Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

  I sat with Jacob and Yuri on a log by the fire. The music was so loud there was no silence to fill. Some couples began to dance in the clearing. A girl I recognized from church sat alone on the other side of the fire. She had long curly blond hair and a warm-looking face. I elbowed Jacob. “Go ask her to dance.”

  “I said no dancing.”

  “Yuri.” I reached across Jacob and poked Yuri’s shoulder. “Ask that pretty girl to dance.”

  “I don’t like dancing either.”

  “Go on, please.”

  Yuri stood nervously and patted down his pants and shirt. He walked around the fire and sat by the girl. He said something that made her laugh. Jacob and I watched the two of them dance. Viktor came out of the crowd and offered me his hand. I took it and he launched me up and pulled me into him. We danced too fast to the music. Every time we spun Viktor lifted me off my feet. He fed me more whisky and everything became fluid and loose. I stared at Viktor’s face while the rest of the world spun around it. I couldn’t stop laughing. We danced until we were dizzy and stumbling. The colours from the fire made everyone look yellow. It was only when we slowed down that I realized we were the only ones still dancing: the centre of attention. Yuri tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Trying to cut in, hen?” Viktor said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal your girl.” Yuri rolled his eyes. Viktor offered him the flask and he pushed it away.

  “We’re going to leave now, Iris,” Yuri said. “Let me walk you home.”

  “But we’ve only begun!” Viktor said, his eyes wide and bright. His hand fell down my waist to my hip and he pulled me away from Yuri. Yuri grabbed my hand.

  “Viktor, let her go.” Yuri glared at Viktor with a ferocity I didn’t think his gentle face could muster.

  “All right, all right, hen. Let’s go, Your Highness.” Viktor didn’t take his hand from my hip, forcing Yuri to let go of my hand.

  “Where’s Jacob?” I asked. Then I saw him, talking with Ronald near the flickering fire. I hadn’t seen my brother smile so openly since he had been home. He saw that we were leaving, left Ronald with a brief embrace, and followed us.

  On our way home Jacob and Yuri walked steadily ahead while Viktor and I sang into the trees, arm in arm and stumbling. He was trying to teach me an old Ukrainian song, and my attempts made us both hysterical. Right before we got to the edge of the orchard, Viktor pulled me down into the long grass between the trees. I fell on top of him. Yuri and Jacob didn’t notice our absence and kept on walking. Viktor brought his finger to his lips for me to be silent. I covered my mouth with a hand to keep from laughing out. Then Viktor’s eyes become serious. He ran his knuckles along my cheek and down my neck. His other hand lowered further and further down my back. He craned his neck and pulled me into him hard. We kissed.

  “Iris? Viktor?” Yuri called. He and Jacob had backtracked through the orchard. Viktor stood and helped me up.

  Yuri looked at me as though I had struck him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “We fell,” Viktor said, grinning. He let go of my hand.

  The next morning my family sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast. I looked out the window for Viktor. Sunlight came through the trees in patches. The disembodied arms and heads of the pickers popped out through the tops of trees on the far side of the orchard.

  “You seem in high spirits, Iris,” Llewelyna said, peering at me from across the table. I realized then I was smiling. I looked down at my eggs to hide my hot face. She grinned. “You have the look of Blodeuwedd about you.”

  “Blodeuwedd?” I asked.

  “Flower face. I never told you the story of Blodeuwedd?”

  I shook my head.

  She put down her fork and folded her hands together. “Lleu Llaw Gyffes was cursed to never marry a human wife, and so he had magicians make him a wife from broom, oak, and meadowsweet blossom. They named her Blodeuwedd and she was the fairest and most beautiful maiden anyone had ever laid eyes on. Very soon after she was created, she fell in love with another man, and this love made her even more beautiful than before. When her husband found out about her new romance, he had the magicians change her into the form of an owl, for the owl is hated by all other birds. And that’s why, in Welsh, Blodeuwedd is the ancient name for owl.”

