Sticks

We can hear the excitement in those steps; Sticks wants to get on with it.

Hand: Adobe Stock. Sticks: Me.

Bless these hands that grow tired and weary. Bless these hands, which are dedicated to You. Bless these hands, which test and rebuild us. Bless these hands that are Yours to work through.

My name is Karina. My dog’s name is Mickey. My mom’s name is Lucy; I don’t remember what color her eyes are. Sometimes, I recognize a smile or a chin cleft of someone familiar flipping about in my brain, but then the face goes all different, stretching and pulling into an ugly, strange character, and I’m forced to sit with my beast—my invention—until Sticks comes down.

As an exercise, I try to name every member of my family, but things are…not as clear as when we started. I remember my brother Spencer, Cousin Tom, Aunt Claire, my mother Kelly, and my dad…Robert? Richard?

Sticks was gone for some time. Could have been minutes, or days, but now Sticks is here. We can hear the excitement in those steps; Sticks wants to get on with it.

The door opens; a bar of light hurts our eyes. The screaming happens when the door is open, but when it’s closed, we don’t make a sound. It would be pointless. The windows and walls are covered in foam. The room is dead, and soon—how soon is now?—we’ll be dead, too.

Sticks closes the door. We’re in the dark again, but we’re not alone: Sticks comes down the wooden steps. Step, squeak. Step, squeak. Step, squeak.

We stare, but the black is too dense to see anything. It always is. Step, squeak. Step, squeak. Step, squeak.

We uncurl our hands from around the bars and step back. When we’re alone, we wrench the bars back and forth. When Sticks is here, we stay toward the back of the cage until Sticks motions for us to come forward. Rules.

Sticks shuffles across the floor to stand in front of us. We hear that breath, shallow huffs; ready. The air feels thicker when Sticks is near. We hold our breath and pray for Holy, but it’s not time for Holy. It’s time for Giver; unless we’ve done something wrong.

The spotlight snaps on: we can’t see out but Sticks can see in. We see the cage floor. Who is our confessor?

The bars wiggle and bend, so that for a moment, I’m looking into the cage, not out. The girl inside has the same hair as me—the same turned-down eyes. Then I’m back. We’re in there together.

My name is Karina. I have a dog named Mickey. My mother’s name is Lucy. My aunt’s name is Claire. My cousin’s name is Robert. My dad’s name is Tom. My brother’s name was Spencer. He died when I was fourteen. He jumped off a roof into a swimming pool and hit his head.

Sticks begins: we hear the bowl scraping against the unfinished cement floor, pushed toward us. Today, it’s the Blue Willow bowl filled with milk, the woman’s hand, Giver, with her long slender fingers and delicate wrist. We exhale.

The Giver hand is smooth, sanded to perfection. The wood is the same as the tray Mom—Lucy? Marcy?—brings out when the whole family is over: Striped, African.

When the bowl is in the cage, Giver pauses. We wait. She taps on the floor next to the bowl, then Sticks retracts the hand, waiting for us to step forward. If we don’t take the bowl, the masculine hand, Punishment, will come. We take the bowl. But we don’t drink. Rules.

My name is Karina. I have a dog. My mother’s name is Kelly. My dad’s name is Robert. My brother’s name was Spencer. My aunt’s name is…my aunt’s name is…h…Claire. My cousin Tom came into my bedroom one night and told me to keep secrets.

Giver is back, a napkin draped over the top of her hand like it always is during this part.

We hesitate. Sometimes it’s a trick. But we know the rules, so we move forward and take it. Giver taps on the floor two times. Tap, tap. We wait. Giver hovers inches above the ground: a challenge of sorts. Then, finally, she taps a third time. Tap. And we all drink. The milk is warm and there is sugar at the bottom of the bowl. We lick the bowl clean, wipe our mouths with the napkin, place the bowl on the ground with the napkin inside of it, and then push it back with one hand, just like we were taught.

The light snaps off. Giver is gone. Sticks leaves the room.

Step, squeak. Step, squeak. Step, squeak.

We blink and it’s already time again. Sticks is standing in front of us. Holy is here. We all cry.

They found me on the side of the freeway, covering my eyes from the sun. At the hospital, the detective says I’m lucky to be alive. He’s surprised I’m not in worse shape. There is another girl still missing. Same age, same look as me. He wants to know if I was alone in that cage.

