by HL Fullerton
“That…wasn’t raccoons. Maybe someone came by after we went walking and tried to fizz—fix—”
“On the way back home,” Ivers said, leaning in to get a good look at base of the boy’s antlers, make sure there weren’t no glue or special effects wizardry involved, “you and me are gonna talk gremlins and erlkings.”
Evangeline marched over to Ivers’ truck and yanked open the passenger side door to inspect Carl. “Uncle Ivers, he’s bleeding.”
“He was bleeding before he got in, missy, and if you think any of us believe raccoons scared you out of that Jeep and chased you down a hill—”
Evangeline shushed her uncle. “Carl. Your antlers. Do they hurt?”
“I think I cracked my head,” the boy said, a palm cradling his injured beam. “Evangeline, your uncle wants to talk gremlins with me.”
“You’ll ride back with my dad. I’ll talk to Uncle Ivers.”
The boy didn’t argue with Evangeline, but he didn’t look pleased to be riding shotgun with Evangeline’s daddy neither. Uncle Ivers started his truck. “How much you like this boy?”
“Plenty,” Evangeline said and set the corners of her mouth the way Ivers’ sister, Evie’s mother, did when she was done talking about a thing.
“Those antlers might fall off before your big dance, Evie. Spoil your trophy so’s.”
Evie watched her boy move. “No,” she said, “I don’t think you’re right about that.”
“How many of those ‘raccoons’ you hit, Evie?”
“Don’t make me lie to you, Uncle Ivers. And this isn’t one of your fairy tales, so you keep your mouth shut.”
“Gremlins should be a dealbreaker, Evie, antler lust or no.”
“Uncle Ivers!” The girl stamped her foot just like her mother too. Suddenly, a smile—sweet and sanguine—creased her lips. “But if you wanted to, for story’s sake, how would you put down a gremlin?”
Cajoled like her mama too.
The best way to kill a gremlin is quickly.
…the night sky beckons, like thunder; like lightning, it strikes…
Carl’s antlers ached, like a tooth with its nerve exposed. He missed their velvet covering, felt as if he’d been shaved bald with a dull and rusting razor. His fingers traced his pedicels, which felt uncommonly hot, but, thank the gods, not loose.
His mother watched him with restrained glee. Her hope that he’d lose the top of his skull crowded him out of their house. He spent his hours beneath the spruce, slathering balm upon his shrieking points, taking photo after photo in case this was the last time he’d be himself. He studied old gap-toothed images of him, his eyes intent on first the near-hidden bumps upon his head and then his ghastly grin fraught with missing baby teeth.
If he crossed his mom’s path, he inquired about his milk teeth and whether she kept them or tossed them out with the trash. She never answered directly, simply offered his name in beseeching peals.
He blamed his mother.
He blamed himself.
He blamed Evangeline.
He blamed the gremlins for his sorry state.
Because, for the first time in his life, he felt monstrous.
Nothing says ‘monster’ like an atypical skeleton, and no one knows that better than Carl King. (Except, perhaps, Carl’s mother.)
The human body, at birth, is composed of three hundred some bones which fuse down to the well-known two hundred and six—not all of which made it into the spiritual Dem Bones, and certainly none referred to by their Latin descriptors. A pelvis is indeed connected to the femur, but no one sings about it or the patella. Were Carl to count up his skeletal composition, he might be one or two bones over the norm, thus making him—by denotation if not connotation—a monster. [1a: an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure] (courtesy of Merriam-Webster.)
A deer has well over three hundred bones, including one in its heart, the os cordis.
So far, no one has had occasion to explore Carl King’s heart. At least, not physically. The consensus, however, of all metaphorical and metaphysical explorations to date, is that he has a good one.
Evangeline bought two suits—one for her, one for Carl. Presumptuous, yes, but she’d asked Carl to be her date to the winter formal ages ago, he’d said yes, and she was holding him to it. She already had the tickets, so picking up a suit for him wasn’t much of an overstep (or so she told herself).
