Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) by P.G. Lengsfelder Read Free Book Online Page B

research, and I continued my own research scrapbook, a thick three-ring binder of body parts clipped from Momma’s magazines, with pages categorized and devoted to celebrity eyes, ears, noses, hair, mouths, facial hair, skins and chins. I’d never thought of chins previously.
    But feeling useful to Mr. Carver sustained me as much as the money and the developing research, which was a shift for me. It added the one-on-one human element that I’d never had. And it buoyed my confidence for other encounters.
    One Saturday, late in the summer of my fifth year with Carver, I was preparing to leave a bit earlier than usual to see a lecture titled “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” by a PhD named Sean Carroll. I’d been anticipating it for weeks. I’d hoped Mr. Carver would already be gone, but he seemed intent on mounting a moose head.
    I waited, time running out. Bent over his workbench he didn’t appear to move —at all. I spoke across the room to him. He didn’t budge. I came closer and called his name again which jerked him out of his statue-like existence. He was shaky and disoriented.
    “Mr. Carver, are you okay?”
    “What? Yes.” But he wasn’t. He eyes scanned his workbench, bewildered.
    I thought about Dr. Carroll’s lecture: Darwin’s dangerous ideas, mutations, hetero vs. homozygotes —fascinating explorations for my research. Carver stumbled off his stool.
    “Maybe I should close up today, Mr. Carver. You look tired.”
    “What?”
    “Can you drive?”
    He stood taller. His eyes took on some clarity. “Of course, what do I look like?”
    I didn’t want to say. “You’re sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure. Okay, you close up today.” He grabbed his keys, snorted a lungful of the chemical-infused workshop and left his usual sour mood hanging in the air, along with the hint of choking hydrochloric acid.
    There’d be no lecture for me that night. But I felt faithful to myself for taking care of Mr. Carver. I liked the feeling. I know it sounds strange but it gave me a sense of accomplishment, and I proposed to use it as a guide in the future, it felt that good.
    The August moon rose up almost full. Something moved in my chest and I grabbed it. “What?” I said to the workshop.
    It had been years since I’d had one of ‘my visits,’ and even if there had been others I’d passed them off as stress or the result of Momma’s superstitious brainwashing. I had to stay focused. They usually passed quickly.
    “What?” Something might have moved in the shadows, but all I saw were partially dismembered bodies. The smell of the acid burned my throat. The sound of the crickets jumped threefold. As if guided by their chirping I went out back to breathe before locking up.
    A thick, humid night, frequencies radiated around my heart . The crickets grew louder still, calling me to follow the narrow path deeper into the slough where, from time to time, I’d thrown off my clothes after a long day, waded into the water, and glided magically through as if I was the lake’s natural inhabitant. Bemidji was a beautiful place.
    It was only a quarter mile from the road, which ran along the slough and then forked north as the slough became Kingdom Lake. By the time I passed the fallen jack pines on the left, the crickets had gone silent. The sudden stillness unsettled me as I came to the glade, though the towering flame grass plumes, as always, bade me to join them in romance.
    “You want me?” I whispered.
    The water lapped against the bank and out beyond the tall grass. The moon rippled over the lake’s smooth skin. I pulled off my shoes, folded and stacked my clothes neatly under my favorite white cedar, then waded into the slough, the water gathering around me as it would around any nymph, welcoming my return.
    I was in just below the curve of my pubic hair, the moon illumining my naked body, silver in the water’s reflection, and my head still in the shadow of the cedar, when I heard the first grunt. Aware of