Just thinking about it now, Garrett felt nervous, longed to slip his hand behind him, to feel around. But he wouldn't dare, wouldn't risk that Eli'd notice his body shifting. So, he closed his eyes and remembered when the pickle jar was whole, safely hidden under rushing water.
Garrett bowed his head. Yes, he was different, and that was why Eli Fagan hated him so much. Garrett guessed Eli never knew that truth when he married Garrett's mother, but he certainly knew now. And Garrett was helpless to change who he was. A hinbreed, after all. Born that way, like a goat with three horns. No making him into someone else. Even though his peculiarities had caused a lot of trouble. Had caused a man to really die. Really, really die. Not just pretend.
Shapes whizzing by just outside the window, and Garrett was feeling worse. He shifted his focus, stared at his mother instead. He willed her to reach over and touch his forehead, ask if he might want to stop, breathe in something other than the bluish smoke trapped in the cab. Maybe a chocolate bar to pull the taste of someone else's cigarettes off his young tongue. But, no. Since they'd left the courthouse, his mother was like hardened wax, barely registering when they rode the gravel or swerved around a turn. She held her bundled baby girl in the crook of her right elbow, hand rigid, and he saw her nails were ragged, like his own, bitten down to the quick. Near the top button of her dress, he could see her ribs beneath her skin. Her eyes were closed, and if he hadn't noticed the single blue vein pulsing on the side of her neck, he might have wondered if she were frozen. If she were dead.
As he stared at her, he heard the faintest growl coming from her throat. She moved her left hand to cover a scorch mark on the fabric of her dress.
“Please don't look at me, Garrett.”
“I idn't,” he whispered.
After another moment, “I still feels you looking at me, my son.”
“I said I idn't, then. I'm watching the outside.”
“That you are. Now give it up. I'm beat out beyond.”
“I swears, Mom. I was watching for moose. Idn't you supposed to watch for moose when 'tis dusky?”
He felt a sudden sting on his scalp, then his ear caught and twisted, head changing direction without his permission.
“Did your mother open her mouth?” Eli.
“Yes, sir.”
“And what do that mean, boy?”
“Iâ I keeps mine shut.”
“You wake that baby with your yammering, and your tongue'll be in a pot.”
Eli released his grip on Garrett's ear, and as Garrett stared at the dash he heard that familiar sigh. He didn't dare turn to look at her, or reach up to rub the burning spot. Instead, one hand held the other, and he silently counted the number of melted circles in the plastic where someone had missed the ashtray. His eyes watered, but at least the pain had pressed down the nausea. He no longer wanted to throw up. Instead, he only wanted to cry. And for the rest of the drive home, he looked straight out the window, mused about how he might feel to see the end pummeling towards him. Dull eyes of a nodding moose, branching antlers too heavy for the head, smashing through the glass to say hello.
AFTER HE LEFT the courthouse, Lewis did not go home. With his charred heart, he roamed the streets of the city. Like a stray, darting this way and that, up dark alleyways, down cobble stone streets, over cracked sidewalks, pot-holed pavement. He could not bring himself to make the long drive to Knife's Point. To an empty house. No parents. No brother. Even Roy's dog Nellie had run off months ago and not returned. All he had now was a job as the keeper of order, and the upward battle of regaining lost respect. But what could he expect from his neighbors? How could they abide by him when the first thing he had done was create the foulest kind of chaos? Events that led to the death of his brother.
Eli had meant to do what he did. Even though everything was a blur to Lewis, he believed that one fact without a shred of doubt. Any other conclusion would leave some room for forgiveness, and Lewis would not allow that. It was much easier to curse Eli than to curse bad fortune.
Now, what was Lewis going to do with the hate that coated his insides? Hate for Eli, hate for himself. Like a mug of rancid cod liver forced down his throat, and when he burped, he swore he could taste the hate on his taste buds. No matter how he tried to expel it, drifting until his legs ached, ankles raw and weeping from rubbing against his shoes, he could not find a way to leave his emotion on the street. He could not let it out. And when the sun began to move down behind the buildings, he decided to tamp it, tamp it until he could make it no smaller. Tried to bury the hate, that ebony kernel, in some recess of his mind.
