Monstrous Beauty (20 page)

“’Kay.” He reached in and pulled out the chicken cutlets that were left over from dinner. Before she closed the door she turned back to look at him. “Hey, Sam?” she whispered. “I love you.”

He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Where did that come from? You’re such a goof lately.”

The night was clear and cool, with calm winds. The streets were nearly empty. The picnic area was dim, with just the tired light of a few vintage wrought-iron lamps. She leaned her bike against a no-parking sign. Like a beacon, the familiar tugging homed its way inside her. If she allowed herself to think it, she imagined Ezra was calling her. With shaking hands, she hastily locked her bike.
That’s crazy,
she thought.

Why was she here? How had this happened? How had she given up so easily on her resolve to be alone after she met Ezra? And what about McKee’s warning? How did he know that she wouldn’t be able to resist the beach?

She made her way to the top of the stone steps, away from the lamps. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, engulfed by the call. She opened her eyes, waiting for them to adjust. The moon was in its last quarter, but the night was so clear it threw enough blue light on the beach for her to find her way. She hesitated for a moment—her last opportunity to turn back. And then she recognized the truth: she had given up resisting the moment she had hidden her bike in the backyard.

She allowed herself to be pulled down the stairs. She stepped onto the beach and walked purposefully, her expectation growing, her breath becoming thready and shallow. And now, for the first time, she responded to the call in her mind.

I’m here,
she thought.
I’m here.

She saw him step out of the cave and face her. Her heart pumped so hard she felt each beat thud against the inside wall of her chest. She quickened her pace.

He strode toward her. She began running, to close the distance.

Right before she reached him, his arms opened. It was the most wrenching, welcoming gesture she had ever seen. She launched herself and he caught her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he spun her around once. His arms held her tightly around the waist, their cheeks were touching, and the electrical sensation had become a magnet, pressing them together.

She heard him suck in air through a delighted smile—and she squeezed him tighter, to the point where she thought she might hurt him. He held her like that, molded against him, delaying putting her down, saying nothing, savoring her. She nuzzled her nose against the cool skin of his neck. He smelled like the sea. He leaned his head back to look at her, examining her, drinking her in. She felt herself blush. She put both hands behind his head and pulled his face close, kissing his eyelids to make him shut his eyes, then the hollow of his cheek, and behind his ear. When she looked at him again, his eyes had pooled with tears. He spun her around again and whispered in her ear.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I came as soon as I could,” she whispered back.

He kissed her for the first time, tenderly, gently. “I know you did.”

He set her down, still holding her close. She wanted more. She stood on her toes and kissed his lips tentatively. He responded, coaxing her to confidence, restraining his ardor as best he could, giving her time. Soon she felt the streaming sensation she’d felt before. Something flowed from him to her, filled her to full, barely contained by her body, and finally seemed to burst through her in every direction into the night air.

“This could be the death of me,” she said breathlessly when their lips parted.

“Don’t say that.”

As hard as it was, she pulled away from him and faced him, holding his hands. They were beautifully shaped: masculine, hairless, rough with calluses but with neatly groomed fingernails.

“Why is everything about you designed to make me want you?” she said.

“We are meant to be together, Hester. I knew it when I first saw you in the cave. Until then I had been sleepwalking through a miserable existence. And then with no warning you were there—I still don’t understand how it’s possible—and I couldn’t believe my luck. I couldn’t bear it that you walked away before you discovered it yourself.”

“It was too dark for you to see me when we met,” she countered.

“But we’ve known each other for ages, don’t you feel that?”

She should be frightened by his intensity, she thought. Instead, a part of her—a part deep inside that had nothing to do with her intellect—understood in the profoundest way what he was saying. She gently let go of his hands and said, “I can’t think straight when I’m touching you—I’m sorry.”

“Let’s walk.”

He kept his hands in his pockets, strolling with slow, long strides. Hester hugged her chest to resist flinging herself at him.