  My father was smiling at her. He was about to say something when there was a knock at the door. It was Ronald Nickel.

  “Pardon me, sir,” Ronald said, taking off his flat cap. He passed my father an envelope. “Says it’s urgent so I thought I better bring it by.” He looked past my father and smiled at Jacob.

  “Thank you, Ronald. I appreciate it.” My father closed the door and brought the envelope to the table to open it. We watched silently as he read. His expression was difficult to discern.

  “What is it, Noah?” Llewelyna asked. He didn’t respond. “Who is it from?”

  “My mother,” he said finally.

  “What does it say?” asked Jacob.

  “My father has died.”

  My grandfather had always been too busy to visit us. My father had apparently taken me to England to meet him when I was hardly two years old, but I didn’t remember a thing. My father always insisted I had memories I did not: “He walked you around the pond of the estate. You pointed at the ducks. You loved to play with his walking cane.” He was incredulous at my inability to recall such moments. “He took you to the fair, you must remember the fair. There was a giraffe.” I imagined my grandfather as a stocky man with a large grey beard. There was a painting of him in my father’s study. I later discovered this was a painting not of my grandfather but of King Edward VII.

  The added weight to the event of my estranged grandfather’s death was one that only Llewelyna understood at first. Her head dropped to her hands. A strand of red hair dipped into her egg yolk. My father picked the letter back up, more to hide his face from her than to reread it.

  “She wants me to return, to help with the funeral. She’s asked me to manage the Rhondda mine.”

  “But what about your brother? Isn’t he—”

  “John already has a lot on his plate. He has been managing the London mine on his own for years now.”

  “You’ve only just arrived. Surely she—”

  “My father has died, Llew.” He reached for her hand but it slipped beneath the table. “You could go home to Wales, visit your sister.” Llewelyna stood and went upstairs. My father followed her.

  “Did you love him?” I asked Jacob once they were safely upstairs.

  Jacob jolted. “Love who?” he said, defensive.

  “Our grandfather.”

  He looked down and chipped at an undercooked potato with his fork. “I hardly knew him.” He jerked his head in that strange way I had seen him do before.

  “But when you visited Grandmother, wasn’t he there?”

  “He didn’t like me,” Jacob whispered.

  “Father seems to love him.”

  “Father respects him, that’s all.” He scraped his last bits of egg and potato onto his fork.

  That evening, Jacob, Yuri, and I played cribbage on the front porch and secretly smoked a package of old cigarettes I had found in Llewelyna’s wardrobe. She and my father were at the McCarthys’ for the night. I looked for Viktor over Jacob’s and Yuri’s heads and found him drinking with some of the other pickers. There was no work done on the Sabbath. Viktor’s eyes met mine and he winked at me. My stomach was full of flapping birds. We had made plans to meet down by the lake that night after dark.

  Jacob kept saying, “It’s your turn, flower face,” and asked, obnoxious as ever, why I wore such a stupid smile.

  We weren’t expecting the McCarthys’ carriage to pull into our drive. Their house was only a couple of miles away and Llewelyna had preferred to walk. We scrambled to stub out our cigarettes and toss them into the bushes. I hid the package in the folds of my dress. My father helped Llewelyna down from the carriage. Her neck was limp and she couldn’t carry h
er own weight. She looked like a drunkard. Yuri and I ran to them. Yuri put one of Llewelyna’s arms over his shoulder and helped my father bring her to the house.

  “She’s had a terrible fit,” my father said between gritted teeth, his eyes stern and shining with a holy kind of anger.

  Later that week Dr. Cross arrived from the city to examine Llewelyna. I could hear her sobbing even while I was downstairs with Mary preparing dinner.

  “I feel so terrible,” Mary rambled nervously as she shelled peas. “I don’t understand. She was doing so well. The medicine, it must not—”

  “She’s not taking medicine,” I confided.

  “Well, I’ve gone and said it now. Your father didn’t want you or Llewelyna to know.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I’ve switched it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I explained how I had been switching the medicine for sugar water and how much better she became after I started doing so.

