Crawling Beast
/Juno Wolfe
At first, Mary Fisher thought it was a person.
They got all sorts out behind the Fisher house—vagrants and peddlers camping out on their way to Jackson. Mary would snicker as she watched them struggle to find a solid patch of wetland, but once they started a fire she would head out with an apron full of Mama's snap peas and conversation.
In this way, she had once met a traveling musician who let her hold his trumpet. It was gold, which Mary thought must have been expensive. After he'd shown her how to pucker her lips, she'd made a great ugly sound that echoed over the swamp like thunder.
All of this, though, was before Mary had been banned from playing in the bogs. And talking to strangers. And everything else she liked.
"You're starting to reach that age," Mama said gravely whenever Mary brought up the new, horrid rules. "You don't want people to get the wrong idea." What exactly that age was Mama wouldn't say. Privately, Mary hoped she never reached it.
So, when Mary first saw the bit of leg and tuft of yellow hair that stuck out from the foxtail, she didn't bring whoever it was any snap peas—an act of self-restraint that should have earned her some sort of medal.
The day after was more difficult. See, the leg hadn't moved at all. Every person Mary had seen in her thirteen years of life—whether they were a vagrant, a peddler, or a musician with a nice trumpet—moved every once in a while, even if they were having a deep sleep.
Mary puzzled over this. She could ask Mama about the person who didn't move but if she did it would set off all sorts of Mama-Alarms. Mama-Alarms that would make it much more difficult if Mary decided that, in the interest of public good, she needed to break some rules.
In the end, she asked.
After a bit of pointing and explaining, Mama put on her adult face and told Mary that she must not, under any circumstances, go out to look at the thing in the swamp.
Mary knew then exactly what was going to happen. She was obsessed with anything that could garner her mother's adult face.
The next morning Mary scrambled out of bed well before Mama and pulled on her pinafore and stockings in the dark. She left the house the minute the Fisher's one-eyed rooster crowed.
The dimness of early morning sat oddly on the swamp. Small bunches of leafy scrubs crowded around swaths of grasses and stretches of blue-black water, apprehensive. In the middle distance Mary caught the slick movement of a gator striking its prey. She looked hard to find the right bunch of foxtails, until at last she caught a flash of pale leg. The plants around it were bristled and thick. Mary balanced herself over the muck to part them, sludge sinking deliciously into the toes of her stockings.
It was then that Mary Fisher looked for the first time upon The Body.
She was laid out flat on her back in the mud, limbs jumbled and bent at odd angles. Overall, The Body looked a lot like a girl—which is why Mary had mistaken her for a person in the first place. She had all the right parts (arms, legs, feet), and, though there was a mass of thin yellow hair obstructing her face, when Mary crouched down and squinted she could see the telltale outlines of a mouth and a nose. The Body wasn't a girl though, Mary knew, because she didn't breathe.
Hesitantly, Mary reached out to smooth the hair from The Body's face. It was stiff under her fingers but parted to reveal The Body's eyes.
They were huge and bug-like, which Mary liked, but…
Mary had seen dead things before. She'd even killed a few chickens—thank you very much—so she recognized the slack in The Body's pale blue eyes. The emptiness. She also knew, though, that dead things weren't meant to blink.
The Body blinked.
Mary recoiled, falling flat on her behind in the muck. She felt a shell dig into her thigh. The Body followed Mary with her eyes but did not sit up.
"Hello?" Mary said. Her voice fell hushed over the brightening bog. The Body did not respond. "Are you okay? I thought you were dead."
The idea seemed newly funny to Mary. She laughed and crawled closer to the form in the foxtails, careful not to track any mud onto The Body's dress. It was a fancy dress—the kind you had to wear with a bustle pad—and Mary didn't want to ruin it.
She offered The Body her hand. In shaking bursts of movement, like a poorly strung marionette, The Body accepted it and pulled herself up. Mary found that their faces had come very close together. She could smell, from The Body's unbreathing mouth, the faint scent of earth and rot—gentle as fungus. She could also see, now that The Body was on her level, that she looked not just like a girl but an older girl; sixteen or seventeen.
