Many Bloody Returns

The Mournful Cry of Owls Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden is the author of novels including The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, and Of Saints and Shadows, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the coauthor of the dark fantasy series The Menagerie, the young readers fantasy series OutCast, and the comic book miniseries Talent. Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He is currently collaborating with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola to write Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

On a warm, late summer’s night, Donika Ristani sat on the roof outside her open window—fat-bellied acoustic guitar in her hands—and searched for the chords that would bring life to the music she knew lay within her. The shingles were warm from the sun, though an hour had passed since dusk, and the smell of tar and cut grass filled her with a pleasant summery feeling that kept her normally flighty spirit from drifting into fancy.

The radio played in her room, competing with the music of the woods around the house—the crickets and owls and rustling things—which grew to a crescendo as though attempting to draw her down amongst the trees. Her fingers plucked and strummed, for she despised the use of a pick, and she discovered a third melody that created a kind of balance between the radio and the woods, the inside and outside.

Joe Jackson sang “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” Donika liked the song well enough, but her thoughts were elsewhere, thinking about inside and outside—about the person she was for her mother’s sake, and the person that all of her instincts told her she ought to be. She found herself strumming Harry Chapin’s “Taxi,” lost in her head, and singing along to the weird bridge in the middle of the tune.

I’ve been letting my outside tide me over ’til my time runs out.

The truth frustrated the hell out of her and she brought her right hand down on the strings to stop herself playing another note of that song. Her gaze drifted down her driveway to the darkened ribbon of Blackberry Lane, searching for headlights, for some sign of her mother’s return. Without so much as a glimmer from the road, she looked out across the thick woods north of the house, impatient to be down there, following the path to Josh Orton’s house. He’d be waiting already, and she could practically feel his arms around her, his face nuzzling her throat.

Donika laughed softly at herself; or perhaps she sighed. She couldn’t tell the difference sometimes.

The DJ did his cool voice and introduced the next tune. Donika smiled and started playing the first notes on her acoustic before it even started on the radio. Bad Company. “Rock and Roll Fantasy.” Good song. Her bedroom walls were covered with posters for Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, and Sabbath, but she liked a little bit of everything. Most of her girlfriends would have laughed at some of the stuff she sang along to on the radio. Or maybe not. Hell, most of them thought Donna Summer the pinnacle of musical achievement.

Now she wished she’d listened more closely to the Joe Jackson tune. She might have to break into her babysitting stash to buy that album.

Her fingers moved up and down the frets, playing Bad Company by ear. She’d never played the song before, but the guitar was like an extension of herself and picking out the notes presented no greater difficulty than singing along. The crickets had gotten louder, but she managed not to hear them. The radio crackled a bit; some kind of interference, maybe the weather or a passing jet. She didn’t understand such things very well. Turn on the box, the music came out. What else did she need to know?

The heat of the day still lingered in her skin the same way it did in the shingles. No more sticky humidity, so that was nice. She felt comfortably warm up there in her spaghetti strap tank top and cutoff jeans, as if the sun had gotten down inside her instead of setting over the horizon, and it would hide there until morning.

Owls cried out in the woods, and Donika glanced up, searching the trees as though she might spot one, the strings of her guitar momentarily forgotten. Other people thought they were funny birds, but she had always heard something else in their hooting, a terrible sadness that she wanted to answer with her own frustrations.

A flash of light came from the road. She watched the headlights move along Blackberry Lane and her breath caught as she thought of Josh again. When the car drove by without slowing, she sighed and lay against the slanted roof, the shingles rough and hot against her back. She hugged the guitar and wondered if Josh was sitting outside, waiting for her, or if he was up in his room listening to music on his bed. Both images had their appeal.

Somehow she missed the sound of an approaching engine and looked up only as light washed across the trees and she heard tires rolling up the driveway. Donika sat forward as her mother’s ancient Dodge Dart putted up to the house. When she turned off the engine, it ticked and popped, and then the door creaked open.

“Get off that roof, ’Nika!”

The girl laughed. The woman had eyes like a hawk, even in the dark.

She slipped in through her bedroom window and put away her guitar before going downstairs. Her mother stood in the kitchen, looking through the day’s mail. Qendressa Ristani had lush black hair like her daughter, but streaked with gray. She wore it pulled back tightly. Though her mother was nearly fifty, Donika thought her hairstyle too severe, more appropriate for a grandmother. Her clothes reflected the same sensibility, which probably explained why she never dated. Though she’d given up wearing black a decade or so back, Donika’s mother still saw herself as a widow. Men might flirt with her—she was prettier than most women her age—but Qendressa would not encourage them. She’d been widowed young, and had no desire to replace the only man she had ever loved.

Her life was the seamstress shop where she worked in downtown Jameson, and the home she’d made for herself and her daughter upon coming to America a dozen years before. But her Old World upbringing still persisted in many ways, not the least of which was her insistence on using herbs and oils as homegrown remedies for all sorts of ills, both physical and spiritual.

“How was your day, Ma?”

“Eh,” the woman said, “is the same.”

Donika grabbed her sandals and sat down at the table, slipping one on. Her mother dropped the mail on the table. As she slipped on her sandals, she looked up to find her mother staring at her.

“Where you going?”

“Josh’s. Sue and Carrie and a couple of Josh’s friends are there already waiting for me. We’re going to walk into town for pizza.”

