Bird box

So many sounds. The voices below, the voices in the attic (coming from the shadows and coming from faces emerging from those shadows), the ladder stairs, creaking every time a housemate ascends or descends, assessing the situation up here and then the one (she knows there is a problem downstairs, she just can’t care right now) going on a floor below. The rain falls but there is something else. Another sound. An instrument maybe. The highest keys of the dining room’s piano.

Suddenly, strangely, Malorie feels another wave of peace. Despite the thousand blades that pierce her lungs, neck, and chest, she understands that no matter what she does, no matter what happens, the baby is coming out. What does it matter what kind of world she is bringing this baby into now? Olympia is right. It’s happening. The child is coming, the child is almost out. And he has always been a part of the new world.

He knows anxiety, fear, paranoia. He was worried when Tom and Jules went to find dogs. He was painfully relieved when they returned. He was frightened of the change in Don. The change in the house. As it went from a hopeful haven to a bitter, anxious place. His heart was heavy when I read the ad that led me here, just like it was when I read the notebook in the cellar.

At the word “cellar” Malorie actually hears Don’s voice from below.

He’s yelling.

Yet, something beyond his voice worries her more.

“Do you hear that sound, Olympia?”

“What?” Olympia grumbles. It sounds like she has staples in her throat.

“That sound. It sounds like . . .”

“It’s the rain,” Olympia says.

“No, not that. There’s something else. It sounds like we’ve already had our babies.”

“What?”

To Malorie it does sound like a baby. Something like it, past the housemates at the foot of the ladder stairs. Maybe even on the first floor, the living room, maybe even—

Maybe even outside.

But what does that mean? What is happening? Is someone crying on the front porch?

Impossible. It’s something else.

But it’s alive.

Lightning explodes. The attic is fully visible, nightmarishly, for a flash. The blanket covering the window remains fixed in Malorie’s mind long after the light passes and the thunder rolls. Olympia screams when it happens and Malorie, her eyes closed, sees her friend’s expression of fear frozen in her mind.

But her attention is drawn back to the impossible pressure at her waist. It seems Olympia could be howling for her. Every time Malorie feels the awful knife stabbing in her side, Olympia laments.

Do I howl for her, too?

The cassette tape comes to a stop. Then so does the commotion from below.

Even the rain abates.

The smaller sounds in the attic are more audible now. Malorie listens to herself breathing. The footsteps of the housemates who help them are defined.

Figures emerge. Then vanish.

There’s Tom (she’s sure).

There’s Felix (she thinks).

There’s Jules now at Olympia’s side.

Is the world receding?Or am I sailing farther into this pain?

She hears that noise again. Like an infant on the doorstep. Something young and alive coming from downstairs. Only now it is more pronounced. Only now it doesn’t have to fight through the argument and the music and the rain.

Yes, it is more pronounced now, more defined. As Tom crosses the attic, she can hear the sound between his footsteps. His boot connecting with the wood, then lifting, exposing the youthful notes from below.

Then, very clearly, Malorie recognizes what it is.

It’s the birds. Oh my God. It’s the birds.

The cardboard box beating against the house’s outer wall and the soft sweet cooing of the birds.

“There is something outside the house,” she says.

Quietly at first.

Cheryl is a few feet from her.

“There is something outside the house!” she yells.

Jules looks up from behind Olympia’s shoulder.

There’s a loud crash from below. Felix yells. Jules rushes past Malorie. His boots are loud and quick on the ladder stairs behind her.

Malorie frantically looks around the attic for Tom. He’s not up here. He’s downstairs.

“Olympia,” Malorie says, more to herself. “We’re alone up here!”

Olympia does not respond.

Malorie tries not to listen but she can’t stop herself. It sounds like they’re all in the living room now. The first floor for sure. Everybody is yelling. Did Jules just say “don’t”?

As the commotion builds, so does the pain at Malorie’s waist.