My father died last week. Although I’m brimming with a confusing amount of emotions, that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m not here to talk about my relationship with my father or who he was, but to tell his story. He left his estate to myself, as his only living child, and with this will he left a letter. I’m here to share that letter because quite frankly, I don’t know how to process it and I need a second, third and even fourth opinion on his words.

“My dear son,

If you are reading this then I am no longer with you. As far as my will is concerned, I’m sure that my lawyer has informed you of your inheritance, my entire estate. However, there was something that I couldn’t entrust to my lawyer, something that I should have told you about before now. To understand the entirety of your inheritance, I will need to explain some things to you and I ask that as you come to understand them, that you will forgive me and my choices.

Growing up, you were told that your grandmother died during childbirth, that isn’t exactly true. My mother wasn’t with us when I was a child, but she didn’t die. To understand the entire story you have to know a few things about your great grandparents, Patrick and Ellen (Patty and Elle to most.) Patty and Elle raised me as their own son, but before I was born they worked in a traveling carnival with my mother, Evelyn.

Of course I was not born when most of these events took place, so your great-grandmother’s word is all that I have to go by. I don’t know how much of this is true, and what has been enhanced by vivid imagination and too much whiskey, but the solemn tone in which these tales have been presented to me cause me to at least believe them to be half true.

Your great-grandfather, Patty was a magician, his wife Elle, his assistant. They toured with the carnival for years, as one of the more popular attractions. My mother Evelyn mostly took tickets and flirted with boys in the towns they traveled to, to get them to buy tickets, but occasionally she assisted with the attractions as well. She was the darling of the ensemble; guests, freaks and performers alike loved her. From what I’ve been told, not only was she beautiful, but charming and sweet, and a talented singer.

One day, when my mother was nearing twenty, she was found to be pregnant with me. My grandparents claim not to know who the father was, but I have my suspicions, based on the stories they’ve told me. They left one town and headed to another, if my biological father was left behind, it wasn’t made note of in our family history.

In this new town there was a local magician, his name was Alazar The Amazing. He had been doing shows at the local bars and pubs and festivals for ten years. He didn’t take well to my grandparents’ traveling act, even if they were only a small part of a much larger show. As word spread around town of their presence, Alazar grew angry. Several drinks into the night after they arrived, he headed to the circus tent to confront your great-grandfather Patty.

I don’t know all of the details of what transpired, but I know that Patty wasn’t much of a fighter. He was smart and cunning and talented, so he offered Alazar a sort of challenge. Both of them would perform their best trick, for the group of townspeople who had followed Alazar to the campground, and the winner would perform with the carnival until they left.

Alazar was reluctant to accept your grandfather’s offer, but his pride didn’t allow him to refuse. Your great-grandfather, an amazing magician, performed one of his best tricks. Nowadays, everyone knows the trick to sawing a woman in half, but at the time it was quite impressive. When grandma Elle stepped out of the box, unscathed, the crowd went wild.

Alazar claimed that he could perform a trick even more clever than that. Having no assistant present, he asked grandma Elle to fill in. Even though she had a negative opinion of the man, in the spirit of fairness she agreed. Alazar moved grandpa Patty’s box aside and had my grandmother lay flat on a table. Intoxicated and angry he stumbled towards the table with my grandfather’s saw and proceeded to saw away at my grandmother’s legs.

No one stopped him. The crowd, and my grandfather assumed that the cries of agony were part of the show, after all, she had seemed just as distraught as my grandfather sawed through the wooden partition in his magic box. The act was only stopped as my grandmother Elle, passed out as her blood spurted and ran across the table, her legs a mess of severed flesh and tissue.

Alazar, realizing what he’d done, fled, and the townspeople with him. No one called a doctor, some assuming her dead already, and others not caring about the fate of an unknown carnie. My grandfather wept over my grandmother’s body.

My grandmother, as I have been told, had an interesting childhood. Some of it is believable, other parts are not. I don’t have time to explain it all, a man knows when he is dying, and I fear that my time will come before I even finish writing this letter. If you’d like to know more, I’ve left your great-grandmother’s diary for you, it explains more than I ever could. What I will tell you, is that my grandmother had a relationship with those of whom we do not speak. She was loved by the good folk.

The good folk have many names, but I dare not repeat them here. I was told only to refer to them this way, and even if I’m not sure of what I believe, I dare not tempt them, knowing of even a little of their power. I understand what my grandparents believe of the good folk, although it took me many years to do so. What happened was nothing short of a miracle, no matter exactly what I believe.

As my grandmother laid out on the table, dying, my grandfather a mess of tears, mucus, and her blood, received a visit. They didn’t know who she was, or where she came from, but the woman who arrived was more air than flesh. She didn’t give her name and she refused to answer anything they asked her. She posed two questions to my grandfather. Did he want to save her? And what was he willing to give.

My grandfather answered. 

“Of course.” and “Anything.”

The woman only asked one more question, if he was certain in his choices.

My grandfather nodded, but she insisted that he verbally agree. He did, begging her to help him.

