Thamnophis elegans: A pencil-thin green-banded snake I stalk and capture among the winding tendrils of the green beans. My fingers close over the dry scales and I grip too hard—for a second I think I see its eyes bug out exactly like a cartoon snake’s would under similar circumstances. I apologize because I know what it is like to be trapped and put it in an empty margarine tub. From the garden I bring the snake inside to the bathroom, where I examine it under the strip of brass vanity lights. It slips and coils on the cold linoleum of the floor, lifting its head and looking out at me from slitted eyes. As its body temperature descends, its movements slow. Deliberate now, the snake pauses, its tongue lashing the air-conditioned air. It is tasting my perfume—notes of magnolia and pear—stolen from Walmart, before. Curious by Britney Spears. I scroll through my phone to identify it, snakes on the screen echoing and amplifying the snake on the floor. Venomous, although harmless to humans due to gum size and tooth location. I sigh and scoop it back into the container. I’ll release it amongst my mother’s hollyhocks and tomato plants and watch it shudder away through the grass, feeling like some dark corner of myself is going with it. I’ll resume my search for something lethal.
Latrodectus hesperus: a large blot of a spider constructs powdery webs in the north corner of the garden shed. The interwoven strands of cobweb have gained complexity in the year since this spider won the rights to her territory; its silk threads cover miles of overlapping and circuitous corridors in those three dark feet. I watch her, coveting that crimson hourglass, jealous of her freedom. I picture myself the proud owner of eight spindly legs and a pulsing core of poison. It would be an accident. Mother would reach for her pruning gloves, unaware that death squatted inside. One small bite, one (young, too young) child unprepared to offer help, both scared witless. Corpuscles bursting under the pressure of the toxin. A slow but tender demise, complete with eye contact. Laborious breathing, a tear running down each of their four cheeks. I can see the comments now: Nobody to blame. Sad! A terrible accident. Poor thing. Reaching towards it with a drinking glass in my right hand, I stop in midair. Consider. My sister—recently returned home from out there, a fledgling blown back to the nest by swelling winds of trouble—would (of course) ruin everything. Christina would insist on the hospital or know an antidote or call the neighbors. I drop my hand and leave the shed with a backward glance at the spider. The forest pushes around the shed, hungry for the untreed and domesticated territory of the garden. Entangling, overflowing green.
Amanita ocreata: A white, powdery mushroom at the edge of the property, elbow to elbow with ferns at the base of a Douglas fir. Ash, cinders, dust of the earth. I bend lower and watch an ant travel in and out of the mushroom’s frilled underside. I lean against the tall stone wall that keeps me inside our property and look up at the filtered sky—I haven’t been out there in so long, not for years, not since my mother decided to keep me home always—for my own protection, she says. Christina has whispered stories to me about what it’s like, what people do now in the cities. At night, I listen. Over the hum of the fan rotating above them I snatch most of the words, which collapse in on themselves, drawn together by a gravity composed of fear and suspicion. I’ve read things, too, on the internet, although my mother has blocked almost every site: contagious disease, martial law, vanishing water supply. But here I am trapped. In the woods, I bend closer and inhale the brown rot of the fallen leaves as I regard the fungus. Just as I decide to pluck it, my name is called. Crystal!, my mother calls in a grating croak. If I don’t answer at once I risk punishment. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours shut in the closet reserved for that purpose, darkness filled with nothing but the stale crunch of an empty stomach. Mushroomless and running towards the house, I memorize small landmarks as I go so I can retrace my step. Fallen logs, twisted branches, Cypripedium reginae. When I return two days later, the mushroom is gone.
Crotalus atrox: Outside one morning, I hear a dry clatter that reminds me of the maracas at the Mexican restaurants we used to go to when restaurants were still open. A rattlesnake! But no, it is only two oak leaves, stiff in death, rasping against a tree trunk in a sudden breeze.
Mother [on her knees in the garden, weeding]: Crystal, what are you doing?
Me [sitting near the edge of the forest, sorting grass blades into separate piles]: Nothing, Mother. I never do anything.
