Sourmouth (23 page)

             
She scoffed, stepping up beside her husband and prying open the book.

             
“Things keep getting weirder,” she said with her eyes in the pages.

             
“And yet we want to throw lemons at the hornet’s nest”.

             
“Lemons?”

             
“Yeah, have you ever tried to throw a handful of noodles?”

             
Violet just shook her head at her husband, the man that couldn’t take a brain
tumor seriously. She flipped through the book, page after page, touching the
corners ever so slightly and only enough to turn them over. She had always been
fascinated by languages but absolutely no good with them. As she pondered the
writing scribbled across the pages she wished more than anything that she could
know what they meant.

             
“What is it that we’re doing with the book?” he asked as he rocked back and
forth on the heels of his feet, trying to hold back his desire to keep running
his hands over the tepid glass.  

             
“I’ve got no idea. Even if I could understand what this all says, I could just
be reading it a bed time story”.

             
“What would you read an olden wolf warrior of the gods?”

             
“The Three Little Pigs?”

             
Riley cut his wife a look of near disdain.

             
“I’m glad you got over your fear of it this quickly”.

             
She smirked, “It’s easier to be a smartass. It’s a bit tiring to be afraid all
the time. So I’ve made a choice”.
             

             
Riley nodded in approval as he put his arm around her shoulders. He didn’t say
it out loud but he was proud of her for trying so hard to make it work even if
it was all just a facade.

             
“Unless you’ve been studying native languages while I’ve been in the toilet I’m
going to have to call tonight a bust. If
Sourmouth
doesn’t want to be found it doesn’t look like he’s going to be,” Riley said,
turning his back and heading towards the door.

             
Violet whined as she closed the book with a thump, the heavy covers slamming
together like a clamp. Reluctantly she followed her husband into the hall,
periodically looking at the door to the master bedroom behind them.

             
The
Tylers
dolefully descended the stairs into the
living room. Both confused by their own emotions, as they were simultaneously
disappointed and pleased that they hadn’t been able to confront the creature in
the mirror.

             
Riley threw himself onto the couch shoulder first, the momentum skidding it
forward across the floor about an inch.

             
Violet tossed the book onto her husband’s side and took her own seat on the
edge of the backrest, her hands propping her torso up on her knees. Out of
reflex she attempted to check the clock and realized that it obviously still
wasn’t working. But since she wasn’t blind she could see that it was pitch
black outside the window and that meant night.

             
Only when Violet focused her eyes could see it. In the grime encrusted window
pane rested the faintest reflection of
Sourmouth
. Its
upper body overflowed in the window frame, only its head and torso fitting in
its casing, its proximity exceedingly close on the other side of the glass.

             
“...Riley...” she murmured, her hand running blindly behind her until she came
into contact with her husband’s back who was still laying on his stomach on the
couch.              

             
“What?” he muttered into the thick cushion underneath his head.

             
“We’ve got a visitor,” said Violet softly.

             
He sat up, twisting his body to look around the room. Riley’s eyes scanned from
the front door to the reading room, to the stairs to the kitchen without
spotting it. He was almost ready to call his wife’s bluff when the glow of
vivid yellow eyes caught his attention. Riley warily slipped off of the sofa,
making sure that he never took his gaze off the wolf’s reflection in case it decided
to leave again.

             
Sourmouth
stood confidently as it watched the
Tylers
from the safety of its pane. The creature was no
longer cast in the cloak of shadow but instead appeared fully exposed in its
reflection. The dry and rigid grey skin had become healthy and smooth,
glistening with beading sweat. Its thick blue veins seemed to pulsate
underneath its hide, seemingly connecting the many disjointed bones to its
body. The head was now more wholly formed, its structure elongated like that of
a canine.
Sourmouth’s
face was shaped like a cross
between that of a man’s and the muzzle of a dog’s with its brittle skin
appearing as if it had melted over its mouth to hide its teeth and tongue
behind gobs of dangling flesh.

             
“It moved,” Violet said needlessly.

             
“I know,” Riley responded.

             
“I want it to go back upstairs”.

             
“I know”.

             
‘This is fucked up”.

             
“I know”. 
             

             
Riley was the first to step forward, his head hung low as if he was trying to
sneak up and scare the creature from behind.
Sourmouth
hadn’t moved from its position, but its head nodded upwards so delicately that
it was barely perceptible. It seemed to be trying to sniff Riley’s scent.

He knelt down and reached out to touch his fingers to
the glass. The pane was hot to the touch, far exceeding the warm temperature of
the mirror upstairs.

             
Sourmouth
stretched out its hand towards its side of
the glass, mimicking Riley’s movement. The animal grazed the surface of the
window with the tip of its finger, creating an audible screech. Its eyes darted
back from its nail to Riley, anxiously problem-solving in its head.

             
“What do you think
it’s
doing?” Violet asked from
behind, watching it around her husband’s shoulder.

             
“If I were to guess it’s trying to find a way out. It’s testing its
limitations”.

             
Sourmouth
stepped forward within its space, examining
the frame of whatever was on its side. The creature bent at the waist and
seemed to be bracing itself. What little that could be read from its body
language pointed to it being primed to charge forward.  

