Watermelon Axe by Emily Pegg

---

Next door Marjorie slaughters watermelon with an axe. It is summer, a smoke-stained June, and Melody is counting the days since her sister Val last left the house: eleven. Her record is one hundred and seven, and it would have been more except she dropped a mug in the kitchen and sliced her forearm pretty good on the ceramic, needed eight stitches. Melody drove her to the clinic, and Val wailed and threw her bloody arm against the window, begging to be taken home. Melody had to put the child lock on. She had to scrub blood off the passenger seat. Once back, Val hid in her bedroom for thirty hours without emerging.

Now from the window of the kitchen, Melody watches their neighbour eat watermelon from her hands. Sloppy chunks, pink juice down to the elbows, her hair lightning struck and wild. Last night they heard a wolf howl somewhere in the woods, and Val crawled into bed next to Melody until it stopped. 

Melody thinks that if she could just get her sister to sit on their porch or come out onto the grass without being bribed or begged, then things might start to look up. But when Val comes over to see the commotion, the axe comes down again on the fruit and she runs out of sight like a child, terrified of the snapping rind.

Melody thinks she might put her fist through the window just to make a big, loud noise. Let Val be afraid of her too! But the frustration passes. Marjorie looks up, sees her watching, and nods. They speak rarely: both strangers and constant companions always on the other side of the grass. The only other house for miles. Just them and the forest.

Melody goes to Marjorie’s porch asking, could she have some? And Marjorie drops a sticky chunk of the fruit into her hands as if they do this sort of thing all the time. Melody sits beside her on the steps, below which amaranth plants shiver in the breeze. She eats out of her hands while Marjorie spits the black seeds into the grass. 

Saw you take your sister out, says Marjorie, after sending a watermelon seed flying more than a meter away. She can’t be much younger than her parents had been when they died, Melody thinks. Silver infects her hair like spreading ink. Effortlessly, Marjorie spits another seed and it soars forward. 

Melody and Val live in a rancher the colour of robin’s eggs, with bushes outside that grow roses as wide as stars. Every few weeks in summer it gets too hot and the dark petals flake off like nails into the grass, and Melody goes around to pick them all up, watering dutifully until they grow back. On days Val won’t stop crying, Melody brings thorn-less clippings inside for her to smell. 

Marjorie’s house has more windows, a bigger chimney. Sometimes they hear the cluck of poultry out back. 

She hurt herself, Melody says. That happens sometimes.

Marjorie grabs a chunk of watermelon and breaks it off with her fist. She eats wildly, and the stain on her chest grows, turning her t-shirt pink. She ever hurt you, asks Marjorie. 

She thinks her nightmares come true, says Melody. She’s been dreaming of wolves that swallow us up.

Sounds scary, says Marjorie.

Melody pops more watermelon into her mouth and says, I wish she would come outside.

Marjorie grunts, nodding like she understands. For a long while they sit in silence. Heat makes the treeline wobble. This time of year, Melody is either sunburnt or burning, peeling skin away in flakes, rubbing aloe on her shoulders. Marjorie’s tan turns her arms into tree trunks; her calves are golden brown. They have lived beside each other for Melody’s whole life but never been inside each other’s homes. When the last of the watermelon is gone Melody’s tongue searches her fingers for the last of the dripping. 

I could help with that, offers Marjorie. If you want.

Really, asks Melody.

And Marjorie sets down her axe on the porch, watermelon seeds sliding off the blade. Sure, she says. I’ll come up with something.

At home, Val is furious.

How could you just eat that, she yells at Melody. She gestures again and again to the window that faces Marjorie’s house. You don’t know what she did with it before she gave it to you. Are you trying to die?

I’m sorry, Melody says again. She puts her hands up to show she means no harm. It’s just watermelon.

You could choke on a seed, says Val.

You could choke drinking water. Or eating breakfast, says Melody.

Don’t be cruel.

Please stop, says Melody.

But Val cannot.

We don’t know her, she continues. We’ve seen her with that axe.

The cherry wood helve. Melody knows the sound of the blade. Not just for butchering watermelon, but for clearing trees when needed. For severing twine. Sharpening a wooden peg. Melody has seen, through the kitchen window, their neighbour use her axe for any number of tasks. Tasks that could be done with smaller, less dangerous tools—she once witnessed Marjorie skin a halibut cleanly with it. Since their parents’ passing, Marjorie has chopped firewood for the sisters to have through winter whenever Melody’s arms tire or their hatchet—a small, rusted thing—won’t do the job. At any hour of the day, it is not surprising to hear hacking next door, the long pauses of silence where Marjorie draws the axe up above her, and the arrow-thin slice of it coming down. As if she were always in the middle of chopping something up.

Don’t be stupid, says Melody, as the sound of Marjorie’s blade cracks outside.

That night, wolves once more cry dolefully from deep in the woods, and in the morning Val refuses to leave her room. I had a dream, she says through the door. A wolf ate us both up. 