“You going to hang around those boys dressed like that?”

Donika flushed with anger and stood up, the chair scraping backward on the floor.

“Look, Ma, you need to get off this stuff. This is 1979, not 1950, and we’re in Massachusetts, not Albania. You want me to be home when you get back from work so you won’t worry about me? Okay, I sort of understand that. I don’t like it, but I get it. But look around. I don’t dress differently from other girls. Turn on the TV once in a while—”

“TV,” her mother muttered in disgust, averting her eyes.

“I’m going to be sixteen tomorrow,” Donika protested.

Qendressa Ristani sniffed. “This is supposed to make me less worried? This is why I worry!”

“Well, don’t! I’m fine. Just let me enjoy being sixteen, okay?”

The woman hesitated, taking a long breath, and then she nodded slowly and waved her daughter away. “Go. Be a good girl, ’Nika. Don’t make me shamed.”

“Have I ever?”

Finally, her mother smiled. “No. Never.” Her expression turned serious. “Tomorrow, we celebrate, though. Yes? Just the two of us, all the things you love for dinner. You can have your friends over on Friday and we have a cake. But, tomorrow, just us girls.”

Donika smiled. “Just us girls.”

The path emerged from the woods in the backyard of an older couple who were known to shout at trespassers from their screened-in back porch. Donika had never experienced their wrath and wondered if they didn’t mind so much when a girl crossed their yard—maybe thinking girls didn’t cause as much trouble as boys—or if they simply didn’t see her. As she left the comfortable quiet of the woods and strolled across the back lawn and then alongside the house, she watched the windows, wondering if either of the old folks were looking out. Nothing stirred inside there. It hadn’t been dark for long, but she wondered if they were already asleep, and thought how sad it must be to get old.

When she reached the street, she saw Josh sitting on the granite curb at the corner, smoking a cigarette. Her sandals slapped the pavement as she walked and he looked up at the sound. One corner of his mouth lifted in a little smile that made her heart flutter. He flicked his cigarette away and stood to meet her, cool as hell in his faded jeans and Jimi Hendrix T-shirt.

“Hey,” he said.

Donika smiled, feeling strangely shy. “Hey.”

Josh pushed his shoulder-length blond hair away from his eyes. “Your mom kept you waiting.”

“Sorry. Sometimes I think she stays late on purpose. Maybe she figures if she keeps me waiting long enough, I won’t go out.”

“So much for that plan.”

“I’m glad you didn’t give up on me,” Donika said.

They’d been standing a couple of feet apart, just feeling the static energy of the distance between them. Now Josh reached out and touched her face.

“Never happen.”

A shiver went through her. Josh did that to her, just by standing there, and the way he looked at her.

His hand slipped around to the back of her neck and he bent to kiss her. Donika tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting the details of the moment wash over her, the feel of him so near, the softness of his lips, the strange, burnt taste of nicotine as his tongue sought hers.

Only when they broke apart, a giddy little thrill rushing through her, did she look around and remember where they were. Lights were on in some of the houses along Rolling Lane, and anyone could be watching them.

She felt pleasantly buzzed, as though she’d had a few beers, but she slid her hand along his arm and tangled her fingers in his.

“We shouldn’t be doing this out here. I told my mother Sue and Carrie and those guys were gonna be here and we were going to get pizza. If anyone ever saw us and told her, she’d have a fit.”

“She doesn’t think you’ve ever kissed me?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t plan to ask,” Donika said. “God, she already thinks I’m slutty just for wearing cutoffs and hanging around with boys.”

Josh arched an eyebrow and took out another cigarette. “Boys? Are there others?”

She hit him. “You know what I mean.”

“Your mom’s pretty Old World.”

Donika rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. She burns candles for me and puts little bunches of dried herbs and stuff under my bed, tied in little ribbons. Pretty sure they’re supposed to ward off boys.”

“How’s that going?”

Donika only smiled.

Josh kissed her forehead. “So, do you want to go get pizza?”

“Only if you’re hungry.”

Josh laughed softly, unlit cigarette in his hand. His blue eyes were almost gray in the nighttime. “I could eat. I could always eat. But I’m good. We could just hang out. Why don’t we walk downtown, get an ice cream or something?”

“Or we could just go for a walk in the woods. I love those paths. Especially at night.”

“You’re not afraid?” Josh asked as he thumbed his lighter, the little flame igniting the tip of his cigarette. He drew a lungful of smoke and stared at her.

“Why would I be?” Donika said. “I’ve got you with me.”

She led him by the hand back across the street and through the yard of the belligerent old couple. Josh’s cigarette glowed orange in the dark. The moon and stars were bright, but as they passed alongside the house and into the backyard of that old split-level house, with the canopy of the woods reaching out above them, the darkness thickened and little of the celestial light filtered through.

“Goddamn you kids!” a screechy voice shouted from the porch. “You’re gonna burn the whole damn forest down with those cigarettes!”

Donika started and looked at the darkened porch anxiously. Josh put a hand up to try to keep himself from laughing, and that started Donika grinning as well. The voice was faintly ridiculous, like something out of a cartoon or a movie. On the porch, in the dark, another pinprick of burning orange glowed. The old man was smoking, too.

Josh paused to drop the butt and grind it out with his heel. Then, laughing, they ran into the trees, following the path that had been worn there by generations.