“Did you finish your research?” he said.

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“Is it as I feared, then?”

She pulled the list of female relatives from her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to him. “By your criteria it’s consistent with a curse.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“If this is true, how does a person go about fixing a curse? How can I lift it, Ezra?” She didn’t say what she meant:
now that it’s so important; now that I can’t think of anything but you.

But he understood. “I gather you’re abandoning your previous strategy of refusing all lovers?”

She detected the playfulness in his voice. His eyes were focused on the sand as he walked, but he was smiling.

“You’re so maddening sometimes!” she blurted. “This is serious, and if there’s no solution then I
can’t
be with anyone.”

“I’m sorry, I do want to help you. However, the cad in me is a bit preoccupied by that kiss just now, and hoping for—”

“If you won’t help me I’ll have to resort to Pastor McKee, who’s probably in the first stages of Alzheimer’s already and will tell me to wear garlic around my neck.”

Ezra stopped suddenly. Hester took a couple of steps more before she noticed. She turned around.

“Don’t talk to McKee,” he said. His voice was completely altered: hard-edged, low, and rumbling like thunder.

“What?”

“Don’t talk to him, and don’t listen to him.”

The wind whipped up, and grains of sand stung Hester’s cheek. Several pieces of hair ripped out of her ponytail. She clawed them away from her eyes.

“How do you know each other?”

“Trust me, Hester, he has committed acts that would horrify you. You must stay away from him.” He looked at the sky and put his hands on the top of his head, tamping down his anger. “How many times should that old fool be allowed to destroy my life?”

“He said the same thing about you,” Hester said quietly.

“That I destroyed his life?” He gripped her elbow. “Just what has he told you?”

Her lips tightened. “No, he said that I should trust him … and stay away from you.” She looked at her arm and said calmly, “You’re hurting me.”

“Dear God.” He let go. And then he crumpled into a seated position in the sand. The wind died as quickly as it had picked up. He rubbed his face with his hands.

“Please forgive me, Hester. Michael McKee’s path has crossed with mine in a most painful and permanent way, and when I am forced to recall my bond with him my blood boils.”

She sat next to him and sighed. “I’m going to feel free to swear with abandon because of all these riddles.”

He gingerly pushed the loose strands of hair behind her ear and said in a voice so low she almost missed it, “You’ll understand soon enough … and I dread where that will leave me.”

She leaned over and kissed him. She pushed him gently to the sand. She delicately kissed every inch of his face, feeling the contours of his cheeks, nose, forehead, and chin with her lips, and each time she came near his mouth he smiled and faintly kissed back.

His shirt was open at the neck, and she slipped her hand inside it. His body was lean, with a hint of ribs showing. She traced his collarbones and then slid her hand down his chest. Near his left nipple she felt a gnarled lump of skin—a scar, as if a hole had been sewn shut. She explored more and found another, longer one along his sternum—a vertical rope of scar tissue running down almost to his navel. Touching it was intensely moving to her. She traced it up and down, and was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of utter hopelessness, as if everything that ever mattered to her was lost. She took an anguished gasp and forced her hand away. She searched his eyes, but he shook his head, with his mouth in a thin line. She kissed him, and in a moment felt his lips open and his body relax. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her on top of him.

She wouldn’t press him yet. For now, she’d allow him his privacy. Just for tonight, she would delude herself that everything about him wasn’t a complete mystery. After years of deprivation, she would take one night of happiness.

Chapter 31

1873

I
T WAS NOT A SHORT WALK DOWN THE HILL,
even for a man who was not carrying his dead wife on his shoulders in the dark, even for a man whose pericardium had not been pierced with a knife.

No amount of breath could satisfy Ezra’s need for air. He felt so dizzy and light-headed that his knees threatened to collapse with each step. Lifting his legs was a monumental effort. The stones in the dirt road pierced the skin of his feet. The pressure in his chest was crushing. There was an alarming opacity to his vision that threatened to blind him before he reached the ocean.

