Lizard wine, p.24
Lizard Wine, page 24
Don tried to pull the knife out of the Songster's chest, but it was in there solid. It was too much for his hands.
Tulie put a foot on the Songster's chest, wrapped her coat sleeve around the hilt and pulled it out. With her best pitching form, she threw it and it sailed out over the water, turning and winking gracefully end over end before splashing down.
They stood looking at the Songster for a long time, both of them wondering what had gone on in a mind like that, both of them knowing that no matter their individual sins, they were nothing in comparison.
Don looked at the Songster's puffed dead face and understood for the first time in his life what people meant when they said that life was unfair. He'd always tried to do his tiny part to make things come out even, and while there was a certain symmetry to nature, life was not necessarily fair. Ron's death was not fair. Songster killing those three women was not fair.
"Should we close his eyes?" Tulie said.
Don shivered, remembering what Niles had said. "No," he said. "Let's let him look out over the lake. Let's let him look out over nothing but peace and tranquility." He stooped and looked at the Songster's face. "He's only got one eye open anyway."
"Bye, Songster," she said. "Don't tell anybody we were here, okay?" She was feeling the effects of the night. Her neck ached where the Songster had pulled her backward over the car seat, her hands ached from pulling him through the woods, her knees were cold and she was tired. Bone tired.
"He won't," Don said, and they walked back to the car in silence.
The Pontiac started right up, and Tulie backed it out, turned it around and drove gently over the snow packed road to the highway. Don replaced the chain across the entrance to the campground.
"To a phone, please," he said as he slammed the door behind him. "And then, I think, a doctor."
Tulie turned the big, skinny steering wheel and the Pontiac obeyed her, chugging onto the highway toward Eugene. She turned on the headlights and the windshield wipers against the falling snow.
"Think Niles and Rebecca have the good sense not to mention the Songster? Or us?" she asked.
"Don't count on any kind of good sense coming from either one of those two," Don said. "Speaking of good, that was one hell of a well-placed snowball. I'd be dead if you hadn't hit that gun square."
"I used to pitch softball," she said.
"You're still the champ," he said.
She thought about the snow falling on the Songster's hair, not melting, just accumulating. In a startingly female way, she wished she had smoothed it down a little bit or something before leaving him.
He was the end of an era. She wished she had kissed him good bye, too.
Lizard Wine Discussion Questions
For:
Women’s Studies Classes
Book Clubs
Literature Classes
What did you think the book was about?
Did you find any symbolism in the characters or their actions?
Did you feel that the book fulfilled your expectations?
Did you identify with any of the characters? How so?
Did you enjoy the book? Why? Why not?
Why do you think Tulie or Rebecca wanted to hang out with Elise?
How did the book compare to other books by Elizabeth Engstrom (or other books in the same genre)?
Did the story pull you in, or did you have to force yourself to read the book?
How realistic were the characters? Would you want to meet any of them?
Why do you think the girls went with Ross?
Did the actions of the characters seem plausible? Why? Why not?
What could Elise have done differently as she grew up that might have changed the outcome of her life?
Did you feel you were experiencing the time and place in which the book was set?
How would the book have been different if it had taken place in a different time or place?
Did the girls deserve what happened to them?
Did the “flashback structure” of the book add good depth to the story, or did you find it intrusive?
Did the book end the way you expected? Was the ending satisfactory?
About the Author
Elizabeth Engstrom is the author of thirteen books and well over two hundred fifty short stories, articles and essays. Her most recent nonfiction book is Something Happened to Grandma, the true-crime story of a double murder in Oregon, and her most recent work of fiction is The Northwoods Chronicles, a dark fantasy. She is a sought-after teacher, panelist and keynote speaker at writing conferences and conventions around the world. Engstrom lives in the Pacific Northwest where she is always working on the next book. She is on faculty at the University of Phoenix. To find out more, please visit www.ElizabethEngstrom.com
Connect with Elizabeth Engstrom Online
You can email the author or find out more about her through her website:
www.elizabethengstrom.com
You can also connect with her through the publisher's website:
http://www.ifdpublishing.com
Other eBook Titles from IFD Publishing
You can find the following titles at all the major eBook distribution sites, or you can click on the links below to go directly to the Kindle version of any title you would like to read.
Novels:
Beyond the Serpent’s Heart, by Eric Witchey
Lizzie Borden, by Elizabeth Engstrom
Northwoods Chronicles: A Novel in Short Stories, by Elizabeth Engstrom
Siren Promised, by Alan M. Clark and Jeremy Robert Johnson
To Kill a Common Loon, by Mitch Luckett
The Blood of Father Time: Book 1, The New Cut, by Alan M. Clark, Stephen C. Merritt & Lorelei Shannon
Candyland, by Elizabeth Engstrom
How I Met My Alien Bitch Lover: Book 1 from the Sunny World Inquisition Daily Letter Archives, by Eric Witchey
Novelettes:
The Tao of Flynn, by Eric Witchey
To Build a Boat, Listen to Trees, by Eric Witchey
Children’s Illustrated:
The Christmas Thingy, by F. Paul Wilson. Illustrated by Alan M. Clark
Short Fiction:
“Brittle Bones and Old Rope,” by Alan M. Clark
“Crosley,” by Elizabeth Engstrom
“The Apple Sniper,” by Eric Witchey
Elizabeth Engstrom, Lizard Wine
