Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) Read online

  The older boy took in the carnage. “It’s your own fault, witch. Come on,” he said to his brother. He swatted at the Rottweiler and the three of them disappeared quickly into the woods.

  “Oh my god.” I convulsed, tears dropping freely on Nemo. I could barely see. I scooped his limp body into my arms and threaded my way through the forest, holding him close so the branches wouldn’t slap at his wounds. My shame grew with every measured step. It was my fault. All of it.

  I reached the rear of his owners’ house and called for help. “Nemo’s hurt, please come! Hurry!” But no one came, not until I crossed the backyard and pounded my fist against their screen door. “Help!”

  He winced at my small thrusts so I kicked the door with all my might, but my legs were feeble. “Get out here!”

  An older woman, hair in rollers with bulbous eyes, came to the door. “Oh my,” she said. Then “Oh my!” at Nemo’s bloody body and dangling eyeball.

  “We need to get him to a hospital. Right away.” I was encased in cold sweat.

  “Lay him there on the grass, I’ll get my husband.”

  And when the husband came, a gnarly old man with his own scraggily hair puffing from his ears and nose and sleeveless white t-shirt, he looked aghast.

  “He was attacked; the Johansson’s dog. We’ve got to get him to the vet!” Spasms in my chest and throat were out of control.

  “Okay, okay,” said the hairy man. “You go home now. We’ll take care of him.” He knelt by Nemo and shook his head.

  “He can make it,” I said. “I know he can. He’s stronger than he looks.”

  “Go home,” screamed the man. “Now!”

  I eyed Nemo. He saw me; I know he did. “You’re going to be okay.” I held my tears so he wouldn’t be afraid and tried not to look at Nemo’s crimson splashed across my arms and shirt. I backed into the woods. “You’re gonna be fine,” I called one last time and began home, crying. Then suddenly I stopped, a force telling me to retrace my steps.

  I wiped my ears and nose, smearing blood onto my cheeks and hair. At the edge of Nemo’s backyard, hidden behind a large box elder, I watched the hairy man and his wife.

  “I’ll call the vet,” said the woman.

  “Wait,” the man said.

  “Shall I get the truck?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It could be expensive.”

  “We’ve gotta do something.”

  “Yes,” he sighed. “Get the truck.”

  And when she did, he picked Nemo up reverently and, sliding carefully onto the tailgate and into the back of the pickup, he sat with him in his arms. He said something to his wife, but over the truck’s engine I couldn’t make it out. They pulled slowly away, so slowly that I was able to follow at a distance without much effort.

  In a half a mile they turned off rutted Smith Road onto a barely visible, little-traveled spur that led back down to the lake. I scrambled to the spot Nemo and I enjoyed that afternoon, the crickets more present, the chill of evening descending on the hillside.

  The truck looped around the small opening and stopped. The man called to his wife. She turned off the engine. He slid out of the truck bed and stood at the edge of the lake. I saw Nemo raise his head for a moment, and then the man hoisted his arms and Nemo above his head, and with a strength that seemed super-human, heaved him —a small wail emitting from my little friend— into the center of the lake. It was if the earth below gave way and I was falling, falling.

  Before I could scamper down the hill the man and the wife and the truck were gone, and well before I swam to the spot, Nemo disappeared below the surface.

  I have no memory of swimming back to shore or of walking home. There was no real footing anymore.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I washed away Nemo’s blood but not his disbelieving eyes. His death was my fault plain and simple. I was bad luck. Demons followed wherever I showed my face. I caused misery, just like momma said. Momma was the expert.

  In my dreams I saw bloated bodies bobbing in brown water —Nemo, Hully, the old witch Solveig Trollkjerringa and other faceless people— distended bellies, hands, feet and cheeks bursting like ripe fruit, gulls and ravens riding them, pecking as the skin popped, split open and peeled back.

  But a promise was a promise. I needed to make good on mine to Nemo, even as it gave me the jitters. And at some point I had to make the Johanssons pay. I was sure of that. I bided my time.

