Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

  “Iris.” I stood, my hands dangling at my sides and stained black.

  “Iris,” he echoed. “It’s pretty.” He struck a match on the railing of the porch and lit his cigarette. He closed his eyes when he inhaled, aware that all three of us had stopped what we were doing to watch him. He had high cheekbones and his cheeks hollowed when he sucked in. His thick eyelashes fluttered open. Smoke left the corner of his mouth in a wisp. “How’d these ruffians get a lady like you peeling nuts?”

  “I do as I please,” I said.

  “I bet you do.” His smile transformed his entire face and revealed two strands of surprisingly white teeth.

  Llewelyna came onto the porch with a hammer. She had changed into a green silk dress with a low embroidered collar. It gathered just below her knees where a black slip was visible. Her red hair was loose over her shoulders. She seemed to avoid looking at Viktor, who stood right in her line of sight, eyes beaming at her. She turned instead to Yuri and Jacob, who sat peeling the nuts.

  Yuri stood abruptly and pulled off his hat. “Mrs. Sparks, thank you for inviting us for dinner.”

  “My pleasure, of course.” She picked up a walnut. “Splendid.” She set the hammer down on the bench and pointed at the small pile of cleaned walnuts. “That there’ll be plenty.” Viktor followed her with his eyes. She glanced up at him before she slipped back into the house.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Viktor said, enchanted.

  “Viktor,” Yuri scolded.

  “You look like her,” Viktor said to me.

  My neck went hot. I imagined the red patches that surely crawled up my throat. “I don’t.”

  “Maybe it’s your eyes.”

  “My eyes are brown. Hers are green.”

  “Not the colour,” Viktor flicked his cigarette over the railing and entered the house as if trailing after Llewelyna’s scent. I stared at the closed screen door.

  “Don’t give him any mind,” Yuri said. He raised the hammer and cracked a walnut. He handed the cracked nut to me to shell and pull the walnut meat out.

  “What’s that?” Jacob asked, pointing at the circular scar on Yuri’s hand. Yuri shrugged, rubbed the mark with his other hand. He cracked another nut. “Looks like a burn. A cigarette?”

  “It’s nothin’,” Yuri said.

  “Look at this.” Jacob pulled up his pant leg and showed Yuri the long scar where the lake monster had bitten him. “Had to get twelve stitches.”

  “How’d it happen?” Yuri asked.

  Jacob hadn’t considered his explanation. He shrugged, imitating Yuri. “It’s nothing.”

  Yuri laughed and went back to hammering the walnuts.

  Over the next couple of months the atmosphere of our quiet orchard changed dramatically. There were always Japanese men going in and out of the crowded pick shacks. They stood on ladders in the trees, walked into the forest to use the pickers’ outhouse or down to the lake to fill their canisters and swim in the icy water.

  Once when Azami and I were skirting the orchard scavenging for rocks and other bits to add to our chimes in the tree fort, we came across Viktor and one of the Japanese men having an argument. Viktor was trying to show the man how to use a saw, and the Japanese man was growing frustrated. He kept saying something over and over. Azami watched for a moment and then stepped in. She spoke with the man in Japanese and then turned to Viktor. “He’s left-handed,” she said.

  “He’s what?” Viktor was obviously a little annoyed at our sudden appearance. He was wearing brown suspenders and a stained undershirt.

  “He can’t hold it like you,” Azami said.

  Viktor’s forehead was wet with sweat. It was a hot September. “Ah, is that it, then.” Viktor released the saw and watched the Japanese man position it easily on his left side and begin to grate at the branch. Viktor mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Well, Your Highness.” Viktor had taken to calling me by this nickname. “Who’s your little friend?” His eyes were fixed on Azami. He extended his hand to her. “Viktor Wasik,” he said.

  “Azami Koba,” she said.

  Viktor grinned. “Are you looking for a job?”

  “I already work on my father’s orchard,” Azami said seriously.

