What Punter decides, he knows it is only a guess, but he also believes that whenever a detective has a hunch, the best thing to do is to follow it to the end.
It"s not a long walk, but Punter gets tired fast. He sits down to rest, then can"t get back up. He curls into a ball off the weed-choked shoulder, sleeps fitfully as cars pa.s.s by, their tires throwing loose gravel over his body. It"s dark out when he wakes. His body is covered with gray dust, and he can"t remember where he is. He"s never walked this road before, and in the dark it"s as alien as a foreign land. He studies the meager footprints in the dust, tracking himself until he knows which way he needs to go.
There are two cars parked behind the gas station, where the drowned girl"s car was before it was towed away. One is a small compact, the other a newer sports car. The sports car"s windows are rolled down, its stereo blaring music Punter doesn"t know or understand, the words too fast for him to hear. He takes a couple steps into the trees beside the road, slows his approach until his gasps for air grow quieter. Leaning against the station are two young men in t-shirts and blue jeans, nearly identical with their purposely mussed hair and scraggly stubble. With them are two girls-one redhead and one brunette-still wearing their school uniforms, looking even younger than Punter knows they are.
The brunette presses her hand against her man"s chest, and the man"s own hand clenches her hip. Punter can see how firmly he"s holding her, how her skirt is bunched between his fingers, exposing several extra inches of thigh.
He thinks of his girl thawing at home, how soon he will have to decide how badly he wants to feel that, to feel her skin so close to his own.
He thinks of the boyfriend he saw through the binoculars. Wonders if boyfriend is really the word he needs.
The redhead, she takes something from the unoccupied man, puts it on her tongue. The man laughs, then motions to his friend, who releases his girl and picks a twelve pack of beer up off the cement. All four of them get into the sports car and drive off together in the direction of the pond, the town beyond. Punter stands still as they pa.s.s, knowing they won"t see him, that he is already-has always been-a ghost to their world.
Punter coughs, not caring where the blood goes. He checks his watch, the numbers glowing digital green in the shadows of the trees. He"s not out of time yet, but he can"t think of any way to buy more. He decides.
Once the decision is made, it"s nothing to walk into the empty gas station, to push past the waist-high swinging door to get behind the counter. It"s nothing to grab the gas station clerk and press the knife through his uniform, into the small of his back. Nothing to ignore the way the clerk squeals as Punter pushes him out from behind the counter.
The clerk says, You don"t have to do this.
He says, Anything you want, take it. I don"t f.u.c.king care, man.
It"s nothing to ignore him saying, Please don"t hurt me.
It"s nothing to ignore the words, to keep pushing the clerk toward the back of the gas station, to the hallway leading behind the coolers. Punter pushes the clerk down to his knees, feels his own feet slipping on the cool tile. He keeps one hand on the knife while the other grips the clerk"s shoulder, his fingers digging into the hollows left between muscle and bone.
The clerk says, Why are you doing this?
Punter lets go of the clerk"s shoulder and smacks him across the face with the blunt edge of his hand. He chokes the words out.
The girl. I"m here about the girl.
What girl?
Punter smacks him again, and the clerk swallows hard, blood or teeth.
Punter says, You know. You saw her. You told me.
The clerk"s lips split, begin to leak. He says, Her? I never did anything to that girl. I swear.
Punter thinks of the clerk"s bragging, about how excited he was to be the center of attention. He growls, grabs a fistful of greasy hair, then yanks hard, exposing the clerk"s stubbled throat, turning his face sideways until one eye faces Punter"s.
The clerk"s gla.s.ses fall off, clatter to the tile.
The clerk says, Punter.
He says, I know you. Your name is Punter. You come in here all the time.
The clerk"s visible eye is wide, terrified with hope, and for one second Punter sees his mother"s eyes, sees the girl"s, sees his hand closing both their eyelids for the last time.
OSWALD, Punter reads again, then shakes the name clear of his head.
The clerk says, I never hurt her, man. I was just the last person to see her alive.
Punter puts the knife to flesh. It"s nothing. We"re all the last person to see someone. He snaps his wrist inward, pushes through. That"s nothing either. Or, if it is something, it"s nothing worse than all the rest.