  My first Experiment & Observation was with my 7th grade classmates, comparing the classical standards of beauty. Mrs. Petrick, our English teacher, read us Greek myths because she said many Greek and Roman myths were the basis for how we lived our lives and related to each other. Which gave me the idea. And maybe I’d finally make a few friends.

  Photocopying images from Papa Karl’s encyclopedias, I created posters contrasting the Greek Aphrodite —goddess of beauty, born out of sea foam and worshipped as the goddess of the sea— with Venus, the Roman goddess of beauty, the famous painting with her hair blonde and long as her body, born out of a seashell. For the girls, I pulled images of both the Greek (bronze) and Roman (plaster) statues of Adonis. Both naked. Roman Adonis bigger, in every way.

  At recess I sat quietly on the school’s low stone wall, the poster headline 'Pick the most beautiful, win a prize.’ The other 7th graders always avoided me, but with a prize at stake they took their chances. I took mine.

  Del Green approached. “Hey look, the beast runs a beauty contest.”

  His buddy Smitty jumped in. “Eunis, you mind turning away while I vote, I just ate lunch.”

  And Angela, the youngest of the Johanssons, added, “With a nose like yours, can’t you smell what I’m thinkin’?”

  Laughter.

  I tightened. Stay on purpose. “You want a prize or not?”

  In a landslide the boys voted for Venus. Del summed it up. “She ain’t that hot.”

  “Then why Venus?”

  He leered. “Can see more skin.”

  Most of the guys avoided Adonis, but those that observed him claimed they had the bigger package.

  The girls’ vote was closer, bigger beat bronzer, but I had a smaller sample because Irene Kelmer with the wandering eye —the second ugliest girl in our class— asked me, real loud, “Did your parents lose a bet with God?”

  She got laughs from a couple of girls. That started it.

  “Yeah,” said Christian Hames, “but God didn’t give you the hooters he gave Eunis.”

  “Shut the hell up.” Mandy G. shoved Christian.

  Then Barbie, Christian’s girlfriend, shoved Mandy. “Maybe if you had tits you could put hands on your own guy. Or maybe the other way round.”

  That’s when Mary Bakke raised her sweatshirt to flash Mandy, three other girls jumped in slapping, and Irene spit in my face. I’m told I kind of snapped. I can’t remember exactly, only that I must have shoved her. Hard. I wasn’t sorry; she had it coming.

  She fell backward over the stone wall and started screaming at me. Next thing I knew, Mr. Price, the junior high Principal, shut me down. “Eunis! What do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed the poster and crushed it closed.

  “It’s just research.”

  “Inappropriate! Nudity! Lewd behavior!”

  I wore jeans and a blue work shirt, buttoned up.

  A few kids got detention, plus the drawing for the prize —a couple of Momma’s old issues of Star and People magazine— never happened. The kids hated me even more after that.

  Mr. Price called Momma to pull me out of school and Momma saw the four confiscated naked bodies. She went ballistic, tossed the poster and ballots into a small bonfire of accumulated garbage long overdue for burning. She threatened to lock me in my room for a month if I ever humiliated her like that again. Sounded pretty much like the status quo to me. I got a busted lip and a week’s suspension from school.

  What I learned: Beauty may change with the times, but the trends don’t render the previous beautie
s ugly. Oh, and showing skin helps. Just not my skin.

  ***

  A warm amber light —the only light of the day in my cellar bedroom— was thrown on the tiny wash basin in the corner, and above it inserted into the wall, was a mirror on which the late afternoon sun shined, illuminating dark, silver oxidizing stains —caused by moisture and condensation, research I discovered as I continued my rule of reading one encyclopedia page every day. But I was full of books, what about the real world? What about what I read in Momma’s magazines? What about that real world? What about people and the strange things they did? Like the “Black Widow,” 23-year-old Pamela Ann Wojas in New Hampshire? Momma read everything about her. “Fascinating,” said Momma. She killed her husband. With her 15-year-old student lover. Why would she do something like that?

  Anyway, whether it was the wet Minnesota weather or steam drifting from the tap to the mirror that caused the mirror’s disfiguration, I never found out. But its disfigurement was a reminder, it taunted me, and if I could have I would have removed the damn thing. Instead, over it, I taped a scrap of thin muslin tablecloth dotted with yellow marigold I found stashed in the shed.

