As we walk down the street to the park entrance, there is a barrage of activity. Several police officers are hurrying about, pushing homeless people into a van, and tossing makeshift tents and sacks into a garbage truck. I crane my neck to make sure none of the people being taken away are him.
One of the herded breaks away and rushes towards me. He is lithe, blonde, his eyes ice blue.
He whispers gruffly, “In the meadow. Near the Oaks. Past the lake.” And then he flees from the cops and sprints down into the park, disappearing. A messenger.
“These homeless are out of control!” my husband yells out. “Don’t go in there at all today. Walk on the sidewalk.”
“I’ll be okay,” I say, pushing away from him as he tries to kiss me goodbye. As soon as I enter the park, the eagle screeches above me. I follow it and head further in, where the messenger said: down past a tunnel, across an empty field, and off the beaten path.
Looking around, the crowds are gone—no joggers or bicyclists or Tai Chi. The world feels eerie. Before today, I would never have wandered to this part of the park alone. But am I really alone? I feel 10,000 eyes on me; hidden in the brush, behind trees, beneath the dirt. And then I spot him.
He is lying down on the wet ground beside a bench, an old tarp beneath him. His eyes are closed and he’s shivering. He looks gray.
I rush towards him, the wheels of my carriage struggling on the wet ground. I kneel down and touch his forehead.
“Leave him!” A harpy screech. A middle-aged woman, shoe polish dyed brown hair painfully pinned to the top of her head, dark painted eyebrows arching maniacally, and red lipstick smeared across the top of her lip and her yellow teeth. She glares at me. Her eyes are as crisp and blue as his.
“Leave him,” she snarls, rushing towards me. She is wearing a moldy old fur coat, tattered with large holes cut throughout. She probably found it in the trash of an upscale store, the slashes made so the poor can’t wear them. A tattered old silk scarf with the feathers of a peacock hand painted is wrapped around her blue-veined neck, its frayed turquoise edges floating in the wind.
Her feet are strapped into silver sandals with thick tube socks. They are wet and dirty. She smells as bad as him. She hovers near me, hissing. I pull away.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Is he okay? He looks sick. Does he need help?”
But she isn’t listening to me. She circles the carriage, clutching at her throat, her eyes wild, staring at my baby, frantic.
“Fuck shit fuck shit fuck, you fucking shit,” she stutters, tearing at her head. “Is this one of his?” She shrieks and the baby wakes and cries, and then…she smiles.
“Oh, brown eyes!” She cackles, clapping her hands. “How dull.”
Her demeanor completely shifts from batshit to regal as she glides away from me and daintily sits on the bench next to him. She laughs again but then stops short, noticing something on the ground. She leans down and picks up a dirty cigarette butt. She fumbles in her shredded coat and finds an old pack of matches. She struggles to get one lit. Finally, she does and puffs the tarred stub until it comes to life. Crossing her legs, she chokes on the acrid smoke.
“Did you bring him an offering?” she asks, spitting smoke in my face.
“I did,” I say, and I rummage through the diaper bag. I hand her the little parcel.
“Who are you?” I ask. She snatches the sandwich.
“Me? Why I’m his…Sister!” she says laughing again.
An old woman appears next to her. A Crone, darkly wrinkled, mouth sunken, whisps of white hair beneath a woolen scarf sitting upon her head. An old dirty winter coat covers her thinly layered house coat, knee high stockings, and torn sneakers. Brambles and burs from the bushes and from sleeping on the ground adorn her. Her hands are gnarled, joints swollen.
“Have you seen my daughter?” she cries, grabbing at my lapels. She seems demented, but her eyes are as crisp and blue as his. I firmly push her off me.
“She was in the meadow, picking daffodils,” she says. “Have you seen her?” She points to the barren field full of mud and snow. She walks over to the carriage. I barely see her feet move as if gliding on air. She peers at the baby.
“Kori?” she whispers breathless. She reaches to touch her with her dirty hand, and I push the carriage away.
“Easy, Sister,” the woman with the fur coat says. “Here,” she hands her a piece of sandwich. The old woman sucks on it, savoring the flavor without her teeth.
The old man groans on the ground, unmoving.
“What happened to him?” I ask.
“He is waiting,” the Crone says, her mouth full of lamb.
“For what?”
“Where is your offering to the god who saved you, girl?” the woman in the fur coat cries, flicking the still-lit butt, and even though the ground is wet, it catches fire and burns steadily. The air has shifted, as if I’ve stepped into a dream. I feel uneasy but can’t pull myself away. I fumble through the diaper bag.
