Snake Ropes by Jess Richards Page B

aren’t the same length so it moves like it’s drunk. The moppet’s head is sewn on straight up, so as it crawls it can’t see where it’s going. It faces the floor, with its raggedy ears dragging on the boards. It reaches my feet, sits back and looks up at me.
    Barney’s voice says, ‘Mary, I tired. Stay home warm.’
    I pick it up and sit down on Barney’s bed. Tears make me not see right. I hold the moppet in my shaking hands. Dun want it to be able to
move
, not if it’s going to make me fearful. But I look down at the squinty mouth what should be Barney’s mouth, the raggedy ears what should be hims curly hair. And I dun mind if it scares me, for it’s got the voice I love the most. I even miss wiping hims snotty nose and washing off the dirt behind hims ears.
    I want to ask it the question I should have asked it already. The one I’ve been too afraid to ask. So I do.
    ‘Barney, are you dead?’
    Before it can answer, the sobs shake so hard in me I can’t stop them up. I wish I could unspeak it. Dun want to hear the answer. I bury the moppet in Barney’s blankets.
    A clatter from outside the bedroom stops up my tears. I crouch down and look through the keyhole. A wide eye looks back at me. I fall on the floor and bang my arm.
    Annie curses on the other side. ‘Thrashes been, Mary! You gave me some shock there.’
    I scramble up and wrench open the door.
    Her hair frazzles around her face, a pink smudge on her cheek from where her face rested on Mam’s chair. ‘I were only seeing if you were still asleep or no. I must have nodded off. Dogs woke me up knocking over the stool. Best get going home.’
    ‘Annie, stay a while.’
    She puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Oh Mary, what we going to do? We lost too much too quick ‘ent we?’
    I nod.
    She takes my hand and we sit by the empty grate. She says, ‘Ah, you poor thing, me in such a state, you must have been feeling right bad about your Da, only you managed to get both of us warmed and fed. You just got to take care of yourself. Feeding one is easier than two or even three. You’re still young, you’ll get through.’
    ‘So you’re saying I should forget Barney?’ My voice cracks.
    Annie says, ‘I’m feeling a whole lot better, after a good sleep in your Mam’s chair.’ She whispers, ‘Tragic what happened to her. Your Mam, my friend. Beatrice.’
    It’s a pinprick in my belly, to hear her name. Everyone always calls her ‘Your poor Mam’, or ‘Remember Mary’s Ma?’ Sometimes I forget she were ever called anything else.
    I say, ‘With the amount of diamondback addersnakes folks say we’ve got on the island, you’d have thought someone could have come up with something in time.’
    Annie starts, eyes wide. ‘No Mary, it were a deep, deep bite, she never even saw that diamondback. She were filled with the venom so fast she were out cold in a heartbeat.’
    ‘Well, you’d best get back home to feed your dogs.’
    Thems tails thud on the floorboards as Annie stands up.
    I smile at her. ‘I’ve never been alone here. Not proper alone. Even with Barney gone, when Da were fishing, I knew him’d be coming back.’
    ‘If your Mam were here, she’d tell you to get to doing your broideries. So I’m saying it for her.’ She squeezes my arm.
    ‘Ta, Annie. I wish …’
    ‘I know, pet. Me an’ all.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘Dun tell folks I knew about the boys being traded. I’ll not say anything about your Mam and that tall man. Stick together, we should.’
    I nod but dun look at her.
    ‘For your Mam’s sake, Mary. Stick with me.’
    ‘Aye. All right. For Mam.’
    We walk to the door and I’m thinking about what Grandmam said:
    The Thrashing House beats the truth out of a person and turns it into some small object what can be seen and held. These objects are kept safe inside a glass cabinet, in the Weaving Rooms, where only the women go, and when you’re of age, you will be able to go an’ all
.
    ‘Annie, you’ll go to the