  “I’m up to here with my life.” The stone basement chamber absorbed my words. Safe, but useless. Research couldn’t be accomplished simply crouched in the corner surveying my bunker. “I gotta get out.”

  The teenage fantasies I’d sprinkled around the room —the Michael Landon and Andie MacDowell photos, and The Little Mermaid poster— had lost their charm. Out of time. Only the news clipping with its rare photo of Jane Goodall talking in a circle with African teenagers still seemed relevant. She was saving monkeys, sitting and watching, staying out of the limelight.

  At dusk, wind leaked into my bedroom, lesions in the windowpane. The light socket swayed. Upstairs Momma huddled into the mossy couch, wary of the wind, of me, what lived inside both the wind and me. Dread. It was contagious.

  The foreboding was barely audible at first, the wind choir quietly humming. Restless, like me. The chorus rose and fell, filling my room, wailing and warning. The gypsy wind, well traveled, where did it come from, where was it going? Did it start in Minnesota and end up in some exotic place like Hawaii? Comforting trade winds? Or come for us, Moroccan and dry? An Indian monsoon, still whetted by tidal waves? A South American williwaw, fresh from sinking ships?

  I shivered in the corner. “Give me a clue, I gotta get out of here.”

  It lasted all night, only the darkness protecting me. And there was my answer: darkness.

  ***

  The auditorium speakers blared a rap/R&B song:

  I sense there’s something strange in your head

  And you can’t get it out

  It’s heartless, aint it

  A poisoned starkness, that’s the thread

  Are you schemin’ on me

  Are you dreamin’ on me

  Will I fall for your dark screamin’ charms

  The crowd screamed for me to do it again. Swathed in darkness, just the two holes into the light, I raced across the court, rolled, bounced, cartwheeled into a back handspring, and vaulted myself into the air before gliding (like in water) into a split ten feet from the stands. Nuts! They went nuts! Cheered; shrieked; applauded. Coach Westmore smiled and clapped too. Hands on hips watching me. Did he get my note?

  “Go, go Beavers!” The crowd on its feet. The cheerleaders at the far end of the court padded toward me. Would the coach let me use his new gadget? Two in the whole school, the perfect research tool. Was The Beaver enough?

  I jumped to my feet. More shouts of encouragement. “Beaver, Beaver, Beaver!” Stands full all around: watching, cheering, the team, me. All those people with me, almost at my command, but they didn’t see me. Ideal. My whole body alive! Free! They loved me. They loved The Beaver, my oversized tail and head, my eight-inch eyes, my giant bucky teeth. I raised their energy, controlled their flow with my movements. To the right, hands up. Their hands went up. Spread “V” for victory. They mimicked me. Smiles and stomping on the bleachers. They felt great. I felt great. And maybe coach felt great.

  It was beautiful what they didn’t identify, what they couldn’t see. If Dr. Childress had seen me, if he’d been inside The Beaver suit with me, he’d have said what nice dimples like crescent moons, but by then he may have been dead.

  The second-half horn blasted, basketballs smacked the floor. The teams filtered onto the court. The crowd still buzzing. A championship so near. My time was up. Or just beginning.

  Down the ramp, to the boiler room where I usually changed and secretly slipped out of the building. Only I went left into the boy’s locker room, along the aisle of lockers. “Eriksen . . . Perez . . . Johansson!” Friggin’ Johansson, so proud of his long blond curls. Ready to celebrate the championship in front of all those cameras and adoring admirers after the game.

  I opened the locker and, on the top shelf, just like I’d scouted, was his shampoo/conditioner. One last look around. On the court above, a ref’s whistle and the crowd booed. “It’s the least I can do,” I whispered. I replaced his old tube with the one I brought, the one filled with Nair, the hair remover. Let him shampoo with that. Let him rub it in good.

  When the triumphant team came filing out of the auditorium to meet the town, the press and the cameras, cheers went up and flash bulbs illuminated the night, the team surrounding me, The Beaver. I made the “V” for victory. More flashes. Night became day. There was no Tommy Johansson. His senior glory buried, forever.