Mother: I saw you playing by the fence the other day. You were thinking about the other side, weren’t you? But remember that we don’t go out there anymore. Remember the punishment.
Me: I know, I know. We must never leave our property, or else.
Mother: That’s right.
Me: Then why did Christina get to leave?
Mother [vigorously uprooting marigolds and tossing them into the compost pile]: Christina is different—she’s strong. You’re more like me. You wouldn’t survive.
Toxicodendron diversilobum: Three-pronged leaves gathered carefully with gloves and stored in a plastic bag. It is after lights out. My sister and I are laying in bed, covered by unzipped green and red flannel sleeping bags printed with hunting scenes. Ducks and dogs cavort across the fabric. We watch the shadows drift and molt across the ceiling. The plastic bag rustles.
Q. Crystal, what are you doing—what is that sound?
A. Be quiet. Mother might hear you.
Q. Are you afraid of her?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know what happened to her out there?
A. No.
Q. It was at the mall—you know, when she worked at the sunglass shop? You were just a baby, or not born yet. I can’t remember exactly. Anyway, this guy with a gun came in? He held the whole place hostage. For hours, I guess. All her coworkers ended up dead or like maimed for life or whatever. No one even heard about it, though, because it happened the same day as Cleveland.
Silence.
Q. Did you hear me?
A. Yes. I heard you.
Q. And you know what it’s like out there now, right?
A. Yes, I know.
Q. And?
A. And everyone, every single person, is a potential carrier.
Q. So what’s in the bag?
A. Poison oak.
Q. What are you going to do with it?
Silence.
Conium maculatum: Poison hemlock, killer of Socrates, illustration in a book I pretend not to be reading. The spine is broken and the pages fall open to a drawing of a plant with tall, small leaves, spreading over the ground like an umbrella. From the attic I sneak it downstairs to my room. I skip over the stair that groans, third from the bottom. A catalog of my other belongings: three dolls, one with an arm missing and one with an eye missing and one whole; four books about horses and tigers and little girls; a stuffed seal; an unhatched egg I found in the vacated nest of a Turdus migratorius; a folded picture of Justin Bieber, hidden in the pages of the book about the tigers. My perfume and a bra—stolen from Christina, unnecessary for many years yet—hidden under my mattress.
Nerium oleander: dogbane. In the kitchen, while Mother is in the garden, I put the leaves and branches of the oleander into a large cooking pot along with enough water to cover them. I stir the mess with a wooden spoon until a bitter smelling broth is produced, bark colored, with an oily sheen. Decanting it into empty margarine containers, the billowing acrid steam hits my face and I cough. I put them into the freezer for later. I go outside and walk around the yard, touching all the things that have the power to kill: hyacinth, narcissus, daffodil, rhubarb, foxglove, wisteria, jasmine, yew. Mother should not let me look at the internet at all.
Loxosceles reclusa: Mother comes in chopping and piling wood, scratching her stomach. Something must have bit me, she says. Are you okay? Christina asks from the kitchen table where she is drinking coffee and doing a crossword. I watch the exchange from the living room floor as I plays with my dolls. I set them down on the rug, the pattern of which reminds me of internal organs: kidneys, lungs, liver. After a moment, I walk into the kitchen and slip my hand into Christina’s colder one. We sit still, blood balancing in our palms until they are the same temperature. I’ll be fine, Mother says into the silence. Later, Mother’s belly has turned a nasty reddish color. She says it itches and, stumbling a little, climbs the stairs before supper to lie down. Later still, Mother won’t wake up. I lift her shirt and see a torso filled with large patches of red and orange and yellow, colors whorling and sluicing together like a painting of a sunset. Mother does not move and she is cold to the touch. We’re alone now, says Christina. We’ll have to bury her in the garden, Christina says. She turns to me and is silent. There are no tears in her eyes. Finally, Christina says: You know you can’t ever go past the wall. We must always, always stay inside the wall.
Kara McMullen is a research scientist and writer currently based in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Quarterly West, and elsewhere, and was nominated for Best American Short Stories 2022. More information can be found at her website. Twitter: @_kara_mcmullen_ Instagram: @kara_mcmullen
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