Hand in hand, they followed the gently curving path through the woods and talked about their friends and families, and about music.

“I love talking about music with you,” Josh told her. “The way your eyes light up…I don’t know, it’s like you feel it inside you more than most people because you can make music with your guitar.”

Donika shuddered at that. No one had ever understood that part of her the way that Josh did. He liked the sad songs best, the tragic ones, just as she did. Their conversation meandered, but she didn’t mind. All she wanted was his company. Mostly, they just walked.

The paths had been there forever, or so it seemed. There were low stone walls, centuries-old property markers that had been built up by hand and ran for miles. Old, thick roots crossed the path and small animals rustled in the branches above them and in the underbrush on either side. An entire system of paths ran through the woods. They reached a fork and followed the right-hand path. The left would have taken them up the hill toward her house, and that was the last place she wanted to go.

“You seem far away,” Josh said as they passed through a small clearing where someone had built a fire pit. Charred logs lay in the pit and the stones around it had been blackened by flames.

Donika squeezed his hand and looked up at him. “Nope. Just happy. I love the woods. Being out here…it’s so peaceful. So far away from other people. I walk through here all the time, but having you here with me makes it so much better.”

Josh stopped walking and gazed down at her. The moon and stars illuminated the clearing, and she saw the mischief in his eyes.

“Better how?” he asked.

She gave him a shy little shrug. “Just feels right.”

He kissed her again and she could hear music in her head. Or maybe it was her heart. His hands slid down her back, pulling her close, so that their bodies pressed together. She liked the feel of him against her, his strong arms wrapped around her. Through his jeans she could feel his hardness pressing into her, and she liked that very much. Just knowing that she had that effect on him made her catch her breath.

His hands roamed, fingers tracing along her arms, and then he stepped back just slightly so that he could reach up and touch her breasts through the thin cotton of her tank top.

“Josh,” she rasped, enjoying it far too much.

“Yeah.”

Donika took his hands in hers and kissed him quickly. “I think maybe I want ice cream after all.”

“But it’s beautiful right here.”

He grinned and ducked his head, kissing her again. Their fingers were still intertwined and he made no attempt to pull his hands away, to touch her again. Donika felt her body yearning toward him, missing the weight and warmth of him.

This is it, she thought. This is what frightens Ma so much.

Donika pulled her hands from his and slid her arms around him, breaking off the kiss. She lay her head on his chest and just held herself against him, nuzzling there. Josh stroked her hair.

Deep in the woods, she heard an owl hoot sadly, and then another joined in. A chorus.

“I am far away,” she confessed. “But you’re with me. I wish we could be even farther away, together. I love feeling lost in the woods, like something wild. When I’m out here alone, I like to just run. You’ll laugh, but sometimes I imagine I’m running naked through the forest, like I’m some kind of fairy queen or something.”

Josh didn’t laugh. “Hmm. I like the sound of that,” he said. “What’s stopping you?”

She blushed deeply and stepped back, trying not to smile. One hip outthrust, she pointed at him.

“You are bad.”

“Only in good ways. Seriously, I dare you.”

Donika’s breath came in shallow sips as she regarded him, lips pressed together, corners of her mouth upturned. The mischief in his eyes seemed to have gotten inside of her somehow. Her skin tingled all over. Nodding her head, she crossed her arms.

“You first.”

Without hesitation, he stripped off his T-shirt and dropped it at the edge of the path. He arched an eyebrow and looked at her expectantly.

A rush went through her, a kind of freedom she’d never felt before. It was as though she had just woken from some strange slumber. She grabbed the bottom hem of her tank top and slid it up over her head, then unhooked her bra and let it drop to the ground. The night breeze brushed warmly against her, but she shivered.

Josh stared at her, all the mischief and archness gone from his face, replaced by sheer wonderment. He’d never seen her breasts before—Donika didn’t know if he’d ever seen this much of any girl.

She didn’t wait for him to make the next move. Their gazes locked as she kicked her sandals off and then moved her hand down, unbuttoning her cutoffs. She slid them and her panties down together and stepped out of them, tossing them on top of her tank.

“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.

The breeze picked up, rustling leaves. Somewhere close by, the owls cried again. For once, the sound did not seem sad. Josh stepped toward her and she knew how badly he wanted to touch her. She could already imagine his hands on her, the way she had so many times at home in her bed.

She shook her head, smiling, and stepped backward. “Uh-uh. Not so fast, mister. We’re going to run, remember. And you’re not quite ready.”

For a moment he only stared at her, his mouth hanging open. Donika laughed at how silly he looked, but thrilled to know that she’d beguiled him so completely.

Staggering around, hopping on one foot, Josh pulled off one sneaker and then the other. He shucked his jeans and then paused for a second before slipping off his underwear.

Donika trembled at the sight of him. She’d seen an older boy from the neighborhood skinny-dipping in Bowditch Pond one time, but this was something else entirely.

“Oh,” she said.

Josh walked toward her. Donika backed up and then turned, giggling, and began to run as swiftly as she dared, watching the roots and rocks and fallen branches in her path. Josh pursued her, laughing even as he called for her to wait for him. As she ran, the thrill of it all rushed through her—her nakedness, his nakedness and nearness, and the forest around them. In her whole life, she had never felt as wonderful as she did there in the woods, running wild, full of passion and laughter.

