Category: magical realism

The old man with a twisted hand had worked in the lighthouse since he was twenty-three and his hand was not twisted. He had not been twenty-three for quite some time and his left hand had been straight and untwisted for most of his life, but he would still always be known as the old man with the twisted hand. His left thumb had been twisted to the other side of his hand when a sixty-foot sea snake crushed it on the lip of its cave. Everyone in Brightview knew about the snake, but few had ever seen it, and the old man with a twisted hand was one of those few.

The way he tells it, he was just standing around, minding his own damn business. When out of nowhere comes this giant, well I thought it was a sea monster, a basilisk or somethin’ but it’s got no fangs. I was just leaning against the edge of this cave. Like this, see. He leans against his mantle to show you how he was leaning. And this thing, well it was only ‘bout ten feet away, and that’s shorter than it is long, mind you. I can see it’s heading somewhere cause it’s big head’s moving up and down the beach like it’s lost somethin’ precious. He juts out his chin and scans his audience from one side to the other to show you exactly how that big ol’ snake looked up and down the beach. And it don’t even look at me twice before it’s barreling straight towards me.

This is always where the old man with the twisted hand pauses to sip his drink, usually some type of whiskey with the label scraped off for the benefit of the kids who come to see him. This is where he fixes you with colorless eyes as tight as he can.

Now if you think that just ‘cause it’s a snake means it’s slow, then you’d be dead wrong. And if you think you’d have time to get out of its way, then you’d be dead. And he doesn’t have to raise his left hand to show you that that’s true.

The next thing Ezrah noticed when he mounted Deadman’s Boulder for the first time was that the sirens were terrifying. Their sharp teeth were unnaturally pointed. Their impossibly round eyes always seemed to be accusing you of something. Their silver fins were the only thing beautiful about them. Yes, the sirens were terrifying, but the sirens were also silent.

Ros was not looking at Ezrah. In fact, Ros was not moving. Six siren eyes tracked Ezrah without saying a word. It made him uncomfortable and he wanted to tell them to mind their own business, but he didn’t think they would listen. They slapped their fins idly on their end of the rock only six feet away. They almost looked like women, but the curves that would determine that were lost in scales and disfigured by spines. Ezrah remembered stories about the way siren songs would convince sailors that it was alright to jump off the back of their ship and felt naked coming up here without wax to stuff in his ears. But although the sirens’ mouths are open, no sound comes out.

“Why aren’t they singing?” he asks. Ros’s lips squirm around themselves until they land with the bottom one thrust out below the top.

“They’re listening.” And the thing Ezrah had not noticed about the sirens was that their heads were tilted to one side and their chins were bobbing up and down in six individual nods. They did indeed seem to be listening. Ezrah tried not to look at the sirens again.

“Why don’t you come down?” he asked Ros, “we could go to that cave and we could-“

“No,” Ros said. The sirens watched silently. Some had moved their heads back to indicate their disapproval while some had tilted their necks more to see if Ros was still okay. Ezrah was trying not to look at the sirens.

“But Ros there’s some great-“

“No,” she repeated, “I’m never coming down again.”

“Ros,” Ezrah started, “what’s going on?” Ros was trying not to look at anything. “Ros,” Ezrah raised his voice. “Answer me, please.” Her hands wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

“I don’t want to go down.” But Ezrah would not give up on his plans to explore the cave only half a mile down the beach.

“But the cave is so cool. They say it’s got-“ Ros closed her eyes tightly.

“I’m never going in that cave again.” Her hands wrapped tighter around the sleeves of her shirt to keep them from sliding off her shoulders.

Ezrah noticed the sirens’ teeth first. They were sharp enough to dig through flesh like Evander’s fingernails did when he didn’t cut them. Don’t tell Mom. He would always say. Don’t tell Dad or I’ll kill you. Evander liked to skin seagulls back by the old blue shed when he found them, but that wasn’t the only thing that happened in that shed.

He liked to take girls there since he was thirteen and older and cooler than the middle school girls of Brightview. He led them to the shed by the hand and pretended to be sweet. He was good pretending to be sweet. So good that that’s what everyone thought he was. Only Ezrah knew that he skinned seagulls back by the old blue shed. Only Ezrah knew about the girls.

“You know you can’t have a playdate tonight, sweetie,” Mom said. “It’s a school night.” Ezrah pouted. “B-but Lucy said there’s be shooting stars on the beach but we have to go tonight because they’ll all be gone tomorrow.

…

“Why does Evander get to have so many playdates on school nights and I don’t?!” he whined. Evander’s lips sharpened like a blade and froze – it was less than a second, but that was all Ezrah needed to sense the danger. He broke into indulgent laughter.

“What are you talking about, Ezrah?” But Evander did not laugh that night when he stopped Ezrah from climbing into bed by wrapping his hand around his brother’s wrist. His fingernails were like knives.

“Don’t say anything to Mom and Dad about the shed.”

Ezrah tried to squirm away.

“Did you hear me? Don’t say a word.

Ezrah tried to pull Evander’s hand off. He found his other arm pinned to the bed.

“You say one word and I’ll take you behind the shed and skin you, got it?”

Ezrah closed his eyes.

“You got that? Now promise, promise you won’t say a word.” Ezrah promised.

“Come look at this, Hazel. It’s a sea monster,” Raymundo taunts. Hazel sticks out her chin.

“I know that’s not a sea monster. That’s a mamenomy,” she stumbles over the word. It waves its fingers at her, and in return she pokes its stomach to make it flinch away from her.

“Gotcha!” she grins. Ray grumbles and looks for something else to torment his sister with.

“Your cousins are pretty cute,“ Ezrah comments. Rosmond nods slowly and silently, but she does not speak. Ezrah surveys the boardwalk for an interesting conversation topic, but the small town of Brightview is a sleepy little thing, and he quickly grows restless.

“Why don’t we go play with them?” he asks, knowing Rosmond will not ignore a direct question.

“I shouldn’t get involved,” she says. Hazel and Ray move down the beach and Rosmond gets up to follow. Ezrah notices that she does not mention him in her response. She does not say that Ezrah should not leave her to play with her cousins, but he knows better than to leave her alone on the beach.