JRZDVLZ

by Lee Klein

  “She should come soon,” I said.

  “I hope she brings a sandwich or some salted fish.”

  “Can you make it?”

  “I can subsist on this.” Larner’s hands cupped either side of a generous midsection. “And you?” “That last rabbit should suffice.”

  “We failed to remember flowers, chocolates, trinkets to win her affection.”

  “I have nothing to offer except my curiosity,” I said. “And maybe she once somehow heard me imitate her.”

  I listened for her song but only heard the primitive rhythm of my heart.

  And then I crouched, wings back, head lowered, tail coiled. Larner crouched, too, peering over the shaky banister.

  “Quiet now,” I whispered.

  “ ’Tis her?”

  “Shh. Hear now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Listen.”

  Larner tilted his head toward what he hoped might be a melody. “Nothing,” he said.

  “The side entrance.”

  Larner covered his mouth with his hand. He seemed aware that he was crouched on the balcony of a sinking shore house, accompanied by a speaking beast descended from family lore, awaiting the arrival of a headless widow whose song he could not hear thanks to insufficient human senses but that seemed to pervade the air and vibrate my bones. The porch doors were still open. Inside, the house was darker than the moonless night. But then the darkness brightened.

  I nudged Larner to the northern corner where we waited. I opened my wings and overwhelmed the salt air with the scent of my leathery flesh.

  III

  A white walking gown raising a lantern lit with aromatic oil: it was difficult to tell if she saw us. Larner heard her song now, faint as it was, muffled by the tulle of her dress. Her presence was ghostly, the gown occupied by an apparently gorgeous form, the veil as empty as ever supported by an unseen shape. We stood against the banister, like ants in amber. She held the lantern and did not waver. Entranced, unable to break the spell, we waited for one another to take action. But her unmoving silence sent thoughts reeling. Possessed by her ritual, drawing her lost love from the surf, so completely did she inhabit the past she did not notice that visitors had appeared in the present. I understood her longing. We both searched for a man: she for her husband and me for the one I would have been had I not transformed at birth.

  Larner was a detection device who alerted me to the presence of the unusual. “This sight makes you seem common,” he whispered.

  I controlled the rush of breath that might have poured from me unrestrained. “I will take that as a compliment.”

  “Not only headless,” Larner said, “but handless. The lantern emerges from her sleeves.”

  “Animated only by sorrow and desire.”

  “Perhaps one of your impressive fingers might poke her?”

  “Why should I poke her?” I said.

  “You are my protector, are you not?”

  “It’s just a dress,” I said.

  “Then poke.”

  I pulled a weathered post from under the railing and pressed its end toward where a thigh might be. The board dented the dress without resistance.

  Larner nodded. I stepped ahead. There was no end to the board’s entry.

  “More dress than damsel,” he said.

  I scraped the board along the balcony’s floor, scooted it under the dress, and then lifted.

  “Raise it higher,” he said.

  I raised the dress. The lantern did not waver.

  “Now remove the lantern from her grasp,” Larner said.

  I gave Larner a look of disappointment.

  “You take the lantern,” I said. “At the least movement I will hurl her into the sea.”

  A rounded handle emerged from the glass bell of the lantern before it disappeared into the dress’s sleeve. Larner ran his hand along the handle’s edge, held it tight, and yanked, perhaps too hard, expecting resistance. It gave like the gray head of a dandelion.

  Larner put down the lamp as the dress’s arm slowly dropped.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “All these years as she glided along the water I felt we shared a search for innocence lost, she in her dress, pure and serene, me in these wings and weird heron legs, awkward and cursed. I expected to meet her tonight.”

  “Then it follows,” Larner said, “that the dress is an outer wear of innocence. Beneath it, your wings and scales can be comfortable and unseen.”

  “Are you saying I wear a dress that walks by itself?”

  “Is it not possible that you—my dear Mr. Merriweather—are the sailor she seeks?”

  I never once thought her lost sailor was someone like me.

  “You say you seek innocence,” Larner said. “Here is a garment worn by the pure.”

  “But I am not a woman.”

  “I ask you, Mr. Merriweather, do you take this gown to be your wife?”

  “Oh really now,” I said.

  “Until death parts you. And if you cannot die, well, until the dress becomes a yellowed shred of fabric. For now, raise her over your head. The train shall hide your tail as the veil obscures your face.”

  His back to the sea, lightning far off, Larner lifted the lantern high and directed me to stand to the right of the dress.

  “My dear Mr. Merriweather, do you, a man of remarkable appearance and extraordinary history, cursed by the community while still inside your mother, cursed at birth by your own mother, cursed by nature to transform and commit acts of unspeakable instinct, do you, Mr. Merriweather, my only remaining friend on earth—if this darkened beach is not some sliver of the afterlife artfully imitating seashore—do you take this bodiless embodiment of innocence that traveled the beach and stood on this balcony for a century, not in search of some lost sailor per legend, but to lure you as a bird’s plumage attracts its mate? This gown wears its innocence upon its sleeves and will take not your hand in its hand—it being a dress without hands and you being a beast with intimidating horns for fingers—instead it offers its every inch as cover for your current form, what you deem a misfortunate compendium—do you, Mr. Merriweather, take as your lawfully wedded wife—as lawfully as my pronouncement and this lantern allow, with the surf and night sky behind me on one side and the country stretching ahead on the other as witnesses—will you pull this dress over your head and let courage animate the dress the same as the spirit that presented it to us this evening? Do you, Mr. Merriweather, accept this dress and agree to consider your innocence thereafter restored?”