The heat rose from deep inside her, desire unlike anything she’d ever known. Flushed with abandon, she slowed her pace, and let Josh catch up. He nearly crashed into her and they slid together on the path. His lips were on hers and their tongues met. His hands were rough and caressing in equal turns, touching her everywhere, and she let him.

A small part of her—the part that remained her mother’s daughter—knew that she would not let him make love to her. But, oh, how she wanted to. Anything else he wished would be his, only not that.

In the branches above them, the owls sighed.

Tangled in her sheets, drifting in that limbo between sleep and wakefulness, Donika knew morning had come. She loved how long the summer days lasted; she just wished they didn’t start so damned early. Dimly aware of the bedroom around her, she squeezed her eyes tightly closed and admonished herself for not having drawn the shades the night before. She rolled over to face the other direction, twisting the sheets even more. For a moment she remembered her walk in the woods with Josh the night before and the way his hands had felt on her. A contented moan escaped her lips as she slipped back into blissful oblivion.

Drifting.

Somewhere, lost in sleep, she sensed a presence enter the room and began to stir. Then someone started to sing, loudly and horribly, and Donika sat up in bed, drawing a sharp breath, eyes wide.

Her mother sang “Happy Birthday” in a silly, overly dramatic fashion, gesturing with her hands as though onstage. She wore an enormous grin and Donika couldn’t help laughing. Her mother always seemed so grim, and seeing her like this gave the girl such pleasure.

When the song finished, Qendressa bowed deeply. Donika applauded, shaking her head. During her childhood, it had not been quite so uncommon for her mother to clown around for Donika’s amusement. They’d shared so many wonderful times together. Now that she was older and their desires and morals clashed so often, it had become hard for Donika to remember those times.

Not this morning, however. This morning, all the laughter came back to her. Her mother would be off to work in moments, decked out in her usual sensible skirt and blouse and dark shoes, and her hair was tied back severely, but for a few minutes, it felt like Donika was a little girl again.

“Thank you, thank you,” Qendressa said, her accent almost unnoticeable as she mimicked performers she had seen on television. “And for my next trick, I leave work early to come home and make all your favorites.”

She ticked the parts of the birthday meal off on her fingers. “Tavë kosi, Tirana furghes with peppers, and kadaif for dessert. With candles and more bad singing.”

Donika’s stomach rumbled just thinking about dinner. The main course was baked lamb and yogurt, which she’d always loved. But the dessert—she could practically taste the walnuts and cinnamon of the kadaif now.

“Can we have dinner for breakfast instead?” she asked, stretching, extricating herself from her sheets.

Her mother shook a finger at her. “The birthday girl gets what she wants, but not until tonight. Breakfast, you make your own. Toast, I bet. You going out today?”

“Maybe to the mall if Gina can borrow her mom’s car.”

“All right. Back by three o’clock, please. We’ll cook together?”

Donika smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

That was the truth, too. There were times her mother drove her crazy with all her Old World stodginess, but on her birthday and on holidays, she loved nothing better than to spend hours in the kitchen, cooking with her mom. She could practically smell all the wonderful aromas that would fill the house later.

“What about the girls? You talk to them?” Qendressa asked.

“Tomorrow night. They’re going to come by to celebrate. We can just have pizza, though.”

“Pizza, again?” her mother said. “You going to turn into pizza.”

Donika didn’t argue. She wasn’t about to confess that she and Josh had never gotten around to having pizza last night. Maybe that was the reason she felt so hungry this morning. Her belly growled and she felt a gnawing there, as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks instead of half a day.

“We love pizza,” she said, shrugging.

“I promised birthday cake tomorrow night, too. And if you are lucky, maybe some good singing.”

“Chocolate cake?” Donika asked, propping herself up on one arm, head still muzzy with sleep.

“Of course,” her mother replied, as though any other kind would be unthinkable.

“Excellent!”

A flutter of wings came from the open window and a scratching upon the screen. Mother and daughter turned together to see a dark-eyed owl perched on the ledge outside the window, imperious and wise. Brown and white feathers cloaked the owl and it tucked its wings behind it.

“What the…? That’s freaky,” Donika said, sitting up in bed. “I hear them in the woods all the time, but I’ve never seen one during the day. Do you think it’s sick or some—”

“Away!” her mother shouted. She rushed at the window and banged her open palm against the screen. A string of curses in her native tongue followed.

The owl cocked its head as if to let them know it wasn’t troubled by Qendressa’s attack, then spread its wings and took flight again. Through the window, Donika caught a glimpse of it gliding back toward the woods.

She stared at her mother. The woman had completely wigged out and now she stood by the window, arms around herself as though a frigid wind had just blown through the room. She had her back to her daughter.

“Ma?”

Qendressa turned, a wan smile on her face. Donika studied her mother and realized that the birthday morning silliness was over. A strange sadness had come over her, as though the bird’s arrival had forced her to drop some happy mask she’d been wearing. “I should go to work,” she said, but she seemed torn.

“What is it, Ma?”

“Nothing,” she said with a wave of her hand, averting her gaze. “Just…sixteen. You’re not a girl anymore, ’Nika. Soon, you leave me.”

Donika kicked aside the sheet that still covered the bottom of her legs and climbed out of bed. She went to her mother. Even with no shoes on, she was the taller of the Ristani women.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ma.”

