3. Estelle
Reginald curled his body up the length of the radiator pipe. Winked one yellow eye. Winked the other. He tested the air with a quick flick of the tongue.
“Mind your own business,” Estelle said, returning the gesture, though she knew he wouldn’t notice.
Estelle sat at a desk with one hundred and two different file folders on the surface—all color coded, labeled, and stacked neatly according to year. This is what she had been told to do. To prepare. They don’t look out for your best interests, so don’t expect it, her friends said. They care about numbers and procedures and forms. They care about quotas. If it were up to them, they’d swallow you whole.
“They can try,” Estelle chuckled, as she pulled Andrew and Arnold from their hiding place in the bottom drawer and draped them heavily on the ground. They lifted their flat heads and gave her twin looks of indignation before sliding across the floor and under the upholstered chair.
The young man appeared in the doorway. He had long, white hands, tapered fingers, narrow hips. A blue suit and a blue tie and a haircut both severe and modern.
“I see you’ve been busy, Ms. Russo. I appreciate your work, but I assure you it was not necessary. I’m top in my field.”
He remained in the doorway. From his position on the radiator pipe, Reginald tasted the air. He leaned closer and unhooked his jaw.
“No, no,” Estelle said firmly. Reginald pulled back, chastened.
“Oh, yes, I assure you I am,” the young man said. “May I come in?”
“Please do,” she said, winking one yellow eye.
He sat on the upholstered chair, resting his briefcase on his knees. Estelle stood. Her body was long and supple. She slid like oil across the room to the chair opposite the young man. Offered a slow, mesmerizing grin. Flicked her tongue.
Arnold unfurled from underneath, elevating hungrily behind the chair. Robin, Mae, and Chavez peeked their heads from the grooves of the couch cushions.
“No, no,” Estelle said again.
“I’m sorry?” said the young man.
“Nothing,” Estelle said, winking her other eye. Arnold sniffed and slumped to the floor, while the other three retracted without commentary. The young man glanced at the floor, but saw nothing.
“Look,” he said, “it doesn’t really matter what you have organized in what file. I’ve already seen it. How you’ve slid under the radar for as many years as you have is a mystery to me, but it doesn’t matter now. There are consequences.”
“Nibble, nibble, little mouse,” Estelle said. “Always nibbling on the things that aren’t yours.”
“The government,” he said primly, “is not a mouse.”
The new brood woke and came tumbling out of the hole in the wall. At a hand signal from Estelle, they fell upon one another and played dead, as they had been trained. Diana, Elizabeth, and Eleanor glided in through the open door and moved regally toward the guest. Their golden eyes glittered like crowns. Estelle breathed deeply through her nose, flicked her tongue again. The young man smelled green and young. Like tight fiddleheads before they unfurl. The budding of spring. The tang of green apple on the tongue.
“Who said anything about the government?” Estelle said. “I’m talking about you.” She leaned in. “Little mouse.” She unhooked her jaw.
Gagged.
Gulped.
Swallowed him whole.
4. Annabelle
“My father says I can’t play with you anymore,” the boy said.
Annabelle shrugged. “He’s not the boss of me.”
“He says your mother isn’t raising you right.”
“Could be,” she said, squatting on the ground. She spat on the bare dirt. Drew with her finger.
“He says you’ll grow up just like her. He says the neighborhood doesn’t need another one.”
Annabelle drew a picture of a house with a sun and a heavy cloud. She drew a man inside with a woman. The man was on his knees. The woman had her head tossed back.
“He says you’re all the same. He says I’m not supposed to chase a dirty skirt.”
Annabelle drew heavy drops coming out of the cloud. She drew a flood that bent beams and rotted floors. She drew swollen banks and ruptured dikes and water that would not be bound. She drew a broken house tumbling down the river and floating off to sea.
She washed the land clean with the back of her hand.
“Um.” He kicked at a clump of weeds with his sandal. “Do you know where my dad is?”
“With my mom. At my house.” She looked up and smiled. “They floated away.”
He bent down, rested his rear on his heels. Annabelle drew a boy and a girl in limitless space. She gave them wings. The boy arched his back as though it itched.
“Can I go with you then?”
“Suit yourself,” she said. She took his hand. Hung on tight.
They flew away.
1.
Not one of us has ever stepped inside the Taxidermist’s house. We have no need to do so. We already know what we’ll find.
2.
On the center of his desk in the mayoral suite of the town hall (though it is not much of a suite anymore, and not much of a hall; the old town hall burned down years ago, and was replaced by a temporary double-wide) stands a mounted howler monkey, one of the finest specimens from the Taxidermist’s vast collection. Its mouth is open, lips curled outward like the rim of a trumpet. Its head is cocked sweetly to one side, as though reconsidering what it was just about to say. Its knees are bent, toes pigeoned inward in the classical stance, and—though this is a violation of protocol and is generally frowned upon by most who practice the art of taxidermy—its left hand is curled, poised just above the monkey’s bum, as though about to scratch.
Or, perhaps it does scratch. Really, who’s to say?
In any case, it is a frivolous gesture, but
