Birds in the Black Water: A Dark, Paranormal Drama by Kodie Van Dusen

Author:Kodie Van Dusen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9781778227103
Publisher: Big Cheese Books
Published: 2022-09-22T20:52:04.989910+00:00

Chapter Nine

I kicked off my shoes in a hurry inside my parents’ foyer―more an old habit than a sign of respect. The cold marble floor slapped against the soles of my feet as I crossed with bullish intent. Dad stepped out of his office holding a tumbler of bourbon, judging by the smell and color of it, despite it being hardly an hour past lunch. My desire for it made me pause for only a moment before continuing past him through to the living room, peeking in doors as I went.

“Where’s Mom?” I demanded.

His mouth opened but didn’t have time to form a response before I caught sight of her sitting at the island in the kitchen, the countertops a perfect match to the floor. She sat with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose, gardening magazines and seed subscription mailers scattered around the table. Looming shadows hovered around her, perched over her shoulder like they too had an interest in landscaping.

She scribbled something onto graph paper where she’d sketched garden boxes, all positioned within the perfectly scaled parameters of the yard. Every year she started preparing for the next season so far in advance that I wondered if she thought careful planning could negate the violence of nature―as though enough forethought could stop the damage of a drought or the pestilence of aphids on her crops.

“How could you?” I asked, dropping Jaak’s story on the table, ignoring the insufferable cacophony of the Koels cackling around her in a dissonant halo of sound. My breaths were shallow and fast, fingers clenched into fists at my side. I tried to breathe through the tension, but each exhale only made me more impatient, as though there wasn’t time to breathe.

“How could I what?” she said slowly, staring at the pages as though his name wasn’t glaring at her from the cover. Mom took her time before saying anything else; she folded her glasses first, then used the corner of them to push the papers off of her schematics as though she couldn’t bring herself to touch Jaak’s final offering to us.

“You knew, Mom.”

“How could I?” She sniffed, feigning innocence.

“You told me at the funeral how dark his last story was and blamed me for what he did even after you saw this? How could you? How could you do that to me, to him?” I noticed that Dad, up until now lingering in the doorway, retreated slowly, shaking his head as he went. The stairs creaked as he climbed them, no doubt sighing as he shied away from the familiar collision of the two women in his life. “Did you read it before he died, or after?” A long pause, and then: “Answer!”

“Before we left.”

“Before you left…” I felt lifted from my body momentarily, watching us lock eyes across the island from a distance. The sound of the Koels felt as encompassing as white noise, a dull static in my head that silenced everything else, like a gunshot fired directly next to my ear.

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