  Coach Westmore came over to me and gave me a hug. “You’re on,” he said. “I’ll leave you a key tomorrow. The Principal gave thumbs up for all your hard work. But Sunday only. Then we’ll expect the key back. These are some of the first computers in the state. It’s only good for research, so I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Coach, coach,” said the reporter from The Pioneer, “can we get a shot of you with The Beaver?” He hugged me again; I was on my way.

  ***

  Even from outside the farmhouse, my bedroom appeared dreary, having been a root cellar for the original owner back in the early 1920’s, then a storm cellar before the one window, single light bulb and small washbasin were added. It sat below ground of the clapboard building, and with such steep steps that Momma rarely came down. When she did it usually meant trouble.

  I descended the worn wooden stairs, sweaty. The Beaver’s neoprene smell overrode my own odor and clung to my t-shirt.

  “She gives me the creeps,” I remember Carly saying to Momma. Neither Carly nor Lyle wanted to sleep in the same room with me. “She’s bad luck.”

  “I wanna be with her,” Lyle said clutching Carly’s sleeve. “Carly and me.” She pushed him off. She fought it, fought it hard. She wanted to stay in the room at the top, but she didn’t want to share it.

  She and Momma argued over the territory, pie tins thrown, cabinets slammed, fear palpable. Carly in a frenzy, pointing at me: “Creepy spirits,” she said. “Just look at her!” Momma’s face contorted. Wraiths worming in her head.

  In a fit Carly knocked two candlesticks to the floor. Momma was going to give it to Carly, and I’d get Lyle in the cellar.

  But Momma looked at Lyle cowering in the corner then at me, all the while Carly screaming about demons. Anyone could see Momma feared for him, being the littlest and the one with the least gumption. How could he wake up or go to sleep seeing my grotesque face, and how would he stand up to my constant, troubling energy?

  So by saying nothing, by letting Carly have her fear-mongering spotlight and Momma her spook superstitions, I got the cellar solo. The smallest room, but at least I had it and my doubts to myself.

  “You know what’s so terrific being The Beaver?” Still flushed by my success, I let down my hair and plopped on my small bed. I waited for the springs to stop squeaking and the wind to finish its incantations.

  “I’m fluid, like when I sneak to the lake. I can go anywhere. Well, maybe not the boys locker room when they
’re changing.” Unfortunately. “I wish I could have seen Tommy Johansson’s face as his hair fell out in his hands.” It wasn’t enough but it would have to do. It would have to do.

  Music drifted down through the floorboards from the living room, Johnny Cash, and then Lyle lifted the needle off the record, strumming the chords and singing. “I don’t like it, but I guess things happen that way.”

  “No, no one knows still, not even the Principal. Nobody knows I’m The Beaver.” Ingenious really —I liked the word ingenious. The combined junior high and high schools decided that the mascot had to be strong and super-athletic, like me, and was too important to switch every game. Years before I arrived they had constructed a top-secret system: ‘The blind candidate,’ so no one knew exactly who was in The Beaver. Me.

  I sat back satisfied, but really still a bit dazzled. I combed my hair, the hair Lyle called manila as a child, meaning vanilla. He put on a blues record.

  “I hear people talking about each other, gossiping. Like Christina whatchamacallit always trashing somebody. She shouldn’t do that. She doesn’t know, nobody knows what goes on at home. Nobody knows the troubles inside.” I stopped combing and looked at the covered mirror. All of it together confusing.

  Anyway. How casually the boys wrapped their arms around the girls’ shoulders; how easily their bodies buried into each other, the girls twining around the boys like fast-growing vines. The comfort. Must be nice. From above, a Lyle blues chord trembled my heart. Enough! Buck up!

  “I stood next to Victor King today; the most handsome hunk of a man . . . a real Adonis. He’s a nix, he’s that beautiful. Everyone wants to get next to him, even the guys. Funny to watch, like everyone’s jockeying for position. I just stood there, right next to him. It’s like none of them see me as real, like I’m not in the room. But I am! Vic King, what a dream.” A front row seat. Better than nothing.

  “And it’s going to payoff, because you know what I heard the other day?”