Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance

by Ruth Emmie Lang

  I found it by accident. No smells preceded it. I just tripped on something and looked down, and there it was. MaryAnn bought that cake tin shortly after Mary was born. She said that now that we had Mary, there were a million more reasons to celebrate, and a million more cakes to be baked. I don’t think she ever hit one million, but it had to be in the hundreds somewhere.

  Sometimes, she would make a cake just because it was a sunny day. I probably put on a good twenty pounds by Mary’s first birthday.

  I opened the tin, but there were only crumbs. If only Mary had left a trail of crumbs or something for me to go on. Then I noticed the prints. Huge paw prints that looked like they belonged to a giant dog or maybe a wolf. Next to them were a set of footprints, small, like Mary’s. There was no blood, no signs of struggle. It was possible they weren’t even there at the same time. Maybe it just looked that way.

  I convinced myself of these things, that she was alive and that I was going to find her that way. So, I followed her footsteps, bringing the tin with me so we could bake a cake when I brought her home.

  * * *

  The sun had just come up when the rangers found me. I had walked all night following tracks I could no longer see and was three miles from the road.

  After the rangers took me home, I threw the cake tin as hard as I could across the living room, breaking a vase that belonged to MaryAnn’s late mother. My body trembled with anger and utter hopelessness. I had failed Mary. All I could hope for was that the police were better at their jobs than I was at being a father.

  I couldn’t stand being alone in that house another second, so I cleaned myself up and went to work. I spent the whole morning deep-cleaning the freezer—something I hadn’t done in months—and sharpening my knives. The pipe under the slop sink was leaking, so I fixed it, and the wall was cracked, so I fixed that, too.

  By four o’clock, I had run out of projects and took the long way home, the one with plenty of red lights. I spent the evening waiting for the phone to ring, and when it didn’t, I waited for sleep. It was five in the morning when it finally came, just in time for me to miss the sun illuminating Mary’s perfectly made bed.

  7

  MARY PENLORE

  I’ve never liked the word desperation. It reeks of melodrama and people falling on swords, neither of which I was particularly fond of. I couldn’t fathom a single reason that was worth sticking yourself with a sword over, especially not family honor or obedience to some mentally ill warlord or love. Love was the worst reason of all. Romeo barely even knew Juliet before he was willing to drink poison to be with her, and Juliet had to one-up him and use that dagger. I never liked the word desperation because I never understood it—that is, until I was slowly starving to death.

  Like a lion, I squatted silently behind a bush, watching every twitch of the rabbit’s ears. He was happily munching on a dandelion, cute as can be, but all I saw was him roasting on a spit over an open flame.

  My stomach growled. Loudly. The rabbit paused for a moment and looked around. I held my breath. Once he went back to his lunch, I pulled my hamstrings taut, leaped forward, and crashed down on top of the patch of weeds. I looked up just in time to see the rabbit’s cotton ball tail disappear into the brush.

  “You let him get away!” I looked up at Weylyn and barely recognized him. The muscles of his face were mushy with exhaustion, but I could tell he was angry by the way his silver eyes burned. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I’m sorry,” my voice gargled as I forced my tears back into my throat. Girls cry. Wolves don’t.

  Weylyn’s left arm started wagging slowly at the elbow like wolves’ tails do when they’re angry. “You should’ve come and got me! Now we’re gonna starve for sure!” he shouted and pulled his foot back to kick a birch tree. I braced myself for the moment of impact, the moment when he screamed as the bones in his toes shattered like porcelain, but it never came. As his foot arced toward the trunk, a strong gust of wind tore through the forest, knocking Weylyn to the ground. I felt the sting of hundreds of pine needles whipping past me as I covered my face with my hands and waited for the wind to pass. When it finally stopped, I shook the needles off me before turning to Weylyn, who was still prostrate on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. I don’t know why I did it. My mother had taught me to never put my hand in a wild animal’s cage or I might get bitten.

  Weylyn recoiled. “What’re you doing?”

