"The Okie and the Beast - Ch. 1" by Kristina Titchmarsh

Chapter One

            It’s a common thing for oil millionaires from Oklahoma City to buy insane amounts of acreage out in the country to get away from the noise and the traffic. It’s also common for them to build huge, extravagant mansions on these acreages to offset the fact that most of their neighbors live in trailers drinking the 3.2 beer and watching NASCAR.

            So Amy wasn’t all that surprised after driving up a mile-long driveway to find a mansion that looked curiously like a castle. If anything, it boded well that she would actually get the good pay and benefits the ad in the job paper had promised.

            Fresh out of nursing school with her new Registered Nurse license burning a hole in her purse, Amy had scoured the job papers looking for something different. All through the long four years of college, she had worked as a nurse aide in nursing homes and a local hospital. She was tired of working the floor and having too many patients to be able to take care of properly. So, she had decided to give home health nursing a try.

            At first, she had been hesitant about the ad. Firstly, because she had thought it was a real estate ad that had gotten misplaced, and secondly, because it sounded much too good to be true:

A Quiet Country Manor Awaits You

Have a suite of rooms all to yourself in this modern castle

All meals and cleaning services provided at no charge

Live-in Registered Nurse needed to care for ailing faithful butler

Competitive pay with medical, dental, and vision

Apply in person

            But she’d made the drive here anyway. Can’t lose anything by coming to see what’s what around here, she thought to herself as she climbed out of her car. She crunched up the gravel drive to the monstrous wooden double doors under a canopy protecting the driveway. The knocker on the door looked absolutely archaic – a hideous beast with ram’s horns, a wolf’s snout, and huge threatening eyes with thick overhanging brows. She grabbed the ring and winced at the squeal that erupted when she lifted it to knock once, twice.

            Seconds passed. Amy was debating whether or not to subject her ears to the racket again or to turn around and leave when the door cracked open, its iron hinges somehow perfectly silent. A short woman with a bob of snow-white hair peeked out from the crack expectantly.

            “Hello,” Amy began, “I’m here to apply for the Nurse position advertised in the paper.” The woman’s heavily lined face lit up with a smile, and the door swung wide open.

            “Oh oh oh, come in! Come in! I was beginning to worry we were just too isolated for anyone to come! Come, come, tea? Coffee? We have soda even. Anything? Anything at all?” The old woman bounced ahead of Amy in an unexpectedly spry way. The woman might have weighed 90 pounds when dripping wet, and was still shy of five feet tall even with the two inches her hair added to the top.

            “I’d love a glass of water; it’s been quite a drive.” Amy pinned this woman for one that would keep asking if you needed anything until you said you did. She didn’t mind, water was nearly free, and the woman seemed so genuinely happy to see someone.

            “Beautiful, beautiful, come, sit here in the sunroom and I’ll get you some ice water. June is so hot here; thank goodness the Master had the foresight to install air conditioning!”

            Master? Bit highbrow for Oklahoma. And for the twenty-first century, come to that. Amy made a point to find out more about this situation. The woman pushed open a wide French door to a brightly lit room with windows all along the far wall, draped with delicate white lace curtains. A low glass coffee table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by white wicker chairs and loveseats stuffed with cushions. Plants hung everywhere, and sat on any available flat surface, all in tones of pink, yellow, and lavender. Beyond the window, the trees and bushes of the natural forest loomed beyond a tall row of sunflowers about ten feet away.

            “It’s beautiful!” Amy could not help but exclaiming. The old woman beamed even brighter.

            “Oh yes, miss, it’s my favorite room in the entire house. Have a seat. Yes, yes. Tell me, do you like dogs?” The old woman began fussing at a small bar just beside the doorway, filling a glass with ice and water.

            “Oh I love them! I’m going to get an entire pack of them when I have my own home to spoil them in.”

            “Ah, wonderful, wonderful! I’ll bring in the two we keep here, then. They’re both Chihuahuas, one’s the lady of the house and the other is the court jester. But they both run the place. Yes, yes, but two sweeter dogs you’ll never meet.” She brought the glass of water and handed it to Amy, then held out a hand. “I’m Ruby Thornton, the head housekeeper of the manor. Although it’s an empty title, as the only other housekeeper, Jency, is a woman as old as I am and won’t take orders from me.” Ruby heaved a dramatic sigh. Amy giggled, taking the offered hand and introducing herself as well.