This was exciting to Mary, who was just as obsessed with older girls as she was with her mother's adult face.
"What's your name?"
The Body did not respond. Instead, she reached out a hand to touch Mary's cheekbone. Her hand was cold and wet. Mary felt her face heat up but she didn’t pull away.
The Body dragged her fingers in jagged bursts toward Mary's mouth. The gesture pulled at Mary's skin, making her face sit wrong on her skull. She was acutely aware of the dirt under The Body's nails, the sprouts of fungus on her knuckles.
When The Body's fingers finally found purchase on Mary's lips, Mary half expected her to plunge them inside. Instead, The Body tapped twice and then reached for her own throat—tapping twice there as well.
"You can't talk?"
The Body nodded.
"That's okay," Mary decided. Mama said strange folk ought to stick together. The dimness of early morning began to fade as the sun rose. Soon, it would be hot enough to drench the back of Mary's pinafore. "Do you want to stay out here or—?"
The Body lurched forward and grabbed at the collar of Mary's dress. Her face, up to this point a placid mask, split into ugly creases of terror. This performance sparked in Mary a flare of possessive pleasure; she had only suggested staying as a precursor to inviting The Body to the schoolhouse, which she did then.
The Body nodded, receding into her eerie calm.
"The only thing is," Mary said, abruptly bashful, "you can't wear a dress like that to school. You'll look uppity."
The Body nodded again. Stared at Mary with her great big eyes.
After a moment of consideration, Mary said, "The skirt bit should be alright. You do have a chemise, haven't you?" Another nod. Mary reached to unbutton the neck of the dress. The only other bustle dress she'd seen up close was Mama's church dress, which was actually two pieces held together with hooks and lacing. If Mary could disconnect the top of The Body's dress, it would look like she was wearing a white blouse and skirt—like all the other older girls at school.
The Body put her cool hands over Mary's warm ones. With a start, Mary remembered it was rude to take another girl's clothes off. She supposed that applied to The Body too, even if she wasn't exactly a girl. Mary’s ears went scarlet, but she resisted the urge to hide them under her hands—that was kiddy stuff.
"Sorry," she said. The Body stared at her. She nodded and freed the girl's hands.
Mary took the cue. She was pleased to find that the coat did connect with hooks, and, with a few deft movements, she produced a high-necked chemise. It was a pale cream white and, in the blooming sunlight, became at once transparent and concealing. Fog over the bog.
Mary looked for a long moment at the chemise—the way it hugged The Body's shoulders. The Body's shoulders themselves. Part of her fascination with older girls had always been their bodies: the way they curved and flattened and moved. Mary didn't like to look at the bodies of real girls though, like Amy or Ruth. They always noticed. Always. Worse still, all they needed to do was squint their eyes and Mary would be clapping her hands over her ears and burning.
Looking at The Body was easier, especially because she looked back. Her buggy un-squinted eyes cataloged Mary's face. Under that gaze, Mary understood for the first time how it was that Amy and Ruth always noticed her attentions. How different it was to be looked at that way. Consciously. Purposefully. She was sure she felt differently than they did, though.
Mary looked her fill at The Body's shoulders and neck and chest, unspeaking. She made a map of The Body's freckles, her scars, the areas of her rotting flesh that had already flaked away. Most captivating was the smattering of pink-purple patches poking out from The Body's collar. They made her flesh into swamp mallow. Delicate and rouged.
Mary placed her fingers at the collar of the chemise, and, not wanting to break this reverie of looking, tapped twice. The Body smiled sadly. It was an empty expression—as if invisible hands had pushed and pulled at her face to tweak it out. Mary pulled away as The Body began to unbutton the collar herself. Just two buttons. Enough to see a sliver of clavicle, a flash of sternum, and all of The Body's bruising.
Up close Mary could tell the bruise was a handprint, rendered in fleshy yellow and green. The hand was long and wide, big enough to enclose The Body's whole neck. When Mary laid her palm over the mark, her own hand seemed tiny and doll-like by comparison. The Body stayed cool and still under her touch, so unlike the fluttering heat of a living girl's neck.
