Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama Page A

Nancy or a Lucy. She was doomed to be Susan. She was Marijn.

Chapter 17
    1873
    E ZRA PROPPED HIMSELF on his elbow in bed, facing his wife. The early-morning light filtered through the billowing curtains, and the sheets and duvet nested white and clean against her pale skin. She sighed deeply.
    “Syrenka,” he whispered.
    “You never told me how magnificent sleep is,” she murmured. Her breathing became regular and slow again.
    “Syrenka.”
    Her lips formed a tiny smile, but her eyes were still closed. “Sarah,” she corrected sleepily.
    He moved a strand of near-white hair off her bare shoulder and kissed her cool skin.
    “Forgive me,” he said, grinning, “for calling my lover’s name while in my wife’s bed.”
    She laughed quietly and opened her eyes. After knowing her more than a year, he was still elated by their shade of green, and by their liveliness. He leaned in and kissed her neck.
    He murmured, “It is rather a convenience that my lover and my wife are one and the same woman.”
    She ran her fingers through his hair. “… a woman named Sarah. It’s not safe to reveal anything from my past.”
    “How can you bear to lose such a beautiful name, in exchange for something so ordinary?” He kissed the palm of her hand.
    “It means nothing to me. Noo’kas renames us whenever she pleases, as frivolously as a man might change his necktie.”
    He kissed her lips. Her breath was cool and lightly sweet—not unlike a newly cut cucumber.
    “Where did you learn the word ‘frivolous,’ you brilliant creature?”
    “From the books you’ve given me,” she said. “Have I thanked you for them?”
    “Not today,” he said, kissing her again.
    “Today has only just begun,” she said. Then she lowered her voice. “Would you like to know what I find most useful about having legs?”
    “More than anyth—”
    Before he had finished his sentence, she pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him. She was still strong. She pinned him with her body and wrapped her legs around him. With her hands holding his arms to his sides and her hair streaming onto his face, she kissed his eyelids to make him shut his eyes, then the hollow of his cheek, and behind his ear.
    “Your legs are … useful,” Ezra conceded with a silly smile on his face. She kissed the space between his collarbones. She released his arms and he wrapped them tightly around her, pulling her close, free to participate.
    *   *   *
    On Sundays the housekeeper had the day off, and Sarah enjoyed cooking breakfast. She was happiest this way—completely at home, in Ezra’s home—in a featherweight negligee, with loosely braided hair and bare feet.
    She glanced over her shoulder. Ezra was watching her, leaning in the doorway with his journal under his arm. He smiled, and for the thousandth time she admired to herself the creases next to his eyes and the single tooth that was slightly awry.
    He said, “I’ve been thinking about what we discussed this morning in bed.”
    “Did we speak?”
    “Yes, well…” He blushed. “The few words between us stuck with me. When we talked about your name, you said it wasn’t safe to reveal anything from your past.”
    She put eggs and toast on a plate for him.
    He sat down and tossed the journal on the table. “By the same token, I think I should destroy this.”
    She scooped the book up. “But this holds months of work.”
    She leafed through it as he ate and came upon a page full of sketches of her tail. “The drawings are perfect in their detail, and yet rendered with such beauty. You have so many talents.” She put it down on the table, open. “We could keep it for ourselves, at the very least.”
    “If anyone happened to come across it, it would put you in danger.”
    “No one will connect me with the creatures in that book. Only a few drunken sailors even believe they exist. Humans see only what feels familiar to them. I’m Sarah now.”
    He had taken a large bite of toast, so