Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance

by Ruth Emmie Lang

  “Teddy tells me you funded the levee project all by yourself.”

  I took a generous swig of my beer and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

  “What was it called again? The nonprofit who offered to fund you?”

  I reluctantly swallowed and said, “The Green Energy Company.”

  The father-knows-best frown on his face told me one of two things: either he knew I was lying or he thought I was too stupid to know that I was being lied to. Thankfully, it was the latter. “That’s what I thought. You should know that I did a little research, and there is no ‘Green Energy Company.’ Son, you’ve been scammed.”

  I stared back at him, dumbfounded. While I was crafting this lie, I figured my dad would take it upon himself to second-guess its legitimacy. I just never thought he would peg me for the victim. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Con men like that prey on small communities like ours, promising to fund projects, then taking the money and running. It’s lucky you only gave them that engineer’s fee. They could have stolen thousands, maybe millions!” He illustrated his point by grabbing a generous handful of complimentary ketchup packets from their caddy and dumping them in the middle of the table.

  My dad had unknowingly given me the out I needed. I tried not to smile when I said, “I can’t believe they would do that! I mean … the guy seemed so nice…”

  “That’s their game. They act like your friend; then they take you for everything you’ve got.”

  I hung my head. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Well, at least you learned a valuable lesson,” he said in that infuriatingly superior tone of his. “Next time, talk to me. I might be able to save you a lot of trouble.”

  I had learned something. I learned that my dad thought he was still the one running this town. I couldn’t wait to prove him wrong.

  26

  MARY PENLORE

  I took Weylyn with me to Okchamali and saw the marsh with new eyes. For the first time, I didn’t view it as something to be studied, collected, or measured. I saw it in terms of colors, shapes, light, and shadow, like an artist would if she were sitting down to paint.

  “I don’t believe in magic,” I said resolutely, like a jury member declaring a verdict. We hereby find the defendant … not magic! The defendant was Merlin, of course, Weylyn his attorney.

  “What makes you so certain?” Weylyn was knee-deep in the lake, searching for the “bugs” I studied. I told him he wasn’t going to find any in water that shallow during the day, but he still held up every insect he could find to ask me if it was the right one.

  “Because there are no scientific laws that support stopping weather with the human mind, let alone a pig. And no, not it.” He had a dragonfly larva by its hind leg. He let it go, and it jetted through the water, an action achieved by a rapid expulsion of air through the anus, I explained. Weylyn shrugged, unimpressed.

  “These laws … weren’t they all considered hocus-pocus until someone proved them to be true?” he continued.

  “Yes, but it takes years, sometimes decades of experimentation. This … correlation between Merlin and the weather, I’d like to get to the bottom of it.”

  “How? With experiments?”

  I could feel Merlin’s wary eyes on me. “No! I just want to … observe.”

  “Observe?”

  I pulled out my notebook. “See? No machines. No needles. Just me and my notebook.” Merlin lost interest and began investigating a patch of wild mushrooms.

  “And what if you observe something you can’t explain?”

  “Then I keep observing until I can explain it.”

  Weylyn looked amused. He scooped something up in his hands and held it out for me to see. “What about these little guys?” Sure enough, swimming around in his cupped palms were dozens of tiny translucent glassworms.

  “Yeah, that’s them,” I said with disbelief. “They shouldn’t be in the shallows this early in the day. They usually only come to the surface at night.”

  “I can think of a word for it,” Weylyn said. “I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an M.”

  “Malfunctioning air sacs? ’Cause if they were overinflating, they wouldn’t be able to dive—”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Take something beautiful and vandalize it with skepticism?”

  “Because without beauty, we’d be bored. Without science, we’d be dead.” I realized then how miserable I must sound. I thought of Quan’s and my first date, and how we’d spent the whole night talking about the things we disliked and found that we had a lot of those things in common. Our list of common “likes” was much shorter: coffee, National Public Radio, and hypoallergenic dog breeds. Quan isn’t allergic but has an aversion to stray hair. He once shaved his head when he discovered a bird had used some of the clumps of hair from his hairbrush to build a nest. That’s how I felt right now, like someone who’d rather shave off all her hair than risk another creature enjoying it.

  Weylyn must have seen me cringing at my own words because he didn’t even argue. “I know you’re the scientist, and I don’t have a fancy notebook or anything, but can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you lonely?”

  “No.” I looked around as if I were surrounded by friends that would prove otherwise. “Why? Do I look lonely?”

  “No. You sound it. Something in your voice.”

  “Well, I’m not. I have a boyfriend. We live together.”

  “I know.”

  Suddenly, I was furious at him, mostly because he was right.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just making an observation.”

  “I guess you’re a psychologist, too, huh?” I snipped.

  “Or maybe I just care about you.” Weylyn dipped his cupped hands back in the water, and the tiny creatures flitted out from between his fingers, leaving behind a starburst-shaped wake.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I am lonely.”

  Weylyn glanced up at me, then looked back down at his still-cupped hands under the water, waiting patiently for something new to fill them. “Me, too.”

  September 5, 1997, 13:18 CST.