"Does it hurt?" Mary asked, almost sotto voce. The Body nodded and kissed the top of Mary's head. As The Body buttoned back up the chemise, Mary turned to her with a more critical eye. She felt that she needed to create a full inventory of abuses. A record of The Body's indignities so Mary could make sure they never happened again. Or, at least, so that she could lay a hand on them and be kissed on the head.
Apart from the bruising, she noticed shredding on the edges of The Body's skirt and, where it had been rucked up, long, red scratches on the insides of The Body's thighs. Before she could prod at these, though, she heard the faraway ringing of the schoolhouse bell.
Mary stood up like a shot, suddenly aware of the stodgy peat clinging to both of their clothes. The Body stood too, in her own shambling way. Mary swiftly brushed her off with an open palm, then herself. It was raggedy but decent work.
"We'll have to hurry. Is that all right?"
The Body nodded.
The schoolhouse consisted of one squat room with a steepled roof and bell that were far too heavy for its aging walls. It almost seemed to bend under their weight, white slat walls curving and cracking. As they approached, Mary could hear the sounds of Teacher starting class inside. Mary spent a few seconds showing The Body how to lay her feet quietly and then they crept through the entrance toward a pair of unoccupied desks.
“Hello, Mary,” said Teacher. Her voice was pointed, almost sharp. “Who is your friend?”
Mary balked. In the corner of the room, she could see Ruth and Amy burst into a fit of silent giggles. She felt her face get hot.
“Hello, Teacher,” chorused Mary. Her voice came out just a bit too sing-songy, an echo of the call-and-response Teacher had taught them to begin the school day. Mary glanced at The Body to see if she had noticed. The Body stared sightlessly at the chalkboard. “This is The Body. She wants to come to school.”
Teacher looked over The Body, eyes squinted. She twisted her mouth in the funny lopsided way she did whenever someone got a question wrong. Mary felt her stomach turn.
“Well,” Teacher began. Then, she said a word that almost sounded like The Body but was not. She directed her mouth and her face and this word at The Body, as if it was her name. This struck Mary as extremely wrong, but everyone knows you don’t correct Teacher. Besides, Teacher pulled up a seat for The Body and let her stay, which was what Mary wanted most.
The lesson was mathematics. Teacher gave everyone slates and wrote problems on the blackboard. Mary hated math but started to work the problems anyway. Three times three was three, three times. She tapped her fingers on the desk to help count it out. It was less obvious than holding them up.
“Psst,” came a hiss from behind.
Mary turned. It was Ruth, but she wasn’t talking to Mary.
“How old are you?” Ruth asked. Her attention was focused entirely on The Body. Mary felt herself being dismissed from the conversation before it even began.
“Eyes on your own slates please,” said Teacher widely. She was walking slow circles around the room, stopping to check the occasional slate as she went.
Mary turned around and made a half-hearted effort to scribble some answers. The Body, who had sat skewed in her chair to begin with, did not have to turn to see Ruth. Slowly, she looked the real girl up and down. Ruth, who would usually preen under such attention, grimaced. Mary felt a twist of jealousy.
The Body pointed at Ruth. She held up one finger. Then—waveringly—two.
Ruth, silenced by Teacher’s ambling rounds, pulled a face. The Body pointed again. Held up two fingers. They repeated this cycle until Ruth let out a ragged gasp of frustration.
“Yes, Ruth?” said Teacher. She was already striding over, hands on her hips.
Ruth blanched, tossing an ugly look at The Body.
“I was just trying to ask her how old she was but she wouldn’t answer me. All she does is point.” Ruth said this derisively, as though The Body was trying to be difficult. Mary—who by this point had turned fully back around—raised her hand.
“Yes, go ahead,” sighed Teacher.
“The Body can’t talk but she told you how old she was.”
Ruth rolled her eyes.
“You weren’t even watching, Mary.”
“She’s saying she’s your age,” Mary pointed at Ruth, “plus two.” She flashed two fingers.
“Is that right, The Body?” Teacher asked. (Only she didn’t say The Body. She said the other word that Mary didn’t like.)
The Body nodded. She placed a clammy hand on Mary’s shoulder. It felt heavy but good-heavy, like having a big dog in your lap. Ruth squinted and looked again at Mary. Really looked at Mary. Looked at her the same way she looked at Teacher or Amy or The Body.
