Chapter 5 The Dance of Snarp
The Dance of Snarp
Icry every night. I miss a mommy and a daddy I’ve never met. I wish I could make my foster mommy happy, but she’s never happy with me. I drop too many things. I’m never careful enough. The other children do their chores better than me.
If I don’t get better, I’ll never build character. But I don’t understand. I work hard, so hard, until my body hurts and I’m scared I’ll fall over. Still, Mother Mary clicks her tongue and tells me I’m failing.
How will I ever make my new mommy love me if I can’t do anything right? The other kids only talk to me when they are pointing out something I do wrong. I think they feel better when they tell Mother Mary I’ve done something wrong. She’s nicer to them.
The circles under my eyes are starting to match theirs.
If I don’t do better, the new mommy will send me away.
My silent tears have soaked Snarp’s head as I clutch my stuffed parrot to my body tightly. Everyone else is asleep when I hear a noise. Half between a scratching sound and a growl.
I open my eyes. A smoky tentacle waves there, creeping toward me. My heart jolts in surprise as I gasp. But then I realize it’s my friend from under my bed. The tentacle gently brushes the tears from my cheek. It’s surprisingly soft, warm, and it kind of tickles.
"Hello," I say softly.
A second tentacle rises up and slowly encircles around Snarp.
The tentacle tugs Snarp out of my grip, and I let my beloved parrot go, though the hole in my heart widens the moment I do.
But then Snarp begins to toddle along the edge of the bed, his wings flapping up and down like he’s dancing. Something lightens in my chest as I watch. Snarp turns to face me, his wings flapping harder to show he’s excited to see me.
"I love you too," I whisper to the bird. The wings fall and Snarp’s head tilts to the side before he waddles forward on the bed. Then he flies up and kisses my cheek once, twice, then a bunch more, making sure to give little sweet pecks to my neck until a giggle bursts out of me.
"Shut up," Georgia groans angrily from her bed.
My laugh is cut off abruptly as I slap my hands to my mouth. Snarp falls to the bed, the smoky tendril gone.
Pulling Snarp into my chest, I carefully lean to look over the side of the bed. I miss my friend, the shadow monster, and wish Georgia hadn’t scared him off.
With a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is watching, I crawl over the side of the bed with Snarp.
The floor is cold under my bare feet, but I still get down on my knees and drop my head so I can look under the bed.
A hulking Shadow waits there, two misty bright white eyes blinking back at me with what I can tell is surprise.
"Hi," I whisper with a small smile, hoping to make him feel at ease. Then Snarp and I scootch in under the bed, pushing into the warm mass that is half warm velvety shadow and half hard solid mass. I curl against what might be the shadow’s chest, holding Snarp between us. The floor is hard, but the warmth and presence of the monster under my bed makes the hole in my chest smaller. It’s not long before I close my eyes and fall asleep.
When I wake, Snarp and I are tucked in my bed with no sign of the shadow monster as daylight breaks through the burlap window coverings. I jump up so I can crawl under the bed again, hoping he’s still there, but I find nothing.
"What are you doing, you little freak?" Georgia asks.
I twist to look up at the older girl, but don’t answer.
She rolls her eyes and yanks me up by the arm. "Time to make breakfast for mommy dearest."
An alarm blares, and my eyes crack open.
Elijah, or maybe his wife, angrily pounds at the wall.
I smack my hand on the clock, cutting off the buzzer.
Cold pre-dawn light filters in through the edges of my black curtains.
Dust motes fly in the streams of light, and I can’t decide if the effect looks like heaven or hell.
I stand up, but before I stretch my body, I get down on my knees and check under the bed.
Nothing.
"I’ll return tomorrow."
Hope swells in my heart, but the organ is atrophied so the feeling hurts more than not.
The memory of Shadow’s blazing red eyes returns to me. Something was wrong with him when he showed up, more than just his anger with me. An edge of wild feral energy whipped around him even as he berated me for my foolish behavior.
A ghastly creak precedes the water exploding from the shower head. With a couple quick, bracing breaths, I plunge into the icy cascade. My skin screams against the shockingly cold water.
A month ago, I overheard a woman, who owns one of the houses we clean, talk on the phone with her friend about how she is into something called Wim Hof.
It’s a system where she deliberately turns on ice cold water for thirty seconds.
As I cleaned the kitchen counters and the microwave out, I filed away each of the benefits she listed.
Better circulation, improves focus, boosts concentration, combats depression… Well, I don’t know about that last one, but ever since then, every time I take a freezing shower, I pretend to be that rich woman doing it for health benefits.
By the time I’ve scrubbed myself clean and dried off, I’m fully awake, skin tingling with a raw but temporary pain.