“I have this,” I say and as soon as I pull out the flask of wine. A young man appears from the fog. He’s thin, no coat, sleeveless t shirt, his arms pock marked from addiction. Dark oily ringlets adorn his face, once-beautiful, now sunken and hollow. He’s wild-eyed, dirty clothed, the collar of his t-shirt cut down low, exposing his chest. He must not feel the cold. His dark curls bounce in sync with the movement of his body. He takes the flask from me, opens it and sniffs. His eyes close, and he weeps in recognition. He drinks.
“No!” the woman in the fur coat cries and snatches the flask. “This is for your father!” She pours it into the wet mud next to the sleeping old man. The young man writhes in a dance around him. The two women ululate, and the man on the ground wheezes as the color returns to him. He glows a golden hue. His ice-blue eyes snap open. He seems to float up, hovering off the ground.
“More!” he gasps, his hand out to me.
“More!” the dancing man says to me, pushing the flask in my chest.
“I don’t have any more. I’ll go to the liquor store!”
“No,” the old man says, unstable on his feet. The women help him sit on the bench.
“What do you need?” I ask.
“An offering, you stupid girl!” the woman in the fur coat hisses.
“An offering!” the young man says, writhing ecstatically around me.
“An offering!” the Crone cries, as if in pain.
“An offering,” a young woman calls, jumping from a high limb of a tree, landing flat footed on the muddy ground right beside me. She is sallow, wild-haired, a string of dead rats adorns her neck.
“An offering?” I whisper.
“TO BURN!” the old man cries, his iced blue eyes aglow. He grabs me. He is rough—his dirty fingernails scrape my hand. I’m breathless, aroused, and I feel like hot melting wax has been poured on my skin.
The young man blows a strange dust into the fire, and it explodes high, the wild smoke stinging my eyes and nostrils. I become woozy. The old man smiles, his eyes wicked, his teeth sharp, and horns seem to grow from his head. The young man dances wildly with the young woman.
“I am the god that saved you!” the old man bellows. Thunder cracks and my mind splits inside my skull.
My eyes go dark. I hear the eagle screech, and I am back on the crag of the cliff. The bull saunters to me in slow motion, hot breath steaming from his nostrils. It licks the wounds on my breasts. I look down, and my daughter, now a young woman, waves up to me from a field of daffodils. Then the earth opens, and she is swallowed into the darkness.
I cry out to try and save her, and then I fall. Backwards, down, down, into an ancient dark labyrinth. I am chased by a naked man with a golden bull mask—he is hard, aroused. He grabs me. I pull the mask off and it’s my husband. I startle as he pushes me down to the dirt to lie on top of me, but when he tries to kiss me, he morphs into the old man. His sharp canines tear into the flesh of my neck as I am sucked into the mud beneath us. Swallowed up. Buried alive.
A hand pulls me out. It’s the young woman with the rats.
“Let’s hunt!” she says and hands me a spear.
We run wild through the mud. I feel free, like a wolf running with its pack, my nostrils full of blood scent, my skin tingling with excitement of the chase.
We run together, in synchronicity, through dirt and then hard ground. The snow comes down harder as we rush into a maze of stones and tall grass. Then she stops short and puts her fingers to her lips. I hunch down, silent, holding my spear to my side. She motions. I peer out.
A lioness is sleeping, lazing in the sun.
“She’s yours,” she whispers, her breath hot in my ear.
“An offering,” I whisper back. She nods.
Every sense of me is awakened, on fire. I silently stalk it and then pounce, tossing the spear, killing the screaming lion, then tearing at it with my hands until it stops moving. I hear screams and then…
Blackness.
And then we are standing at a massive marble altar, the lioness burning, its fur singing the air with acrid smoke that stings my eyes, my throat.
The old man stands before the altar and blows the smoke towards me, wafting it all over my body. He smudges me, cleansing me. The fur coat woman holds a golden chalice full of red wine to my lips. I drink.
It’s blood.
She smiles at me, the blood pouring from her mouth, staining her teeth and lips.
“You have been purified,” she says as they all surround me, howling. I spin around and around.
“I’m alive!” I scream. And they scream, and I spin until I fall, and then—
I open my eyes. I am lying in the mud. The old man is alive, grunting. The fur coat woman is bent over the park bench, and he’s thrusting into her. She stares at me and moans like a cow, then licks her dirty red lips, and laughs.
The old woman is holding my baby, cooing. The fire soars higher, it smells like burnt hair and meat. I jump up and grab the baby from the Crone.
“No!” she cries and tries to snatch her back, but I push her away, and when I do, I catch a glimpse of orange fur in the fire.
Oh god. Is that the bodega cat? Did I kill it? I’m confused, dizzy.
Then sirens scream, flashing lights. The old man and the rest scatter like roaches and disappear into the mist. The cops encircle the fire. They stop. They stare at me. I am alone, full of mud, clothes torn, scratched. My baby is crying.
“Miss? Are you alright? Miss?” a policeman asks. Their flashlights blind me as I hear the eagle scream above me.