“Please,” he said almost inaudibly, to himself, to God, to the creatures of the sea. This would be his last act on earth; he must succeed.

When he had reached the beach and waded into the water several steps, he allowed himself to buckle and fall to his knees. It caused searing pain when he slid Sarah off his shoulders—gently, tenderly—into the sea.

She half sank, half floated lifelessly on her back. He pulled her to him and nested her head on his thighs, to keep her face from submerging in the wavelets. He pushed the wet strands of hair away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. He bent to kiss her lips and felt the knife sink deeper. And then he waited for death, hoping her companions would find them and he would see her saved before his last breath.

He must have blacked out for a moment, because he missed their approach. When he opened his eyes he found he could no longer move. His arms dangled by his sides. His breath was shallow. There were two of them—luminescent in the light of the full moon—an achingly beautiful sight.

They took her from him. His chin dropped to his chest, his eyes closed. He heard them tending, fussing, arguing in their own language. His hearing was fading.

And then English, from one of them, directed at him: “… can do nothing … Ezra … Ezra … late … so sorry … too late.”

He heard his own voice, a distant whisper: “Can … you … use … me?” The buzzing of a reply in the affirmative.

He opened his eyes but he was blind now. He raised a leaden arm to the knife in his chest. His hands were clumsy, his fingers useless. With his last effort, as his consciousness ebbed into nothingness, he pulled the knife out and fell face-first in the water.

The creatures acted swiftly. One of them flipped him over and slashed his chest open with a single vertical slice of her wrist fin. The other jabbed her clawlike fingernails into his sternum and pried his rib cage apart. The heart was warm and fluttering like a bird, but not pumping. The first creature slit the major arteries and veins to detach the heart, and carefully lifted it out. As the second creature held Sarah’s mouth open, the first forced Ezra’s heart down her throat.

Chapter 32

H
ESTER ARRIVED HOME
an hour before her father woke up. She left her shoes in the kitchen and padded quietly upstairs past Sam’s room, where he was on top of his covers, spread-eagle and belly down, his face nestled, angelic, in the pillow. She tiptoed in and turned his light off. And then she went to bed, but no matter how tired her body was, her mind would not be calm. The three hours of sleep she’d gotten before she biked to the beach were apparently all she would get. It was after five and the sun was rising when she heard the quiet chinking sound that meant Malcolm was unloading the dishwasher. She rose and pulled on her jeans and T-shirt from the night before. There was a pile of sand scattered on the wooden floor where the jeans had been. She used her foot to sweep most of it under the bed.

Malcolm had the local TV news on softly in the background while he made breakfast.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“You have no idea.” Her cheeks got hot.

To avoid looking in his eyes, she walked over to the coffeemaker on the counter behind him. It gurgled and hissed as the last drops of coffee dripped into the pot.

“Did you make enough for me to have some?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She took a mug down from the cabinet and poured herself half a cup. She glanced at the TV and saw that the news was showing footage of gravestones.

“… vandals came sometime in the middle of the night…”

She got out a spoon and the sugar bowl and dumped a heaping teaspoon in her mug.

“… pastor says that youths are often the culprits, not realizing the costs—financial, historical, and sacred—of their actions…”

As she sipped the coffee, her ear caught the word “historical” and she looked at the TV again. There was a close-up of a tombstone, apparently ripped out of the earth and planted upside down in the ground, with a clump of moist black dirt and rooty sod dangling where the top of the stone should have been. The camera panned back to show the reporter standing next to a police officer, with Burial Hill in the background. Hester put down the mug.

“Burial Hill is the resting place of several Pilgrims and patriots, including William Bradford, Mary Allerton, John Howland, and James Warren.” The reporter was reading this information from a notepad.

“The four graves that were vandalized have no obvious relation to each other and are distributed in different parts of the cemetery.”