Threat of drizzle realized, and the sky began to spit down on Lewis. Icy pecks that pricked his skin. He ducked into an alcove, stared out at a world of gray and brown, cement and brick. Everything was dull, and he understood there were months of dullness ahead of him. He sighed, leaned his head against the window of a store, closed his eyes, and prayed. “Dear Lord,” he whispered inside his head. “Please show me one thing that is beautiful. One thing that is perfect. If you do,” he bargained, “I will never make another mistake. I will do everything right. By the book, Lord. By the book.”
Lewis shuddered, and he opened his eyes, read the sign on the storefront, an arc of painted letters on a slab of swinging wood. “The Curious Urchin. Please come in.” He pushed open the door, cowbell clanging, entered a quiet world of dolls' heads, used books, glassware, candle holders, wood planers, doilies, and fishing nets. A horse's saddle hung next to moose antlers. Bobbins and yarn, Chinese checkers and empty bottles. Two-tone pottery jugs. Everything imaginable, displayed in painted bookshelves, all coated in a fine layer of dust. Something about the clutter, the desire to preserve, to find value where none might exist, made Lewis's broken inner filament reconnect, glow ever so slightly.
An old man sat in a corner, white hair, beard, filing the teeth of a saw. He glanced up, nodded. Lewis shuffled in, clicked the door closed, and when the old man laid the saw aside, Lewis noticed the store was almost completely silent, except for ticking clocks and the thump of his own heart. Then he heard movement coming from the back, behind nailed wood shelving. He moved sideways, spied something that surely didn't belong. Tucked amongst shovels, pitchforks, and one-eyed teddy bears was a young woman. Tweed skirt and neat white blouse. Brown leather shoes and thin calves. Shiny black hair in a low ponytail, and a pale round face. She was leaning over a mess of junk, watering a row of orange flowers in chipped pots.
As Lewis watched her, the black soot began to peel off his heart, drift into forgotten corners. Revealed, a deep pink organ, new, and pumping vigorously. She was precise, delicate, and he held his breath as he followed her long white fingers, prodding amongst the leaves, pinching a dried one, crumbling it in her fist. He could not move his watery eyes away from her, and believed, in that moment, that God had brought him there. In through the doors of The Curious Urchin. A way of showing him that in an empty world, there was always a flicker of hope.
Lewis patted his hankie on his damp forehead, then plucked up a glass bowl, apricot-colored, fluted edges, and carried it over to her. He felt like a fool before he even opened his mouth. He couldn't help but think of his mother and her books, tucked into her knitting basket, covers depicting brawny men, supine women, sheer fabric draping their bodies, faces locked in a perFpetual state of ecstasy. “Sometimes it do happen,” she'd say. “Love at first glance. Though most time you got to think about it for a spell.” And here he was, tongue dry as though he'd just peeled it off a flake, thoughts scrambled, young heart suddenly swollen with the rushing of blood. But he had to say something. Could not leave the store without speaking, without seeing her lips move.
“What do you think,” he said when she turned towards him, “of this dish?”
“Lovely,” she replied, her smile like a salve.
“Would you like it?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Any woman would be happy to have it.”
“Then it's yours.”
She laughed, narrowed her green eyes, angled her head.
“And the catch?”
“Storage,” he said. “The bowl'll stay in my kitchen. But it'll be yours when you gets there.”
She laid the watering can next to the flowers, dropped the dead leaf fragments in a small bucket. “Has anyone ever told you you're a brazen one?”
Left hand in his hair, he shook his head. The shyness that normally silenced him had vanished. Even though he could not meet her eye, words spewed forth as though his voice box were possessed. He held the bowl, edge of it jammed into his stomach. “Has anyone ever told you you're beautiful?”
She tittered, covered her mouth with a hand. Her expression was one of mild embarrassment, but Lewis was looking down at his shoes, the spaces between the floorboards. Never noticed that she did not blush.
WILDA BURRY HAD agreed to a drive. He rushed to the motel, showered and changed, bought a small box of saltwater taffy from the display at the front desk. Returned to the store in forty minutes flat. He could see her through the bay window as he parked, leapt out, rapped his nails lightly on the door. Just beneath a kitschy handmade sign that read “Closed for Business, Curiosity Seekers Come Again.”
She turned the knob, let him in, then said to the old man, “I'll be going now, Francis.”
“Your father?” Lewis asked.
“Oh, no, no,” she replied. “Um... my uncle.” Then to the man, “You're my uncle. Right, Francis?”
The old man hobbled forward, applied extra weight to his cane, murmured, “Well, yes, Wilda.” His voice was like an instrument in the hands of a child. “Though not in the traditional sense.”