  “I-I don’t know…” I retreated and sat back on my haunches, watching blood pool in the corrugations of my scraped knees.

  Several minutes passed before he finally spoke. “That rabbit was fast. I probably couldn’t have caught it, either.” He wasn’t a very good liar, probably because he didn’t have human parents to practice on.

  Weylyn helped me up, and we headed back toward camp. On the way, we were taunted by the mooing of cattle in a nearby pasture. Weylyn paused by the gate to watch them as they grazed. His body language was relaxed, serene even, but traces of alarm still lingered in the corners of his eyes. Flaxen grasses hissed softly as they carried a breeze across the field toward us. Although the air was warm, Weylyn shivered.

  * * *

  That night, the woods were velvet. I folded myself into them and listened as the trees spoke in hushed tones about matters that could wait until morning. She’s hungry and tired. Let her sleep, they seemed to say. “I am tired,” I whispered as my eyes lolled shut.

  I dreamed that I was Scout Finch and Weylyn was Boo Radley. He was inside his house, peering at me from behind a pair of faded curtains, and I was gesturing for him to come outside and play even though there were storm clouds gathering overhead. Boo (Weylyn) let go of the curtain and slipped deeper into the house, obscuring him from view.

  It started raining heavily. Drenched and frustrated, I was about to give up on my reluctant playmate and walk home, when the front door creaked open. Out jumped not Weylyn but a vicious-looking wolf. The beast stalked toward me, its lips peeled back from its sanguine gums, exposing an impressive set of fangs. As I backed away, I noticed Weylyn at the window, watching me with a helpless expression on his face. Then the wolf lunged.

  I jerked awake and realized my clothes were damp. The stream I was sleeping next to had risen and soaked the lower half of my body and all my belongings. I grabbed my soggy rucksack and emptied its contents. Luckily, I had sealed my photographs in a plastic bag. Everything else would dry out just fine in the sun the next day. There was, however, something missing: my knives.

  I looked around for Weylyn, thinking maybe he had them. I found him once, using my paring knife to whittle a turtle out of wood. I got mad at him for dulling the blade, and he reluctantly handed the knife back, whining that the turtle only had three legs. He was probably off carving that fourth leg or using my cleaver to split a log for a new creation. You can’t sneak up on Weylyn, so I decided to stay awake and catch him in the act as he tried to slide my knives back into my bag.

  An hour later, Weylyn had still not come back. I began to think he wasn’t whittling after all, that something was wrong. I grabbed my bag and quietly tiptoed around the sleeping wolves until Ma blocked my way. She stared at me, knowingly.

  “I think I know where he is,” I whispered. Ma stepped aside to let me through so I could lead her to her son.

  * * *

  Wind howled across the pasture, rolling over the cattle’s broad, heaving shoulders as they slept. Ma’s jowls overflowed with saliva as she anxiously paced in front of the gate. Even I was salivating, and I had always preferred pork to beef.

  Gathering storm clouds had blotted out the stars and moon, leaving me very little light to see by, but eventually, I spotted a small figure bent over one of the sleeping beasts, holding a rope in one hand and my paring knife in the other.

  “Weylyn! Stop!” I hissed.

  He looked up, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “Stopping you from doing something stu
pid.” There was a light on in the farmhouse at the other end of the pasture. Someone was awake. “Please. Come back with us.”

  “I can’t!” he shouted and looped one end of the rope around the cow’s neck. It mooed, annoyed.

  “Weylyn, be quiet! Someone will hear you.”

  Weylyn’s volume didn’t change. “You have to take Ma back to camp. If anyone sees her—”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re gonna get caught!”

  “No, I’m not. Now get out of here!”

  Thunder clapped. A strong gust of wind knocked Weylyn off balance, and he nicked the cow’s hide with my paring knife. It hollered and scrambled to its feet.

  Before we had a chance to move, a shot rang out, and the cow bolted. I could see the shadow of a man marching toward us, rifle cocked and aimed.

  “Weylyn!” I reached out to him, but he ran in the opposite direction, leading the man with the gun away from me. “Weylyn! No!”

