Harmony House - Nic Sheff Page 0,1

like my mother’s. I scream and pull down hard and fast so my scalp tears away in a bleeding mass of black hair and skin and black blood. The clump of scalp I’ve ripped away is only the size of a small gold piece, but it burns and bleeds steady.

I bury the hair in the damp clay earth beside the pool.

I spit and cross myself three times.

But there is no penance left.

The curse is too deep inside me.

I drink again and get slowly to my feet.

Jonas has followed me. He watches, crouched, from beneath the nettles. He is gray with long hair and golden eyes. I coax him out, making a clicking noise with my tongue on the roof of my mouth. He swishes his tail and arches his back. I pick him up and kiss the top of his head. He swishes his tail even more, though he doesn’t run away.

We walk together through the darkening forest.

There is a wind now making a sound like the ocean in the trees. It seems to grow ever louder—the leaves and branches beginning to thrash wildly.

Dark clouds appear to cover the fading brilliance of the midday sun.

The dry field pops with blue flashes of electric currents like lightning across the yellowed grass.

The wind seems to come from all directions.

Jonas and I run to the barn door, the horses stamping and snorting restless inside, the goats bleating loudly.

The hay smell is sour and rotting and I can hear the rats squealing shrilly in the loft above us. Jonas goes off to hunt, unafraid of the storm. A barn owl, white-faced and green-eyed, peers out from the rafters.

I walk past the gray colt, Texas, and my mother’s sorrel mare, both horses pacing back and forth, agitated, kicking at the floor. Lancer stands trembling in the last stall, while the black-and-white goat with the bowlegs takes refuge in the straw behind him.

A clap of thunder sounds all around us and I go to Lancer to try to calm him down. He’s a tall horse, lean and sinewy—a painted Indian pony—with thick veins bulging up and down his neck and legs. His eyes roll white in his head and he stamps and trembles. I take his reins out from my coat pocket and loop them over his muzzle and whisper in his ear:

“It will be all right.

It will be all right.

It will be all right.”

Even though that is a lie.

I gather the thick coil of rope from off the stall door and secure it firmly over my shoulder. I lay the saddle blanket across Lancer’s heaving back and lead him out through the barn. Lancer bucks and rolls his eyes more, but I hold the reins tight.

Outside the wind is strong so the branches bend nearly to the ground. The sky is black now beneath the clouds.

I think then that if Lancer would only buck me off—or if I were to set him at a gallop and just let go—I could maybe break my leg or arm or back and lose this evil festering inside me.

But it wouldn’t matter.

The evil here cannot be cut out—no matter how hard I try.

It is in me.

And there is no escape.

Tears burn in my eyes. I unhitch the bridle and feed Lancer a cube of sugar from my outstretched hand. I kiss him on his wet, lathering neck and hold him to me, whispering all the time in his ear.

I take the saddle blanket off and wrap it around my shivering body.

Another clap of thunder sounds.

Lancer rears up on his hind legs.

“Go,” I tell him. “Go on.”

He looks at me with his dark, bugging eyes.

“Go.”

I strike him once firmly and then he understands.

He runs north, toward the river.

He is set free.

I turn and walk back to the house.

Rain falls like frozen sheets across the field.

I walk with my head down—crying hard so I can barely catch my breath.

The cold cuts into me.

I gasp and work my hands at the rope unconsciously as I walk.

I am soaked through and dripping wet by the time I reach the house. I climb the dark wood staircase to the third floor—leaving a trail of mud and my discarded clothing.

The rain against the stained glass windows and shingled roofs sounds like rocks falling.

There are paintings done in oils of Jesus among the Romans and Lazarus risen from the dead. There is Jonah and the Whale and the Virgin Mary with Child and the Tower of Babel and Sodom and Gomorrah. There are silver crucifixes mounted