The Lynnie Russell Trilogy by R. M. Gilmore Read Free Book Online Page A

twisted into something like a dog’s leg. Murky green fur slid out of the skin on my hands and arms. A pain in my jaw shocked down my body. My teeth were growing longer, sharper. I cried and hollered and grunted in pain but Garret never came for me.
     
    I turned my long snouted face toward my door. I caught the reflection of myself in the mirror I had there. My body was still cracking and popping but I could see what I was becoming. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In the mirror I saw what looked like it could be a big dog or giant cat, huge and furry. It had a shaggy, dark green coat of fur. The ears were tufted long and pointed upward. The tail, my tail, was long and braided like a woman’s hair might be. Only, it was gnarled and snagged like something feral. I watched the face stretch out into a full snout. I felt new nails push from the ends of what used to be my fingers. I looked in the mirror and saw myself, a beast, a creature I could hardly describe.
     
    If I had had human eyes I would’ve cried. The eyes I had in the mirror looked like fire freshly lit. Blazing high and hot and red. My long mouth opened and out came a howl I’d never heard but once before. From my own beastly lungs the night before. My ears perked when I heard something coming down the hall. I could smell Garret’s aftershave. Before I knew it my strong animal legs carried me across my room and pushed me through the only window I had. I could still hear the glass breaking when Garret called out for me.
     
    “Lynnie?! Lynnie?!” He hollered out the broken window.
     
    I ran hard and fast into the woods behind our trailer. I could hear him breathing and his boots shuffling the ground chasing after what he thought must’ve been a dog or maybe even a bear.
     
    I stopped a ways away from the house and hid in the shadows. I could see Garret in the woods. He was a shade of green like everything else. Like the rifle in his hands. All greens, no color but green. I knew he was my brother. I knew I loved him. But something in my animal mind didn’t care much. I only cared about hiding. I knew he’d kill me in the state I was in. I had to hide from him.
     
    “Lynnie, where are you?” He was damn near in a sob.
     
    A tiny piece of me wanted to comfort him. I wanted so much to not hear my brother cry. Especially over something I done. My animal knew better. Knew that I would kill him before he’d ever get a shot off.
    Garret held his long rifle down at his side. He was trying to find me in all the dark of the woods. I knew he’d never find me.
     
    In the animal body my mind don’t have the same types of thoughts. I didn’t really have thoughts at all. Just feelings. Like instinct. No thoughts, just knowing. And I knew then that I was all alone. And I liked it.
     
     
     

Words With God
     
    I woke up naked in the woods for the second time in two days. And like the morning before, I had blood on my hands. I looked around for a pile of bodies. There were none. The last thing I remembered was Garret chasing me through the woods. I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse. Was it better not to know who or what I maimed to have blood dried under my nails?  If the alternative was having to know I’d killed my only brother, it was better not to know, even for just a little while. Living in denial is perfectly acceptable if it’s only to keep you sane.
     
    I told myself I’d killed an animal. Just an animal. My heart couldn’t accept anything more.
     
    I was sitting in the center of a ring of trees that I knew wasn’t too far from my trailer. I’d never liked that spot before. I’d always heard tales of evil fairies that lived in those trees. Sounds downright stupid now, but coming up in Havana you don’t get much exposure to anything but what your mama and your friends tell you. Damned old superstitions. That’s what you get when you have too many old women in one room for too long.
     
    I sat for a few minutes hoping