And then dragging the body into the tiny freezer. And then shoving the body between stacks of hot dogs and soft pretzels. And then trying not to step in the cooling puddles of blood. And then picking up the knife and putting it back in its sheath, tucking it into his waistband again. And then the walk home with a bag of ice in each hand. And then realizing the ice doesn"t matter, that it will never be enough. And then the walk turning into a run, his heart pounding and his lungs heaving. And then the feeling he might die. And then the not caring what happens next.
By the time Punter gets back to the garage, the ice is already melting, the girl"s face jutting from between the cubes. Her eyelids are covered with frost, cheeks slick with thawing pond water. He reaches in and lifts, her face and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and thighs giving to his fingers but her back still frozen to the wrapped venison below. He pulls, trying to ignore the peeling sound her skin makes as it rips away from the paper.
Punter speaks, his voice barely audible. He doesn"t have to speak loud for her to hear him. They"re so close. Something falls off, but he doesn"t look, doesn"t need to dissect the girl into parts, into flesh and bone, into brains and blood. He kisses her forehead, her skin scaly like a fish, like a mermaid. He says it again: You"re safe now.
He sits down with the girl in his arms and his back to the freezer. He rocks her, feels himself getting wet as she continues to thaw all over him. He shivers, then puts his mouth to hers, breathes deep from the icy blast still frozen in her lungs, lets the air cool the burning in his own throat, the horror of his guts. When he"s ready, he picks her up, cradles her close, and carries her into the house. Takes her into the bedroom and lays her down.
He lies beside her, and then, in a loud, clear voice, he speaks. He tries not to cough, tries to ignore the scratchy catch at the back of his throat. He knows what will happen next, but he also knows all this will be over by the time they break down his door, by the time they come in with guns drawn and voices raised. He talks until his voice disappears, until his trapped scream becomes a whisper. He talks until he gets all of it out of him and into her, where none of these people will ever be able to find it.
TEN SCENES FROM A MOVIE CALLED MERCY.
IT BEGINS WITH A MAN WALKING TOWARD YOU from the far end of a long hallway, from the end of a courtyard between two symmetrical buildings, from the doorway of a country home and down a packed dirt driveway. You are stationary and he is moving, and though the distances between you are great they are not infinite. Two objects in motion moving down the length of a line cannot remain separated forever. Sooner or later, they must crash into each other and afterward whatever happens next will happen.
A little girl in a sundress pirouettes on a coffee table, her curly red hair encircled in a costume tiara. Her expression is concentration, the grimly pressed lips of a trapeze artist. She spins round and round, and when she stops she is so dizzy she doesn"t notice the shadow moving closer, a human form with some sharp darkness clenched in its left hand. The light coming through the window suggests sunrise, sunset, the dusk or the dawn. It suggests choices and borders and the parting of veils between one world and another. When the girl sees the shadow"s owner, she begins to scream, a one-note blast as the scene cuts to black.
Forever will not be solved with algebra but with geometry, not with ideas but with things. Even an infinity symbol can be traversed by a single line drawn right. Even the scratchiest record can"t skip forever, even the moldiest peach can only decay for so long. Eventually, there is an end to discord, a return to either harmony or silence. After the end credits, there is still the clatter of film against reel, of a machine waiting to be turned off. There is still the need for agency, for someone to help bring everything to a satisfying finale before the lights can come back on.
No one is holding her under the water, not anymore, but still she lies there on the river bottom. She blinks her eyes but does not shut them. The faces of fishes are the last sights she will ever see, their shiny eyes reflective as they float by her. Their lips purse and un-purse wordlessly. She wonders what it would be like to have gills, but not for long. She curls onto her side, turning away from the sunshine slicing uselessly through the surface of the river. Underwater, everything is the same color, and what looked like a riverbed of pebbles from the sh.o.r.e appears here as layers of baby teeth, their cavities worn white again by the flow of water unceasing.
The man again, in a series of jump cuts. The man halfway down the hall. The man halfway across the courtyard. The man halfway down the driveway. The human eye perceives thirty frames a second, so the one frame close-up of his face is too fast to register anywhere conscious. When you immediately start sweating, you will not be able to tell yourself why. Gooseb.u.mps spread. These theatres are always so cold.