It didn’t sound true, even when she said it. There had been many days when Donika had dreamed of nothing but leaving Jameson, finding a life of her own, making her own decisions, and not having to live in the shadow of the old country anymore. Her body still weighted down by some secret sadness, Qendressa reached out and brushed Donika’s unruly hair away from her eyes.

“Tonight, we talk about the future. And the past.”

Donika blinked. What did that mean? She would have asked but saw her mother stiffen. The woman’s eyes narrowed as she stared at her daughter’s bed.

“What is that?”

The girl turned. Specks of dirt, a small leaf, and a few pine needles were scattered at the foot of the bed, revealed when Donika had whipped the sheet off of her. A shiver went through her, some terrible combination of elation and guilt. She tried to stifle it as best she could.

“We cut through the woods to get downtown. I always go that way. I took off my sandals. I like going barefoot out there. It’s nice. It’s all…it’s wild.”

Donika couldn’t read the look on her mother’s face. If the woman suspected anything, she would have been angry or disappointed. Maybe those emotions were there—maybe Donika read her mother’s expression wrong—but the look in her eyes and the way she took a harsh little breath seemed like something else. Weird as it was, in that moment, Donika thought her mother seemed afraid.

The woman turned, all grim seriousness now. At Donika’s bedroom door she paused and looked back at her daughter, taking in the whole room—the guitar, the stereo, the records and posters, and the clothes she would never approve of that were hung from the back of her chair and over the end of her bed.

“No boys here while I’m gone. No boys, ’Nika.”

“I know, Ma. You think I’m stupid?”

“No,” her mother said, shaking her head, the sadness returning to her gaze. “No, you my baby girl, ’Nika. I don’t think you are stupid.”

With that, Qendressa left. Donika stood and listened to her go down the stairs and out the door. She heard the car start up outside and the sound of tires on the driveway, and then all was silent again except for the birds singing outside the window and the drone of a plane flying somewhere high above the house.

She wasn’t sure what her mother suspected or feared, didn’t know what had caused her to behave so oddly or why she’d freaked out so completely at the sight of the owl. But Donika had the feeling it was going to be a very weird birthday.

Gina couldn’t get the car, so the trip to the mall was off. Donika knew that she ought to have been bummed out, but she couldn’t muster up much disappointment. She’d be seeing her friends tomorrow night, and today she wasn’t in the mood to window-shop at the mall. The idea of wandering around Jordan Marsh or going to Orange Julius for a nasty cheese dog for lunch didn’t have much appeal. If it had been raining, maybe she would have felt differently. But the day was beautiful, and in truth, she wanted to be on her own for a while.

All kinds of different thoughts were swirling in her head, and she wanted to make sense of them if she could. Her mother’s strange behavior that morning troubled her, but she was still looking forward to the afternoon of them cooking together. The lamb in the fridge was fresh, not frozen. It had come from the butcher the day before. They’d put some music on—something her mother liked, the Carpenters, maybe, or Neil Diamond—and work side by side at the counter. Normally, that kind of music made Donika want to stick pencils in her eyes, but somehow with her mother whipping up the yogurt sauce for the lamb or slicing peppers as she hummed along, it seemed perfect.

At lunchtime she sat on the front porch with a glass of iced tea and a salami sandwich. A fly buzzed around the plate and then sat on the lip of her glass. Donika ignored it, more interested in the droplets of moisture that slid down the sides of the cup. She stared at them as she strummed her acoustic, singing a Harry Chapin song. Harry was one of the only musicians she and her mother could agree on.

“All my life’s a circle,” she sang softly, “sunrise and sundown.”

Her fingers kept playing, but she faltered with the words and then stopped singing altogether. Despite her concerns about her mother, she could not focus on anything for very long without her thoughts returning to the previous night.

Pausing for a moment in the song, she leaned over to pick up the iced tea, pressing the glass against the back of her neck. The icy condensation felt wonderful on her skin. Donika took a long sip, liking the sound the melting ice made as it clinked together. Then she set the glass down and grabbed half of the salami sandwich. All morning she had been ravenously hungry, yet when she’d eaten breakfast—Trix cereal, an indulgence left over from when she’d been very small—it hadn’t filled her at all. Later in the morning she’d had a nectarine and some grapes, and that hadn’t done anything for her either.

Now, even though she still felt as hungry as before—hungrier, in fact, if that was possible—the idea of eating her sandwich held very little appeal. She took an experimental bite, and then another. The salami tasted just as good as it always did, salty and a little spicy. But for some reason she simply did not want it.

She set the sandwich down and took another swig of iced tea to wash away the salt. Her fingers returned to the guitar and started playing chords she wasn’t even paying attention to. Whatever song she might be drawing from her instrument, it came from her subconscious. Her conscious mind was otherwise occupied.

“You’re a crazy girl,” she said aloud, and then she smiled. Talking to herself sort of proved the point, didn’t it? Her mother had always been a little crazy, and now Donika knew she shared the trait.

Her hunger didn’t come only from her stomach. Her whole body felt ravenous. Her skin tingled with the memory of Josh’s hands—on her belly, her breasts, the small of her back, the soft insides of her thighs—and of his kisses, which touched nearly all of the places his hands had gone.

She squeezed her legs together and trembled at the thought of stripping off her clothes, of running through the woods, and then Josh, his body outlined in moonlight, catching up to her. She’d felt, in those moments when she raced along the rutted path and he pursued her, as though she could spread her arms and take wing…as though she could have flown, and taken Josh with her.