  “That’s too bad. I could really use your help. Can’t tell heads or tails of what these men are trying to say most of the time.” Viktor looked down at the bundle of items I had gathered in a potato sack. “Where are you two off to, then?”

  “Nothing,” I said, before Azami could say something embarrassing about the chimes. It all seemed very childish to me now. “I mean nowhere.”

  “Ah, I see. Top secret.” Viktor lowered his hat to Azami. I was jealous of the hungry look he gave her. “I hope to see you around more often, Azami Koba.”

  For the first time since I had known Azami, I watched her skin redden in embarrassment. She turned her face from me as we walked through the forest towards the tree fort.

  “He’s like that to everyone,” I told her, my voice crueller than I intended.

  “You like him,” she said.

  “He’s too old. He could be our father.” I knew this was a ridiculous thing to say. Viktor could be no older than twenty, but the gap in our ages felt like centuries.

  “Hardly.” She launched up the ladder to the fort.

  11

  The Wasiks’ cottage was built between our house and the pick shacks. Mary busied herself outside with the laundry and the chickens. Llewelyna refused to hire Mary as our housemaid, even though Taras and my father had already arranged for it. My father claimed the Wasiks would likely take offence, but Llewelyna insisted she had no need for a maid, though she neglected all chores while my father was away. He spent more and more time in town or overseas now that he had Taras to look after the orchard. Dust felted the cupboards and crumbs collected in the corners. Llewelyna said she didn’t want someone snooping around the house, but I suspected she was afraid Mary might witness one of her seizures if she were around enough.

  Llewelyna kept out of the house that fall. Sometimes she was gone before I woke, and other times she disappeared during the day. One moment I would see her in the garden collecting seeds, or curled up on the porch with a cup of tea, and the next moment she would be gone. I was uneasy about her absences. Since her seizure in the garden years ago, I felt oddly protective of her and liked to keep my eye on her. As far as I knew, only I knew of her falling sickness. I tried to ignore the suspicions about her and Henry that Mrs. Bell had planted in my mind so long ago, but the possibility had taken root, and I couldn’t shake the thought that they were sneaking away together and betraying my father.

  One afternoon, I spied on Llewelyna while Jacob played checkers with Yuri on the porch. My father had gone to Vernon with Taras for a few days, purchasing equipment for the orchard, and Llewelyna had been making herself scarce. She looked both ways before slipping out of the garden, through the orchard rows, and into the forest behind our house. I followed her up into the hills. We walked for a very long time. I thought we might turn back at any moment. She didn’t follow any path I recognized but would stop every once in a while and gaze up into the trees, as if looking for something amongst its branches. I saw then that there was a flume of smoke in the distance and we were headed in its direction.

  In a clearing, we came upon Henry tending a fire with a pitchfork. He was bare-chested and his long dark hair was untied. I stayed back in the trees and watched Llewelyna approach him. My skin went hot with anger. I expected to catch them in the act of betraying my father. I expected Henry and Llewelyna to embrace and finally fulfill Mrs. Bell’s suspicions. Instead, Henry simply nodded at Llewelyna and gestured to a bucket at the entrance of a small domed structure behind him made of branches and covered in canvas. Smoke billowed from its entrance. Henry faced away from the structure and averted his gaze as Llewelyna unbuttoned her dress from throat to belly. The heavy fabric fell from her in a heap. Red dust rose up around her and made her naked for
m appear diaphanous as she stepped out of her dress. Although I wasn’t surprised to see her uncorseted, it was shocking to see she hadn’t bothered with even drawers or a chemise, as though she had come to the woods prepared to quickly undress. She pulled a mug of water from the bucket and entered the smoke-filled dome.

