we just came to collect the keys when we first arrived. l don’t know what I’m going to say, how I’ll explain. I’m about to thump again, harder, when the door swings open. It isn’t Mac. It’s a little girl, maybe five years old. She has wispy ginger curls and wears an Elsa from Frozen costume on top of green leggings and light up trainers. I blink stupidly as she sucks a slobbery thumb and looks at me expectantly. 

It takes me a moment to understand. To put two and two together. She has his pink cheeks, that same upturned, piggy nose. Mac’s never said anything about having kids. The thundering in my ears turns to a roar, a roar that presses, that punches, against the insides of my skull. The little girl removes her spit-slick thumb from her mouth and takes a big gulp of air. 

Mama, she yells. Footsteps. A woman’s voice. 

Who is it, baby? 

I see you, the feather, the embroidered pillow, our chequered bedding, our life. Irun. * 

You’re not on the path where I left you. I double over and heave. I keep running, calling for you, until the cabin emerges from the darkness. The door is open. Mum? I call out. 

I flick on the lights. It’s a wreck. Stuffing torn from sofa cushions, pages ripped from my school books. The lamp lies broken on the floor. I shout for you again, hear a bang followed by a muffled squawk of pain or laughter. The bathroom. I run to the door, rattle the handle. Locked. 

It’s me, I say, pressing my cheek to the rough wood. Is that you? Please, open up. I bang until my knuckles are raw. I beg you to let me in, to just let me know you’re OK. I try kicking it, throwing myself against it, but nothing works. I lie on my stomach, twisting my neck to peer into the glowing sliver between door and floor. I see nothing. Not even feet. I lie there, whispering for you, pleading for you, nails scratching at the wood until my fingertips bleed. Eventually, reluctantly, I give in to sleep. 

* 

A metallic crash startles me back to consciousness. Harsh morning sunlight pours hot through the window panes. Everything aches. For a second I don’t remember, but then the memories slide sickly into place. Another crash. 

Mum? 

I drag myself up, go to bang on the door, and realise it’s ajar. I should be pleased, I should be opening the door as fast as I can, but for some reason my fist stays closed, aloft, unmoving. Something feels different. Irrevocable. Something I know but couldn’t possibly. I take a deep, catching breath. The door creaks as I edge it open. The shower rail dangles like a broken limb, half detached from the ceiling. The mirror is smashed, shards crunching glitter beneath my trainers. Our toothbrushes and toothpaste, your shampoos and lipsticks, lie scattered in the sink, in the shower, on the floor. And amongst the chaos, poised regally atop a shit-streaked cistern and surveying me with fierce, swirling hazel eyes, is a golden buzzard. It puffs out its great plumed chest, and lets out a single terrifying caw. Those eyes. Those feathers. It’s something I know but couldn’t possibly. 

Time is suspended, crystalline. I don’t know how long we watch each other. Eventually, the buzzard’s head cocks and, somehow, I know what it wants. I shake my head. Please, I whisper. I can’t. 

The buzzard doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. It just watches me with those ferocious eyes. I want to pick it up, this stupid, brilliant, impossible bird, and shake it. I want to bury my face in its soft feathers and never come up for air. I want to snap off its beak and tear off its wings and wring its golden neck rather than let it have its way. But I don’t do any of those things. Instead I look down as I cannot bear to hold the buzzard’s gaze anymore, and I am reflected back in the shards of mirror on the floor. Slivers of myself of different sizes and angles stare up at me, muddied and bloodied and bruised. Too small and too big. Straw haired. And I know I will give the bird what it wants. Of course I will. 

My hands don’t feel like my own as I open the window wide, letting in the cool, cleansing air. The buzzard hops from the cistern to the window, corn-coloured talons tapering into black curved claws that scratch the paint on the sill. Hop hop, clack clack, onto the outer ledge. Its black beak glints as it flicks its head this way, then that. Taking in the trees, the telegraph poles, the sky. It does something with its wings, like a rolling of the shoulders, like a readying, like an athlete about to run the race of a lifetime. And then they 

spread, wide, enormous. They fan gold and chestnut and grey and yellow and pale, shimmering magic in the sunlight. I have never seen anything more beautiful. You have never looked more beautiful. 

You don’t look back as you launch yourself into the air. You don’t brush me with a golden feather, mark me with beak or claw. You simply circle up and up and up into the bright morning sky until the sunspots blot my vision and I can no longer make you out. The wind whispers amongst the leaves. 

I close the window, collect your coffee cup from the sink, and begin to pack the pretty china.

Litro Magazine

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