Lee Klein: Jrzdvlz

“Reactions have not varied, I warn you.”

“If you do not drop the sheet, your mother will punish you till the return of spring.”

I spread my wings and the bedsheet rose and fell to the floor.

“I am scared beyond belief. Egads! Titan’s descriptions inspired such a costume, surely. Now let me sleep.”

“Sadly, it is I. Repentant sinner, damned, accursed, humbly asking forgiveness.”

“For so horrid a beast you speak with earnestness and passion. But why trust you?”

“Grandfather?” a young voice said—a girl rubbed her eyes and stood in the doorway. “You talk in your sleep again.”

I turned toward the voice to see a child no taller than the door handle, in night gown, hair tangled with sleep.

All the tension of this contact transformed when I saw her. I lost control of my voice. Endless beseechment sprang from my mouth in a screech. The girl was unhappy with the sight and the sound. Daniel then took up a sort of sphere he kept by his bedside and hurled it at me, striking the side of my snout. The girl stumbled toward the stairs, and I moved toward her. I was stunned by the sphere that hit me, that loosened a tooth. She might fall down the stairs, I thought, as I stumbled, my legs unsteady, unbalanced. I fell toward the girl, righted myself, crouched, wings spread in the narrow landing at the top of the stairs. I reached for the girl and attempted a soothing word but it came out wrong, all at once again, accompanied by spread wings and outstretched claws. The child flung herself down the stairs as Daniel stood and aimed another throw that ricocheted off my leathery wings. I dove for the girl, catching her before she hit her head on a step, but I caught her in my claws, never having touched a human, and the girl screamed, as much from fright as pain. Traces of blood appeared where I had touched her. At the top of the stairs Titan and Japhet and their wives emerged. Japhet aimed a musket but hesitated before firing for fear of hitting the girl, and in that second I escaped up the chimney.

Open air, an hour until morning, shots fired, a searing incision where wing meets back, I tumbled, more shots, torches, another ball in my body, in my meaty rump.

“Cease your fire, I come in peace, to help however I can,” I tried but words came in a rush. My failure to express myself in human speech forced me to run at the nearest musket and cut its bearer’s throat with a swipe. Another raised his weapon and I leapt into the air, landing on his head, which I removed like a cork from a bottle. I feared I would have to battle them all. Pain surged, as well as regret at escalating the carnage of my birth night. Eyes shining red, I heard a scream unlike any ever, and now another assailant ran at me, more shots, one hitting the man who had screamed. I ended his misery with a claw to the neck, and looking down I saw it was Titan.

Never a chance to undo this. Let them come. If one thinks he might kill me, let him be a hero.

Men charged and fired, hitting each other too often with unsteady shots. Those who made it close to me lost their lives.

Terrible-tasting men, I spat out their flesh. After a minute of battle, those who fancied themselves valorous discovered how much they valued their lives. They retreated to watch from the edges of the clearing.

And then Dade, with torch in one hand and book in the other, strode toward where I sighed, a breathless, bloodied monster.

Speaking to me and all those who might retell his words, Dade raised his voice: “O cursed and infernal beast, I brought you to life, I control thee. I am your lord and master, friend and devotee of all that is good. Thy murderous tendencies know no future in this country. Begone! Begone! Accursed beast! Satan’s spawn if not Satan himself! Begone one hundred years, and only return helpless and humbled! Begone, one hundred years gone! Oh beast of Leeds, hear me and begone!”

I would grant all those living time to die in peace, my tale ascending into legend as I hid along the barrier islands, perfecting speech and taking time from trying to connect with men unready to confront my form.

I ran faster than any beast on earth, wings searing, unable to carry me into air.

“Begone, begone,” said Dade, and I was gone.

F THROUGH POWERFUL SPYGLASSES those aboard tall-ships and ketches saw me off the coast of the long and narrow barrier island, they would attribute the sight to sea sickness, lens distortion, shimmering oases. One hundred fifty years to improve speech, heal heart and head, make peace if not with men then at least with myself. I flew and fished, made friends with a special gull. I dug a pit in the sand and covered it with a roof of driftwood protected with clamshells. There I practiced my speech, tried out the words I heard in my head, said each as often as I could to my fearless bewinged friend. I only say this gull was special because all others kept their distance. This one seemed fearless, perhaps because its brains were rattled from screwing its head to one side as though to better comprehend my speech. My happiest moments from that era were when the gull cackled, as though it sensed my language had improved, when my words rolled and crashed and withdrew into others, inspired by the sea. This gull offered more companionship than I deserved in exile. I needed time to strengthen my resolve to ensure that my eloquence one day calmed those as yet unborn. Five generations would advance humanity until all children were born with innate respect for beings like me, surely.

Each year I saw more traffic off the coast. Excursions along the long and narrow island revealed settlements of fishermen to the south who sometimes explored the north but never noticed my home. If I ever encountered a man and communicated with one, I doubt I would have been able to screech, for day after endless day repeated in silence until I saw a woman along the shore.

She wore a long white gown that trailed beyond her like receding surf. I dared not come out of hiding, believing that the pastor had truly banished me. Begone, begone, a hundred years gone reverberated daily, but had a hundred years passed? Trees had risen, only to fall during storms. Weather had cycled, but how many times? Had I tripled my sentence? Each morning this woman walked along the shore. As she neared, I disappeared, shy, guarding my solitude in my clamshell lair. I heard her song but when I peeked from my burrow I did not see the mouth from which her song emerged. A body occupied the long white gown, it seemed, a white hat with a healthy brim and bow, a white veil, too, but I could not see through it, the mesh making it seem empty. I detected bodily curvature, but through the veil I saw nothing, not a hint of chin or nose or cheeks or eyes. Still, her song kept me company. It was an easy song, without words, overheard from lips I could not see. I figured her face was as drawn and as narrow as the island itself, her cheeks the color of pale, smooth sand.

There was a primness as she walked, her dress indistinguishable from the foaming surf. The sun rose and cast above my head and then set beyond the bay and mainland a step south, rising lower, the weather colder, then warmer, and each day in the morning the woman passed and again in the evening she returned to wherever she had left, the same every day for several cycles of hot and cold. Other than the greenflies and the occasional gull, I counted her as a sort of friend.

I followed her from a distance one summer afternoon, compelled by an impulse to discover her home. Did she just walk all day, every day, the whole island, back and forth, resting at either end an hour before carrying on north or south again, singing that same melody? What an odd woman, I thought as I followed her, flying high above the shore so the train of her dress looked like the tail of a comet. I hadn’t flown over the southern parts of the island in some time, but it did not surprise me to see many small homes there, each with its sandy yard. Off from the main square of the settlement on the island, I watched from above as the woman walked from the shore though a cleft in the dunes to a house almost reclaimed by sand.