  I came out from behind the trees and into the open. I wanted Henry to see me, to know that I knew what terrible people they both were. I watched him use the pitchfork to lift a large rock from the fire and carry it into the dome. He did not look up to see me. There was a hiss from inside. Henry emerged shortly after and placed the pitchfork by the fire, his back still towards me. Then, to my horror, he began to remove his pants, and I had to duck away again. When I looked back, Henry had gone back inside the tiny dome. I slipped through the trees, closer to the opening. I wanted to glimpse what they were doing inside. A hot current swept over my face and droplets pebbled my skin. It wasn’t smoke but steam coming from the dome. One of our heavy winter bedsheets covered the entrance. I moved it aside to peer inside but it was difficult to see through the steam. Then Henry stood and poured a bucket of water over a mound of stones, and there was another hiss, louder this time, and the steam became as thick as milk.

  From that day on, I continued to follow Llewelyna whenever I could. Although she and Henry were very close and spent a lot of time together, I didn’t witness anything physical between them. Not even a kiss.

  One day I followed Llewelyna towards the lake and she walked along the rocky shore at a pace I could barely keep up with. I slunk through the forest along the shore and watched her from a distance. A loon screamed on the other side of the lake, but otherwise the only sound was Llewelyna’s footsteps on the rocks. The sun began its disappearing act behind the hills and threw back shadows like arms reaching for me. The lake was still and solid. Red and yellow leaves were plastered against its glassy surface.

  A loud splash disturbed the calm. Llewelyna jumped, and I dropped back behind a birch. After a moment of silence the splashing returned. An amorphous figure silhouetted by the sun struggled in the water just off the shore. Llewelyna ran down the narrow, rocky beach towards the shape. The sun extended the reach of the creature’s limbs and duplicated them in shadow. I ducked behind the bare white birches and thought of the lake demon, Naitaka. Then the shadows slipped off the figure to reveal a woman. She crawled to the shore, clutching stones; her fingertips were bleeding. Her hair draped over her shoulders like lake weed. Llewelyna ran to her, wobbled on the mossy rocks, and fell. She got back to her feet and when she reached the woman, Llewelyna lifted her up. Arm in arm they staggered up to the shore.

  The woman had appeared out of nothing. I thought of the story Henry had told me about the woman who fell through a hole in the sky. She shivered. She was completely naked. The woman had dark skin, like Henry, like the Lake People I saw in the forest. She uttered something in a different language and motioned towards the water and then to the sky, as if daring it to fall down upon her. She tried to stand and collapsed to her knees and cried into her bloodied hands. Her sob echoed out across the lake and back again. Llewelyna knelt beside her and sung a Welsh lullaby I vaguely recognized. The woman was quiet for a moment, as if the song had calmed her, and then she began to cough. Her coughs were syrupy and thick. She choked as if drowning. Llewelyna looked behind her and I dropped behind a tree.

  “Iris,” she hissed into the forest. “I know you’re there.” When I poked my head out, Llewelyna was looking right at me. “Come.”

  I ran to her.

  “Sit here. Hold her head up.”

  I knelt behind the woman and placed her head in my lap. Llewelyna took the woman’s hands in her own and began to hum and sing in a wordless language. I watched her lips move around foreign sounds. The woman nodded to my mother and responded weakly, her words as soft as lapping water and wind against sagebrush.

  “What is she saying?” I whispered.

  “A child,” Llewelyna said. “A girl. She has something for her.” The woman looked up at me then. Her black eyes appeared bottomless.

  “Me?” I asked.

  The woman choked. Her voice turned to a sputter. Her eyes went wide as if I might save her. She brought a hand to my cheek and I could feel the warmth of her bloody fingers against my skin.

  “Sit her up,” Llewelyna said, and took my place behind her. The woman continued to cough, red-faced. There were grains of sand embedded in her cheeks. Llewelyna whispered in her ear. The woman was choking, she could no longer breathe. She sputtered as if underwater and then spat something blue onto her thighs. It squirmed and flailed. Before I could see what it was, Llewelyna scooped the blue thing up in her hand.

  “Fill your hands with water,” she said. I cupped my hands and dipped them into the lake and came back with the water. Llewelyna dropped the thing into my hands. It was a fish, bluer than the lake, bluer than violets, bluer than Saint Francis’s jewelled feathers, bluer than blue.

