When We Were Animals(4)

But my magic had no time to work, because just then there was a voice behind us.

“You girls!”

We leaped to our feet and saw, emerging from the brush, the large shape of Hermit Weaper, whose cabin was on the other side of the lake past where the road lost its tarmac and became two rutted rows of bare earth in the weeds.

“You girls!” he said again and pointed his finger at us.

We ran for our bikes and began tugging them through the thick underbrush toward the road. He followed us, finger pointing, his craggy face twisted into a furious jack-o’-lantern, spittle launching from between his dried lips, hanging in strings from his chin.

“You get on out of here!” he called after us as we struggled toward the road. We moved as fast as we could, but he followed us still, lurching his way below low-hanging branches. His left leg was crippled by some ancient injury, but to us that simply made his pursuit all the more monstrous—his lumbering sideways lope through the trees.

Then there was a crash behind us, and we looked back to see Hermit Weaper fallen against the base of a tree, pulling himself up to a sitting position. He had stopped pursuing, but we continued to break our way through the trees as though he were right behind us.

“Don’t come back!” he cried, straining his voice to reach us as we got farther from him. “Worm Moon tonight. They’ll get you sure! You don’t stay inside, they’ll hunt you down. They’ll take your eyes, you hear me? An hour from now, this whole town goes warg. They’ll eat your lungs right outta your chest! They’ll pop your lungs like balloons and eat ’em right down! You hear me? Don’t come back!”

When we reached the road, we got on our bikes and pedaled hard all the way back to my house. It wasn’t until we were safely inside that we realized the sun had already set and the streets were quiet. We had lost track of time at the lakeside.

My father said it was too late for Polly to go home. He said she would stay the night, and he called her parents to tell them so.

That night Polly and I huddled under the covers of my bed and speculated about the world of those who were older than we.

We both knew that Hermit Weaper was just trying to scare us back home. But Polly couldn’t let go of his words.

She said, “I don’t want my lungs eaten.” Then she added, “I don’t want to eat them, either. I mean, when we’re older.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. I reveled in her nervousness, because it made me feel more keen than my friend. “I’m sure we’ll acquire a taste for it.”

“Ew,” she said, and we giggled.

“Would you rather—” Polly started, then rephrased her theoretical question. “Let’s say it’s a dark alley. Would you rather meet up with Hermit Weaper or Rosebush Lincoln’s brother on a full moon?”

Rosebush Lincoln’s brother was sixteen.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess the Hermit.”

“I’d rather Rosebush Lincoln’s brother.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. They don’t really hurt people, you know. It’s not true what the Hermit said. They don’t eat your—they don’t hurt anybody. Except maybe themselves. And each other.”

I liked it better when we talked of such things in the fairy-tale terms of lung-eating. It was easier to cope with. If you talked about hurt in the abstract, it was a deeper, more echoey well of a thing.

“They could hurt you,” I insisted.

“Not on purpose. They’re just teenagers. We’ll be like that too one day.”

I didn’t tell Polly that I had already promised my father I wouldn’t be like that. She would have taken it as disloyalty. Much later we tried to sleep, but there were the voices outside. I couldn’t forget what Hermit Weaper had said. In my mind there was a picture of Rosebush Lincoln’s brother, handsome Billy Lincoln, and there was a hollow cavity in my chest, and where my lungs should have been there was nothing at all, and one of my lungs was actually hanging between Billy Lincoln’s teeth, half consumed, deflated and bloody, like a gigantic tongue—and I couldn’t breathe, because all my breath was caught in Billy Lincoln’s grinning mouth.

*



My husband drives us home from the Petersons’ party. This is just last night.

It’s 12:15, and we are late in relieving the sitter. Jack is itchy with liquor, and he says to me, “You were—you were the sexiest wife at that party.”

“Jack.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m not kidding around. No one can hold a candle to you.”

“I thought the lamb was overcooked. Did you think so? Everyone complimented it, though. Janet prides herself on her lamb.”

Then Jack pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns off the ignition.

“Do you want to fool around?” he asks.

“Jack, the babysitter.”

“To hell with the babysitter.” It’s his grand, passionate gesture. He must have me, here in the car, and the rest of the world can burn. “I’ll—I’ll give her an extra twenty.”

The silliness of family men. I chuckle.

He takes offense. “Forget it,” he says and goes to start the car. I’ve hurt him by not being sufficiently quailed by the blustery storm of his sex. It’s funny how many ways there are to hurt people. As many ways to hurt as there are species of flower. Whole bouquets of hurt. You do it without even realizing.