Come out and I’ll make breakfast, Melody tries. I’ll make you tea. 

No thank you, says Val. I’m fine in here.

Melody slams her open hand against the doorframe. Come out, she shouts at her sister. There are no wolves, come out!

But Val refuses silently, believing as she always has that her nightmares can be prophetic, because once as a child she dreamed their parents were dead and more than a decade later, it was true. No amount of logic sways Val, Melody has found, especially as time goes on. She needs proof there is no danger, or else danger is everywhere.

The day stretches lazily like a cat. Alone, Melody has many hours to fill, and as always the day’s chores dry up quickly without the distraction of her sister. She watches from their window for signs of Marjorie—maybe she has another watermelon—and at first sign of her movement inside the house, Melody goes outside. From their front door to Marjorie’s is a short sprint through tall, scratchy grass, past the sparse apple trees Melody’s parents once planted. 

Marjorie opens the door in the middle of something; she has tied up her hair. She nods at Melody before peering towards their house, wipes her hands with a rag the colour of mulch. Melody sees Val’s face like a coin in the window before she flits out of sight. Marjorie clears her throat, looks serious. The axe is propped against the door frame, blade down, at her feet. You can bring that, says Marjorie, gesturing to the tool. Melody looks back towards her house, but Val has not returned. In her mind she can hear Val’s voice screaming danger. We don’t know her, she’d say. She’s basically a stranger!

But Marjorie is not a stranger. Marjorie has been just across the clearing forever. 

Melody grasps the axe handle. It’s heavier than she imagined, and she has to force herself to walk straightly as her body begs to lean to one side.

The house is dark. Stepping into it, Melody’s chest clenches in the blackness, the sudden shift from daylight to nothing, but then Marjorie turns on a light and it’s just a living room that smells like clove cigarettes. Val’s paranoia is infectious, but a liar. Here there is only a grey couch with a crocheted blanket, a glass aquarium against the wall. Inside a lizard the colour of sand blinks on its miniature log and looks dead.

The floorboards creak the same here as at home. 

Just back here, Marjorie says over her great, round shoulder. 

It is not the sound that hits first, but the smell. Not a bad smell, but a living smell, the smell of many bodies in a small space, in Marjorie’s kitchen. Melody’s foot slides under her awkwardly, caught on a loose feather. Don’t mind those, says Marjorie as Melody kicks it from the bottom of her shoe.

Marjorie has seven chickens loose in the kitchen. Their rusty coats puff with her arrival, and the group trills in greeting. One approaches Marjorie with a strut and pecks the ground at her feet. Hungry bugger, says Marjorie.

The axe suddenly feels very hot, and as heavy as lead. Melody can’t help but feel her hands tremble with fear of what she might be asked to do next and, with all the bravery she can muster says, Sorry, I don’t think I can do this. But Marjorie only cocks her head, confused. Oh lord, she says, when she puts it together. No, no. Not them. They’re for eggs. Aren’t you? She turns to the group. The chickens yell their responses, their coned heads darting back and forth. Marjorie goes on, I let ‘em in the house sometimes for company. Coop’s outside but they’re social.

What’s the axe for then, asks Melody. 

Marjorie yanks open her back door, and gestures for Melody to walk through. I caught hold of one of your sister’s nightmares, she says. Thought you might want to see.

The clearing’s grass has yellowed in the heat, as it does every year. In the fall it will rain enough to recover just to die again in winter. Here they are miles from lawns and sprinklers. Here there is only the woods, two houses, two cars. Melody’s arm tires as they trek towards the tree line behind their houses, so she passes the axe to her other hand. Marjorie walks slow enough for her to keep up, the sweat on her back forming a dark mouth between her shoulder blades. Birdsong is silent, Melody realizes as they reach the trees. The sunlight dims as they pass under the canopy of deciduous greenbelt. Then, in the place of birds, there is crying.

Just through the trees, not thirty feet from the safety of the clearing, Marjorie holds out an arm to warn Melody to stop. Gnats hum before her face. Marjorie holds a finger to her lips. Quiet now, she says. Don’t want to make it madder. Then she points, and beyond her calloused hand a wolf hunches, whimpering, against a cedar tree. Melody gasps, and the axe drops from her hand. She steps backwards, but Marjorie shakes her hand. No need, she says, like Melody is the animal that needs a level tone. It can’t go anywhere. 

And Marjorie is right. Through the sunlight that blotches the wolf’s silver pelt, its breath ragged and moan deep, Melody can see that the wolf has stepped into a metal bear trap chained to the trunk of a cedar. It barks once, harshly. Marjorie steps to the side so that Melody is no longer shielded. Melody looks into the wolf and the wolf growls so deeply the sound could be coming from the earth itself, from somewhere below magma. Spit falls from its lips; it tugs its stuck leg and the flesh around the trap tears wider. Beneath the wolf blood gathers in a black pool. 