Touching him, kissing him, that had been a little like flying.

“God,” she whispered to herself. “What’s wrong with you?”

Her fingers fumbled on the strings and she stopped playing, a sly smile touching her lips. Nothing was wrong with her. It all felt so amazingly good. How could anything be wrong with that?

But that was a lie. There was one thing wrong.

Her hunger. She yearned for Josh so badly that it gnawed at her insides. She wondered if her mother had seen it in her eyes this morning, had sensed it, had smelled it on her.

Donika needed to have his hands on her again, to taste his lips and the salty sweat on his fingers and his neck. She felt as though she couldn’t get enough of him. She wanted him completely, yearned to consume him, and the only way to do that was to do the one thing she promised herself she would not do.

She had to have him inside her.

Only that could satisfy her hunger.

Her certainty thrilled and terrified her all at once.

With the smell of cinnamon filling the kitchen, her mother leaned back in her chair, hands over her stomach as though she had some voluminous belly.

“I don’t think I ever eat again.”

Donika smiled, but it felt forced. They had followed the same recipes they had always used, brought over from Albania with her mother years ago, passed down for generations. Somehow, though, the food had tasted bland. Even the cinnamon had seemed stale in her mouth. The smell of dessert had been tantalizing, but its taste had not delivered on that promise. She had eaten as much as she did mainly because she hadn’t wanted to hurt her mother’s feelings. And the hunger remained.

How she could still feel hungry after such a meal—particularly when nothing seemed to taste good to her—Donika didn’t know. She chalked it up to hormones. Today was her sixteenth birthday. According to her mother, she had become a woman all of a sudden, like flipping a switch. She had never believed it really worked that way, but given the way she felt, maybe it did. Maybe that was exactly how it worked. She always craved chocolate right before she got her period—could have eaten gallons of ice cream if she’d given in—so this might be similar.

Or maybe it’s love. The thought skittered across her mind. She’d heard of people not being able to eat when they were in love. It occurred to her that this could be another symptom.

She tasted the idea on the back of her tongue. Did she love Josh?

Maybe.

She hungered for him, certainly. Longed for him. Could that be love? No. Donika had seen enough movies and read enough books to know that desire and love might not be mutually exclusive, but they weren’t the same thing either.

But desire like this? It hurts. It burns.

“—you listening to me, ’Nika?”

“What?” she asked, blinking.

Her mother studied her, concern etched upon her face. “You okay? You feel sick?”

“No. Sorry, Ma. Just tired, I guess.”

A lame excuse. She expected her mother to call her on it, maybe to make some insinuating comment about her walk in the woods the night before, about how maybe if she wasn’t always out talking to boys and running around with her friends, she wouldn’t be so tired. Her mother didn’t let her do very much, and she’d been hanging around the house all day playing guitar, and then cooking, but logic never stopped her mother from suspicion or judgment.

But Qendressa didn’t say anything like that.

“You like dinner, though, right?” she asked, and just then it seemed the most important question in the world to her. “Your sixteenth birthday the sweetest. You should be happy today. Celebrate.”

Donika felt such love for her mother then. Sometimes she became so angry and frustrated with the woman’s Old World traditions, but always she knew that beneath all of that lay nothing but adoration and worry, a mother’s constant companions. She thought she understood fairly well for a fifteen-year-old girl.

Sixteen, she reminded herself. Sixteen, today.

“I love you, Ma.”

They both seemed surprised she’d said it out loud. It had never been common to speak of love, though they both felt it all the time.

Her mother smiled, took a long, shuddering breath, and then began to cry. Donika stared at her in confusion. Qendressa turned her face away to hide her tears and raised a hand to forestall any questions.

After a moment, she wiped her eyes. “You all grown, now, ’Nika. Walk with me. Tonight, I tell you the story of how you were born.”

“What do you mean, how I was born?”

Her mother smiled and slid her chair back. It squeaked on the kitchen floor. “Walk with me,” she said as she stood. “In the woods. How you like. And maybe you learn why you like it so much.”

Donika got up, dropping her napkin on the table. Bewildered, she tried to make sense of her mother’s words and behavior, doing her best to push away the hunger inside her and to not think about the fact that Josh had said he’d be out on the corner later, waiting for her if she could manage to get out tonight.

Her mother took her hand. “Come.”

Together they left the house. The screen door slammed shut behind them as if in emphasis, the house happy to have them gone. The porch steps creaked underfoot. When her mother led her across the driveway toward the path, Donika hesitated a moment. The woods were hers. She might see other people in there, but something about going into the forest with her mother troubled her. Much as Donika loved her, she didn’t want to share.

“Ma,” she said, hesitating.

“It won’t take long,” Qendressa said. “But you need to know the story. Should have told you long time ago. I am selfish.”

Donika shook her head. What the hell was her mother talking about?

They walked into the trees. The summer sun had fallen low on the horizon. Soon dusk would arrive. For now, wan daylight still filtered through the thick trees, slanted and pale, shadows long.

“My mother, she knew things,” Qendressa began. Her grip on Donika’s hand tightened. “How to make two people love. How to heal sickness in body and heart. How to keep spirits away.”

Donika tried not to smile. This was what their big talk was about? Old World superstition?