  IV

  My new wife concealed me, horns to tail. Wearing her, I searched the dunes for crab apples I enjoyed late in the season. A sleep-deprived Larner ate on the balcony. He shielded his eyes as gentle breakers turned a greenish gold.

  “The dress is lighter than those capes at least.”

  “So our travel will be easy.”

  “It is a solid walk to the ferry.”

  “How does it feel, your first day of innocence regained?”

  Trailing breezes from the storm kept us cool as we walked the shore. Only a few shacks toward the dunes. Most lived bayside.

  Larner mentioned all the aisles he had walked with his daughters, unions overseen by family and friends. Each now seemed replaced with the joy of the beast beside him. The innocence of it made his spirit as light as the mist that rose from the shore break.

  The dress was a second skin, loose and silky other than the starchy veils through which I could see well enough. Larner poked fun at my century alone with gulls and greenflies and what I had once thought a woman who sang to me as she walked the beach. A melody of longing, and still I heard it unplayed within me. It propelled me step for step with Larner. How animated he had been as wonder possessed him, the depressive front across his eyes burned off by spectacle.

  As we walked along the water, Larner said he must give me a sort of wedding gift, a list of the thirteen essential virtues delineated by Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography. Refe
rring to them as a recipe for moral perfection, Larner relayed them from memory, and asked me to repeat them until we both were sure they were lodged forever within me:

  “The first is temperance: eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation. The second is silence: speak not but what may benefit others or yourself and avoid trifling conversation. The third is order: let all your things have their places, let each part of your business have its time. The fourth is resolution: resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve. The fifth is frugality: make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, waste nothing. The sixth is industry: lose no time, be always employed in something useful, cut off all unnecessary actions. The seventh is sincerity: use no hurtful deceit, think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. The eighth is justice: wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. The ninth is moderation: avoid extremes, forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. The tenth is cleanliness: tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. The eleventh is tranquility: be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable. The twelfth is chastity: rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation. And, finally, the thirteenth is humility: imitate Christ and Socrates.”

  Step for step, we walked as though hand in hand, as a rare southward breeze directed us toward a village of fisherman and those who needed an island to increase their sense of worth. Ahead, we saw the central steeple, wide-porched mansions removed from the shore and bay equally at the island’s midpoint, protected on either side by shacks. I had only perceived life here when concealed by a loose netting of clouds. Now we crossed dunes on planks that gave way to streets half-buried in sand.

  If anyone bothered us, Larner said, we would not linger: we’re rushing to get this bride to her wedding ceremony, need to arrive in a hour, just outside Umbria, must hasten to the ferry or forever blame whoever delays us.

  “And remember,” he added, “if we are threatened, a simple growl should suffice.”

  “A growl from such a gown should unsettle anyone.”

  Larner stepped more quickly toward the bay.

  We passed an open area with a central gazebo around which men and women attended to midday duties.

  “It is just beyond—the dock—ahead,” I said.

  Larner laughed. “To hear that voice through those thick veils,” he said, “it brings me joy.” This happy spirit possessing Larner seemed more conspicuous to the island community than the anonymous bride, for it truly seemed he was a happy father taking his daughter to the mainland on her greatest day. It may have seemed stranger to some that the gown was so luxurious and the clothes worn by her escort surely cost more than most on the island earned in a year. Yet we traveled not on horseback or carriage, nor had we secured a private vessel across the bay, but instead opted to take the sloop each passenger helped row across the water.

  On the sloop, a man possessed by rum and more than sufficient commitment to the democratic spirit suggested that the bride must also row, citing a rule that applied to all except the pregnant and the sick. Since her gown was so exceedingly white she might prove her innocence by taking an oar.

  “It is her wedding day,” said Larner, “and besides she is exceedingly frail and tired from our journey down the shore from the northern settlement.”

  “It washed away years ago.”

  “A shack, where we prepared her betterment.”

  The man cited a grandmother, age eighty, who once had rowed. He was quickly shouted down. He was drunk and all else seemed sober, dissatisfied with a confrontational stain upon the perfect weather.

  Larner approached the captain at the stern. He whispered about how his daughter was terribly scarred, unable to show her face, hence the veils, and yet it was his wish for his daughter to have this special day, her one blessed moment on this earth, for the man she would marry was blind and cruel, life ahead would be ceaseless sorrow, and so would the captain accept a small note to ensure that his daughter enjoyed a day of rest and pleasure before a lifetime of service on the mainland.

  The captain pocketed the note Larner slipped to him. A hand on the cutlass at his hip, he told the drunkard to shut it or be thrown into the bay.