  Mary froze. “Oh love, what have you done?”

  I didn’t see Llewelyna until my birthday dinner the next day. It was a warm evening so we ate on the front porch. My father carried Llewelyna out of the house wrapped in blankets and sat her up in a chair. Her eyes were wide and blank. She gazed around like a tamed bird.

  I had tried to persuade my father not to make a fuss for my birthday, but he wouldn’t hear it. He said he had intended to throw a much larger party for my debut, an event usually celebrated in a ballroom with hundreds of young men to look me up and down as if I were a new suit they’d like to try on. He had meant to decorate the orchard and invite the Nickels and the McCarthys, and the Kobas, he added purposefully, but with Llewelyna’s condition the way it was, it was best to keep the festivities intimate. I convinced him to invite the Wasiks. All but Taras, who said he was much too busy with the orchard, joined my family for dinner that evening.

  After we ate Mary’s vanilla cake I opened the presents gathered at one side of the table like an offering. Yuri gave me a hummingbird carved out of wood. It was delicate and hung on a long string so I could tie it to the ceiling of my room. He had expertly painted the bird blue and green and given it golden eyes. Viktor gave me some chocolates that had already melted to the bottom of the paper bag. My father handed me a parcel from my grandmother. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a pale green dress. Father made me stand and hold it to my chest. Lace was sewn all along the hem and bust. It had short sleeves and a high collar.

  “For your London debut. The real one,” my father said.

  “My what?”

  “Your grandmother has paid for you to return with Jacob to London, so she can throw you a proper debut.”

  “I won’t,” I said simply. Llewelyna had a slight smile on her face. “I don’t know anyone there.”

  “That’s the point. To meet people.”

  “I don’t want to meet people. There are people here I already know.”

  Mary stared down at her lap and Yuri and Viktor looked off into the orchard, obviously uncomfortable with our arguing.

  “I mean a husband, Iris.” My father whispered, as if doing so would prevent the present company from overhearing. “A husband suitable to your stature.”

  “I won’t go to England.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Let’s not ruin the party.” My father smiled to the guests. I folded the dress and put it back in the box.

  “Here, Iris.” Jacob handed me a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. Inside was a rectangular black box with nickel fittings and leather coverings.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A camera, silly,” Jacob said.

  “But it’s so small.”

  “It’s the newest of its kind, a Kodak Brownie.”

  My father took the camera from me and turned it to show me a place at the bottom where it had been engraved. He handed it back so I could read it for myself. Beauty is in the eye, it said, followed by an ellipsis, as if this line was easily completed. Although I knew the saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I was confused with my mother’s own sense while painting—without your eyes you’re nothing but a husk.

  “Thank you,” I said finally.

  The next day I went to take a picture of a robin perched in the walnut tree. By the time I held the camera down to my chest, focused, and opened and closed the shutter, the bird was gone. Later I walked down through the birch forest to photograph the glittering lake. Just as I opened the shutter there was a splash. The lake monster’s green back crested. I closed the shutter too slowly. From what Jacob had told me about using the camera, I knew the image would be blurry and indeterminate. I aimed the camera again and waited. The lake monster surfaced, its long neck stretched out of the water and its horse-shaped head turned to look at me. I took the photograph.

  Later we were in the sitting room drinking tea. Llewelyna sat on the faded yellow chesterfield in a gown much too large for her now. She held a glass of water at her chest in both hands. I couldn’t stop watching her. She looked sedated and sad. Banished from the house by my father, Saint Francis paced along the porch outside, forever Llewelyna’s sentinel. His feet rasped against the wood. He pecked at the window.

  “Have you taken any photographs yet?” my father asked, to break the charged silence.

  “A few.”

  “In London,” Jacob said, “you could walk across the street and have the film developed in a couple of days. Out here it’ll take months.” Jacob had taken up the habit of pointing out the downfalls of living in Winteridge in comparison to London. Although tiresome, I found his efforts endearing. He seemed to want me to come back with him.