Oh my god, says Melody, turning away. I thought they stayed in the woods.

They like the chickens, says Marjorie.

I’ve never seen one, says Melody. She turns over her shoulder to see Marjorie’s stoic face. 

Once in a while, she says. It’s the cycle of things.

The wolf whines again and Melody flinches. She says, My sister needs me. 

She starts in the direction of the clearing, but Marjorie’s rough hand clamps her arm. This’ll be good for Val, she says. You can tell her you ended the bad dream.

You do it, says Melody, though she doesn’t know exactly what it is. 

Marjorie remains calm in a scary way, at peace with whatever is to come. It’ll die anyway, with that leg, Marjorie says. You put it out of its misery and go home the hero.

Marjorie’s hand, still tight around Melody’s arm, tugs gently to turn her around. Once more Melody makes eye contact the wolf. Its twitching muzzle. The smell of urine and copper blood. She wonders if Val can hear its cries from inside the house, if she’s worried. Would she come outside if Melody were in danger? If the wolf sprang free from the trap and leapt for her like Val dreamed, and Melody let out a scream? 

No, Melody knows. Val would not.

You asked for my help, says Marjorie.

I can’t, says Melody.

Hard as you can, Marjorie says, and points to the center of her forehead, between her eyes. Right here, one swing. 

Melody’s bedroom was once their parents’. Back then the sisters shared the room across the hall, and every nightmare Val dreamt up was shared between them in the blue of night, the moon a ghost outside their bedroom window warning them of danger. I’m scared, Val would say. And Melody would say, Tell me what you’re scared of. Even now, separated by the hallway, Val will come into Melody’s bed at any hour of the night to share her terrible dreams.

Forest fires.

Robbers.

Floods.

Wolves upon wolves upon wolves.

You don’t have a gun, asks Melody softly, and Marjorie shakes her head.

The wolf whines again, and it sounds like Val crying. It barks, chews a little at its leg. The silver of its coat is grey, even black in some spots. Melody tries not to see the pearly white showing through the flesh of its leg as it struggles to escape the trap. The more it pulls, the more the skin rips away from the bone, and Melody knows that Marjorie is right, somehow. 

The wolf snarls violently, lurching forward in whatever way it can, tugging the chain taut against the tree. Marjorie hushes it gently as Melody takes up the axe again. She thinks once more of Val terrified in her bedroom, convinced of tragedy. Letting the wolf go free would keep her inside forever.

Melody heaves the axe above her head with both hands and thrusts it sharply down. Gravity amplifies her meager strength. A terrible crack occurs, the sound of watermelon rind before the soft pink fruit. Melody’s eyes clamp shut, and a scream rips through the woods.

It is her own voice running out of her.

Marjorie’s large hands pull the axe from her and turn her away. She says something but Melody’s grief is louder than everything. There is a wind, soft and cooling, and after a long minute she stops screaming. Birdsong resumes in the woods just as she opens her eyes. Freckles of sunlight dance against the mulch and earth. Her throat is raw, maybe bloody. Marjorie says, Alright then, well done. Together they march in silence back towards the clearing. To the left and right Melody can see nothing but more trees. No wolves in sight. Marjorie keeps the axe on her side farthest from Melody so she cannot see the mess of it. You did good, she says, when the clearing begins to peek between foliage. A good, clean hit. 

As they emerge into the clearing, their two houses stood some distance ahead just as they left them, a body rushes towards them, frantic. 

Mel? 

It is Val.

Melody?

Val is outside. In her socks, her long blue dress, her hair undone from their usual braids. She spins in search of her sister. Melody calls out and she turns in their direction. A smile cracks itself across Melody’s face like wound. She screamed, and Val came for her. For one beautiful moment she has done the right thing, just as Marjorie said. Val is outside and the world is safe from wolves.

But Val’s face contorts. One second worried, the next horrified. Melody rushes towards her sister, ready to share her act of courage, her continued protection, only to watch Val stumble away. The stitches on her arm are still visible from the broken mug. Melody for the first time looks down at herself. She is bleeding wolf’s blood—the front of her shirt has stained a terrible colour. Her arms too are red and slick. Val, she says, but Val is already crying. Muttering something Melody cannot hear, shaking her head. Summer beats down against them, mercilessly burning. The roses against their house have dropped their petals in the heat of the day. Melody spreads her arms towards her sister, approaching slowly.

Don’t worry, Melody says, as Val trembles. The wolf is gone.

Val steps back again and trips, landing on her tailbone, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Melody feels nearly high, her heart galloping at the feeling of blood on her skin. I fixed it, she says to her sister, kneeling before her. Val tries to shriek, and Melody clamps a red hand over her sister’s mouth. You’re safe, she says again, and Val begins to howl. 

---

Emily Pegg is a writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her fiction has appeared in Funicular Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Dalhousie Review, PRISM International, and is forthcoming in West Trade Review. She is currently working on her first novel.

---

23 September 2022