What was that saying? In for a penny, in for a pound? She was going pound in. Which was what she told Carl when she cornered him in his backyard to drop off the thrift-store suit for him to try on (in case she guessed wrong on the size).
Carl, who was holding a room-temperature gallon of milk, said, “I already have a suit.”
“Cool,” Evangeline said. “Are you drinking that? It smells funny.” Though maybe that was Carl himself. His hair was somewhat plastered to his scalp, giving him a sweaty/hadn’t showered look.
“I’m pouring it on my head. It helps with the aching. Unless it’s too cold. Then the milk makes it worse.”
Evangeline stepped into his personal space and peered up at his antlers, crushing the unneeded suit between them. “You can barely see the crack—” She reached toward the injured bone as if to test its healedness.
Carl caught her fingers in his. “Don’t touch. They’re…sensitive. In a not good way.”
Evangeline coiled her fingers around his and brought their hands down atop the folded, crumpling suit. “Okay, okay. Just lean forward so I can get a closer look.”
Carl dipped his head, his eyes on guard against any sudden movements. Evangeline tipped upon her toes and stretched her neck—the better to see him with. Her chin thrust between his pedicels; her exhalations huffed warm puffs of air against his points. “Did you go to the doctor? Did they recommend the milk bath?”
Each of her words peppered his exposed bones, contracted muscles in his stomach. “No doc,” he said. “I got the milk thing online.”
She fell back on her heels, needing to gauge the truthfulness in his eyes. “The internet said to soak injured antlers in milk?”
“Avulsed teeth. Close enough, right?”
“If you want to grow antlers in your mouth. Let me see again.”
Carl pulled back.
“I won’t touch.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about your breath on my head.”
Evangeline covered her mouth with her free hand. “You think I’m germy? I brushed before I came over.”
He scratched a patch of skin above his eyebrow. “I didn’t even think about germs. No, it felt weird. When you breathed on me.”
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“Yes,” he said. When he didn’t tilt his neck toward her, she figured he was still making up his mind.
So she offered to pour milk on his injured areas and he handed her the jug, albeit slowly. She tossed the suit out of the potential splash zone. “If you don’t like the way I do it, tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”
He bent over, baring the back of his neck. She lightly laid a palm on his back and drizzled the milk over his points. He made a sound and she stopped pouring—stepped back quickly and out of points way—but he stayed in position, nary a head thrash.
“Keep pouring,” he said. “It feels nice.”
Evangeline suspected it felt much better than nice and moved in closer than she’d been before. “Okay,” she said. “Here goes.” She drizzled until the gallon was empty and wondered how much luck she’d have in convincing him to let her kiss—or lick—his hurts better.
Then a slight breeze carried the scent of spoiling milk her way and Evangeline decided maybe she’d go home and shower instead.
On the day of the winter formal, a bed of petunias spontaneously bloomed around the Kings’ mailbox. Mrs. King was surprised. She remembered planting yellow ones, but those that burst forth that chilly morn were white with blotchy red centers, as if someone had bled all over the nice, white flowers.
When it was t
ime to take photos of the kids in their fancy dress (though both Evangeline and Carl had opted for suits: Evangeline’s a royal blue velvet with black satin trim and Carl’s a skinny olive green number that made him appear taller and thinner—which only served to draw the eye up to the crown of stark, white antlers upon his head), Mrs. King shoved a posy of blooded petunias into Evangeline’s hands. A flustered Evangeline held them awkwardly against her side so that in the images she appeared to have sustained a messy gut wound and was applying pressure to it. Carl attempted to angle his rack so that the broken point didn’t show, and the overall impression was of two strangers forced to stand next to each other in front of a crowded bookcase (because the Kings had no fireplace or mantel to pose before) while one of them bled out.
Mrs. King conveniently cropped her son’s exposed skeleton before snapping the photos, as she always did when taking pictures of Carl. This only exacerbated the oddness of the couple’s body language when contrasted with their smiling faces. It made the petunias seem at fault.