A fork, a knife, a spoon on a white linen tablecloth. An apple on a fine china plate. A bite missing, the meat of the apple turned brown in the indent. The voice of a waitress or a mother, asking, Are you done with that? Repeating herself repeatedly: Are you done with that? Are you? Are you done? When you"re done with it, you have to throw it away.
Off camera, pray for editing, for the rearrangement of film. The director could take the first scene and throw it away. With a pair of scissors, he could let the second scene tumble to the cutting room floor in a clatter of 8mm frames. Cellulose nitrate is highly flammable, so pray for the fourth scene to be cut short by fire. Pray to keep her safe from the person who wants to hurt her. Take the next scene, throw it away. Resist denouement, resist the solving of mysteries and the revealing of truths, because it is only through these that you may be judged.
Guilt is a loop of footage repeated ad infinitum: He"s here. In the hallway and the courtyard and at the end of the driveway, he"s here. The man"s face is close to your face, and although film captures only sight and sound you know how his breath smells like the aftertaste of white pills manufactured in white factories, distributed by doctors in white coats who promised they would help with the pain, the feeling that was once white but is now a million more complicated colors. The man wears a mask of mirrors. Reflection: a lit cigarette between coa.r.s.e-stubbled lips, a tiny fire bobbing back and forth. The smoker rocks himself, consoles or controls himself. He has urges. He has needs. They are not necessarily all ones the audience already suspects, but some of them probably are.
Hiding your face from the mirror man will not stop reflection from turning into recognition. You know what you saw, what you did, what you continue to see and do in all too frequent flashbacks. The problem with this film isn"t what you see but what you don"t. Your flaws are the product of another"s too-small imagination, a city limits delineated by bias and slim experience. The director is your only hope, his edits your only chance for revision. He has set himself up to be your savior, if only you"ll ask him. If only you"ll beg. Beg, we beg of you, beg. For her sake and for your sake.
At last, the forgiveness of new film: A little girl in a sundress pirouettes on a coffee table, her curly red hair encircled in a costume tiara. Her expression is concentration, the grimly pressed lips of a trapeze artist. She spins around and around, and when she stops she is so dizzy she doesn"t notice the shadow moving closer, a human form with some sharp darkness clenched in its left hand. The light coming through the window suggests sunrise, sunset, the dusk or the dawn. It suggests choices and borders and the parting of veils between one world and another. The camera lingers long enough that when the girl looks up the shadow is gone. She sits down on the edge of the table, flushed and exhausted. Her legs dangle over the edge, her toes floating just above the floor. She smiles and waves, and when she is ready she stands to repeat her dance all over again. The only thing that captures her is the film, preserving her exactly as she is in that moment, as safe as mere cameras can keep her.
WOLF PARTS.
AFTER RED CUT HER WAY OUT OF THE WOLF"S BELLY-after she wiped the gore off her hood and cape, her dress, her tights-she again found herself standing on the path that wound through the forest toward her grandmother"s house. Along the way, she met with the wolf, with whom she had palavered the first time and every time since. Afterward, she went to her grandmother"s, where she again discovered the wolf devouring the old woman, and where he waited to devour her too, as he had before. Once again she was lost, and once again, she cut herself out of his belly and back onto the stony path. Over and over, she did these things until, desperate to break the cycle, she laid across the stones and, with the knife her mother had given her, gutted herself, quickly, left to right. She cried out in wonder at the bright worlds she found hidden within herself, and with shaky hands she scooped their hot wet flesh into the open air, where with a flick of her wrists she set them each free.
The first time she saw the wolf, she did not run, but let him circle closer and closer, even as his querying yips turned to growls. With one hand, she reached to stroke his fur-full of wretched possibilities, thick and gray and softer than she expected-and with the other she reached into her basket. She dug beneath the jam and pie and paper-wrapped pound of b.u.t.ter for her knife, the only protection her mother had sent with her, as if all it took to keep her safe from the wolf was this tiny silver blade.
At the wolf"s suggestion, she left the path to pick some flowers for her grandmother, who was sick and could not care for herself anymore. Tearing each blossom from its roots, she didn"t notice the hour growing late, didn"t understand the advantage she"d conceded by allowing the wolf to reach the cottage first.