I pop a piece of white bread into the toaster and down a glass of water.
Glancing at my watch, I see there’s no time for a cup of tea.
Sticking the toast between my teeth, I shrug my puffy purple coat on and head out.
A car honks as soon as I open the door. Helena, Marie, and Alice are already in the car waiting for me.
I quickly lock up and hurry down the flight of stairs.
Tiny snowflakes pirouette around me in the gray, dismal morning, an echo of the dust motes in my bedroom.
Sucking in a deep breath that brings in a biting cold to my lungs, I try not to focus on how I hate the daytime. He never comes when there is daylight.
Anticipation claws inside me, desperate for tonight, desperate to see Shadow.
I shut the door after cramming myself into the already full car of women.
"You were almost late," Helena says, glancing at me through the rearview mirror as she pulls away from the curb.
The girls laugh.
I allow myself a small smile. I’m never late. It’s one of the ways I’ve made myself invaluable to Helena’s crew. Aside from taking on double the jobs.
Now if only I could count on Shadow not to be late, but it really doesn’t matter. I’ll stay up all night if need be.
Cleaning goes by painfully slowly, and I have to check my tone to keep from snapping at the other girls. Helena arches a brow as she notes my bloodshot eyes and haggard face, so I tell her the truth—I didn’t sleep much.
When I get home, I can’t keep my eyes off the bedroom even as I open a can of SpaghettiOs and warm them on the hot plate. My attention is only pulled to the front door when I hear an insistent meowing.
I open the door, and a lanky black cat enters with a cold gust of wind that bites at my bare flesh. The apartment is too warm again, so I’ve stripped down to shorts and an oversized tee shirt.
If I don’t get the thermostat fixed soon, my entire next paycheck will be gone before it even comes in. A bead of stress sweat rolls down between my breasts, leaving an uncomfortable itch in its wake.
"Hey there," I say, scratching the black cat’s head. It doesn’t have a collar, but I think it belongs to a neighbor. Whoever owns the cat doesn’t feed it much though. I grab a small can of tuna and open it up before setting it on the ground. "There you go."
The cat dives into the can, lapping up the meat chunks with single-minded focus.
Later, the cat will paw at the door until I let it out again.
I’ve never bothered giving it a name or figured out its sex.
Since it’s not my cat, there’s no use trying to pretend we belong to each other.
We are just a couple of mangy independent animals scrounging to get by.
I give the cat food and the cat gives me some affection. We’ve struck a good bargain.
A scratching noise reaches my ears. In a flash, I cross the few steps to my darkened bedroom. When I enter, my small room somehow feels bigger than usual.
"Shadow?" I whisper. "Is that you?" Excitement and anticipation rushes over my scalp in waves of tingles, making it difficult to think. I swallow hard, listening, watching the bed.
But the longer I watch, the more it all feels wrong, and my anticipation turns into a stomach-churning disquiet. The only thing I hear is the loud, smacking sounds of the cat from the other room.
"Shadow?" I call again, my voice shaking even as I back away from the bed.
With a smack, a blood-red hand grasps the underside edge of the bed.
I gasp and stumble. I slam back into the wall so hard, pain radiates through my bony shoulders.
A second crimson hand materializes, then in horrifying sluggishness, a face emerges. A creature comes into view, its face devoid of eyes but lined with thin, razor-sharp teeth permanently bared in a lipless grin. Massive horns jut forward from its skull, three times the size of Shadow’s.
Definitely not Shadow.
The creature unfolds itself from under the bed, long spider legs clicking on the wood floor, raising it up over eight feet.
Or maybe they are the legs of a crab? A torso with two human arms sticking out makes it all the more unsettling.
My breath catches somewhere in my lungs as my eyes bulge from my face, even as I try to make myself as small as possible in the corner.
It’s blocking the doorway to the kitchen and the front door beyond that.
Click click.
Click click click.
Half the clicks come from the massive spider legs and the other higher pitched ones come from its throat, or maybe its teeth?
I feel the second its focus locks in on me. I don’t move, I don’t even breathe, hoping against hope the fact it has no eyes will keep it from seeing me.
The creature explodes forward in a mass of scuttles.
The scream doesn’t get past my throat as it grabs me.
One had closes around my jugular and the other around my hip, then it turns me sideways as if I were a cob of corn.
I fight and squirm in its strong grasp, but it has me suspended in a tight hold.
It backs up toward the bed, back legs folding away under the edge, taking me with it.
"Shadow," I cry out in a strangled voice.
A million possibilities fly through my mind.
Is this what had Shadow afraid?
Did this creature come from where Shadow does?
Am I going to die?
An icy drip churns in my stomach.
I’m going to die.