Read Online Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) by P.G. Lengsfelder - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: P.G. Lengsfelder
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place, Valhalla’s or something. It sounded familiar. I’d never seen anything quite like it —candles the color of water marigold, medallions of sage, large goblets of pewter lining the rough-hewn shelves, shelves the color of a broad-winged hawk encircling the room.
Throughout dinner he held a shy, little boy demeanor, as shy as I felt with other people sitting around us. We held hands. That helped.
Once back home I found the citation: Valhalla is the mythological ‘hall of the slain’ for half of those who die in combat and go with the god, Odin. The other half, chosen first by Freyja, goes to her ‘meadow of death.’ All prepare to be reborn for the next war.
CHAPTER SIX
Harold’s introversion didn’t discourage me. It challenged me. And I had so much to learn from him. Like any good scientist I explored his patterns.
He lingered as he turned pages, running his fingers back and forth along the paper, sometimes testing the edges. His hands trailed lightly along walls as we walked. He repeatedly smoothed his napkin. Measuring his experience with his fingers, at least that’s what I thought. I could understand that, like the prophetic feelings in my chest. ‘Psychometry’ is what they’d called it in my encyclopedia, the ability to obtain information about a person or an event by touching an object. But it was an old encyclopedia. There might be more recent scientific explanations.
“Do you like to swim?” The research paper slipped off my lap. I’d lost my place. I left it.
“Not really.” He was in Martin Chuzzlewit, distracted and not looking at me.
I imagined myself sneaking out of the farmhouse at thirteen, stripping off my clothes and slipping naked past the tall reeds into a small pond, the cold April water stoking my flesh to life. For the first- but not the last time. Would he respond to nature like I did, would he open up?
“Do you?” he asked. He closed the book, index finger keeping his spot.
“Hmm, I do. Very much.” I couldn’t tell him that the waters —swimming completely exposed in those lakes and ponds— were imagined lovers, the only ones safe enough to imagine. Or that once I entered them, I investigated each with abandon; that they never disappointed me with their touch. That I remember the name of every one —Kingdom, Balm, White Fish, Medicine and others— and of most of the birds and animals that watched my nakedness.
“Well, maybe I’ll take you swimming someday,” he said.
“Yes, that would be nice.” I could see he wanted to return to his Dickens. I wanted to know why , why that was more important than exploring us and exposing us to new things.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
His lips barely moved. “I’m here. I’m gathering, gathering information.” A hint of delight.
He took my hand. In a moment he pulled me fully to him, untucked my blouse and drew his hands along my naked neck and back. I didn’t resist.
He’s teaching me , in his own way . I breathed heavy, but it was different than in the hockey rink, without fear. It was like gliding through the insatiable water. I couldn’t explain it, but the exploration was always new, always exquisite. He unhooked and removed my bra.
***
On May 17, a few weeks after the Native People harvested their sugar maple, on an unusually warm, hypnotizing day along the shores of Kabekona Bay in the Paul Bunyan Forest where we courted and first consummated our relationship, Harold Cloonis proposed to me. I wasn’t completely surprised. But the greens were greener, the sky bluer than I’d ever seen it, and the sun seemed to catch me and massage me at just the right times as we passed through the variegated light. It was his acceptance of me, of course, and it was my assurance that I’d been right about nature and how it might open us both up, though we still had work to do together.
To the Ojibwe and other Native People it was New Years Day, a new beginning, and it should have been for me
Throughout dinner he held a shy, little boy demeanor, as shy as I felt with other people sitting around us. We held hands. That helped.
Once back home I found the citation: Valhalla is the mythological ‘hall of the slain’ for half of those who die in combat and go with the god, Odin. The other half, chosen first by Freyja, goes to her ‘meadow of death.’ All prepare to be reborn for the next war.
CHAPTER SIX
Harold’s introversion didn’t discourage me. It challenged me. And I had so much to learn from him. Like any good scientist I explored his patterns.
He lingered as he turned pages, running his fingers back and forth along the paper, sometimes testing the edges. His hands trailed lightly along walls as we walked. He repeatedly smoothed his napkin. Measuring his experience with his fingers, at least that’s what I thought. I could understand that, like the prophetic feelings in my chest. ‘Psychometry’ is what they’d called it in my encyclopedia, the ability to obtain information about a person or an event by touching an object. But it was an old encyclopedia. There might be more recent scientific explanations.
“Do you like to swim?” The research paper slipped off my lap. I’d lost my place. I left it.
“Not really.” He was in Martin Chuzzlewit, distracted and not looking at me.
I imagined myself sneaking out of the farmhouse at thirteen, stripping off my clothes and slipping naked past the tall reeds into a small pond, the cold April water stoking my flesh to life. For the first- but not the last time. Would he respond to nature like I did, would he open up?
“Do you?” he asked. He closed the book, index finger keeping his spot.
“Hmm, I do. Very much.” I couldn’t tell him that the waters —swimming completely exposed in those lakes and ponds— were imagined lovers, the only ones safe enough to imagine. Or that once I entered them, I investigated each with abandon; that they never disappointed me with their touch. That I remember the name of every one —Kingdom, Balm, White Fish, Medicine and others— and of most of the birds and animals that watched my nakedness.
“Well, maybe I’ll take you swimming someday,” he said.
“Yes, that would be nice.” I could see he wanted to return to his Dickens. I wanted to know why , why that was more important than exploring us and exposing us to new things.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
His lips barely moved. “I’m here. I’m gathering, gathering information.” A hint of delight.
He took my hand. In a moment he pulled me fully to him, untucked my blouse and drew his hands along my naked neck and back. I didn’t resist.
He’s teaching me , in his own way . I breathed heavy, but it was different than in the hockey rink, without fear. It was like gliding through the insatiable water. I couldn’t explain it, but the exploration was always new, always exquisite. He unhooked and removed my bra.
***
On May 17, a few weeks after the Native People harvested their sugar maple, on an unusually warm, hypnotizing day along the shores of Kabekona Bay in the Paul Bunyan Forest where we courted and first consummated our relationship, Harold Cloonis proposed to me. I wasn’t completely surprised. But the greens were greener, the sky bluer than I’d ever seen it, and the sun seemed to catch me and massage me at just the right times as we passed through the variegated light. It was his acceptance of me, of course, and it was my assurance that I’d been right about nature and how it might open us both up, though we still had work to do together.
To the Ojibwe and other Native People it was New Years Day, a new beginning, and it should have been for me
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