In another version of this story, the flowers cried out warnings of the wolf"s trickery, never realizing she could no longer hear their voices. In a previous form, she had lain among their petals and stalks, conversing with them for hours. She had lost this ability when her mother-just days before sending her to her grandmother"s-said it was time for her to grow up, to stop acting like a child.
Only his head was that of a wolf. The rest of his body was that of a man, and resembled in all ways that of the only other man she had ever seen without clothes. He had the same hands and arms and legs, the same chest with the same triangle of downy hair that pointed to another thicker thatch of fur below. Even with his wolf"s head, the girl was able to recognize his expression, knew that the snarled lips and the exposed canines betrayed the same combination of hunger and apology that she had seen on her father"s face years before, when he too had pushed her to the ground and climbed atop her, when he had filled her belly with the same blank stones that the wolf now offered: First gently, then, after she refused, not.
The wolf and Red had always shared the twin paths through the forest, but it wasn"t until the girl started to bleed-not a wound, her mother said, but a secret blood nonetheless-that he began to follow her, began to sniff at the hem of her skirts and cape. She asked the wolf what he wanted from her, but he would not use his words, would not form the sounds that might have made clear what he expected her to offer. Instead he nudged her with his muzzle, away from the path of pine needles she had been instructed to walk, and toward the other, thornier path he more often walked alone.
For three days, the grandmother waited in her bed, glued twitching to her sweaty sheets by a fever that choked and burned her, by a hunger that left her furious for foodstuffs, for cakes and b.u.t.ter and tea and wine. For bread that might soak up her fever, if only she was strong enough to get out of the bed to eat.
And then on the third day, a knock, and on the third knock, a voice.
Raise the latch, she cried, before she even fully heard, and certainly before she realized how deep the voice was, and how terribly unlike a little girl"s.
The wolf"s breath smelled of chalk, and his paws were covered in flour. It wasn"t enough to trick the girl, but she allowed herself to pretend to be fooled. She opened her cloak and invited him in, so that he might do what he came to do.
From inside the wolf"s stomach, the grandmother could only hear every third or fourth word her granddaughter spoke, and only slightly more of the wolf"s responses. She heard teeth and eyes and grandmother. She heard better and my dear and come closer, come closer.
She heard to eat you with, and then, with so little time left, she acted, placing her hands against the walls of her wet prison. She pressed and she pushed, stretching the wolf"s stomach until it burst, and then she wrapped her hands around the bars of his ribs. When she could not pry her way out, she did not despair. Instead, she opened her mouth into a wide smile, one that-had it happened outside, in the light-would have revealed to the wolf her excellent teeth. She bit down hard, first on lung and heart, then indiscriminately, casting about in a great gnashing, devouring all that she could until the wolf she was inside was also inside her, until she was sure the granddaughter was safe.
The girl dreamed often of the wolf and the grandmother, of the two together, as they were when she found them: The grandmother, with her gasping mouth and her skirts bunched tight in the clenched centers of her fists, and then the wolf, on top of the grandmother with his back arched and his head down, his nose pressed between her legs. In the dream, what captivated her was not the sight of the beast and the woman together, but the sound: the scratch of the wolf"s tongue lapping at her grandmother"s cleft, at the little red hood atop it. The wolf"s tail wagged eagerly, distracting the girl for a second from seeing his engorged p.e.n.i.s, the red weight of which she knew was destined for her grandmother"s body, if only she did nothing.
She had not done nothing.
With only his voice, the wolf stripped the girl nearly naked, commanding her to remove her shoes and throw them into the fire, then her skirt and bodice, until she wore only her red cape and hood, which she would not remove, no matter how urgently he pleaded.
After she knew the heat of the wolf would keep her warm, she allowed herself to be led outside, where, at his urging, she climbed onto his back. Her body shuddered as his muscles flexed between her legs, as the sharp knuckles of his spine pressed against her. The wolf howled, terrifying and thrilling her at the same time, and then they were off, the wolf bounding faster and faster, carrying her away from all the paths she had known, toward a part of the forest where the brambles were thickest, where without a guide it was possible to get lost forever.
