Page 109 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

was clearly doing the Deadmother’s work. I tried to tell
myself it was all a fantastic and calculated gamble, the slain
wolves a necessary sacrifice. Yet the barer truth had finally
loomed too large to ignore—I was killing my own, and it
wasn’t at all clear how that was a good thing. Of course,
whether I found the game to my liking or not, I would be
forced to play along, lest I become merely another name
scratched off a list.
For days, I lingered the field and the forest, sleeping
away the sun and haunting the thickets by night, using the
cover of darkness to raise a great and terrible monument.
I hoped my newest piece would somehow exonerate my
crimes, allowing the spirits comprising its wicked teeth and
mournful eyes to spread a dream as wild and hungry as fire.
My project took me a little over a week to complete, and
with the exception of my family, she was my best piece.
Standing over thirty feet tall, she scraped her head against
the ceiling of the forest, dominating the shadows. She wore
many ferocious heads, each one grinning through staggered
lines of eager teeth. Her central face beamed with beautiful,
blind eyes filled with the soft patter of spring rain, staring
into places where sight failed the visions dreams alone could
bear. Upon her head, a crown fashioned from the bones of
hunting birds. Her dress I made from feathers and flesh.
Many and canine were her legs, each foot tipped with large
claws projecting red and wicked beneath an ample, flowing
gown. Covered entirely by her dress, her torso was a temple
made of wolves, where interlocking ribcages sheltered the
phantom rhythms of seven dead hearts. Like her many heads,
they were arranged to honor the woman who had destroyed
me. I placed her at the rim of the forest, where her sightless
eyes could stare down the sun without wincing.
When I crept into Black River City, I found it sparsely
populated, and only by persons who seemed glad for the
relative isolation. Many of the citizens moved about by night
and sang to themselves as they went down dark curving
112 | Mark Anzalone