  Location: Okchamali Wetlands

  Temperature: 89°F

  Cloudy skies

  Subject (pig, “Merlin”) doesn’t appear to be under physical stress. Posture relaxed. Demeanor calm.

  Clouds begin to evaporate. Still no indication of stress on the subject. Skies now mostly clear. Rainbow to the south. Subject rubs head against tree. Unclear as to whether this behavior is related to weather or whether he is just scratching an itch.

  Weylyn has been watching me this whole time. Not the clouds that inexplicably evaporated, but me! I asked him why, and he said I looked so serious he thought I must be in the middle of a great discovery. But that doesn’t explain why he was watching me while I ate my lunch. Maybe I had something in my teeth.

  September 7, 1997, 15:56 CST.

  Location: Okchamali Wetlands

  Temperature: 94°F

  Clear skies

  Instruct subject to generate cloud formations. Several small cumulus formations materialize. Subject does not acknowledge the event. Suggests that he is unaware of his control over it or—more likely—that it is mere coincidence. Without physical changes in the subject, it is hard to attribute the climatic changes to him. Maybe mere observation isn’t going to provide the answers I’m looking for.

  Weylyn has moved on from just watching me to writing as well! He brought a notebook of his own and has been scribbling in it all afternoon. I asked him what he was writing, and he wouldn’t tell me. I threatened to seize it from him, but he just laughed and held it in the air, well above my reach. Maybe it’s a diary. I wonder if there’s anything in there about me …

  September 10, 1997, 11:33 CST.

  Location: Okchamali Wetlands

  Temperature: 90°F

  Mostly cloudy skies

 
; The weather is crummy, and the subject is taciturn as usual. There was a rain shower, which the subject may or may not have anything to do with.

  Weylyn left his notebook alone while he stepped away to use the bathroom. I opened it to find that half the pages had been ripped out, leaving only blank ones except the corner of one page that didn’t rip out clean. On that tiny triangle of paper, in ballpoint pen, is my name: “Mary.” I find myself desperately wanting to know how the rest of that sentence reads. I would even settle for a punctuation mark because at least then I could make an educated guess. I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t help it. Weylyn is a mystery to me. A strange, intriguing, oddly charming mystery … but I digress.

  * * *

  “Made any conclusions yet?” Weylyn lay mostly facedown in the grass. I had been studying Merlin for ten inconclusive days, and I could tell he was losing interest. So was I. My skepticism had turned chalky, something a swift wind might carry away at any moment. “No.” I threw my notebook on the ground. “I’m stumped.”

  “So, no explanation? No scientific theories or formulas to rub in my face?” he said with a trace of glee in his voice.

  “I do have one theory.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You need a hobby. Then you wouldn’t be watching me all day.”

  “I could say the same thing about you.”

  “I don’t stare at you.”

  “No, but you started this whole observation charade so you could spend time with me,” he said knowingly.

  I blushed a little. “No, I didn’t…”

  “I’m just saying, we don’t have to have some pretense for spending time together. We could just hang out.”

  “And do what?” When Quan and I “hung out,” it usually involved studying for something.

  “Anything!” Weylyn put his hands firmly on my shoulders. “It’s time you had some fun, Mary.”

  I half expected—or rather, hoped—he was going to kiss me, but instead, he grabbed me by the hand and yanked me toward the car. “Where are we going?”

  “The beach!”

  * * *

  We were two of only a few people on the long stretch of sand that straddled Fish Gutter’s Pier and Gator Tooth Cove—I think it’s safe to say the founders of Little Turtle weren’t poets. On calm, cloudy days like this, the beach belonged to the gull-billed terns and oystercatchers that used the opportunity to prey on mollusks that would normally be hidden by beach towels and beer coolers. Sea stars, urchins, and cucumbers lay soaking in tide pools that rippled like tiny spas. The air moved as it always does across the ocean, but delicately, like fingers moving across the strings of a harp. I’m no poet, but if I had found this place three hundred years ago, I would have called it something like Lullaby Beach, a name that would become increasingly ironic with the invention of plastic and pop music.

  “Do you like surfing?” Weylyn asked, grinning.

  “Isn’t the tide a little low?” I said as I watched rolls of waves unravel onshore.

  “It’ll pick up. Won’t it, Merlin?” Merlin was busy pulling a half-eaten submarine sandwich out of the sand. He looked up at Weylyn and grunted.

  “I’ll get the boards,” he said and ran toward the boardwalk.

  Minutes later, the wind did pick up a bit, and the waves swelled. I observed Merlin closely—every twitch of his ears, every flick of his tail—but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” I said to the pig, who seemed to shrug with his eyebrows.

  Weylyn came running back with two shortboards, one for each of us. I looked at them nervously. “I’ve never surfed before.”

  “Neither have I!” Weylyn whooped before running full tilt toward the water. He had stripped down to just his boxer briefs, and the lean muscle on his back and calves shuddered as he ran. He belly-flopped atop his board and paddled into the oncoming waves.

  I nervously thumbed the hem of my shirt, considering my options, then grabbed the fabric in both fists and pulled it over my head. I yanked off my jean shorts, grabbed the board, and sprinted toward the waves that were rushing at me.