“She was a witch?”

Her mother scowled. “Witch. Stupid word. She was smart. Clever woman. She used herbs and oils—”

“So she was the village wise woman or whatever,” Donika said, and it wasn’t a question this time. She thought it was kind of adorable the way her mother said herbs—with a hard H, like the man’s name. But this talk of potions and evil spirits made her impatient, too. “I get that she taught you all of that stuff, but how can you still believe it after living in America so long?”

Her mother stopped and pulled her hand away. “Will you be quiet and listen?”

The anguish in her mother’s voice stopped her cold. Donika had never heard her mother speak that way. The daylight had waned further and now the slices of sky that could be seen through the thatch of branches had grown a deeper blue. Not dusk yet, but soon. It seemed to be coming on fast.

“I’ll listen,” she said.

Her mother nodded, then turned and continued along the path. Donika watched the ground, stepped over roots and rocks. The woods were strangely quiet as the dusk approached, with the night birds and nocturnal animals not yet active and the other beasts of the forest already making their beds for the evening.

“She knew things, my mother. And so she taught me these things, just as I teach you to cook the old way. When I married, I made a good wife. Even then, I made money as a seamstress, just like now. But always my husband knew that one day the people in our town would start to come to me with their troubles the way they came to my mother. The ones who believed in superstitions.”

Donika couldn’t help but hear the admonishment in those words. Her mother wanted her to know she wasn’t the only one who still believed in such things.

“There were spirits there, in the hills and the forest. Always, there were spirits, some of them good and some terrible. Other things, too. Believe if you want, or don’t believe. But still I will tell you.

“I loved my husband. He had strong hands, but always gentle with me. Some people, they acted strange around my mother and me, but not him. He was so kind and smiled always, and when he laughed, all the women in our town wanted to take him home. But it was me he loved. We talked all the time about babies, about having a little boy to look just like him, or a little girl with my eyes.

“And then he dies. Such a stupid death. Fixing the roof, he slips and falls and breaks his neck. No herbs or oils could raise the dead. He was gone, Donika. Always his face lit up when he talked of babies and now he was dead and the worst part was there wouldn’t be any babies.”

The patches of sky visible up through the branches had turned indigo. The dusk had come on, and full darkness was only a heartbeat away. It had happened almost without Donika realizing, and now she heard rustling in the underbrush and in the branches above. A light breeze caressed her bare arms and legs and only then did she realize how warm she’d been.

She halted on the path and stared at her mother, eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, Ma? What the hell are you…you had me.”

Qendressa slid her hands into the pockets of her skirt as though fighting the urge to reach out and take her daughter’s hand. Her features were lost in the gathering darkness.

“No, ’Nika. You came later.”

“How could I—“

“Hush now,” her mother said. “Just hush. You want to know. You need to know. So hush.”

Something shifted in the branches right above them and an owl hooted softly, sadly. Her mother glanced up sharply and scanned the trees as though the mournful cry of that night bird presented some threat.

Donika shook her head, more confused than ever. “Ma?”

Qendressa narrowed her eyes and took a step away from her daughter, casting herself in shadows again. “You know the word shtriga?”

“No.”

“No.” Her mother sighed, and the sound was enough to break Donika’s heart. “I was so much like you, ’Nika. Still very young, though already I was a widow. So many questions in my head. I walked in the forest always, cold and grieving and alone. I knew I had to have a baby, to be a mother. I would never love another, but a child I could love. I could have what my husband and I dreamed of…even if part of it is only a dream.

“One night I am in the forest, walking and dreaming, and I hear voices. Some men and some women. I hear a laugh, and I do not like the way it sounds, that laugh. So I walk quietly, slowly, and go through the trees, following the voices. I walked in the forest so much that I learned to make almost no noise at all. From the trees, I see them, two women and three men, all with no clothes. I felt ashamed to spy on them like that. I would have gone, but could not look away.

“They looked up at the sky and reached up to their mouths and they slipped off their skins, like they were only jackets. Inside were shtriga. They looked like owls, but they were not. I could not breathe and just watched, praying not to be seen. They flew away. I stood there until I could not hear the wings anymore and then I could breathe again.”

Qendressa paused. Donika realized that she had been holding her breath, just the way her mother had described. As the story unfolded, she had pictured it all in her mind, so simple to imagine because of all of the hours she had spent walking these woods by herself and because, just last night, she and Josh had been naked beneath the trees and the night sky. But this…her imagination could only go so far.

“Ma, you must have been dreaming. You said you were dreaming, right? You fell asleep. That couldn’t have been real.”

Her mother approached her, stepping into the moonlight, and Donika saw the tears streaking her face. Sorrow weighed on her and made her look like an old woman.

“No?” Qendressa said.

Somewhere in the trees, an owl hooted. Donika flinched and looked up, searching the branches, just as her mother had done. A second owl replied, sharing the sad song.

“Even when they were gone, I could not go away. I should have run. I did not know when they would be back for their skins, the shtriga, but I knew that they would be back. The shtriga went ’round the town and through the forest and they hunted the lustful and licentious. They had the scent of those whose lust was strongest, and the shtriga drank their blood to sate their own hungers.”

“Sounds like a vampire,” Donika said.

Qendressa frowned, shaking her head. “No, ’Nika. Vampires are make-believe. The shtriga are real. But the power they have, it has rules. The shtriga must come back to its skin by morning.

