Like my father, this entity joined me late at night. I had sworn off men after my discovery of female flesh, but he was like no other. I would wake to his hands, heavy on my thighs, fall victim to the lure of his teeth, his heat, the shared experience of having just peeled the skin off the innkeeper’s wife’s face.
What intoxication. How I craved him, his passion, the way my entire body ached when he had finished with me.
I watched myself in mirrors. When I stood before one, the first few minutes I was still Evelyn, the tall, drab stranger who walked like a man, braid curled around my head, collar tight around my neck.
Then the change began. My dress diminished, exposing my curves, the bite marks covering my skin, the bruises my lover had left in the darkest of places. My hair fell to my hips, as thick as in my youth, back when my father wrapped it around his hand like rope after we had ridden the back acreage of our farm.
Thoughts of Dad led straight to my present-day partner, his hands tearing at my body, his thrusts so powerful that I never knew if I would survive his lust or if I would bleed to death after he had shredded me with his need.
The mirror told all. I could see myself, the degradation my devil imposed on me, and I loved myself, that wickedness, that power, the horror I welcomed with open arms. My eyes reflected back a woman with her own dark spot, the birthmark, the indicator that I was one of his chosen few. A woman cursed.
A woman in love.
My mother was the first to notice. On my yearly trip home, after the trivial hellos and hugs from the group that had gathered, she came to my room just after midnight.
“Who is he?” She crossed her arms, already judgmental.
“He who?” I played coy, but quite frankly she had caught me off guard.
“The man you’re seeing. I can tell by the way you walk it’s a bit more than just sight now, isn’t it, Evie?”
I cringed at the name. I was so far removed from that child that I almost threw the bedside lamp at Mother.
“I would say that that is none of your business.” I turned away, furious. How dare she?
“You can say that all you want, but I am your mother. And you’ve never exactly been…well, wise with your decisions. As they regard the men in your life.”
We had a stare-down. I understood her implications and was astonished that she knew how my relationship with the husband she all but ignored had flourished during my childhood.
“Shut the door on your way out,” I ordered, knowing I would not stay long at home.
Nor would I return for Mother’s funeral, six weeks later, when she passed after being struck by lightning during a freak late-February storm.
My lover and I were too busy for me to take a holiday back to the old farmhouse. We were exploring. Thinking of different ways to feed our hungers, physical and sexual. Together we travelled the jungle, wearing thick fur and vicious fangs, making late night visits to the natives that hunted there. We swam out of the ocean and onto passenger ships, found ourselves savaging the vile street vendors of Russia, entering farm houses in the remote lands of Montana and feasting on entire families in one night.
He pushed my every boundary. Just when I was about to collapse from his touch, three of his friends would appear and ravage me for days on end. While my lover commanded my every move, held me down when needed, took my very own belt and welted my skin with it.
I couldn’t bear his absence. What was I, alone, but just another wretched female, another copy of my sister, waiting for him to arrive, willing to do anything to make him return faster, to stay by my side, to never leave again? How I hated myself. For being weak.
For being a woman.
But those moments of loneliness, of utter raving desperation, were when I started my own book. If I couldn’t be beside him, then I could relive our adventures on page, document our destruction, let the world know that this woman they called frumpy could satisfy the ultimate male hunger.
I sat. In front of mirrors. Wearing my scholar’s skin. Divulging my greatest secrets. Waiting for him to return to me. Writing. Realizing.
I was the oldest specimen of the family curse. The last one living, my eye-inside-an-eye visible only to myself, and here we were, not too far from the next millennium. My atrocities far exceeded any committed by the family members before me. The devil himself had taken a personal interest in the development of my more salacious interests.
No crystal ball was needed here.
I was the woman poised to take over his role.
Chapter 31
Lucy
I dreamed of water.
Floating, drifting, swaying with the waves. A gentle dance. The moon spotlighting my journey, dragging me deeper into the boundless ocean, to a spot where no human would ever find me.
Black air encased me. How bizarre to be alone, with no lights, no other people, no indication of where wind met water.
Lips met my legs. Tiny mouths, nibbling along my skin, tasting me. I thought of seaweed, reaching up to grab my feet. The beasts that waited and watched, wondering if I was a meal or someone they should fear.
I had no raft, no life-preserver, no clothes.
Just the legend of the night sky, telling my story.
My skin savored the salty water. The slight trickle rolling over my shoulders. The occasional splash against my cheeks, when I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the rhythmic bobbing of being adrift.
The stars set their stage, the sky exploding with applause as they came alive to play out their drama.
Other creatures, I’m certain, found the dialogue indecipherable.
But for me it was written. For me it made perfect sense.
One star in the sky and from there came many.
Crashing, burning, some even settling. Years wrapped in decades covered with centuries, all bound together by a millennia made of mountains. Drop outs, bullies, even excavators. Cleaning, pushing, covering up.
The boiling beauty of one giant hot spot.
