A Babysitter Snoops and Finds Something Unexpected

Newspaper | Cardinal | Cotton | Document | Tiramisu | Blackened | Prediction | Borderline | Freedom | Female

The Darlings smoke pot like, big time, right? So I put the rats to bed 20 minutes early because they can’t read a clock yet, scarf the last piece of tiramisu and comb the place to find their stash. Check every kitchen cupboard, even the one above the fridge I need a stool to reach, but nada. Raid the china cabinet thing in the dining room but there’s just some shitty cotton tablecloths and napkins left from the Fourth. American flag ones that say “Freedom” in big red, white and blue letters. Some envelopes and a document that looks official, but it’s not weed so whatever.

It's the bedroom next, even though eew, who knows what they do in there. The dresser in the corner has three giant drawers and the top one is borderline illegal with all the mismatched socks and Mr. Darling must really be into crapping without pulling his tighty whitie’s down. The second drawer is his too, because Mrs. Darling don’t wear Iron Maiden t-shirts or cargo shorts. And the third drawer is jammed with newspaper. Some of them are new and some are from, like, 10 years ago, but they all got the same kind of story on front. In Fort Worth a female and her baby that gone missing from the grocery. In Denver two kids and a nanny that disappeared from the playground. In Wichita the cops was still looking for a lady that stopped to pee at one of them porta-potties.

What’s the other word for, like, a prediction? Like the way some people see stuff before it actually happens? Pro…promotion? Premotion? You know what I mean. I’m reading these papers and this flash hits me, like a movie when I close my eyes, of some girl strapped down to a bed. Her skin is blackened and scarred, and she looks like hell, but she ain’t dead yet. There’s a rag tied across her mouth so she can’t scream.

Tiramisu tries to come up like a hot snack, but I gulp it down and keep my eyes closed tight.

The girl’s clothes lay in a pile on the bed next to some of those choppers my dad uses when the oak limbs hang too low over the driveway. Like big scissors with wood handles. I swallow hard to keep the dessert from barking back up and my pits are soaked with sweat, but with my eyes squeezed shut I see a painting above the girl’s head. It’s a cardinal perched on a snowy branch, surrounded by winterberries. Below the painting, the girl twists and struggles but the rope around her wrists cuts deeper.

A car rumbles into the driveway and my eyelids stutter open as the headlights chase across the bedroom wall, flashing over a painting of a red bird with a tiny black face. It sits on a branch dusted with snow and thick with berries.

I slam the drawer closed as the deadbolt to the front door releases and Mrs. Darling says Emelia? We’re back.