Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (24 page)

Stomping my boots on the mat in front of the door so as not to rack in wet snow, I reached my arms toward him to give him a quick hug. He was ecstatic that I had finally come over to his house. He pulled me through the threshold of the doorway, and suddenly I found myself standing in the front entry way of the dimly lit house that I had broken into months before.

The interior had a southern, rustic appeal as if I had just stepped into a clean and organized barn. The coffee table, dining table, and end tables beside the brown couches were made of old wood: stained and weather beaten. The floors were a rustic wood as well and the walls, painted a beige white, hung multitudes of hunting supplies: guns, machetes, arrowheads, and even the heads of animals. A dear’s head was planted on the wall above a brick fire place and above the couch was the skeletal jaw of what I guessed was a crocodile.

On the floor under the coffee table was a red and white hand woven rug and beside the couch was a huge dog bed covered with dog hair, but Phoebe slept on the arm chair in the corner of the room. She lifted her head when I entered and then placed her paw over her eyes and continued sleeping.

After the living room he led me into the kitchen: a small room with blue walls and new appliances. In the sink was a stack of dishes and on the granite counter was a box of open pancake mix. The kitchen table was tiny. A stained linen covered the top of the table.

From the kitchen, I followed him into what he called the mud room. The back door of the house was along the far wall. The room wasn’t large. Along the wall was a cubby for shoes and a rack for coats. There was another fire place which was currently being tended to by a man in a dark flannel shirt and brown denim pants. His pant legs were tucked into high brown boots and he wore a red cap on his head which he removed and fanned the flames of the fire with. He whistled a low whistle as the fire grew.

Beside the fire place was an old burnt orange arm chair which he sat in once Reign called attention to us standing in the doorway.

“Whose this lil’ lady?”

“Mickey,” I said, laughing a little due to a nervous habit. I stepped forward and extended my sweaty hand.

He stared at me then my hand then back at me. His eyes were grey like Reign’s, but unlike Reign’s, they lacked warmth. His face was much fuller and his head rounder than his son’s. His hair was cut short, but it was a light grey shade and so were his thick eye brows that stretched in almost one long eyebrow above his eyes and across the bridge of his large nose that resembled the beak of a hawk. The lower portion of his face was covered in a dark beard which was so outgrown that the hair hid his lips which meant it was nearly impossible to determine how he was receiving me at the moment, but from the hard look of his eyes and the way he lifted his head and rubbed his jaw with his hand covered in ash from the fire, I could tell he was unsure about me. He continued to inspect me for a couple more seconds as I stood waiting for him to respond to my outstretched hand.

Finally, just as I was about to retract my hand and run back toward Reign to cower behind, the unfriendly man changed in demeanor. He sat up some in the arm chair and slapped his knees as a smile broke out onto his face.

“I’m Orgon. It’s nice to meet ya,” he said in a boisterous tone which caused me to relax a little. He seized hold of my hand it shook it firmly.

“She’s pretty.” He winked at Reign. “You look like you could be Little Red riding hood straight out of a fairy tale,” he added staring me up and down.

I crossed my chest with my arms not liking the way his rolling eyes made me feel exposed. Reign and he exchanged a couple words and I stood thankful that my appearance was no longer the topic of conversation, but still I stood a little behind Reign and made sure he stood in the middle of me and his father. Despite the change in Orgon’s tone toward me, his eyes conveyed something different.

“I see you’re looking at my necklace,” Orgon said.

Reign turned his head to see if I had indeed been staring at the necklace around Orgon’s thick neck which I had not noticed at all and still did not notice, but once Orgon said something and I examined his neck he pulled a leather necklace out of the collar of his flannel shirt. I pretended to take interest in the piece of jewelry. The leather band was thin and tied in a tight double knot and around the band were a series of different sizes of what I guessed were sharp teeth.

“Cool,” I said, not really sure what I was supposed to say. “Are they real?”

“Heck yeah they’re real,” Orgon said with a proud smile.

“They’re fangs from dad’s greatest kills,” Reign explained.

“This one,” he pointed to a broken discolored fang in the center of the band, “I pulled right outta my leg. Bit right into me, but I got my hands around that puppy’s neck and . . .” He made a snapping gesture with his hands.

“Wow, why teeth?” I asked.

“Because having a necklace of ears would be strange,” Orgon replied with a chuckle. “I have a jar for that,” he added with a wink.

Reign, embarrassed, took my hand and led me out of the mud room joking with Orgon as we walked away that he didn’t want him to scare me. Orgon laughed. Reign laughed and I tensed up.

We walked up the staircase in the back of the kitchen to the second story. I followed him into his room. His bedroom was situated in the back of the house like I had guessed. He had two windows. One overlooked the water and my house was visible. The other looked into the woods.

To my surprise, his room didn’t fit with the rest of the house. The colors were bright and inviting; the blankets on his bed were thick and fluffy; the décor on his walls were smiling pictures of him in various outdoor locations with different groups of happy people. There was nothing gothic or grotesque hanging from his walls or from around his neck.

              While he turned on his television and flipped through the Netflix choices, I took a seat on the end of his bed and then feeling uncomfortable and nervous. I slipped off the bed and onto the floor where I sat with my knees pulled to my chest.

              We finally agreed on a movie and once it started, he sat next to me on the floor with his legs outstretched.

              “Does your dad really have a jar full of ears?” I asked.

              “Somewhere down stairs. He keeps a lot of his hunting stuff in the basement where he does shop work,” Reign said as he laid his arm around my shoulders.

              I played with the tip of my white sock as I thought about the basement and the memory of last summer when the group of us had stumbled across the skeleton of an animal.