            “I love stories. I love telling them and hearing them. So, we’ll consider this your interview and you tell me your story.” Ruby requested as she made a production of shifting the cushions on the chair she had chosen opposite of Amy.

            Okay, interview tactics. Keep it short and to the point, and make yourself sound like solid gold. “Well, to begin I’m twenty-two years old and graduated with honors from the University of Oklahoma last month. I don’t have any experience as an RN, but I’ve worked as a nurse aide for four years, two of them at a hospital side-by-side with other RNs. I came here because I thought I could better take care of my patients if I had a smaller patient load, so I considered home health. I’m tired of living in an apartment, so I think living-in will be a good fit for me, especially here away from the city.”

            The old woman nodded, suddenly serious and thinking it over, then replied, “Well, your lack of experience would deter me, but it’s not very hard to take care of George – he has no IVs, stomach tubes, or anything like that. The only “RN” thing you’ll be doing is crushing his medicines to give them to him, and making sure he’s nursed properly. I warn you – it’s still going to be mostly aide-type work. Does that change your mind?” Amy thought it over, a small warning bell sounding in the back of her mind.

            “I think you better tell me about George’s condition – how much care he’ll actually require.”

            “Well,” Ruby leaned forward, sighing, “poor George is in end-stage Alzheimer’s. He’s completely bedridden, incontinent of bowel and bladder, mostly unresponsive except to pain, and must eat pureed foods.”

            Amy grimaced inside. Total-care patients were difficult to care for, especially those that were incontinent. Then she considered that the only reason she’d had trouble taking care of this type of patient before was that she often hadn’t had time in her 8-hour shift to take care of one properly along with 8-12 other patients to see. This time, it was only this one patient, and she wanted desperately to prove to herself that she could give the kind of care patients like this required – patients that wouldn’t get good care in a hospital and definitely not a nursing home.

            “The last live-in we hired was an aide. She didn’t have any complaints about George – he’s not heavy to move. We wanted an RN this time because he has so many medications to take.” Ruby could sense she was losing Amy’s enthusiasm, so she was trying desperately to make things sound more appealing. This one could be the one, I have a feeling about her, and she’s pretty and a brunette, the Master might like that, he certainly didn’t like the redhead aide. She was too young, anyhow. Ruby searched frantically for more to say. “The pay will be $6,000 a month, paid monthly. You don’t have to pay rent, buy your meals, clean, all that’s done for you, yes, yes. It’s perfect for a woman just starting out and needing to build a nest egg. Yes, yes, all the people here, me included, are with CommonSense Insurance, and there’s a small family practitioner just a couple of miles away if you ever need to go. Dr. Kimberly’s wonderful, she’ll take care of you, yes, yes.”

            Amy could sense the desperation in Ruby’s voice. She held up a hand to stop the flow of information, smiling as she did so. Ruby’s heart caught in her throat as she waited for the reply that could change everything.

            “Well, all that certainly puts me in favor, Ruby. I’d like to see George and the rooms where I’ll be staying before I make my final decision, though. Will that be all right?”

            “Oh of course of course! You can meet the Ladies of the House as well, they’ll be in their Dog Room napping, but you can see them – they’re so excited to meet new people…” Ruby, still chattering away about the dogs, led Amy up a long curving flight of stairs carpeted in a luxurious red tapestry. The vaulted ceiling overhead was studded with gargoyles carved out of wood, and beams crisscrossed over and under each other like spider webs. At the landing at the top of the stairs, Ruby led her off to the right, still chattering as Amy took in the Baroque-era décor.

            Off to the left of the landing behind the two women, a doorway darkened with a tall, wide shape. Glowing red irises followed the progress of the two women, though mostly they surveyed the young brunette.

