It stood on what some might call its haunches. It licked what some might call its lips; it was not fully grown, whatever it was, but it wasn't a baby. A teenager maybe, she thought to herself, and Violet smiled at the thing in the cage.
A junkman by trade, Violet's father brought the thing home. Their house was filled with ornate bird cages and books that were bound in hand-tooled leather. Chandeliers, ottomans. Old detective magazines. Stacks of love letters, from someone named Stewart to someone named Earl.
I won’t live like this, her mother would say. You can’t turn in this house without something falling. I swear to God, I will walk out that door, and Violet would sit in her room and listen, and hope this time she really would leave. But she never did. They always made up, and her parents would act like teenagers in love.
The thing in the cage snorted and snuffled. Its eyes were a topaz shade of yellow. Its skin was thick, and scaled, like a snake’s, and it watched as Violet inched closer and closer.
It was kept in the basement where it was cool. Violet knew she was not supposed to be anywhere near it, but her parents were out, and wouldn’t be home for an hour or so. She pulled up a stool and sat down by the cage, and the thing inside, whatever it was, whimpered and cried like its heart was broken.
I’ll take care of it, her father had said. Her mother replied, you certainly will. I won’t go near it. It’s hideous, she said. Like something that should’ve been drowned at birth.
Her mother’s words made Violet wonder. She had always been closer to her dad anyway. Her father, at least, cared about things. Violet’s mother was pretty. Model pretty. She had wanted a girl she could put in a pageant.
Violet, unfortunately, looked just like her dad. She was pudgy and chunky. She had his large nose and she had his small eyes. Her mother stared at her sometimes and sighed.
You’re my daughter, I love you. Of course I do, her mother would say. Still Violet knew something didn’t ring true. The thing was rattling the bars of its cage, twice as big now as when it arrived. It grew, it was fed, but how was it fed, and what did it eat. Violet held out her hand. Was it lonely, like her.
Not lonely the way people usually mean. Lonely to be something no one else was. To be something to someone that could not be replaced. The violet picked from a world full of violets.
It was almost dark when her parents came home. I’ll just be a minute, her father said, and walked past the books and past the bird cages. The magazines and letters to someone named Earl.
The basement was cool and the cage door was open. The thing was more than twelve feet long, and stood on what some might call its haunches. It smiled and licked what might have been lips, and upstairs her mother said, this is your room, to a pretty girl who could win beauty pageants.