Bird box

In recent days, the Internet has blown up with a story people are calling “the Russia Report.” In it, a man who was riding in the passenger seat of a truck driving along a snowy highway outside St. Petersburg asked his friend, who was driving, to pull over and then attacked him, removing his lips with his fingernails. Then he took his own life in the snow, using a table saw from the truck bed. A grisly story, but one whose notoriety Malorie attributes to the seemingly senseless way the Internet has of making random occurrences famous. But then, a second story appeared. Similar circumstances. This time in Yakutsk, some five thousand miles east of St. Petersburg. There, a mother, by all accounts “stable,” buried her children alive in the family’s garden before taking her own life with the jagged edges of broken dishes. And a third story, in Omsk, Russia, nearly two thousand miles southeast of St. Petersburg, sprouted online and quickly became one of the most discussed topics on all social media sites. This time there was video footage. For as long as she could, Malorie had watched a man wielding an axe, his beard red with blood, trying to attack the unseen man who filmed him. Eventually, he succeeded. But Malorie didn’t see that part. She tried not to follow any more on the subject at all. But Shannon, always more dramatic, insisted on relaying the frightening news.

“Alaska,” Shannon repeats, through the bathroom door. “That’s America, Malorie!”

Shannon’s blond hair betrays their mother’s Finnish roots. Malorie looks more like her father: strong, deep-set eyes and the smooth fair skin of a northerner. Having been raised in the Upper Peninsula, both dreamed of living downstate, near Detroit, where they imagined there were parties, concerts, job opportunities, and men in abundance.

This last item hadn’t proved fruitful for Malorie until she met Henry Martin.

“Holy shit,” Shannon hollers. “There might have been something in Canada, too. This is serious stuff, Malorie. What are you doing in there?”

Malorie turns the faucet on and lets the cool water run over her fingers. She splashes some on her face. Looking up into the mirror, she thinks of her parents, still in the Upper Peninsula. They haven’t heard of Henry Martin. She hasn’t even spoken to him since their one night. Yet, here she is, probably tied to him forever.

Suddenly the bathroom door opens. Malorie reaches for a towel.

“Jeez, Shannon.”

“Did you hear me, Malorie? The story is everywhere. People are starting to say it’s related to seeing something. Isn’t that strange? I just heard CNN say it’s the one constant in all the incidents. That the victims saw something before attacking people and taking their own lives. Can you believe this? Can you?”

Malorie turns slowly to her sister. Her face carries no expression.

“Hey, are you all right, Malorie? You don’t look so good.”

Malorie starts crying. She bites her lower lip. She has grabbed the towel but has yet to cover herself. She is still standing before the mirror as if examining her naked belly. Shannon notices this.

“Oh shit,” Shannon says. “Are you worried that you’re—”

Malorie is already nodding. The sisters step to each other in the pink bathroom and Shannon holds Malorie, patting the back of her black hair, soothing her.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s not freak out. Let’s go get a test. That’s what people do. Okay? Don’t worry. I’ll bet you more than half the people who get tests wind up not being pregnant.”

Malorie doesn’t respond. She only sighs deeply.

“Okay,” Shannon says. “Let’s go.”

three

How far can a person hear?

Rowing blindfolded is even harder than Malorie had imagined. Many times already, the rowboat has run into the banks and gotten stuck for a period of several minutes. In that time she was besieged by visions of unseen hands reaching for the blindfolds that cover the children’s eyes. Fingers coming up and out of the water, from the mud where the river meets the earth. The children did not scream, they did not whine. They are too patient for that.

But how far can a person hear?

The Boy helped get the boat loose, standing and pushing against a mossy trunk, and now Malorie paddles again. Despite these early setbacks, Malorie can feel they are making progress. It is invigorating. Birds sing in the trees now that the sun has come up. Animals roam amid the thick foliage of the woods that surround them. Fish jump out of the water, making small splashes that electrify Malorie’s nerves. All of this is heard. None of it is seen.

From birth the children have been trained to understand the sounds of the forest. As babies, Malorie would tie T-shirts over their eyes and carry them to the edge of the woods. There, despite knowing they were too young to understand any of what she told them, she would describe the sounds of the forest.