She stayed hunched like that until she thought she could stand without rupturing, then she cleaned up and went back to her room. Through their respective bedroom doors she could hear Ma and Brian talking, and Ona on the phone with her boyfriend. She got into her pajamas tenderly and lowered herself into bed facing away from the door.
A door opened down the hall. Ma’s footsteps coming toward her. The bed shifted with the weight of Ma’s knee and she counterbalanced with her hand pressed into Beddy’s side. Beddy groaned.
“Breathalyzer,” Ma said.
Beddy blew cookie breath into her face.
“A-ok. Lights out. These lights,” she touched Beddy’s head, “and these lights.” She plunged Beddy in darkness and closed the door.
Beddy lay awake thinking about Void. What kind of superhero was he? Why did he choose her? Maybe he’d appear at her school when she was being teased and eat her bullies alive.
She cradled her belly and smiled as she drifted off to sleep. It was nice to have a friend.
+ + +
“Hey, V, I need your help.”
The friendship had not developed like she thought it would. Void: begging for food, materializing as a knock on her door. Her: obliging him, even when the getting was difficult, moving stealthily in the dark, climbing onto countertops, smoothing or fluffing lessened leftovers to hide what she borrowed. Patiently waiting for him to show up at school, just once.
Now she asked for remuneration.
He sighed, or as much could sound like a sigh.
“I really want a brother, but my mom doesn’t want one. She got something from the doctor that’ll keep me from getting one. It keeps the storks away. I need you to help me find it.”
“I don’t have anything better to do.”
They went out into the yard. She wore galoshes since an early rain had just come, and because she always enjoyed the chance to wear them. Void’s feet squished in the wet weedy grass. This was the first time she’d ever seen him outside. She never knew if he came from outside when he visited, or if he lived in the recesses of her house. Now she saw that he looked no different in light or darkness.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” he said, thrusting his scrawny arms in the air. Even outside, his voice sounded enclosed.
“It should be real small. Just look for something that might scare a bird, or you.”
“Nothing scares me.”
They split up and combed the property, she the back and he the front. She secretly wanted him out there to see what the neighbors would say. He was naked, after all.
She hunted the length of their tiny backyard in exaggerated soft footsteps, as if sneaking up on the scarestork. She didn’t know whether to be scared or not. Uncle Josh told her his scarecrow only looked fake. When one of the crows got close enough, it would grab it.
She lingered in front of the sundial. Surely it was too large to have fit in that eerie white bag, but the part that told what time it was, that was small enough. And it shone. The storks could definitely see it.
She gripped the cold metal horn. If it came away easily, she’d know it was recently replaced. She pulled. Pulled. Then, bracing her galoshed foot against the base to leverage what she thought would be a more adult-sized pull, she happened to look over her shoulder. She relaxed her grip.
“I think I found it!” she said.