              “What do you mean shop?” I asked.

              “You know like where he cleans his guns, makes his bullets, and cleans up the animal after hunting,” Reign shrugged. “Dad doesn’t let any part of an animal go to waste.”

              I wondered if the skeleton we found chained to the wall had been left from when they lived in the house twelve years ago and a stab of sorrow penetrated me as I felt awful for the poor animal that had been left behind. I hoped that the animal did not die chained to the wall. That Orgon had the decency to put an end to the animal before leaving, but why it was chained to begin with, I couldn’t figure out and I didn’t feel like I could ask Reign because I could tell with the rise in his voice that he didn’t like talking about his dad’s job. I felt bad irritating him and I knew how much he said he loved animals and it was hard for him to accept his dad’s profession, so I thought of something to comment on that would make it sound like I wasn’t judging or thinking poorly of him or his father.

              “He makes his own bullets? That’s cool,” I said.

              “Yeah, he sells them internationally too. Its extra cash and something he can do in retirement. Keeps him busy with all the orders,” Reign said.

              “Internationally? What’s so special about them?’

              “They’re mixed with a strand of silver compound. Shh, the movie’s starting,” Reign said, playfully placing his hand over my mouth.

              I could’ve stayed all evening with him on the floor of the room watching movies, but I knew I had to leave before dark. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I didn’t want to return home to a cold, empty house, but I had to lock myself up and make myself the tea so that I’d sleep through the night.

              After the second movie we had watched ended, I stood and yawned. I told him I needed to go and he objected at first, but I reminded him that we both had a research paper over the
Heart of Darkness
that we needed to write. He held his head in his hands and groaned, but he agreed. Taking my hand, he led me out of his bedroom and down the stairs. We walked down the front stairs instead of the back kitchen stairs, and soon I was back in the living room and zipping my boots up on my feet.

              He handed me my coat when Orgon walked into the room. He was whistling a low tune and picking at his fingernails with a sharp knife when he noticed me taking my coat from Reign and slipping my arms through the puffy sleeves.

              Coming to a stop he licked his lips and said, “Leaving already lil’ Red?”

              I pulled my hair free of my coat and nodded, but just as I took a breath and parted my lips to speak, Orgon spoke again to Reign.

“Buddy, I need you to clean up the kitchen. The Chhorsts are arriving tonight.”

“My grandparents,” Reign said to me.

“Well, they ain’t really his grandparents, but they’re close enough to us to be,” Orgon said.

“Are they from Arkansas?” I asked. I wanted to leave, but then on the other hand Orgon was talking to me, and I felt being nice and having a short, pleasant conversation would probably be better for my chances at winning Orgon over.

“They’re from all over,” Orgon snickered. “They got a place almost everywhere. Got a little two room cabin up here further out.” Orgon waved his hand behind his shoulder. “They move around a lot. Been awhile since they been back here and been awhile since Reign’s got to see them, right buddy?”

“Dad, they helped us move last summer,” Reign said.

Orgon tipped his head back and nodded. “You’re right. They did. Then they went to Arizona and now they’re coming back here. I think they miss the kid,” he said, then tapped the temple of his forehead with the butt of his knife and winked at Reign. “Gotta sharp memory kid. That’s the tracker instinct in ya.”

I pretended to check the time on the watch that hung from my right rest and acting as if I was startled by the time I glanced back and forth between father and son and said, “Thank you for having me over. I’ll see you later,” I said to Reign and because his dad was in the room with us, I extended my hand, and when Reign didn’t take me up on shaking hands, but instead stared at me confused, I patted him on the shoulder and turned to leave. I wasn’t about to kiss him in front of Orgon.

              “Stay clear of the big bad wolf, lil’ Red,” Orgon said after me as I walked out of the house and stepped in long strides the car, and because of my improved hearing I could hear his whistling, he had started up again after the front door closed, even from inside the Toyota or maybe it had just replayed in my mind because of how dark and eerie the tune was. Whether I was actually hearing it or not, I turned up the radio extremely loud and sang along to Rhianna until I could no longer hear Orgon’s haunting harmony following me.

              When I returned home I had about an hour before I needed to lock myself up for the night. While I heated frozen supreme pizza in the oven, I sat on the couch in Mom’s room and flipped mindlessly through the channels. I should have used my time responsibly and write the paper like I had told Reign I needed to do, but doing homework had slipped away from me, yet again for another night. Ever since I found out about my new identity, school work seemed so trivial and stupid compared to what was happening to me. How could I care about shapes in geometry, or Marlow in the
Heart of Darkness
when something very real and scary was going on within my own body? Something my peers, teachers, and even boyfriend could not understand and would probably think I was crazy—crazier if I tried telling them.

I had never felt so alone as I did at that time and not just because I really was alone in the house, but because I was alone emotionally. The only person I could talk to was Mom, but even she didn’t want to talk about it. Whenever I tried she changed the subject or ignored me or tried quieting me by promising she was going to “cure” me, but that made me feel ashamed and she treated me as if I had a terminal illness. When she would follow me up to the room in the attic and shut me in, she avoided my eyes and talked about absurd, random things like a client she was working with or how much snow was expected to fall the next day. It was as if just because she didn’t directly address the fact that she was clasping chains around my ankles, somehow, magically made it less real.

But it was real. Clearly, the only person who I could talk to was not Mom, but Phoenix and what had happened to him? I didn’t know and I didn’t care, I told myself. I was happy he had run off. I hoped he returned to wherever he had come from. This is what I made myself believe and even though I felt deep down that I wanted him to stick around, I reassured myself that Mom would return with something, something that would fix me and make what was wrong, right.