             
Violet seized her husband by the hand and yanked him backwards, seeing that the
animal was readying itself.

             
Sourmouth
jogged forward with its head bowed. It
collided with the windowpane shoulder first, the glass quivering under the beast’s
weight. But it didn’t budge further than a strong vibration. Not a crack in the
glass or the frame could be found. The thing stepped back, its head ticking
side-to-side as if it was confused as to why its hasty exit strategy hadn’t
worked.

             
The
Tylers
stepped up against the glass, more poised
than they were before knowing that they were safe from its grasp.

             
“Was it a little bit harder than you had anticipated? Though I admired the
effort,” Riley nervously teased with a stressed laugh. He knew that it wasn’t a
good idea to goad predatory animals in general, but figuring that it was locked
safely away he could get away with finding out how well they could communicate
with one another. 

             
But it paid no attention to him. The beast breathed in deeply as if trying to
calm itself down, but minus that it failed to even react. It still seemed to be
lost in its effort to envision its next steps.

             
The lack of feedback actually annoyed Riley, who was still caught up on the
concept of being able to interact with it. How would they engage the wolf if it
didn’t bother to pay attention to them?

             
“Eh,
Sourmouth
!” Riley yelled harshly as he knocked
his knuckles against the glass, the banging echoing throughout the otherwise
silent house.

             
Sourmouth’s
body convulsed like it had been
electrified in the stomach at the mention of its name. Its face skewed to the
side, turning its head back and forth as if it didn’t want to look the
Tylers
straight on. Slowly the wolf’s jaw began to open.
The rigid skin around its mouth cracked and crumbled off as it flexed, blood
oozing from the creases of the fresh wounds. Underneath the newly formed
exposure the creature’s teeth could be seen. They sat in double rows closely
bunched together, the ones in the back small and sharp like jagged stones; the
front teeth were large and hooked at the tip. Out of the fissures of its mouth
spilled a thick stream of drool as the muscles in its face contracted backwards
to its temple.

Sourmouth
was smiling.

             
All it took was that creepy grin to send shivers down Violet’s spine. She
didn’t know what it was so happy about, but she knew that it didn’t bode well
for them. And if she let her husband continue as he was, they were more than
likely going to end up on the wrong side of the situation. On wobbling legs she
walked up and past her husband, grabbing the heavy curtain and swinging it over
the window, hiding the wolf’s reflection behind it.

             
“What the hell, Violet?” he demanded angrily as he trod forward to open the
curtain back again.

             
She aggressively pushed her husband backwards on the chest, preventing him from
getting close to
Sourmouth
again.

             
“No! This isn’t what we agreed on. You’re taunting it and that’s not in the
fucking plan”.

             
“We agreed to experiment with it. And that animal isn’t responding so I need to
provoke it a little. Otherwise we aren’t going to get anything out of it”.

             
“What do you mean it’s not responding? It mimics our movements! It plays with
the glass! What more do you want from it? A wave and a hello?”

             
Riley prepared himself to reply but found himself at a loss for a meaningful
comeback.

             
“I...actually don’t know what I was expecting. It was tense. Things are tense.
It didn’t respond and...I don’t know...”

             
Violet watched as her husband seemed to deflate, his eyes still staring a hole
into the curtain as if he could still see
Sourmouth
behind it.

             
“Why is it responding so important to you? It’s still here and we’re still
researching it. There isn’t a rush”.

             
“I guess, if it can understand us and respond when we speak to it...it can be
rationalized with. It can be controlled, like how
Poyam
might have been able to do. If it’s intelligent, it’s not just an animal that
might bite our throats out”.

             
Violet got closer to her husband and put an arm around his waist, hugging
herself against his chest, “You’re scared...”

             
She said it in a way that wasn’t a statement. Violet meant to let her husband
know that she knew how he felt and he didn’t need to hide it from her.

             
But in spite his feelings being laid bare, Riley still couldn’t find the nerve
to admit it out loud.

             
“What am I, and what am I not allowed to do?” he asked.

             
“Don’t be passive-aggressive,” his wife said against his body.

             
“I’m trying not to be. I’m just unclear as to what is going to make you upset”.

             
Violet pulled her head back and looked upwards at her husband’s face, which was
still focused on the window area ahead.

             
“You can avoid upsetting me by not doing whatever upsets that thing”.

             
Riley groaned and walked towards the couch, hurling himself over and onto the
cushions with his hands over his head.

             
“Have you just given up?” Violet inquired as she leaned over the backrest, once
checking towards the window behind her to ensure nothing was peeking out.

             
He just sighed, his agonized sounds muffled by his forearms.

             
“Fine. You do whatever it is that you’re doing and I’m going to go to the bathroom”.

             
He just responded with a mumble.

             
Violet climbed up the creaky stairs to the second floor, her groggy feet
trudging past the backwoods rocking chair and
Poyam’s
appalling room. It must have just been her nerves, but she felt even more
uncomfortable upstairs than she had ever felt before. Perhaps it was the fact
that she was isolated, but she couldn’t shake the notion that she was unsafe.
She considered calling after her husband, but knew that in his current state
he’d only get upset at her for raising the alarms over a few goose bumps.