When she would not love him as a boy, he went into the woods and became a wolf, the better to take from her what he wanted. If only he had waited until later, when he was a man and she a woman, their fates might have been different.
I say wolf, but of course there are various kinds of wolves.
Red cried out when she saw the grandmother dressed as a wolf, but calmed herself, breath by breath, until she was ready to listen and learn. After all, it was not the first time the grandmother had changed herself to show Red the shapes she herself might employ one day. When Red was a child, the grandmother had turned into a bird to show her flight, then into a turtle to show her safety. At the time of her first blood, the grandmother had become a boy her own age, and then a woman slightly older, to show her two kinds of physical love that she might one day choose between, and now, as the wolf, the grandmother wanted to show her something else, and if Red did not quite understand what the lesson was, she trusted her grandmother, even though it hurt worse than anything that had come before.
The girl blamed the wolf for leading her off the path, for slowing her while it rushed ahead to devour her grandmother, to paint the lonely cottage with gore. Of course she blamed the wolf. Who would have forgiven her for dooming her grandmother, if she blamed instead the singing birds, the babbling brook, the cl.u.s.tered glamour of a thousand bright forest flowers, ripe for the picking?
She was taken by surprise, despite knowing her sisters had always been jealous of her red chaperon, that dash of color against the dullness of their world. When she awoke, lashed to a tree deep within the forest, she cursed their names loudly and without pause, hoping her father would hear and come to her rescue. After the wolf came instead, her screams turned to stammering, then to pleading. She shut her tear-stung eyes against what she feared was coming, crying out anew as the wolf"s hungry breath filled her nostrils. She reopened her eyes only when, instead of the teeth she expected, she felt his tongue rough against her cheeks, licking away her tears. Her fear fell away, was replaced with something else, some other emotion she had not yet experienced, one that was like the affection she felt for her father but darker, more thickly warm and urgent.
Afterward, the wolf chewed through the ropes and freed her from the tree, while she told him about her sisters" betrayal. The wolf howled, and bid her to climb upon his back. His gait was impressive, and his strength even more so when he splintered open the door of their cottage, when he rent and devoured her sisters, as they themselves had hoped he might do to her.
Her father made the wolf"s fur into a rug, and laid it in front of the hearth. He said that it would serve as a reminder that his daughter was not to be touched or harmed in any way, that this was the penalty for such a transgression.
Whenever the girl was left alone in the house, she took off the red cape, the clothes beneath it, then she sprawled naked upon the wolf"s skin, with her smooth back against his. She touched herself, feeling again the friction of fur, the proximity of some new life she sensed the wolf would have bestowed upon her had they not been caught. When she howled, it was with her mouth against his unhearing ear, her lips close to his stretched and taxidermied jaws, full of the teeth she had just once felt so lovingly against her skin.
On four legs he could easily devour her, could take her in his jaws as fast as he could any deer or rabbit. But on two? On two she was often the one who mastered him.
The wolf tied the girl with silken thread and stashed her in the closet, unsure what to do with her. He was too full from the grandmother to eat, but little girls were rare this deep in the forest. When he heard her thrashing against the closet door, he emitted a low growl meant to frighten her. When the thrashing only intensified, he opened the closet to scare her again, with a flash of teeth or a swipe of paw.
There was no girl inside the closet, only a puddle of thread, cut and discarded.
The wolf did not see the girl again, not for many years. When she returned, grown lovely and stubborn and brave, he himself had declined, aged and weak. He was not sorry for what he"d done-he was a wolf, after all-but still he cried out for mercy. The girl acted as if she couldn"t hear him, scowling as she twisted her own ropes around his body, binding him still before setting to work on him in the same fashion he"d once intended for her-with sharp objects meant to cut, meant to tear, meant to render meat separate from bone.
With blade and trap, with fire and water, with drowning and crushing and boiling and slashing and cutting and stabbing: These are just some of the ways she killed them, one after the other.
After the incident, Red became a great enemy of the wolves, vowing that never again would she wait for one of their kind to molest her upon the path. She took to the woods in her hooded cape, knowing the wolves would see her coming, but also that this warning would not be enough to save them. She tanned and sewed and dyed each of their hides, then gave away the fur-trimmed cloaks to the women of her village until the whole of the woods was filled with red hoods and red capes, each of them concealing a girl or a woman, a knife or an axe.
