The Trade

a short story by dbd

Spring cleaning the car I found the glove compartment stuffed with bent keys, bottle caps, shiny bits of wrappers, flattened pop cans, and water polished stones. Confused, I gathered them up into an old bandana and threw them in the trash. The next morning I brought out the kitchen garbage and saw they were gone.

Things began to change; her routines morphed into unfamiliar processes that I didn’t understand. She stopped brushing her teeth, precipitously preferring to chew toothpicks; she began slicking her hair back, dyed it darker and darker, and she started singing loudly in the shower.

One hot summer’s day, I again noticed a change in her hair; it was closely cropped to her head, and shimmered like haematite in the sunshine. When I asked her what new shampoo she was using she turned and squawked at me like a banshee.

I began to watch her from the corner of my eye, when I could, without her notice, between my own work and rest. Her personality changed completely. She began to wear all black, started shrieking at sunsets and cackling at cars that passed by on the gravel road.

We walked along the dock one peaceful evening. I thought everything had returned to normal, when a boat passed; the bearded paddler brought her to bawls and bellows, as if he’d shot someone she’d loved in a past life.

Incensed at her latest insanity, I bolted to the house, but she was on my heels, mewling and screeching behind. We both collided into the door, where we fluttered and struggled. Once inside, I collapsed onto the sofa and she began a strange beguiling deep throated clucking and clicking, cooing and crying.

I had to leave the room.

Somehow she seemed able to calm her ruffled emotions, alone, in the blackness of the night.

The next morning she was awake ahead of me, and was gone until late into the afternoon. When she came back, she heckled me loudly until I got supper on the table. She ate with a voraciousness that both terrified and intrigued me, jabbing and striking the plate until I feared it would break, lunging after every morsel fiercely.

I couldn’t look away. Suddenly she stopped, turned her head toward me and offered me the last best piece from her mouth, her deep black pupils snaring and holding mine, until the darkness folded into the kitchen.

The next day, at dawn, her caterwauling again stirred me from my restless nightmares. I woke, discombobulated and weary. I could find her nowhere inside. I walked out to the lawn where I saw her, high in the big willow tree. Before I could holler, she leapt. A gasp caught in my throat, knowing she’d fall to the stones beneath it, but she glided up, up, up, soaring higher until she became a small black speck in the sky.

After several stunned minutes, I heard a rustling behind me. A huge crow swooped down from behind the tallest leaves, clucking and cawing, and landed on the picnic table. It cooed toward the waves of the lake, then turned its head toward me, silent.

I went inside and brought out jars of peanuts and pistachios, gum drops and jelly beans. The big bird had gone.

I brought bowls of water from the kitchen, a down coat from the attic, a bright and shiny windchime from the sun porch. I watched the skies until my neck ached.

Just before sunset, she made her way back. Peeking through the curtains, I saw her sorting her bracelets and earrings I’d laid out by the back door. I slept that night, allowing my dreams to soar high above the house, awoke early, just after dawn. At the back door I found a cluster of hazelnuts on the emptied steps, their heart shaped leaves gently moving in the morning breeze.