            He had seen her arrive, of course. The entire property was covered by closed-circuit TV cameras that he watched incessantly. He had surveyed her careful drive up the long driveway, the deep breath she’d taken before she’d opened her car door, and the wince she’d made when she’d grasped the door knocker’s hideous visage. He’d almost dismissed her out of hand, then. If she couldn’t stand the sight of the door knocker in his image, how would she be able to fall in love with him? Then he’d seen the bright smile she’d given the ridiculous Ruby when the door opened, and all the smiles she’d given since she walked in the door. He’d admired her walk – it wasn’t the graceful and flowing walk of some conceited women, it was purposeful, brisk, efficient. She was young, but not too young.

            She looked like she could believe in fairy tales.

            “George’s room is right through here.” Ruby motioned to a small doorway that had daylight falling through onto the floor. Amy stepped in and walked closer to the small man lying on the bed.

            His eyes were closed and he was sleeping peacefully. He looked to be about Ruby’s age – his face was heavily lined as well. As she looked, Amy could see that the lines on his face were those that had been left by a life of smiling, not scowling. His skin was pale, but there was color in his cheeks that spoke of a life not yet finished. Amy sensed that this had once been an active, merry man. And she also sensed that she could make him as comfortable as he deserved to be in his last months. She reached down and took the frail hand that lay on top of the blanket.

            “Hello, George. My name is Amy. I’m going to be taking care of you.”

            To her surprise, George’s eyes opened. They looked right into hers. His were a clear blue, filled with none of the confusion, desperation, or detachment she usually saw in Alzheimer’s patients. He looked at her levelly, whispered her name, then the eyes closed again and he slipped back into sleep.

            “Ruby, I thought you said he was unresponsive?”

            Ruby’s mouth was working soundlessly and her eyes were huge as Amy turned back to her.

            “Ruby?”

            Ruby jerked.

            “I – I – I’m sorry miss, he’s never done that before. Honest. He hasn’t spoken in months…” Because of the shock on her face, but mostly because of the comparative lack of words, Amy believed her. She made a mental note to do a neuro assessment, first thing. Alzheimer’s patients didn’t get better and suddenly speak where they hadn’t before. She was determined to find out just what was going on, even as she took care of him.

            He knew his expression just then closely mirrored Ruby’s. Even as he snarled inwardly at himself for it, his mind reeled at the reaction George had had to Amy. Ever since he had taken this beastly form, George had been completely comatose. Of course, that had all been entirely his fault.

            Admittedly, he and George should have known better than to dabble in something they didn’t really understand. They’d found an old beaten book full of “spells” in the Stacks at the University, and had joking tried out a few. Unfortunately, Bestial Form, the first spell they’d played at doing, had actually worked. The Beast snarled as he remembered. Apparently, George, being the great typical American mixed blood he was, didn’t know he’d been descended from a minor sorcerer family from Europe. But, then again, neither had The Beast until he’d decided to do some research after he’d fled to solitude.

            George had been chanting the words of the spell, making the hand movements illustrated, while The Beast had been rolling on the floor laughing. Laughing until he felt fangs growing, fur sprouting, and saw the look of horror on George’s rapidly aging face. George started to scream, and of course two good-doers had rushed in: Ruby and Jency. They too had started to scream as they aged rapidly.

            After the transformation had been complete, The Beast knew he had to flee or face unspeakable publicity. As it happened, his rich oil baron father had a home out in the endless nothing of the Oklahoma countryside that he almost never used. After considerable argument, Ruby and Jency decided to come as well – they weren’t the only ones that wanted to keep everything a secret – who would believe a magic spell had caused the aging? The Beast carried George out to Jency’s pickup truck, letting Ruby keep him upright in the front seat while he hid under a tarp in the spacious bed – although spacious was relative when you were pushing nine feet tall and were as wide as the two biggest players on the University’s football team combined. In the middle of the night, Jency had driven them the two hours to the country castle.

            All that had been five years ago. The Beast should have been in medical school by now, and George might have decided on a major. Ruby and Jency had wanted to be in business and marketing, and married. For five years, he’d known it was he who would have to do something to return all four of them to normality.

            The irony was not lost on him that Beauty and the Beast had been his least favorite Disney movie as a child.

            It also didn’t bother him that his father thought he’d dropped out, invaded the castle, and now was running a drug and party empire. At least the man never came to visit.

            So, when George had made his first voluntary movement in over five years over this girl, the sign read loud and clear to The Beast. Only one thought of the many that raced through his brain cheered him up: at least he liked her walk.