Given the opportunity, he chose once more to be a man instead of a wolf, and by doing so he gained certain abilities, lost others entirely. His man"s face and courtier"s clothes made it easier for him to lure his prey-not the deer and elk he had recently hunted, but the other, comelier prey he had long desired-and certainly he believed he had made the right choice, even if he no longer smelled as acutely, could no longer hear a doe approaching from miles away. This is how he failed to sense the women following him out of the village and into the woods, how he didn"t notice until it was too late that each of them carried her own small knife, her own sharp stone. When they pinned him down in the thistles beside the path, he howled as each of them made a cut in a place of their choosing, then again, as their tiny fingers shoved their stones through the openings they had made.
As commanded, she climbed into the bed naked, speaking in soft, mock-innocent syllables, pretending not to notice that the figure in the nightgown was not her grandmother, so that the great, hairy wolf would feel safe to reveal his true intentions. She waited, polite and acquiescent, and as soon as the wolf forced himself inside her, she sprung her trap, showing him that she too knew what it meant to consume someone whole.
An axe is a knife is a pair of sewing scissors: Tools as weapons, weapons as tools. Ways to cut yourself out from inside a wolf or, in other circ.u.mstances, to cut your way back in.
Red and her grandmother had seen this trick before, and so could not be taken by surprise. Red refused to leave the path, the grandmother declined to open the door, and when they each questioned the wolf through the bolted wood, they already knew the cheap answers he would offer. The only one surprised was the wolf, who knew not where these women had gotten their knives, nor where they had learned the sharp skill with which they wielded them.
Every winter, the villagers sent one of their own girls into the forest as tribute. Although the wolf promised to return each girl by spring, it had been years since any had made their way home, as they once had. Even back then, they returned damaged, scarred, bereft, hardly the girls they had been before their time with the wolf. With few options remaining, the villagers had no choice but to send Red in place of the too-lovely girl they had previously chosen. At twelve, Red was almost too old for the wolf"s tastes, but the villagers were sure that her radiant innocence would win him over, would please the ravener they all feared so much.
Before sending her down the path, they gave her a red riding hood, the better to see her when she emerged from the forest, and they gave her a knife, sharp as the wolf"s own teeth, the better to saw her way from his belly when the time came.
For months the villagers fretted and worried. Then, when the sun was highest on the first day of spring, they saw Red appear at the tree line, her face grim and her forearm-still clutching the knife-covered in slick gore. In her other hand she held the hand of a child, and that child held another and then another and then another.
The villagers rejoiced, and praised Red above all others, but she did not join them in celebration. No matter how they pleaded for her company, she remained apart, her face a slab of pale skin and blank teeth. By the time she departed the following winter, the villagers were glad to see her go. Although they made great shows of protestation in front of each other, they knew she was changed by what she had done, and while they would not say so aloud, each secretly feared the sight of her hood, of the knife she still carried whole seasons after she had last needed it.
In another telling, Red never returned, and in the following years there appeared more and more wolves in the woods around the forest, until the villagers felt afraid to walk the path leading to the city. Each of these new pups had thick red fur, and when they howled in unison at the moon, it was in one voice, less like that of a wolf and more like a woman screaming, like a girl who, if the rumors in the city were true, the villagers had knowingly sent to be raped and tortured and, after she gave birth, torn limb from pale-fleshed limb.
Or maybe Red returned not with a line of small girls, but with the wolf himself in tow, a rope turned cruel around his neck and her knife wet with his protests. In this version, it wasn"t until she reached the village center that she slit the wolf from throat to tail. Too late, she retrieved each and every child from the wolf"s stomach, each of them bruised and bloodied and without breath. In anger, the villagers filled the wolf"s belly with stones while Red held close his howling head, counting for him the many names of these dead children, the many pounds of shale and limestone it would take to buy their penance.
If the wolf had always been the wolf, and the grandmother always the grandmother, why did Red so often struggle to tell them apart? Perhaps it was because, after pulling her knife from the wolf"s flesh, she frequently found wet sc.r.a.ps of bloodied nightgown stuck to the blade, or else how, while kissing her grandmother"s pursed lips, she so often tasted raw meat rotting from between the older woman"s teeth.
