Tar

Nayeli sat on the back step, swinging her legs, watching the sun dip behind the pine wall. The sky bled orange like it always did before the cold came in. Monty was in the shed again, muttering to his tools. He never smiled with his eyes. Not even when he brought them home gifts from the valley store. His kind of love came with strings—or silence.

Magdalyn didn’t cry anymore when she missed their mama. She just stared out the bedroom window, fingers tracing circles on the glass, whispering stories under her breath. Stories Mama used to tell. About stars that heard prayers, and rivers that carried messages. She said one time the trees would talk back, if you were quiet enough.

Monty said their mother had been stolen. Said the man she ran off with was dangerous. That love like that wasn’t real. But Magdalyn remembered the softness in Mama’s eyes. The way she sang when she braided their hair. The way she listened. That was real.

Nayeli found a feather yesterday, tucked in the woodpile. White, with a streak of gold. She hid it in her pocket, thinking maybe it was a sign. Maybe Mama had sent it. Maybe she’d find her way back, carried on wind and dreams and something stronger than fear.

They were learning. They were watching. And deep down, even Monty’s tar-caked spirit must’ve known—it couldn’t hold them forever.

Monty stood on the porch with his arms crossed, watching the dusk roll in. The valley was his now. The girls were his. The man—her husband—was locked away. Serves him right, Monty thought. Thought he could steal what was mine.

But she had never really been his. Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way that softened a man. No, Monty didn’t want softness. He wanted proof. Possession. Proof that he mattered. Proof he could still break something beautiful and walk away taller.

And now, he had it. The husband in prison. The girls tucked away under his roof. His story, rewritten to make him the wounded one.

Monty smoked in silence, chest full of fire that never warmed him. Pride gnawed at his belly like a starving thing. Still, he called it victory.

That night, Magdalyn dreamed of a tree with eyes. It grew on the ridge above the house, roots tangled with bones and feathers. It whispered to her in a voice like wind through teeth: Truth cannot stay buried forever, child.

Nayeli dreamed of walking into the woods barefoot. The snow didn’t bite her feet. A white lion waited at the clearing, golden eyes blinking slow. It bowed its head, and she saw it's hair was just like Mama’s—dreadlocked into knots. You know me, the lion said, without speaking.

When she woke up, she held her hand to her heart. It

was beating like hooves.