Screaming at me from above like a giant eye.
The Moon. Pulling me with nothing but her love, her honor, the music that flowed from her like a waterfall.
In the sky, all was clear. I had no doubts. The truth cemented itself in my heart, but in the hush that followed I heard all the animals gasping.
The Moon. Singing to me on the endless sea. Calling, dragging, whispering of what wonderment I will bring.
The Moon. Standing in the sky, a warrior queen, a mystic, her hair long and black, reaching all the way to the water.
I gripped her tresses and hauled myself out of the ocean.
She wanted me, after all. The Moon.
My mother.
I would come to her.
* * *
“How are the ladies at the bank?” I asked Mom while we shared lunch at the kitchen table.
“Obviously, Lucy, I haven’t seen them in a while.”
I knew that, but I had only questioned her because I was curious about her employment. The longer she allowed me to eat properly and live confined to the entire house, the more I settled back into my skin. I worried that if Mom didn’t work, we wouldn’t be able to pay our bills. The food supply would shrivel.
But then again, if the bank seized our house, maybe someone would find me.
Release me.
The tragedy of Mom’s life broke my heart. How horrible to lose your grasp on sanity. To be the one in charge, with children relying on you, while you fell apart and couldn’t comprehend the world you created while you crumbled.
“Why would you even ask?”
“I was just making conversation.”
“Well, don’t bother. When I want you to know things, I’ll tell you about them. Eat your soup and go back upstairs.”
So I did.
Upstairs was quickly becoming my favorite place to be. Away from Mom, with the bathroom and its constant flow of accessible water. I started to think of it as my own personal Disneyworld.
* * *
“Who does she think she’s kidding?” God asked.
He had appeared from behind my bedroom curtain, strutted forward like it wouldn’t matter if the Hanleys saw movement from my bedroom.
“Please don’t stand by the window. I’ll get in a lot of trouble if Mom finds out!”
I reddened when I realized that I had just chastised God. What kind of heathen had I become?
“Lucy, why would I ever care about that? What bothers me right now is that she tried to disguise you.”
I didn’t follow.
“I hated it when she cut off your pretty hair, but it had gotten disgusting down in the basement. I forgave Joan for that. Most mothers would have done the same.”
He put His hand against my head.
I remembered my colored hair. Felt shamed because God and I had the same natural color, and Mom hated it.
“I need to fix things. Now, this might hurt a bit but it will end fairly quickly. Hang on to me if you need to, Lucy.”
God ran His fingers through my short hair, then stood massaging my scalp. I was starting to wonder what He was up to when He began to pull.
Pain didn’t describe it.
Pain was just a small word, very rudimentary, ineffectual.
God yanked. Stretched. Pulled my hair out of my scalp.
The effect was white hot. A branding iron to my brain. Like the sun had come directly into my room and scorched out my eyeballs.
I felt my jaw drop but could not scream. As He continued, moving from bangs to the back of my head, I was completely blinded and reached out to Him for strength.
My hands landed on God’s hips.
“Women are always clinging to me when they’re in pain. They’ll do anything to get it to stop.”
I dropped my hands.
His work ended quickly.
“Much better!” God declared, tossing my long hair behind my shoulders.
I pulled a few pieces back in front of my face. Even though He had finished, my head continued to throb. Even my vision wobbled.
But I could tell the color was gone. Either my blood pressure had crowded out my vision and everything was showing up red, or God had changed me back to my natural shade.
“What will I ever tell Mother?” I wondered out loud.
But my words fell on empty air. God was already gone.
Chapter 32
Joan
Nine more days.
You acted oblivious, but I could see through your game. How much longer until Christmas, Mom? What day of the week is it? Did you go to church today? Why else would you ask me these questions?
Nine more days. So we were both counting. I just wasn’t throwing it in your face.
Would it happen immediately? When midnight struck on the year 2000, would you grow horns and wreak devastation over all of His creation?
I kept the ax under the bed. Tried to channel Aunt Evelyn and gather the strength to use it. If I allowed you to meet the deadline, what then? Could I still bring the weapon down and end this nightmare?
My world became a small wooden box that you nailed shut. I didn’t care about going to the grocery store, paying bills, attending any of the holiday parties going on in town. All I wanted was for this to end. Our existence together. The curse that had been put on my shoulders all those years before.
Evelyn was right. My weakness was transparent. I could barely even get out of bed anymore, other than to use the bathroom or let the dog out to piddle. This battle should have been fought and won years ago.
If he had survived your conception, Alex would have been on your side. But he hadn’t known the powerhouse I called Mother. Not the woman who lived behind the sweet smile and sunny disposition, but the tiger crouching in her bright eyes.
She would have saved the day. Mother always protected me; she would have taken this situation out of my hands and carved it into her own treasure. You wouldn’t have lived through your first three months. Not with that red hair and the way you were brought to this earth.
And now, here we are, with nine days left.