The wolf had expected the girl to protest, but she continued eating the flesh and drinking the blood that he served her, until her clothes were wet and matted, until her mouth was stained the color of her cape. Their goblets overflowed, then tipped and dripped onto the cottage floor. The grandmother was a bigger woman out of her skin than she had seemed in it, so the wolf, tired from his gluttony, yawned once, twice, a third time. He could not stop yawning. With his head thrown back and his engorged throat exposed, he realized too late that the girl was crawling across the table, her face filthy with the wet horror of their meal. Clenching her fork and knife in her tiny fists, she searched the empty platters, and when she found nothing else to eat, she clambered quickly toward the yawning wolf, hungry for more.
The girl was surprised when she slid her hand between the wolf"s muscular, furred legs, to find that he was a she, something she had never considered, not even when she saw her dressed in her grandmother"s clothes, so calm and perfect, reclining gorgeous against those many plush pillows.
He was a pup, a boy, a wolf, a man, a wolfman, a woodsman. He was all of these, but never more than one at a time. He changed with the moon, and then, later, according to his own whim. When he came to her at night, it was always as a wolf, a shape she grew to love, even though it had cost her everything she had once known. Even after the deaths of her mother and grandmother, she preferred the wolf to the man, to that shape that had failed to protect her time and time again, without ever understanding that her choice was no choice at all.
The wolf was trapped as soon as he dressed himself in the grandmother"s clothes. The bonnet grew tighter and tighter, its taut ribbons cutting into his throat and choking his jaw, while the nightgown"s sleeves immobilized his forepaws, made useless his claws. When he tried to take a deep breath to give air to a howl, he found only whimpers left within his lungs, all the air crushed out of him by the constricting nightclothes.
Several tortured hours pa.s.sed before the women came for him, and by the time they arrived, the wolf was past pitiful. Weaker women might have felt mercy temper their vengeance, but not the grandmother, and certainly not her daughter"s daughter, whose flat smile betrayed a heart as hard and heavy as an unskippable stone. With their saws and their hatchets and their sharp knowledge of knives, they fed the wolf piece by screaming piece to their fire, and when they were finished with him, they buried the slim remains-teeth and eyes and spleen and genitals-beneath a pile of rocks so unremarkable that even they could never quite remember where in the wide woods it was.
After the mother and grandmother both pa.s.sed away, the wolf took their places, so that the girl he secretly adored would not have to go without. The wolf raced back and forth between their two houses, switching between the mother"s ap.r.o.n and the grandmother"s gown, raising his voice as high as it would go. For her part, the girl pretended not to notice, but it was hard, and sooner or later she knew she would slip, or else he would, and then they would have to act like girls and wolves were supposed to act, with howling and screaming and the gnashing of teeth and knives, until they were each alone once again.
The woodsman and the wolf had been friends once, and what happened between them in the grandmother"s cottage a mere misunderstanding. Seeing the wolf there in his mother"s clothing, the woodsman mistook him for the woman he had come to kill. It wasn"t until after his axe blade slowed-when he was able to see past his blinding matricide to the fur that covered the floor-that he realized his mistake, and was ashamed.
The grandmother hungered, consumed with her sickness, and in her crazed state she tore the young girl"s limbs from her body with fever-strong twists, devouring each one over the course of several screaming days. When the wolf came to visit, he saw what she had done, and in his mercy he devoured the grandmother too, so that she would not have to live with the sin, so that others would not know what this once great woman had become.
The wolf grew skilled at counterfeiting the girl"s voice. He gained entry into many of her haunts in this way, murdering her family and friends as he went, until his belly dragged on the ground as an animal, hung over his belt as a man. Sometimes, when she joined him in their bed, she laid her cheek upon the fur of his belly and listened to the grumbling from within, to the voices of all her kith and kin he had devoured on his way to loving her. They cried out for her to save them, but she had her wolf, and he was all she needed.
Come get into bed with me, said the wolf, said the grandmother, said the woodsman, said the girl. Each of them made their voice exactly what another wanted to hear, using the perfect enunciation and tone designed to lure them as completely as possible, and to each other they were lost.