  Relieved of this burden, the woman lay flat on her back now, against the rocks. Her eyes glazed with the reflection of clouds. Llewelyna put her fingers against the woman’s neck to check for a pulse. After a moment Llewelyna rose, face striped with tears, and performed the states of the cross on her chest. She whispered a prayer in Welsh and closed the woman’s eyes with her hand. Coyotes began to yip in the hills behind us. Llewelyna lifted the hem of her soaking yellow dress and wiped the woman’s blood from my face. She twisted her dress between two fists to squeeze the water out.

  “Let’s fetch your father,” she said. I had never seen her eyes so frightened, so green and bright. I filled my hands with water for the fish before we turned back to the blue shadows of the forest. “How did you know what she was saying?” I asked, running to keep up with her, one palm covering the handful of water that dripped onto my dress.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She wasn’t speaking English, it was something else.”

  “Was it?” Llewelyna stopped. “And they spoke with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance,” she whispered.

  “Was she speaking tongues?” I asked.

  Llewelyna didn’t respond.

  We burst through the front door of our house. My father had returned that morning. He jolted up from the table where a book was splayed open in front of him. His thigh hit the tabletop and tea splashed onto his lap. He cursed. “What is it?” he said.

  Jacob had descended halfway down the stairs and stared at us.

  “You’re soaked.” My father approached. “Is that blood?”

  “Come quickly,” Llewelyna backed away from him towards the door.

  “What’s happened?” he said to me now. I stood still, stunned silent.

  “A woman,” Llewelyna said. “I think she might be dead. Please, will you hurry?” Llewelyna looked down at my hands. “Iris, water.”

  The water in my cupped hands had run dry. The fish lay lifeless against my palm. I ran into the kitchen and dropped the fish into the water basin. Jacob and my father followed Llewelyna outside. I found a jam jar in the cupboard, poured the fish into it from the basin, and screwed on the lid. I held the jar up to see if the fish was alive. It twirled its blue fins like ribbons of silk.

  When I got to the beach Llewelyna was pacing the empty shore. The woman was gone. Jacob and my father watched her carefully.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. She scanned the beach and looked out at the lake. “She was right here.”

  My father shook his head. “Lew, you must stop this nonsense.”

  “Noah, she was here.” She gathered her hair in fists. “She was right here. She said her family—”

  My father put his hands on her cheeks, but she avoided his eyes. “Stop this foolish talk. You’re scaring the children with this lake monster nonsense.”

  Llewelyna moved from his hands. “Iris,” she said, approaching me. “You saw her.” I looked at Llewelyna blankly and then behind her at my father. He had a hand over his eyes. “
Didn’t you, Iris? You saw her?” She gripped my shoulder. “Tell him you saw her. And the fish. You have the fish.” She squeezed hard, her thumb poked painfully into my shoulder, curled under the bone. Tears rimmed her pulsing green eyes, so bright they were difficult to look at. “She was here.” She shook me. “You saw.” I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe.

  My father came up behind her. “Enough.” He clenched her wrist and wrenched her back. They glared at one another. The moment froze. He still had her wrist in his grip. Her hand was limp, dead and caught. She slipped it through his grasp and launched down the shore towards the cliffs, the whites of her bare feet flashing as she wobbled on the rocks.

  “Where are you going?” my father called after her.

  Once she was further away, I could speak. “It’s true,” I said, but it was too quiet. “It’s true,” I said louder this time.

  My father turned his glare on me, eyes sharp and piercing. “Enough.”

  “I saw her.”

  “Your lake monster story is the reason your mother has lost herself with these fantasies.” I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t my story. It wasn’t my monster. I had not spoken the creature into being. And I realized now that neither had Llewelyna.

  “But I saw the woman. She was bleeding from her fingers. She had—”

  “I said enough.” I saw then it was Jacob he was concerned about. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Jacob was trembling; his face had lost all colour. He kept jerking his head, giving it little shakes, as if he had water in his ears. I wondered if he could hear them now, the muffled voices. It had been a year since he was this close to the lake.