The Wicked Deep

by Shea Ernshaw

“No thinking, just doing. When you think about things too long, you just talk yourself out of them.”

I have this sense that someday we won’t even remember why we were friends in the first place. She will float away like a brightly colored bird living in the wrong part of the world, and I will stay behind, gray-feathered and sodden and wingless.

It’s not like she’s completely lost all sense of reality, but the edges of her world have dulled. Like hitting mute on the remote control. You can still see the picture buzzing on the TV; the colors are all there, but there’s no sound.

Perhaps we all have some oddity, some strangeness we keep hidden along our edges, things we see that we can’t explain, things we wish for, things we run from.

We wait for death. We hold our breath. We know it’s coming, and still we flinch when it claws at our throats and pulls us under.

For in a place like Sparrow, rumors spread quickly, like small pox or cholera, confusing the mind, rooting itself into the fabric of a town until there’s no telling truth from speculation.

Love is an enchantress—devious and wild. It sneaks up behind you, soft and gentle and quiet, just before it slits your throat.

Loving someone is dangerous. It gives you something to lose.