Before Mary could enjoy this development, she caught sight of Teacher. The older woman was frowning deeply, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. It made her look like an angry fish. Then, in a flash, the expression smoothed out. Teacher had put on her adult face.
“Has your friend ever spoken, Mary?” Mary hesitated, on high alert.
“I haven’t heard her say anything,” she confessed. Teacher nodded. Her face didn’t clear. Was it that bad that The Body couldn’t talk? “We only met this morning,” Mary offered. “Maybe she just doesn’t want to right now.”
“That’s okay, Mary,” Teacher said. “Let’s talk after class.”
Mary laid out Mama's quilt. On the floor, it looked threadbare in a way it never did on Mary's bed or the porch chair. Even if The Body could stay, Mary reasoned, it wouldn't work out. They didn't have the space.
She knew, naturally, that this was more of an echo of Mama and Teacher's lectures than any true Mary-feeling. True Mary-feeling whined that she and The Body could both sleep in her bed. It wouldn't be that out of the ordinary. Amy shared a bed with her sisters and though The Body was not Mary's sister (the idea alone made her strangely uneasy), she figured the same principles ought to apply.
The Body came in from the living room, trailed by Mama. She had been cleaned up—her nails excavated, hair brushed out—and given a simple cotton nightgown to sleep in. Mama gestured tersely at the quilt.
"I’m just in the next room," Mama said as she closed the door. She was doing a very good job of putting on her adult face but Mary could tell she was afraid of The Body—especially her bruises. Mama had suggested that The Body sleep out on the porch or, when that had gone poorly, in the kitchen. Mary refused. She didn’t have to start being pansy about the body just because everyone else was.
It was all Teacher’s fault. She was the one who had said that The Body might be dangerous. That she might be a TRAMP or a CRIMINAL. That was why everyone was afraid. If Mary had just brought The Body to Mama immediately, she would have understood. Mary knew she would have. She might even have forgiven Mary for breaking her rules.
“I don’t like that you disobeyed me,” Mama had said. They had been washing The Body’s hair. Mama scrubbed while Mary sat on the floor, tending the squat stove heater. “I make rules to keep you safe.”
“The Body is safe,” Mary had whined. She pulled at her arms, trying to stifle her agitation. The Body watched Mary over Mama’s shoulder. Her face was grave. “She’s not bad. Look at her!”
Mama paused, sighed heavily and—perhaps realizing that the conversation would not move otherwise—turned toward The Body. She looked pointedly at first, eyebrows raised, but the expression faded.
Clouded.
Mama had gone to lie down in her room after that. Mary finished washing The Body’s hair.
That was how she knew Mama understood.
The Body laid back on the quilt. She crossed her hands over her chest like a corpse and stared at the ceiling. Mary giggled and laid down next to her.
Down among the dust and spider webs that clung to the Fisher’s floors, The Body smiled her strange smile. It was gentler than it had been before. Mary had noticed that she seemed to be curbing most of her gestures, slowing down.
“Do you want me to read you a book? I have a couple to choose from,” Mary said. Her whispered voice was soft in the hum of the floridan bog and when The Body did not sit up Mary worried that she hadn’t heard her.
Before she could ask again, The Body tipped her head to rest against Mary's shoulder. She didn’t get the placement exactly right and Mary could feel the unmistakable curve of a chin jutting into her neck. It was still nice.
Too soon, the unmistakable sound of laughter came floating through the window—followed by the hollow thunk of someone tapping on the glass.
When Mary peered out she saw Amy and Ruth, both in their nightgowns, snickering and clutching a bottle of orange-brown liquid between them. They waved up at her and then towards themselves, beckoning her outside.
"Come on," Mary hissed to The Body. "We're going somewhere."
The arrival of The Body started a new round of waves and smiles in the older girls which she answered with a vacant, bug-eyed stare.
"We're having a Bacchanalia in the bog," Ruth said smartly. Mary, who did not know what a Bacchanalia was, sagged. "We thought you should come since…" Ruth gestured widely at The Body, "she's leaving tomorrow."
