St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves Read Online Free Page A

So-and-so,
    come and walk with me….”
             
    On land, Ossie’s body looks like an unmade bed, lumpy and disheveled. But in the moonlight, my naked sister is lustrous, almost holy. This is a revelation to me, Ossie’s unclothed bulk, her breasts. My own chest is pancake-flat, and covered in tiny brown moles. All this time, my odd-waddling sister has been living in a mother’s body.
    And something is shifting, something is happening to Ossie’s skin. As she walks towards the water, flying sparks come shivering out of her hair, off of her shoulders, a miniature hailstorm. It’s the lizards! I realize. She is shaking them off in a scaly shower, flakes of living armor. The geckos fall from her arms, her breasts, they plink into the pond, her hissing, viscous diamonds. I watch, mesmerized. Soon, my sister is completely naked, her thighs ruffled red by the high, prickly grasses. I don’t have enough breath left to say a word. And then, still holding the last note of her spell, Ossie walks into the water.
    “Ossie, no!” Once I start screaming, I find that I can’t stop. But I don’t want to wade into the water until I can see exactly what morass I’m getting into. I feel around my overalls for the pocket flashlight, and find Seth’s eye instead, my lucky charm. With a biblical wail, I throw the eye at the back of her head.
    “Osceola!”
    This turns out to be a girly display of strength. The eye falls way short; it barely makes the pond. I picture Seth’s eye swirling down and settling in the red mud, its lidless gaze turned up towards Ossie as her legs twitch with the memory, the anticipation, of…what? I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. All I know for certain is that she’s leaving me.
    I wait for what feels like eons for Ossie to resurface, but the pond remains glassy and smooth, that same winking blankness of our mother’s mirror. Lily pads coagulate in blots of vapid light. Below the water, I sense more than see Ossie’s body, spiraling towards some mute blue crescendo.
    “Don’t you dare!” I yell at the pond. “Don’t you dare go any farther down there!” I charge into the water after her.
    I flail around in the shallows, black water pouring through my fingers, seeping into my eyes and mouth and ears, until finally my fingers brush skin. I seize Ossie’s shoulders and yank her up. The water buoys her huge body, and I swim with all my strength. No superhuman surge, or pony heroics; it’s just me at my most desperate. I splash towards the shore, making this anguished, honking noise, struggling to find purchase in the silty mud.
    “Ava?” Ossie sputters. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
    We fight each other with all the signature Bigtree moves—the whirligig, the chin thrust, the circumnavigator. Finally, with a triumphant howl, I manage to yank her onto the bank of the pond. I grab the fleshy pads of her feet, black as old orange peels, and try to drag her over a bed of rocks and sticks. Now Ossie is spitting up muck, and I can tell from her filmy, sightless rage that she is still possessed. A lily pad is pasted to her left cheek.
    In the process of pulling her out of the water, I’ve dug these little half-moons into Ossie’s arm. Tiny nicks, like the violet impact of kisses, or bruises. They are already darkening, and I watch, fascinated, as they swell into puffy white welts. As if something were still clawing at her from within, pushing outwards, a pressure that is trying to break the skin.

Haunting Olivia
    My brother Wallow has been kicking around Gannon’s Boat Graveyard for more than an hour, too embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t see any ghosts. Instead, he slaps at the ocean with jilted fury. Curse words come piping out of his snorkel. He keeps pausing to readjust the diabolical goggles.
    The diabolical goggles were designed for little girls. They are pink, with a floral snorkel attached to the side. They have scratchproof lenses and an adjustable band.