“My mother had told me many stories of them. How they grow. How to stop them. And I dreamed of a baby, ’Nika. It hurt my heart, I wanted it so much.

“I knew I only had till morning, and maybe not even that long. I ran into the clearing and I took the skin of one of the women, with her beautiful black hair. I carried it home, hurrying and falling, and I locked the door behind me. I took my scissors and sat at my worktable and I cut the skin of the shtriga. I cut away large pieces and later I burned them.

“And then I started to sew. With the shtriga’s black hair for my thread, I patched the skin back together, only now it was not the skin of a grown woman, but the skin of a baby girl.”

Donika shivered and hugged herself, staring at her mother’s eyes shining in the moonlight, tears glistening on her face.

“No,” the girl said.

When her mother spoke again, her voice had fallen to the whisper of confession.

“I sat and waited in the corner of the room, in a chair that my husband had loved so much. A little before dawn, the shtriga came looking for her skin. I left the window open and the owl flew in and landed on my worktable. It spread its wings and ducked its head down to pick at the skin it had left behind. The owl pushed itself into the skin.

“When the sun rose, a baby girl lay on my worktable and she cried, so sad, so lonely. I took her in my arms and rocked her and I sang to her an old song that my mother loved, and my baby loved it, too. She didn’t cry anymore.”

Qendressa bit her lip and gazed forlornly at her daughter. Through her tears, she began to sing that same old song, a lullaby that Donika knew so well. Her mother had been singing it to her all her life.

“I don’t believe you.”

But then the owls began to cry their mournful song again, hooting softly, not only one or two but four or five of them now. Donika saw the fear in her mother’s eyes as the woman searched the trees. Qendressa put out a hand to her.

“Come, ’Nika. We go home.”

Donika stared at her.

“I don’t believe you,” she said again.

But she could taste the salt of her own tears and feel them warm upon her cheeks. She backed away from her mother’s outstretched hand, shaking her head. Denials rose up in her heart and mind but somehow would not reach her lips.

She knew. The hunger churned in her gut, gnawing at her, and she knew.

“Why did you tell me?”

Qendressa sobbed. “Because you are not my baby anymore, ’Nika. You’re sixteen. Sixteen years since that night. I know the stories. You are shtriga now.”

Donika felt something break inside her. She spun on one heel and ran. Low branches whipped at her face and she raised her arms to protect herself. She stumbled over roots and rocks that she’d always avoided before. The owls hooted above her, and now she could hear their wings flapping as they moved through the trees, keeping pace.

In her life, she had never felt so cold. No matter how fast she ran, no matter how her pulse quickened, she could not get warm. Her sobs were words, denials that felt as hollow as her own stomach. The hunger clutched at her belly and a yearning burned in her. Desire.

Josh. She summoned an image of him in her mind and focused on it. They could run together. He would hold her. He could touch her, and maybe, for a little while, the madness and hunger would fade.

A numbness came over her, but Donika began to get control of herself. She still wept, but silently now. Her feet were surer on the path. She saw the stone wall to one side and the fire pit ahead and the memory of last night gave her something to hold on to.

Soon, she found herself at the end of the path, stepping out into the backyard of the bitter old couple. An owl hooted, back in the woods, and she hurried away from the trees, wanting to leave the forest behind for the first time in her life.

She strode across the back lawn unnoticed. A dog barked nearby, the angry yip of a canine scenting the presence of an enemy. Donika made her way between houses, but as she came in sight of the corner where Josh would be waiting, she paused.

Hidden in the night-black shadows of those homes, she watched him. Josh sat on the curb, smoking a cigarette, content to be by himself. He waited for her and didn’t mind. In the golden glow of a nearby streetlamp, he was beautiful to her. They would run through the dark woods together once again, but this time she would give herself to him.

Desire clawed at her insides. She ran her tongue out to wet her lips. She could almost taste the salt of his skin, and the urge to do so, to taste him, tugged at her.

A smile touched her lips and she almost called out.

Donika’s smile faded.

No, she thought. It isn’t love. Desire isn’t love. Hunger isn’t.

She understood hunger now. Donika fled silently back into the woods, where she belonged. The owls cried and flew with her. Loneliness clutched at her until she realized that she wasn’t alone at all. She had never been alone.

The woods received her with love. She could never go back to her mother’s house. Not now.

She hurtled along the path and then left the trail, breaking off into rough terrain. She raced through the woods, leaped fallen branches, and exulted in the night wind whispering around her. Her tears continued to fall but they were no longer merely tears of sorrow. Her mind whirled in a storm of emotions, but beneath them all, the hunger remained.

Surrendering to the forest and the night, she stripped her clothes off as she ran, paying no attention to where she left them. The moonlight and the breeze caressed her naked flesh and now the warmth returned to her at last. She felt herself burning with want. With need. And then she could feel her skin hanging on her the same way that clothes did, and she reached up to the edges of her mouth and pulled it wide like a hood, slipping it back over her head.

Donika slid from her skin and, at last, took flight, returning to the night sky after sixteen very long years. Reborn.

She flew through the trees, thinking again of the boy she desired, thinking that maybe he would be inside her tonight after all, and they would both get what they wanted.

Her mouth opened in a low, mournful cry. It was a tune she’d always known, a night song that had been in her heart all along.