The photo-taking went better at the Chase house even with Uncle Ivers and a flurry of aunts happening to drop by—all with cameras of their own. But there weren’t any smelly petunias or Mrs. King reminiscing about crocuses flowering on the day of Carl’s birth. And Carl’s antlers featured prominently in all these shots—especially Uncle Ivers’ (from which his niece was neatly eclipsed). Evangeline had notions of her family members adding a bull’s eye to Carl’s side of the photos and using his heart for target practice, which explained her scowl in several of the Chase-Forrester images. One of her aunts tried to get Evangeline to wear a circlet of ivy, even asked Carl to place it atop her niece’s head, but Evangeline refused to be crowned. Strangely enough, her aunt took the refusal well (after inspecting Carl’s palms post-ivy handling and finding no rash). Carl, being Carl, offered to wear the ivy if it was important, but Evangeline wasn’t having any of it. The ivy looked fresh enough that she worried it might strike up a conversation with Carl, a vine not being so very different from a tree or shrub in her mind, and Evangeline had had it with chatty flora. Good thing it was almost winter and the greenery was sparse.
Evangeline herded Carl into her car—Grandpa’s was back from the shop, but he no longer trusted her with it—and assured everyone they’d have fun and be careful and not do anything they wouldn’t do. Her mother captured Evangeline’s eyeroll in moving pixels and shared it far and wide before Evangeline could delete it. It wasn’t until Evangeline was reversing down her driveway and eying Carl’s prone form (peripherally, of course) that she noticed the spare tire, car jack, and weapons cache her family had sent along. A mile down the road she braked and searched for a blanket to throw over the host of items strictly prohibited from school grounds, but apparently her car throws had been confiscated. Evangeline told Carl they’d just have to hope for the best and wish like crazy that no one with the authority to boot them from the dance peeked into her backseat.
“Maybe they’re worried about another gremlin encounter,” Carl said.
“At least your mom didn’t insist we wear her miracle portentias.”
“Petunias,” Carl corrected, but he agreed about not having to pin them to their lapels. He hadn’t liked the look of those flowers. He didn’t think them harbingers of anything more than climate change, but their blooming still struck him as suspicious. He couldn’t recall them having ever done so before—not at this time of year—and he remembered them as being purple, he was sure of it.
Not that it mattered. By midnight, like unlucky Cinderellas, the Kings’ portentous petunias would wilt and die.
In floriography, petunias indicate resentment and anger. Or that you find a person’s presence soothing and would like to spend more time with them. Tricky things to decipher, petunias. Their meaning entirely depends upon the mindset of the sender.
Probably helps if one knows who the sender is.
…a hunting I will go…
The winter formal (theme: A Midwinter Night) was being held in the high school’s cafeteria rather than the gym this year due to the basketball coaches’ insistence that nothing touch their precious court but virgin rubber soles, certainly nothing the likes of heels that might ruin the floor’s shiny finish or pockmark the wood.
The decorating plan was to remove the dining tables and cover the walls in black plastic sheeting (about $20 per roll at the local big box home improvement store), strands of twinkly white lights and one large round white spot (to symbolize the romanticism of the full moon). Because the student body treasurer’s parents owned a nursery and donated the plants, the perimeter was dotted with ‘fir trees’ which were actually densely packed towers of poinsettias, mostly red, some white. Rather than recreate a December night sky, it seemed some mad dentist had badly lit a monster’s mouth and started randomly pulling possibly infected fangs which splashed blood on all the nice white enamel.
At least that was what the message a friend on the decorating committee had sent Evangeline claimed. Evangeline and Carl would have to wait to see the nightmare of a cafeteria. Three miles before they reached the turnoff for the high school, they encountered a jam of traffic that snaked around a bend. Flashing lights, red now blue, flickered off the waiting cars. Evangeline rested her head against the steering wheel and said, “What’s the chance they won’t notice the arsenal in back?”
“Slim to none?”