  Another shot. Ma whined and backed away from the fence.

  Weylyn darted through a frenzy of panicked cattle. If the bullets didn’t kill him, surely the stampede would.

  The man with the gun took aim at Weylyn again, his hands steady. Then Ma jumped the fence.

  The next shot didn’t miss. The man with the gun wheeled around just in time to see Ma leaping toward him, her fangs catching the moonlight as they made for his neck.

  She crumpled like laundry. I screamed and clambered over the fence. The man took aim at me, then lowered his weapon. “Whoa! Hey, little girl!” he shouted.

  I ran to Weylyn, who was collapsed on top of his mother’s body, shielding her from the rain that had just begun to pour.

  “Ma? Ma, wake up.” His voice was thin. Ma’s eyes held a blank stare, and her jaw hung slack, tongue lolled out to one side.

  “I said wake up!” he screamed as he smacked her on the snout. She hated that.

  When she didn’t bite back, when she didn’t even flinch, a high-pitched whine escaped him. It was the saddest noise I’ve ever heard.

  Only rain, not tears, ran down his cheeks. He wasn’t a real boy, after all. He was a wolf, and he cried like one.

  I wasn’t. So, I let my tears run until my cheeks were crusty with salt.

  8

  NELSON PENLORE

  Three and a half weeks after Mary’s disappearance, there was a knock at the door.

  “Nelson Penlore?” Two cops stood on my doorstep. One of them was holding my daughter’s hand. She was all there. Every finger, toe, eye, and hair. She had no bruises, only a couple of scraped knees and dirty clothes. She looked skinny. And small, smaller than I remembered. She was so mature and independent that I had thought of her as full grown, five-foot-six with a woman’s frown, but she barely stood above my elbow. Her ears and feet were the only things that had stopped growing.

  When she saw me, a look crossed her face that I hadn’t seen since she was a little girl: need. She needed me, her dad, and for the first time in years, I scooped her up in my arms.

  Her voice wavered. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, holding her tight.

  The officers gave us a minute before getting back to business. “Mr. Penlore, could we have a word with you in private?”

  “Sure,” I said, reluctantly letting my daughter go. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and ran inside.

  The officer with the red hair cleared his throat before beginning. “Mr. Penlore, the Potter’s Creek Sheriff’s Department picked up your daughter on a local rancher’s property. Allegedly, she was stealing cattle with a homeless boy about her age.”

  “Cattle? Why would Mary need to steal cattle?”

  The officers exchanged a glance that I couldn’t read. “They said they were hungry. Your daughter and the boy had been living with … wolves.”

  “Allegedly,” the other officer piped in.

  “There was a wolf with them,” the red-haired one continued. “The rancher shot and killed it.”

  Wolves? I didn’t know any songs about wolves. Maybe that was for the best. I’d already spent too much time in my own head.

  Later that night, I asked Mary to tell me the whole story over the “Welcome Home” cake I baked for her myself.

  She began, “Well, his name is Weylyn Grey…”

  book 2

  RAINMAKER

  PARIS, OKLAHOMA

  1980

  9

  LYDIA KRAMER

  Out of the five prettiest girls in Paris, Oklahoma, my mama made four of them. This was according to the Paris Gazette, which features a yearly column on the Miss Paris Competition. There’s only one winner, but the paper lists the top-five favorites, and that year, four of the Kramer girls were on the list.

  First, there was Caroline, who won the 1979 Miss Paris crown. She had the bluest eyes and the longest legs of anyone in the county. Twenty boys asked her to homecoming, so she let all of them take turns dancing with her. Her favorite color was Barbie pink.

  The runner-up was Sarah, the oldest. She had boobs the size of volleyballs and went to school to be a teacher, but flunked out and moved back in with Mom and Dad. Her hobbies include narcissism and auditioning for The Dating Game.

  Emily came in third thanks to her silky red hair and that darling laugh that sounds like a baby bird chirping. She was a ballerina and a pathological liar, and her favorite food was celery.