  Water crashed across my chest, nearly knocking the wind out of me, but I powered through it. Eventually, I made it onto my board and paddled. As I crested each wave, I could see Weylyn in front of me, straddling his board while he waited for one to carry him to shore. Then I saw him being lifted like he was on the back of a great whale. I watched in awe, but what I didn’t see was the massive wall of water that arched above me. The next thing I remember was my body spiraling out of control and an intense pressure in my chest. I drifted deeper, suspended like a marionette with its strings cut. Tendrils of seaweed snaked past me, and I tried to grab them in hopes they would carry me upward, but they didn’t. The sun grew thinner, the water murkier.

  Then there was blackness.

  My eyelids fluttered open, and for a moment, the world stuttered like the frames of an old piece of film. Weylyn was bent over me, his face wrinkled with concern. Beads of seawater clung to his lips, then fell onto mine. I could taste the salt on my tongue. He turned me on my side, and the rest of the water spilled from my lungs into a puddle that was almost immediately absorbed by the sand. He stroked my wet hair. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

  Years later, I would barely remember the way my lungs burned, but the feeling of Weylyn threading his fingers through my hair would stay with me forever.

  I sat up slowly. He wrapped his shirt around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you do that. It was too dangerous.”

  “No,” I said, turning to face him. I thought about the hundreds of hours I had spent over the last year staring at bugs and cataloguing them; about how small my world had become: the wetlands, the coffee shop, the apartment, Quan. I imagined myself looking at Earth through a microscope and having to crank up the magnification to 1,000,000 × to be able to see the five-mile radius that I called home. Even geese fly north for the summer. I was less adventurous than a goose.

  “I wanna try again!” I tossed Weylyn’s shirt off my shoulders and picked up my board.

  He looked uncertain. “Are you sure?”

  “I promise not to drown this time,” I said and made for the water, kicking up sand as I ran.

  * * *

  When I got back to the apartment, it was nearly seven o’clock and my clothes were soaked and gritty with sand. Quan was throwing a frozen brick of something in the microwave when I arrived. “What happened to you?”

  I had no intention of lying, but when I opened my mouth, I didn’t recognize what came out. “I was walking on the beach and my foot got tangled in some seaweed and I fell into the water.”

  Quan nodded, accepting my explanation, and punched in his cook time.

  “I’m gonna take a shower,” I said and scurried out of the room.

  I felt exhilarated. I had another life, a secret one that I didn’t have to share with Quan. I already had to put my toothbrush in the same cup as his. What was wrong with having something that was just mine? Someone that was just mine? Plus, I wouldn’t have to field awkward questions like, How do you guys know each other?

  I lived with Weylyn and his wolf pack for a month when I was eleven.

  And what’s he doing here?

  He and his magic pig are going to stop a hurricane.

  He’d have me committed, and the last thing I wanted was to be locked up now when things were just starting to get interesting.

  I took a long shower, threw on an oversized sleep shirt, and microwaved my own frozen block of something. I ate my dinner on the couch while Quan played some first-person shooter game on his computer. Normally, I would hide in my room during one of his gaming marathons, but tonight, I wasn’t even annoyed by his frustrated grunting. I stayed up until one in the morning, playing my own game in my head. In it, I’d wipe out again and again, and each time, Weylyn would lean over me, our noses almost touching, his breath hot on my face.

 
27

  BOBBY QUINN JR.

  Everyone in Little Turtle has a hurricane story. They share them over beers with friends who’ve heard them a thousand times, who then chime in with their own stories that place them on top of roofs, holding their beloved child or pet in their arms. There’s always a note of pride in their voices. They survived an act of God, after all. I guess that would make anyone feel powerful.

  I never told anyone my hurricane story. It was too embarrassing. My family was the kind that evacuated before there was even a drop of rain. My dad was a University of Texas grad, so we’d get a hotel room in Austin and make a vacation out of it. When my friends were watching water creep up their stairs, I was watching Hank Williams Jr. on the Austin City Limits stage. Dad called them our “secret vacations.” As far as folks in town were concerned, we were stranded in our house that was thankfully a good five miles from most of theirs.

  The only hurricane story I have took place a week after Hurricane Nancy. I was fifteen and still buzzed from the UT versus Alabama game my dad managed to get us tickets to. He bought me a bright orange foam finger with a longhorn printed on the side. I loved that finger and wore it the whole ride home, not even taking it off when we stopped at Denny’s for lunch.

  Our house had very minor damage. The basement was a little damp, but we never kept anything of value down there, anyway. It was over one hundred degrees out, and my dad’s Oldsmobile had leather seats, so I was desperate to cool down as soon as we pulled into the driveway. I stripped down to just my boxers and foam finger and ran straight to the pool. I didn’t look before I jumped. I should have.

  When I came up for air, I realized I wasn’t the only one who decided to take a dip that day—so had an eight-hundred-pound alligator. I panicked and started screaming and thrashing, which only got his attention. Before I knew what was happening, he clamped his jaws down on what he thought was my bright orange finger. Luckily, all my real fingers were safe inside the foam fist. As he yanked the souvenir from my hand, I scrambled up the stairs to safety.