Could you feel a change in the air? Did you know what would happen? Had he told you, your true father, how the world would change when you took over?
Evelyn had warned me. And still, I had done nothing. But what if you changed things? What if you replaced your father, and your devil skin wasn’t so atrocious? People thought you were an angel. But then again, so was your father, once. Before he tired of serving in Heaven.
“Actually, Joanie, dear, that’s just a story people like to tell.”
Just a simple thought of him, and he slammed back into my life to haunt me.
“I never served anyone. They served me.”
He was upon me like a hoard of starving rats. Teeth shredded my every cell. Struggling only made it worse, but I was so horrified, so disgusted by his touch that I couldn’t do anything but try to get away.
“Let’s do it all over again, Joan, shall we? It’s always been one of my favorites. What with your mom watching and everything. Or, should I say, giving me a hand?”
We jumped back to the bad day.
And there was Alex, alive, my beautiful husband. I couldn’t help but tremble in his presence, even though the suffering of all the years after hung in the air like paper lanterns, lit up but ready to catch fire at any second.
I had known it was coming. That morning, when he left to rent the moving van and I was making Brandy her oatmeal, I tasted bitterness and couldn’t get it to go away. It traveled into my nasal passages, so that all I could taste or smell was fouled. Whatever had settled upon me was bad, and I knew it was there to stay.
We had packed all week, gone over to the new house to get the walls and floor scrubbed and ready for the transformation that would make it our new palace. When Alex came home and backed the U-Haul into the drive, I helped load the small stuff but left the furniture for the college kids he had hired to help out.
My main concern was keeping Brandy out of the way, saying goodbye to the backyard and all of the birds we had fed over the years. I was trying to get pregnant and didn’t want to lift a thing.
But when the man with red hair joined the group, I all but fell apart.
How could I explain to Alex that this fellow, working harder than all of the others, made my skin feel like it was on fire? That his stench made me want to vomit? That I felt the life completely drain from my body when he looked at me?
The bitter smell became stronger.
I stayed at the old house while they unloaded. Met Mom when she came to help with Brandy, relieved to have someone else with me while I was so queasy.
“Do you think you’re pregnant?” She asked, when I told her of the strange scent. “I was so sensitive to smells when I was in my first trimester that for a while I couldn’t cook anything but pork. Your father had to take over in the kitchen when he wanted any variety in our diet.”
The four of us went out to dinner. Alex, always charming, was worn out from his day arranging rooms with the moving crew. Brandy couldn’t wait to sleep in her new room, her patience already being tested by the fact that we had to put on sheets before her bed was ready. Mom was proud of us and was going to do some rudimentary unpacking when we got home so we could sleep and have a glass of water in relative comfort.
Watching from the future, I was shocked at how happy I was, right at that moment, right before the horror. My hand reached instinctively to my belly, rubbing it, cherishing whatever might or might not have taken root inside me, hoping to fill the extra bedrooms in our new house very quickly.
Alex had left the outside light on, and although we all had to carry in a few bags, it felt like we had lived there forever.
Except for that smell.
He unlocked the door, and Brandy shot off like lightening, heading for her new room, which was three times the size of her old one. We had painted it light purple and decorated the walls with butterflies, one of her favorite things.
Just as I was about to corral m
y boisterous daughter, I was flattened to the floor, my neck bouncing off something rock hard, as though I had run into a clothesline while driving at high speed.
The house was dark when I reopened my eyes. We were in the living room, I could tell by the carpet, and while I could see my husband’s feet and my mother’s, I had no idea where Brandy had gone. Was she in her bedroom? On the couch? I couldn’t turn my head that far.
When I went to holler her name, my mouth wouldn’t open.
“Save that for later. I want to hear you scream all night long, so don’t waste any of it now. You wouldn’t want to disappoint me.”
His mouth was right beside my ear. When he stopped speaking he bit into the crook of my neck, latching on like an alligator. This time the sound passed my lips and my screeching filled the room with terror.
Alex was on the chair. Right inside the window, thrashing against constraints. I had no idea what held him; I couldn’t concentrate enough to even think about such things, not with the creature latched onto my back and digging his hands into my flesh.
I still couldn’t see our daughter.
But my mother was watching. Her eyes bulged, her fear apparent as she watched the red-headed man grope me. I wanted to mouth some words of comfort to her, but couldn’t do anything but scream.
The assault lasted hours. It could have been days, but portions of it passed while I was living somewhere else besides in my head, and I lost all sense of time. When I didn’t give him the reaction he wanted, when my tears weren’t enough, or I had gotten so hoarse I could barely eke out a scream, he would start in on my family.
A punch to the head for my husband. His words, obscene, discussing my body and how he was going to ravage me. More than he already had.
And my mother. My poor, poor mother. I never wanted her to witness my weakness. To see me battered and bleeding, sprawled on the floor in front of her, forced to perform the lewdest of acts while she suffered, was bad enough. But when he touched her, too, I came unglued.
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