“She didn’t make it…you don’t survive by luck. You survive by remembering the details.” Bless these hands, which test and rebuild us. “You need to wait for that third tap—you say the prayer that Holy demands you say. She didn’t follow the rules like I did. I’ve always been good at following the rules.”

“Who is Holy?” asks the detective.

“The hand of God. I didn’t see it at first, but after a while, I saw Him in the details.”

“Can you recite the prayer for me?”

“Yes. We didn’t cry much while down there—a lot of screaming, not many tears. But on the days when Holy appeared and pushed the bread and wine toward us, we cried. It was like God was there with us on those days, telling us everything was happening for a reason. And it was. All for a reason…

“Yes! The prayer:

“Bless these hands that grow tired and weary. Bless these hands, which are dedicated to You. Bless these hands, which test and rebuild us. Bless these hands that are Yours to work through.”

The detective writes all of this down in his little book, thanks me, and leaves the room. The nurse comes in to let me know that the whole family is here, asking to see me. Says it’s best to take it easy, but if I’d like to see my mom, I could. I agree to see her. A minute later, Mom—Kelly—is hugging me, crying, saying she thought I was dead and she can’t believe I’m here in her arms.

“I’m okay, Mom.”

“Your teeth?”

“Only a few…we learned our lesson early, didn’t we? I’m okay.”

“Your fingernails?”

“They grow back, don’t they? It’s nothing. I’m okay—we’re okay now.”

Later, when Mom is gone and I’m alone in my dim hospital room, I close my eyes and think of Sticks. I see each hand as clear as day:

Filth: I want to throw Filth into a fire and watch him burn—to see the burls and knots hiss and char. Diseased palm. Rotten knuckles. Infested fingertips.

After Filth comes Punishment: Balled into a fist and made of blackened oak. Glossy and righteous. He wants me to be better than I am; he demands accountability.

Followed by Giver: Delivering sweet milk. Always providing. But don’t test her or she’ll call for her righteous partner.

But then…then comes Holy: Always palm up. Never cruel. Asking for nothing but faith, and in return, survival. I can still smell the olivewood.

The evening I’m discharged from the hospital, the detective informs me they’ve surrounded a small house about a mile into the woods, right off the freeway where they’d found me. Says they are close to catching the person who did this to me. He’ll be in touch.

When I get to my parents’ house, the family is waiting. I smile, looking from face to face, but the room is spinning, and the faces won’t stop moving. I reach out and touch Aunt Claire’s face to try to stop it from shifting about. She pulls me close; I smell the olivewood cross hanging from her neck. She whispers in my ear, “I prayed for you, honey. I prayed and He listened.”

“We prayed too, Auntie. Just like you taught us.”

Dad comes over and grabs my hands. He tells me how worried he was about me. Says when he gets his hands on whoever did this, he’s going to “bash their head in.”

Mom interrupts with a slice of cake. Strawberries and whipped cream. I take a bite, letting the sugar dissolve on my tongue. When I’m done, I wipe my face with the napkin, set it on top of the empty plate, and then slide it back to her with one hand, just like I was taught. Bless these hands, which are dedicated to You.

I head to the restroom, but Cousin Tom is blocking my way. Asks me what it was like. He’s got cake in his beard and lust in his eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m not looking at Tom when I say this. I’m looking at the zebrawood tray with the cotton candy grapes spilling over the sides.

“Oh, yes. Sorry,” says Tom. “We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to. It must have been terrible down there in the dark. And you couldn’t see anything at all? Were you blindfolded? Gagged? Well, if you ever want to talk—”

“Excuse me,” I say, then head down the hallway to hide in the restroom. Step, squeak. Step, squeak. Step, squeak.

I stare at the young woman in the mirror. It’s not my face. Or it is, but a foreign version of me—a not-quite-right version of me. Not quite all me. Not just me: Sticks are back and they want their hands. I want to smash the glass, but instead, I turn off the lights and I sit on the toilet in the dark. I whisper to Sticks, I tell Sticks no—I do not want to use the hands again. …these hands that grow tired and weary.

My name is Karina. I have a dog named Mickey. My mother’s name is Giver. My aunt’s name is Holy. My cousin’s name is Filth. My dad’s name is Punishment. My little brother, Spencer, died when I was fourteen. Sticks pushed him off the roof and he hit his head.

I hear the detective in the living room. He’s come for Sticks.

Bless these hands that are Yours to work through.

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