  In fifth place was Angelica, who thought she was ugly because she hadn’t come in fourth. She also thought Chinese people came from a place called Chinasia. Her favorite movie was “the one where John Travolta wears those tight white pants.”

  And then, there was me. I didn’t make the top five. I probably wouldn’t make the top fifty, and I loved it because it drove my mom bonkers. She would say, “You have such a pretty face. Stop hiding it under all those doughnuts.”

  And I would say, “Then why don’t you cut off my face and let some skinny girl wear it as a mask?”

  “Don’t be macabre, Lydia,” she would say, then tell me to wash that gunk off my arms. The “gunk” she was talking about was my art. I loved to draw, but I didn’t like my drawings tucked away in the folds of some sketchbook where no one could see them. So I drew on my arms, feet, and ankles. I drew people, places, anything I saw that looked interesting to me. Sometimes I drew things that didn’t exist—alien monsters or vampire donkeys—those were my favorites.

  Later in the shower, my creations would disappear down the drain, but it was somehow better that way. The ones that mattered would find their way back to me when I next picked up my pen.

  Anyway, Mama and Daddy had five girls, four of them pretty. Daddy always wanted a boy. I think he figured since I was the plain sister that I’d end up a tomboy, so he’d try to get me to play catch with him. He never said anything, but I could tell he was disappointed when I wasn’t any good. That’s why I wasn’t at all surprised when he decided to foster a boy.

  We were at the dinner table when he told us. Said the boy was a lost soul and he needed our help. He didn’t tell us that the boy’s mama was a wolf and that she was murdered in front of him. I’d find that out later.

  My sisters were horrified. “A boy?” Caroline screeched. “Daddy, you’re letting a boy live in our house?”

  “Have you forgotten that I’m a boy?”

  “No, Daddy. You’re a man of God. This boy has probably never been to church!”

  “I don’t know whether he’s been to church, but if he hasn’t, wouldn’t it be nice to take him to his first service at St. Agnes? Sarah, you could teach him the hymns. Emily, you could help him find suitable clothes.”

  The girls looked at each other with disgust.

  “I’ll help him,” I said. “With hymns and clothes and stuff.”

  “Thank you, Lydia! I knew I could count on you.” Daddy winked. He could count on me. I was the only one who gave him presents at Christmas that he actually w
anted, usually wrapped in the socks and ties that Mama and my sisters had gotten him the year before.

  Mama hadn’t said a word since dinner started. She had this look on her face that was the same as the one Angelica had when she hadn’t been asked to the homecoming dance. Mama hadn’t been asked about this. Not really, anyway.

  * * *

  Weylyn. That was his name. I went with Daddy to pick him up from social services even though I was supposed to be in school. Daddy said it was okay because I was doing so well, and one day wouldn’t hurt. He hardly ever let my sisters stay at home when they were sick, never mind play hooky.

  I liked that kid as soon as I saw him. He had no suitcase or shoes, just the thrift store clothes on his back and an old book tucked under his arm. I could tell he was sad because of the way he blinked—slow, like he didn’t want to look at the world more than he had to—but the corners of his mouth still curled up slightly like a handlebar mustache. Maybe sometime I can convince him to let me draw one on his upper lip, I thought. When he’s feeling better.

  “Hi, Weylyn. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Reverend Thomas Kramer. You can call me Mr. Kramer.” Daddy extended his hand. The boy looked at it, confused. “It’s all right. We’ll save that for another day.” He noticed the book Weylyn was holding. “Do you like to read?”

  He nodded.

  “When we get home, we’ll get you a library card, and you can borrow as many books as you want.”

  Weylyn smiled slightly.

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting kind of hungry,” Daddy said, putting his arm around Weylyn’s shoulders. “How about we grab some lunch on the way home?”

  Mama never let me have hamburgers or fries or soda. She said they had too much fat and gave you zits. Daddy didn’t care about fat or zits, so he took us to McDonald’s. “And what would you like, son?” he asked Weylyn.