The Body held her hand out and Amy passed her the bottle. The Body took a long pull before passing it to Mary. This seemed to Mary like a very grown-up way to respond to the invitation so she said nothing and took a long pull as well.
At least she tried to, whatever Amy had put inside was rank and stung her throat like nettle. She got down about half before she had to spit. Ruth and Amy burst into fits of stifled laughter.
"Don't drink any of that," Mary advised gravely. She figured The Body had been able to stomach it because she was a bit rotten herself but it clearly was not meant for real girls. This comment only inflamed the laughter.
"It's alcohol," Amy said. "It always tastes nasty."
"Oh," Mary said.
"Oh," Ruth agreed. She waggled her eyebrows. "Let's go."
The older girls led Mary and The Body out into the bog, to a clearing Mary had never seen before. There were a few other girls, old enough to have already finished school, framed by strips of sheets and lit by the soft gold light of tallow candles. One girl had a mandolin perched on her bony hip.
When the crowd saw Amy and Ruth they lit up, clamoring for a swig of alcohol. Mary felt subsumed by their ease. She also felt a bit swollen and warm, like her brain had been left out on a muggy day.
Mary sat with the crowd. She didn't speak, in part because she suspected it would cause a new round of laughter and in part because she enjoyed simply watching and listening. Many of the girls were practicing a jittery dance to the mandolin music. With each hop and kick petals rained from their hair. It was the second most beautiful thing Mary had ever seen.
Eventually, Mary realized The Body was not with her. She scanned the clearing. Her heart seemed too loud. The tallow was burning lower. Maybe that was why she couldn’t see The Body. Maybe as the light had dimmed she’d found herself lost in the dark. Mary pictured The Body alone in the bog. It made her very afraid.
She jolted up on shaky legs. Amy said something about water but Mary ignored her. Instead, she began to circle the edge of the Bacchanalia peering ravenously into the night.
With each second she did not find The Body her breath came thinner. How could she have done this? She had abandoned The Body, lost sight of her during their last hours together.
Mary wondered absently if she was going to vomit.
And then, as one of the dying candles spat a jet of flame Mary caught sight of something gold in the forest. The Body’s hair.
She was standing a few feet from the edge of the clearing, looking out over the expanse of the bog. Mary felt tears prickle at the edges of her eyes, though she wasn't sure why. The Body turned to face her, eyes almost seeming to glow. Mary was unpleasantly reminded of a gator.
The Body tapped her own chest twice. Her hands were syrupy-slow.
"Your heart?" Mary asked. "Are you okay? I think the alcohol made me sick, too."
The Body shook her head and took two painstaking steps towards Mary, closing the gap between them. Mary could see her legs shaking under the nightgown. For one crazed moment, Mary felt afraid. Then The Body tapped Mary's chest with the same good-heaviness.
"My heart," Mary said. The Body nodded. "Your heart, my heart?" She nodded again. "I don't understand," Mary said. She could feel something rising, some big adult-face feeling that she wasn't sure she could handle. It felt like a summer storm. "I don't understand," she said again. This time there were hot tears racing down her face. Her nose dribbled. She felt like a baby.
The Body just smiled her sad, strange smile and began to walk away.
"No," Mary pleaded. "Please don't, please." She ran to stand in front of The Body, blocking her exit. "No."
The Body stopped. Mary recognized it as a momentary kindness, not a concession. The Body had to go. She wasn't a girl, wasn't even a person, and there was no room for her here. Instead of begging, Mary stepped very close. She breathed in the scent of rot and flowers and mud from The Body's mouth. She pressed it against her own.
It was cold and wet. Mary felt some deep animal part of herself calm. Her tears eased. The Body did not move to deepen the kiss but she also did not move back. When Mary finally pulled away, The Body brushed her fingers against her cheek. She turned to leave.
Mary let her.
Wolfe is a rising senior at the University of Southern California, pursuing a dual degree in History & Narrative Studies. They primarily write speculative fiction with a particular focus on historical horror. In their free time, Wolfe enjoys hiking, illustrating, and collecting porcelain clown dolls. This is their first time being published and they are eternally grateful to the Roanoke Review for this opportunity.