A goat stepped forward from behind the folds of the woman’s gown. She picked up and handed my grandfather the saw with which Alazar had mutilated my grandmother. He didn’t understand.

“You will remove the goat’s legs, like that butcher tried to do with your wife’s.” She said.

My grandfather looked at the woman with confusion, but he was a desperate man; he was willing to do whatever it took to save my grandmother. With shaking hands, he took the saw. The goat knelt before him, its eyes lowered to the ground. My grandfather took the saw and carved into the goat, it didn’t protest, nor did it move. The goat sat still and accepted its fate.

When the work was done my grandfather turned to the woman, holding the saw out for her. The woman shook her head and pointed at my grandmother.

“Now, you will finish removing your wife’s legs.”

He protested, explaining that he couldn’t possibly do that, but she insisted, explaining  that it was the only way to save his wife.  He resigned himself to his fate and stood next to my grandmother.

My grandfather only told me this story one time, I was barely a man when he did. We were at a bar, too far into our drinks for me to remember his exact words, but when he vomited, I wasn’t sure if it was from the beers or the memory.

The woman instructed him, and at this point he was past protest. He sewed the lower half of the goat, onto my grandmother’s upper half. She was human from the torso up, her legs that of a goat. My grandfather claimed that the woman bestowed him a gift that night, I wouldn’t call it that. Regardless of what I believe, my grandmother lived.

My grandfather promised that night to give whatever it took in return for his wife’s life. Nothing was taken at the time, but the night that I was born, the woman returned. My mother, laid out on the delivery table, my grandmother held her hand, my grandfather coaching the delivery when she arrived.

Mist rolled through the tent, a ray of light illuminating the sweat on my mother’s forehead. The woman told my grandfather that she was taking me with her. Of course he protested but she would hear nothing of it, after all he had said “anything.”

My grandmother begged with the woman, they spoke familiarly, as if they were cousins, grown up together but separated as adults. The woman was softened by her words but firm in her resolve to take me.

Finally my mother spoke up. 

“take me.” She groaned through labor pains.

The woman laughed. 

“And what could you offer that would be worth more than the innocence of a child.”

My mother, an amazing woman, in pain, who had been screaming moments beforehand, as she pushed me into the world, began to sing. 

Her voice rang out, the sun rising on a cold winter’s morning, sweeter than ice in the desert.  As soon as the umbilical cord was cut, the woman disappeared with my mother. 

From then on, I was raised by my grandparents.  I grew up in the carnival, only knowing that my mother was gone and not what had happened to her.  I never met the woman.

My grandmother only told me bits and pieces of the story, my grandfather told me even less, until he was dying. 

Over the course of the years he realized that he hadn’t just been given the ability to heal my grandmother, he’d been given a “gift.” When his brother came to him, his heart failing, he’d replaced it with a dog’s. When the strong man had his hand cut off by a man he’d owed money, he’d replaced it with a monkey’s fist. 

That’s how it started, fixing the sick and injured with animal parts, but over time curiosity took over.  I didn’t know about the others until he died.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t be like him.  That I wouldn’t wait until I was at death’s door to explain myself, like he did, yet here I am. 

When my grandfather died he left me a letter explaining everything.  We had left the carnival many years prior. He was a respectable man now.  He owned property and had invested wisely, although I hadn’t realized how he’d made his money. 

When the carnival was no longer profitable, he’d found other ways to make money.  Sometimes using his gift to save others lives, other times creating exotic pets or making creatures by request to appeal to men’s perversions.

When he died he left some of his failures to me. The creatures too ugly to live among men. He’d kept them, confined to the basement, his secret shame. I knew that I was never allowed in the basement, only when he died did I know why.

These creatures live full lives, longer than humans.  In fact, none of them had ever died. The only stipulation, he’d written, was that they’d need to be fed. If the creatures were not fed, they didn’t die, they just stopped being human, becoming the animal that sustained their life.  Beasts with human parts.

The guide my father left entailed their care, including their diet. At first I refused it, not having the stomach for what they required, but I couldn’t stand seeing them become what they did.  I especially couldn’t stand watching my grandmother (whom I’d believed long gone) become a beast. Eventually I gave in. 

For the last fifty years, I’ve cared for these creatures. Killing and feeding them the human flesh which they require to sustain their humanity, but now I’m dying. 

I know that I can’t ask of you what my grandfather asked of me. I won’t have you living the secret life that I did, hunting and killing and feeding these beasts in secret.  I love them.  Honestly I do love them like family, even those who aren’t, but I can’t ask you, my only son, to live like I did.

I wish I was strong enough to kill them, but I’m not.  I’ve tried, believe me, if you believe nothing else, know that I didn’t want to leave this task to you. 

My only son, know that I love you and that I will support any decision that you make. I’ve left you, in the top drawer of my desk, the key to the basement.  It is your choice to feed them, leave them, or free them.

I love you and I’m so sorry.

May God have mercy on my soul.

Forever yours,

Dad.” 

I haven’t been to the basement yet, I have yet to work up the courage.  I’m sitting now at my father’s desk, key in hand, ready to decide my fate.