  The drunk muttered doubts. He asked to see her skin. It was common at the time for the shore and wild pinelands of the eastern coast to shelter fugitives. There they were obscured from all those lacking knowledge of the sand trails.

  “Show us your pretty hand,” said the drunk.

  Larner touched the bride’s shoulder to quiet a rumble he anticipated and feared. “She cannot be seen,” he said, “not an inch of her flesh today.”

  “And why’s that?” said another man nearby.

  How terrible if they clamored for me to reveal my skin, a general rebellion on the boat, led by a drunk. Larner had remained silent alone for years, but last night’s ceremony had opened a long-closed door in him.

  “Friends,” Larner said. He looked at the captain expecting paid support. “We have no time to suffer a lengthy speech that might win your favor. So, simply, row on and forget the presence of my humble daughter, no more important in the grand scheme of your day than a common moth. Give her no thought. Let us proceed.”

  “Such protest surely obscures a strange truth,” muttered another passenger. He wore no hat and shielded his eyes from the glare.

  “My daughter’s dress glows in today’s sun, brighter than a beacon guiding endangered ships. Heed her brilliance, respect this special day, and leave us in peace.”

  The captain approached the wedding dress and said, “If we are to believe your words let us hear one from her. Or will we not be able to hear her voice through such thick veils?”

  “A word and you’ll leave us in peace?” Larner said. “Not the most pleasant melody emerges from her crippled mouth, I warn you.”

  “Crippled?”

  “Aye, a fire. Long ago. I wished not to reveal this, but it is the reason she covers herself thus and marries a blind man. Please pity my poor daughter, whose voice has been affected by inhalation of smoke, though her ears remain as sensitive as her heart.”

  “So we know she is not a fugitive, let her speak.”

  “Speak then, my dear. Tell them of our haste.”

  From beneath the series of thick veils, I said, “We are in a great hurry on this my special day”—thinking: this is no better than attempting passage with wings exposed. I tried to make my voice sound feminine, but it came out odd, of course.

  “A woman, you say!” said the drunkard. “Please. Unmask him! Not a woman, and most likely no free man, either.”

  “Acrid plumes damaged her voice.”

  The captain turned to Larner. “Let us see her hand before we travel on in peace.”

  “So disfigured it is you will forever regret the request.”

  “Show it,” the hatless man said, and the others grunted agreement.

  “Show it,” said Larner to me. “Let their curiosity be sated. Serve their selfishness.”

  I inched a hand out of the sleeve. At first sign of aggressive reaction I would tear off the gown, grab Larner, and fly us over the sea, safe from this world of so-called men.

  I held out my hand. It was delicate enough to pass perhaps for a woman’s.

  I am the Leeds Devil

  LATER LEARNED that Branley Jukes—thief, mental defective, father of three—met us on the road to Umbria, doubled back along a footpath, entered a tavern called the Bucket of Blood, and relayed the encounter’s innocent beginning and nearly tragic end: “Sinfulness such a creature harbors, without doubt, whose existence foretells horror to come.” It was not the first time Jukes had ranted about a talking chicken or a stranger more cow than man. The tavern crowd did not trust him any farther than they could stumble at the end of the night.

  The Jukes family had long worn the crown of fools. But no o
ne found these jesters humorous. Above-average height, below-average weight, they walked with a jerking motion inherited Jukes to Jukes. They kept their mouths shut as though ashamed of their teeth, but their eyes they opened wide, staring into a distance where their gaze melded the branches of a dead elm with distant laundry on a line, combining these until they swore they witnessed something remarkable, if not a devil than a spirit no more damned than its beholder. That generations of these odious idiots survived was an unfortunate miracle, most thought. Many hoped that each successive Jukes would be the last. But when confronted with a potential mate, instead of uttering incomprehensible, delusional rants, they somehow managed to woo.

  Each generation of Jukes deposed itself well before old age. That he talked of horned fingers and a satanic growl seemed proof that the current Jukes would soon proceed down the path of his forebears. Many wished he’d get on with it. Three days straight he talked. And then news arrived of a couple on the ferry, an old man and a woman in a white wedding dress. The old man claimed she’d been burned and deformed, but when she revealed a hand, it was clear of scars and delicately boned yet nevertheless masculine.

  This story substantiated, in Branley’s mind, the claim that some mysterious creature was about, one that perhaps was two separate forms, an old man and something so hideous it must be concealed from sight or else cause an uproar.

  Jukes now maneuvered all conversation to the presence of this monstrous pair. They were responsible for the death of Farmer Chandler’s cattle last month, he said, as well as every accident and negative variation in life. Leaves dried and fell and the light weakened and rain came colder and breath could be seen from one’s mouth—their presence brought these changes, so claimed Jukes.

  Once this mysterious pair no longer existed, he said, we would live in paradise—everyone accommodated. Jukes then displayed an unexpected investigative diligence. He analyzed every cloven footprint, sniffed at every turn for monster and old man, scrutinized elderly couples to see if one were not disguised, even nosed around wedding receptions to ensure excessive veils did not obscure a beast in place of a bride.