Magic for Beginners: Stories by Kelly Link Read Free Book Online Page B

I’d been drinking, donated
the funeral carpet to the national museum. When I was sober again,
I asked for it back, but they claimed not to know what I was
talking about. I live by myself and this old, bald, shabby thing I
wear is a horsehair throw I found in a thrift store.
    When I wake up, sometimes, before I open my eyes, I imagine that
I am still lying under a marriage carpet with my husbands and
wives. My hands are full of their sweet, perfumed hair. My name is
Venus Shebby and once I was very beautiful, as beautiful as a
cannon carved out of ice.
     
    Q: Who was that woman?
    A: Venus Shebby.
     
    Q: How is a cannon like a marriage?
    A: I don’t know.
     
    Q: Who was the first person to be fired from a cannon? Was it a
man or a woman?
    A: The first person to be fired from a cannon was a young man
dressed as a woman. His name was Lulu. Sometimes, when someone is
fired from a cannon, they say they are demonstrating “the Lulu
leap.”
     
    Q: Do you love your brother?
    A: I love my brother like a brother.
     
    Q: Do you think I’m beautiful?
    A: You are beautiful, but not as beautiful as Venus Shebby was,
when she was young. You’re not as beautiful as the cannon.
    Q: Thank you for being honest. Why does your brother have so
many wives, when you have no wives at all?
    A: I don’t know.
     
    Q: Will you say yes when I ask you to marry me?
    A: I don’t know.
     
    Q: What noise will the cannon make? Why can’t you love me, just
for a little while? Why must the cannon be fired? How long will
your brother be gone? Why won’t your brother come back? Will he
never come back? What are you putting in your ears? Is it time for
the cannon to be fired? May I ask the cannon these questions? What
will she say?
    A: A noise as loud as God, but only my brother and his wives
will hear it. Everyone else is putting beeswax in their ears. I
don’t know. I don’t know. A long time. He won’t come back again.
No. Beeswax and cotton. Soon. I don’t know. No. Not now. Be
patient. Listen. Listen.

Stone Animals
    Henry asked a question. He was joking.
    “As a matter of fact,” the real estate agent snapped, “it
is.”
    It was not a question she had expected to be asked. She gave
Henry a goofy, appeasing smile and yanked at the hem of the skirt
of her pink linen suit, which seemed as if it might, at any moment,
go rolling up her knees like a window shade. She was younger than
Henry, and sold houses that she couldn’t afford to buy.
    “It’s reflected in the asking price, of course,” she said. “Like
you said.”
    Henry stared at her. She blushed.
    “I’ve never seen anything,” she said. “But there are stories.
Not stories that I know. I just know there are stories. If you
believe that sort of thing.”
    “I don’t,” Henry said. When he looked over to see if Catherine
had heard, she had her head up the tiled fireplace, as if she were
trying it on, to see whether it fit. Catherine was six months
pregnant. Nothing fit her except for Henry’s baseball caps, his
sweatpants, his T-shirts. But she liked the fireplace.
    Carleton was running up and down the staircase, slapping his
heels down hard, keeping his head down and his hands folded around
the banister. Carleton was serious about how he played. Tilly sat
on the landing, reading a book, legs poking out through the
railings. Whenever Carleton ran past, he thumped her on the head,
but Tilly never said a word. Carleton would be sorry later, and
never even know why.
    Catherine took her head out of the fireplace. “Guys,” she said.
“Carleton, Tilly. Slow down a minute and tell me what you think.
Think King Spanky will be okay out here?”
    “King Spanky is a cat, Mom,” Tilly said. “Maybe we should get a
dog, you know, to help protect us.” She could tell by looking at
her mother that they were going to move. She didn’t know how she
felt about this, except she had plans for the yard. A yard like
that needed a dog.
    “I don’t like big dogs,” said Carleton, six