“Who wants tradition?” she said, and tugged her ponytail out from the neck of her coat, twirled the black rope through her fingers.
Eyes lost among happy wrinkles, he turned to Lewis. “She's my mermaid, you see. Wilda is my mermaid.”
“I idn't surprised,” Lewis replied. He pictured her then, sprawled on the steps of the shop in summer sunshine, endless iridescent tail, caudal fin curled just so, long wet tresses barely disguising her naked top. “Idn't surprised,” he repeated, and dove his hands deep into his pockets, willed the flush to stay beneath his collar, cuffs on his shirt.
“Found her, I did.” Nodding in Wilda's direction as though she were another curiosity.
“Francis. Stop.”
“Offered a pretty penny to part with her. But she's my most precious discovery.”
“Francis!”
“Ah, I was only tugging your leg. You got good strong ones, can use a little tugging.”
Strong legs.
Again, he could picture them. Not just ankles and calves, but all the way up. Creamy thighs, gentle curves and joints where limb met flawless bottom. Lewis felt the flush creeping past the desired boundaries. “We should go,” he managed. “Before I loses myâ my way.”
“Yes, yes. You young folks. Go on and have a time for yourself.” An easy smile, and Lewis thought the old man's light brown teeth appeared to be made of wood. A hundred years old. A homemade surprise he might have dug up in a long forgotten drawer. Focus on the teeth, he told himself. Focus on the teeth.
She wrapped her arm around his shoulder, kissed his cheek. “Don't stay up past your bedtime.”
“You never knows who might come knocking in the wee hours,” he replied with a wink.
She coughed lightly, tugged on her coat. “You don't need to answer any more doors.”
“I suppose you're right. I got my mermaid, and I got my Barley. That's more than enough for this old gaffer.” A fat wheat-colored cat climbed out of a half-open drawer, dragged its body around Francis's legs, leaving a trail of fur on his dark trousers. Ignored, the cat went up on its hind legs, batted at a limp hand. Francis hunched, grasped the end of the cat's tail, shook it. “Idn't that right, Mr. Barley.”
Lewis watched their banter with bright amused eyes. Their relationship was one of ease and comfort, that much was obvious. But Lewis was certain he would remove her from this picture, extract her, even if it was to the detriment of the gentleman. He needed to bring her home; he'd decided that the moment he laid eyes on her. The moment she laid her eyes on him, her stare lasting just a moment longer than what he might consider ladylike.
He would offer it all to her. And she would accept, wander through every inch of his home, over every square foot of his land. Over the past year, that place had permitted entrance to too much sadness, too much darkness, and he was certain this woman, with her magic, would smoke out the evil eye, fill his home with light.
DARKNESS HAD SETTLED by the time Eli Fagan and his family pulled up to the farmhouse. He changed, ate a quick meal of cold ham and bread, then tromped out to his fields. After working for two hours by the light of an orange moon, he stood straight and cleaned moist grit from his blade, folded it and placed it in his shirt pocket. Hands on his hips, he surveyed his progress. Along the neat rows, immense cabbage heads lay on their sides, their severed stumps glistening. He plucked up one head, two, balanced them under his arms, and started walking home. As he neared the edge of the field, he glanced up at the farmhouse, and saw the curtains shift in the window of the boy's room. Eli stopped, stared hard at the narrow pane of glass, waited for the spying face to re-emerge.
SHORTLY AFTER HIS
wife had moved into the farmhouse, Eli noticed a dozen or so planks of wood piled onto the floor of the upper hallway. Silver nails sticking upwards, just asking for a fleshy foot.
“What's this?” he had hollered.
“I took them down,” she'd replied matter of factly. “To see.”
He said nothing, but shook inside at the surprise of it, the cheek of the woman he had married. That door had been battened up for over twenty-two years, since the day Eli buried his mother and he had rightfully inherited the home. He had fixed sturdy boards across the door frame, nailed them to the molding on either side. But she, his wife, had somehow pried them off. She had entered the room, cracked the window, and washed the walls. Hung old blankets on the line, beat dust from the rug, scrubbed gray stains from the mattress. Plumped a feather pillow, brought in a brown teddy bear, a quilt of navy boats on a white sea, a wooden box filled with painted wooden blocks. She stole into Eli's old bedroom, she did, without a single thought, and made a space for her boy.