Michael Pershan
I called up Melody and told her she had to wear the wings because her mother died in June. I reminded Melody of her bad fortune—that just three weeks after the funeral she herself landed in the hospital with a stroke. With Florian, her husband, having passed two years before and her children happily living on the wrong coast, Melody’d been trapped at home, leaving only for physical therapy and short walks with visitors. Given these unfortunate facts, there was no question about the wings; it was her turn to wear them.
I paused after all this to give Melody a chance—also to work my fist into a flared tendon on my thigh. I was at that age. We collect troubles like rings on a tree. For all I knew, next year someone would tell me to wear the wings.
“I can’t,” Melody said. I heard her crying, and told her I was sorry, but rules were rules—Melody knew how it worked.
Immediately after hanging up, I dialed Hub Cassel. Cassel was younger than the rest of us and only sometimes involved in our gatherings. When he answered, I told Cassel things he already knew: that in the past twelve months he’d redone his kitchen, run a 10K, hiked Bear Mountain, delivered a talk at some conference and earned some medical award—all the while surrounded by his lovely wife Susanna, also in good health. He’d have to hold the bow and dagger. I waited for his response.
Cassel sounded amused. “Let me check my calendar,” he joked. But he agreed to hold the bow, which was also under my desk in a cardboard box, along with the wings and the dagger.
***
The night of the solstice, sixteen of us met outside Davis Vanneum’s Q-Mart. Davis covered his big shiny head with a hood and marched us into the woods behind his store. It was quite a scene, all us aging farts sneaking into the dark, as if we were teens again, off to stroke each other and pretend that we liked the taste of beer. Fail to bring up the next generation in your ways and this was what you got, a bunch of third-generation Bavarians limping around the Palisades with flashlights.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I led Melody by the elbow to the clearing. She leaned on a dogwood as I held a flashlight in my mouth and helped her don the wings. This involved undressing her. Now, a while back, I’d crushed on her…oh god, forty years ago. It would have set me on fire to do then as I was doing now: unbuttoning her dress, lifting it above her head, removing her undergarments, dressing her in wings and beak, her breasts and belly exposed. She leaned on my shoulder as I brought her to the center of the circle.
“I’m ready,” Melody whispered, answering the question I hadn’t asked.
I stood beside her wearing a dark robe, on this longest night of the year. Everyone waited. I raised my hands and said a few words in a language I knew only snatches of. It was Germanic but with Slavic insertions, along with something else, something old and obscure. It didn’t have a proper name. As a tease, we sometimes called it Blood German.
Here is the hunter, I said loudly in this tongue. This is the prey.
I held Melody’s arm forward. I pointed to Cassel, the hunter, standing at the edge of the circle, clutching his dagger and bow. The others standing around the circle waited.
Cassel shook his head. Finally, he joined us at the center. But he refused to play his part.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” he said, pointing to Melody.
My face was hot with embarrassment. Melody wouldn’t last in the cold much longer.
I was trying to whisper. “But you agreed.”
“I didn’t realize. Hadn’t we made changes? This is brutal.”
“If your teta could hear you.”
“Well, you can find someone else. I won’t do it.”
“No dice,” said Davis, stepping forward. “Once he takes the bow, he’s elect.”
“There are exceptions,” said Gisela Bach, removing her hood.
“Can’t we find some compromise,” said Cassel. “This is all symbolic anyway.” He gestured around. “The meaning comes from gathering together. Family. Memory. This is our tradition. I don’t see why anyone has to get hurt.”
“No,” Melody said.
“There is a minimum,” said Gisela. “Maybe he can do the minimum.”
“I’m listening,” said Cassel.
I was as angry as I’ve ever been at Cassel for staging this disruption. I wish I’d thought of something definite and withering to say that would take back control. But I didn’t know what. There is no defense for our dark traditions, not really. If it made sense, it wouldn’t need defending.
“I think we have an agreement,” said Gisela.
I was resigned. “Yes?”
“No!” said Melody.
Quicker than I thought she was able, Melody grabbed Cassel by the wrist—the wrist holding the dagger. She pushed the dagger point into her other arm, and let out a yelp when it cut her.
A red line of blood appeared on her arm.
I didn’t want to lose momentum. I uttered words I didn’t understand in a lost tongue. For reasons I couldn’t say, I wiped the blood off Melody’s arm with my thumb, and quickly spread it on the wings, then on Cassel’s hand.
She has been slain, I announced.
“Outrageous,” said Cassel. He turned to walk away.
I nodded to Melody. She had one last thing to do. She breathed deeply and unleashed a scream, louder than anyone wearing the wings has ever screamed before, a wordless shriek that I felt in my chest. A world-demolishing shout. Even Cassel was silent.
Melody was tired. It was time to return.
And then, I swear, we all heard it. From somewhere deep in the woods, maybe in sympathy, something screamed back.
#
Michael Pershan is a math teacher and writer. His writing has appeared in hex literary, Does It Have Pockets?, MoonPark Review and elsewhere. His website is michaelpershan.com.