Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

HENOFER DISAPPEARED, GRUMBLING at Jedediah’s silence. He took his revenge by lurking in the woods for days afterward, spying and taking notes. As a prank he left a wolf’s skull behind—hardly more than the jawbone, really—on Jedediah’s granite ledge, facing the Holy Mountain. Why he had done it Jedediah would never know.

Perhaps God had used Henofer to send a message . . . ?

Jedediah contemplated the thing, which was bleached white, and oddly beautiful. He saw himself snatch it up and throw it off the edge of the mountain—but, later in the day, it was on the stone hearth before his fireplace.

Are you testing me? Jedediah whispered.

Outside the cabin spirits hummed in their nervous high-pitched manner. Jedediah was able to ignore them, as he ignored the girl’s fingers poking and prodding inside his trousers.

God? Are you testing me? Are you watching? he called aloud.

The jaws, the clean white-bleached jaws. Ravenous appetite: God’s.

Jedediah woke, startled. He had been dreaming of an angry man, a man shouting and waving his fists at God. But the man was himself: he had been shouting.

To do penance he slept outside for several nights, naked, on the granite ledge. Beneath the freezing winking stars. He brought the jawbone with him because it was a sign, it had to do with his sinfulness, though he did not understand it. Why am I here, what have I done, how have I displeased You? he pleaded. But there was no reply. The jawbone was silent.

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