The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Joyce leaned forward while Jim reached out to light her cigarette. She took a deep inhale and exhaled while he lit his own. He looked different from any Strauss she had ever seen, Marabeth included. In the house full of brown haired and often brown or blue eyed people sat this golden haired man, eyes a warm blue blinking behind his stylish glasses. He was not as tall as Kris. Or tall as that silly Myron for that matter. He seemed perfectly proportioned, and as he took another inhale of his cigarette, smoke trailed out of his nose.

She looked around and said, “This is one hell of a room.”

“The library,” Jim said, looking around at the high bookshelves and the heavy dark curtains reaching to high ceilings.

“Though what it’s always been called is the smoking room, especially since Aunt Becca would always tell us not to smoke in here.”

“Marabeth’s mom is your aunt?”

“Right,” Jim said. “Or, technically, Marabeth’s dad, Uncle Nate is my uncle.”

The extrovert turned inward for a moment and Joyce did not press it. Marabeth’s father had been missing for more than a year, and he had had issues before that.

“He was the closest thing I had to a dad,” Jim said. “He wasn’t perfect. But he loved me. They took me in. Uncle Nate. Aunt Becca. After everything that happened to my mom.”

“You’re like a surrogate brother,” Joyce started, then said, “No, youare a surrogate brother.”

Jim shrugged, looking suddenly shy. Then he said, “How long have you been friends with Mara?”

“Since college.”

“I’ve never met you.”

“No,” Joyce said. She was about to add, “I don’t think so,” but that sounded disingenuous.

“Yeah, Marabeth doesn’t really talk about me, I don’t guess.”

“In all fairness she’s really fucked up,” Joyce said, and Jim burst out laughing.

“No, I mean, she is. The only people I’ve ever met in her family are Kris—but that’s cause he’s always staying over with her—her parents a few times, and her grandmother—your grandmother too, I guess.’

“Yeah,” Jim said.

“So, how are all of you related?” Joyce asked. “I mean, it’s all of these people who are cousins and I don’t think Myron is your brother.”

“Myron is my cousin. He’s all of our cousins.”

“And there are these pictures on the wall. Like a real stately house.”

“It’s kind of a sad house.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Jim said.“This is the house where it all began.”

“That,” Joyce said, “is the most ominous thing I’ve heard all night.”

Jim sat up and took one last drag on his cigarette, then blew out his smoke saying, “Filthy!

“That,” Jim pointed to a large, dirty oil painting on the wall between the two curtained windows, “is the old man himself, Friederich Strauss. That’s my great grandfather. He’s everyone’s great grandfather.”

Joyce saw a severe looking man of silver grey hair and unbending demeanor in waistcoat and jacket, and Jim said, “He casts one long fucking shadow. That woman in the oval black and white photo who does not get her own oil painting is Katherine Strauss nee Dashbach. That was Friederich’s wife. Her children were Maris, Claire and James. Yes, that’s right, James. Maris is dead. They all are. She’s been gone a long time. She is Myron’s grandmother. Myron’s sister is Amy and his other brother is Eric. Aunt Claire had lots of kids too. They live all over here. All that group of the family. But they’re Kellers. Get this: Claire married into the Kellers too, and so all of her kids and grandkids, at least the men, are Kellers. Maris was the oldest and she always had a bone to pick about this fucking house not being theirs, but who wants it?”

Joyce looked around and thought she would want it, if she could get out of it whatever made the shadows in the high ceilings and dimmed the lights.

“And then, of course,” Jim continued, “there was James. James is my grandfather. He was Grandma’s love, but the way some people talk about it, maybe he was Grandma’s project. He seems like he was a lot of work. That must be where we get it from. Anyway, Grandma had three kids. Nathan, Mara and Kris’s dad, my dad Byron. And Kristin. But she died.”

They both jumped at the new noise, but it was only the heavy door opening, its friction against the carpet.

“Can we join you?” Marabeth asked, followed by Kris.

“Absolutely, Jim was just telling me about your family.”

“Oh,” Kris said, “Sorry.”

“Why?” Joyce asked.

“Our family’s weird,” Kris said, but Marabeth just took a cigarette from Jim and lit it for herself.

“I imagine all families are,” Joyce said. “But you have to remember, I never had a family. And that man keeps staring at me.”

“Oh,” Kris glowered, folding his arms over his chest, “Friederich will do that.”

“Did you know him?.”

“None of us did,” Kris said. “I think he was old when he came to America.”

“He looks like the man in my dreams,” Marabeth said. Then she added, “He isn’t. But he looks close to it, and ohhh!”

She turned to the empty fireplace Joyce and Jim sat flanking. Joyce looked up and said, “I didn’t even notice her. That painting.”

Over the mantel, directly across from Friederich, as if sharing the room with him, was a green gowned woman enthroned in a high backed chair, a fox stole about her neck. A cigarette holder was in her fingers like a scepter, or even like the wand of a wicked fairy, and wicked was the smile on her beautiful face, under her marcelled golden hair which resembled Jim’s just a little.

“Pamela,” Kris said.

“Who?”

“Aunt Pamela,” Kris said. “Never Auntie Pamela, never anything like that. She died when I was young. She was…”

“It was Pamela who was in my dream,” Marabeth realized. “Pamela Strauss.”

“But you didn’t tell me about her,” Joyce said, almost accusingly to Jim.

“Remember I said our great grandfather was not young when he came to America?” Jim asked.

“When Friederich came he did not come alone. He already had a daughter, almost fully grown. Great Aunt Pamela. They say Great grandfather was a monster, but if he was then she was the monstress.”

“The less said about her, the better,” Kris said.

But it stopped none of them from looking up at her portrait, and they were all a little relieved when the door opened and Rebecca Strauss entered the room saying, “Put out your cigarettes and air your dirty selves out. It’s time to head on over to Saint Ursula’s for midnight Mass.”