  “I have proof now,” I said to him.

  “Proof?”

  “I took a photograph.”

  “A photograph of what?”

  I was hesitant to pronounce the name of the creature we hadn’t mentioned in so long. It had become unspeakable. “Naitaka,” I whispered, carefully watching Llewelyna. She didn’t even flinch.

  “Of what?” my father said.

  “The addanc,” I said to get Llewelyna’s attention. She still didn’t acknowledge the name.

  “She’s talking about that bloody lake monster,” Jacob said. “You’re unbelievable, Iris. You really are.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose. I was photographing the lake and when I—”

  “Stop.” Jacob looked at me with such urgency it conjured me speechless. He angled his head and fidgeted with his ear.

  “Aren’t you much too old for that sort of thing,” my father said in a voice he reserved for precisely this brand of foolishness.

  “I cannot wait to leave this dreadful place,” Jacob said. “We should have never returned.” He stood and walked to the window. My father and I watched him uneasily.

  “But what about Jacob’s leg? That wound proved…”

  My father wiped some invisible crumbs from his lap. “Iris, his leg was injured by something in the water. It could have been a cut anchor, a splintered piece of wood. It could have been anything.”

  “But I saw it. Jacob, you saw—”

  “I don’t know what I saw,” Jacob said, still facing the window.

  “You did. I know you did. Just try to remember.”

  “We were children.”

  “You’ve been in this house too long. This town too long. Your mother’s stories have gotten to you.”

  “Don’t speak of her as if she’s not here,” I said. We turned to Llewelyna, who sat oblivious as a fish at her end of the chesterfield. “What have you done to her?”

  “The doctor said there would be side effects. She might be out of sorts for a little while.”

  “Out of sorts? She’s tranquilized.” I watched her carefully. “Llewelyna?” She didn’t respond. “Llewelyna?”

  She looked up. “Could you pass the sugar?” she asked Jacob.

  Later I caught my father crushing up the pills and putting them in her water glass. “It’
s inhumane,” I said, standing behind him. He froze. “What you’re doing. It’s not right. Sneaking it into her water like that.”

  “You know it’s the only way she’ll take the bromide.”

  “Hiding it from her, and from me. I know you had Mary doing it for you before.”

  He turned to me. “She told you?”

  “She didn’t have to.” I told my father what I had done. I tried to explain to him the extent of her illness before—the rash, the tremors, the nausea and vomiting—and how much better she was after being off the medicine. “The seizures are minor compared to what the bromide did to her.”

  He looked down into the glass as he stirred in the powder. “You’re a doctor now, are you?”

  I watched him ascend the stairs as I stood, furious, in the kitchen. Then, after a little while, I ran up and burst into Llewelyna’s bedroom. “He’s poisoning you,” I said.

  Llewelyna started, water spilling from the glass and onto her lap.

  “Iris, get out,” my father said. But he didn’t interrupt me as I went on to tell Llewelyna everything.

  “My dear, it’s for your own good,” my father said when I was done. He sat on the edge of her bed. Llewelyna’s face had dropped. She turned away from him. He brushed her hair out of her face with his hand. “Lew, sweetheart?”

  She slapped his hand away. “Do you think I’m a child, Noah? An animal?”

  “The doctor—”

  “Get out,” she said. “Both of you.”

  The next morning while Jacob and I sat at the table eating breakfast, we could hear Llewelyna and my father arguing in her room two floors above. My father calmly urged her to come with him to London and go to some kind of specialized hospital for epileptics. Llewelyna kept telling him she wasn’t epileptic. That it wasn’t some kind of illness. The falls were a gift. She saw things, she said. Prophecies. And to take them away would cost her her soul, would surely kill her. My father was livid. I could tell because his voice became quieter and quieter, until we could no longer hear him. He was never one to shout when truly upset. If made angry enough, he quit speaking entirely.

  “Will you come back with us?” Jacob asked me, when we could no longer eavesdrop.