Christina Graves has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen. Three decades later it’s been a lifelong love affair. A common theme she’ll never get tired of exploring is the darker side of human behavior.
She currently lives in the deep south with her husband, three children, and their rescue pup while she works on her debut horror novel, Still Dark Places.
Stalk her on her substack right HERE.
BOUND
by
Christina Graves
What am I going to do about it?
The question spins in my head in perpetual motion, building pressure until my knuckles are bone white against the steering wheel. My eyes remain locked on my wife’s car in another man’s driveway.
The creature’s large wings clink heavily against the glass jar in my passenger seat.My grandmother called it a curse. Now I’m not so certain. By the time the flutter of wings against the dark woke me, their presence already felt more like a blessing than a curse.
“When the death moth makes its way into your home, it comes in search of one thing. The soul of a loved one; someone close-someone bound by blood or marriage. Once you find it, it’s already too late. You must choose to keep it…or give it to someone else.”
There was a man, a friend of hers, who found the thing in his garage. He took my grandmother’s warning as the ramblings of an aging mind, dismissing the curse and the moth as casually as a fly. His daughter was killed in a crash on her way home from college the following week.
Then there was my grandmother’s uncle. She overheard him telling the story to her grandfather one night, crying in a way she’d never heard a grown man cry. When he found the creature lurking in his bedroom, he didn’t hesitate to release it into the home of a neighbor, a young woman, healthy with no children. He thought she’d be safe. The following night he watched as they loaded her into an ambulance. They told him she lost her balance coming down the stairs, but he knew better. The guilt haunted him into an early grave.
“It’s a test of human nature.” she said when I asked her how someone could make such an impossible choice. The blood of someone you love, and the blood of a stranger look the same on your hands, don't they? At least that’s what I thought before life presented me with my own swift kick. Now I had my own test of nature. Another man, one less scorned, might feel conflicted in this choice but even as I carefully corralled the creature into the jar there was never any doubt in my mind what to do with it.
This gift was the answer to a question I hadn’t dared ask out loud but had been hiding in the back of my mind since I discovered my wife’s affair.
What was I going to do about it?
I carried the creature quietly from our bedroom where my wife should have been sleeping. Working late or having drinks with a girlfriend, I forget which. The stories interchange so often. She either thinks I’m an idiot or she doesn’t care that I know she’s with him.
Our child’s door sat ajar so I dared a peek inside. I could just make out his tiny alien print pajamas beneath the blanket. Seeing him I’m reminded why I haven’t left. Growing our family hadn’t come easy for us. I always blamed myself. They said the likelihood of me conceiving was slim to none; some genetic something or other. When my wife told me she was late we were hesitant. When we finally heard his little heartbeat, it changed everything for me. He’s our miracle. I refuse to disrupt his life or poison his view of his mother. I can’t just leave.
I grab the jar and take a look around. When I’m confident I won’t be seen I creep up to the side of the house. I crawl within the shadows like a ghost in search of an opening.
All this feels crazy. Maybe I’m losing my mind. Maybe, but my desperation keeps me moving until I see it; a window left ajar.
I’ve had some time to learn a bit about the man that destroyed my life. He’s single. No children. Very little family to be found. I won’t pretend to know all the rules but from what I can tell there’s only two people this man loves enough to be taken. Himself…or my loving wife. Either way I’ll be purged of him.
I loosen the lid of the jar and hold it up to the opening. It has no way out but in. It doesn’t move. I grit my teeth and will the thing to fly. It remains still. I’ve killed it! In my quest for revenge, I must have forgotten to punch holes in the top of the lid. I’ve suffocated it! I give the jar a quick shake and to my relief its wings flutter to life. It takes flight straight into the darkened room.
I glance at my watch. 9:45 p.m. I should get back. If my son wakes up and I’m not there he’ll be terrified. When I pull away from the house, the weight of the curse has lifted. Or maybe it’s the weight of the lie I’ve been living for so long. All I know is for the first time in a long while I feel free.
Then I see the flashing lights and my heart plummets into my gut.
A parade of emergency vehicles have gathered outside my house. My neighbors are congregated just beyond a barrier of yellow caution tape. I stop in the middle of the street and propel myself into the frenzy. A police officer catches me by the shoulders.
I push against him desperate to move past him. Everything becomes a blur of rapid motion, reverbed voices, and radio static.
Only a few things break through the haze; a child wandering into the street and being struck by a passing vehicle, a neighbor’s voice begging for forgiveness, and the flash of a tiny form on the pavement wearing alien print pajamas.
I scream in an attempt to drown it out, but one thing comes in crystal clear. Something that doesn’t quite add up.
“Time of death; 9:47pm.”
Bound by blood.