The two teens exited their respective doors and met at her trunk, arms laden with bows and arrows, knives and guns. “Is there an emergency apocalypse I haven’t heard about happening tonight?” Carl said, smiling.
His girlfriend sighed and dumped her bundle into the trunk. “I think my family thinks the ‘raccoons’ that messed with my grandpa’s Jeep may be in attendance tonight.”
“So more of a war-in-a-box starter kit than a do-it-yourself apocalypse?”
“This is their idea of better safe than sorry. Sorry.”
Carl shrugged. “You held my mom’s mailbox flowers; I can hold a couple dozen arrows for yours.”
“Well, if the gremlins show, we’re set.” Contraband stowed, they walked up the road to see how long before they reached the sobriety roadblock. Except when they rounded the curve, they were greeted by smashed cars rather than a slow but orderly check point. A small group of their classmates congregated near the site. Evangeline and Carl walked up to join them.
“No one was hurt,” a girl in a short, sparkly silver dress and dramatic eye make-up said. “Well, the limo driver and the couple in the other car went in the ambulance, but Scarletta and Ollie are fine.” She pointed to Scarletta and Ollie, who were wrapped in crinkly blankets and speaking with a stern-faced State Trooper.
“I thought you were already there,” one of the boys said to Carl.
“No,” Carl said.
“Strange,” a second boy—Trevor Quails—said, but Carl didn’t see anything strange about it. He gestured over his shoulder. “Evangeline and I are back there.”
“Could’ve sworn King was already there and tagged.”
Evangeline gripped Carl’s arm and stepped away from the small crowd. The most likely answer was that someone at the dance showed up wearing antlers, which Evangeline considered thoughtlessly cruel, even if it was close to Christmas and antler headbands were for sale everywhere. Still, she didn’t see how those puny brown things could be mistaken for Carl’s crowning glory. “Someone was mistaken,” she said, and the boys held up their hands to placate her—as if she were robbing them of their fun. “We’re going to wait in my car. Where it’s warmer.”
“Just a sec,” Carl said and went over to where Scarletta and Ollie stood. He hurried back, all smiles and, on their way to Evangeline’s car, told her he’d offered a ride to Scarletta and Ollie. “Although, they thought we were already there too. Do you think we have doppelgangers?”
“More likely alcohol’s involved,” Evangeline said.
But that wasn’t it at all.
The thing about hunts is
, that which is hunted is always the last to know. In the case of a skilled hunter, perhaps the prey never knows.
Not that it does them any good. Going to ground only buys one time. And some hunts—like fairy ones—don’t get called on account of rain or time’s up or I’m bored, let’s get whiskeyed instead. Some hunts—the capital H ones—only end with death.
…heigh-ho, the merry-o, a hunt..!
From the backseat of Evangeline’s car, Scarletta said, “Do you remember that pedophile we thought might be King’s dad?”
Carl startled upwards, nearly knocking his rack off, but Ollie grabbed his antlers and pressed him back into the reclined seat before Carl’s head impacted against the car’s ceiling. “Pedophile?” Carl said.
“The homeless guy?” Evangeline said, her tone as normal as could be. Carl thought a touch of drama might be warranted considering the topic was child molesters who may or may not be related to him.
“Yeah, him. I swear he ran across the road and caused our accident. Do you think he’s peeping in the windows at the school? Looking for his old victims?”
“Only windows in the cafeteria peep into the courtyard, and I don’t think he could sneak in there without anyone noticing. It’s barely the size of a bathroom stall. Plus, I think perverts run to type. Not sure a high school’s his thing, you know? Aged out and all.”
Ollie said, “Scar, I’m pretty sure the wasted limo driver was the reason we crashed.”
“Let’s go back to the pedophile,” Carl said. “I want to hear more about him.”
Scarletta patted Carl’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, King C. We know your dad’s not the pervert in the woods.”
“She’s talking about the creepy guy who used to bring us over to your house to play. He didn’t molest us, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
