The Uglier Animals

Larissa decided to become a bat because people had always told her she was beautiful.

L

arissa decided to become a bat because people had always told her she was beautiful. Those words had carved out a space on the way between her chest and brain, and she carried them with her wherever she went. Her younger sister, Déia, did not possess the same talisman, with her big rabbit teeth and wide fish eyes. Her lack dictated their relationship for most of their lives, with Déia trailing behind her with silent devotion throughout their big, decrepit house.

Larissa’s traits were all very distinctly human—her delicate nose slightly turning up at the tip, mimicking the natural curves of her eyelashes. In their old mansion on a decadent street of São Paulo, trees grew from the front sidewalk and shaded Larissa’s figure at the window, making it hard to see her, but that never stopped anyone—not the pigeons that roamed the region, the rats that snuck in from wall cracks or the neighbourhood boys. All creatures surrounded their home like sharks, all hopeful to catch sight of her.

She felt as if the touch crawled somewhere underneath her skin, pulsing, when later, her mom would guide her hand to a suitor’s.

Larissa had a weakness for the uglier animals, for the ones her mother didn’t tolerate inside their home. When she and Déia saw a rat, she slid her hand over her sister’s mouth and raised a finger to her own. Déia was terrified of the pests, but Larissa forced her to help anyway, both of them working together with a box and a broom to safely remove the rat before it came across one of her mom’s deadly traps. To Déia’s horror, sometimes Larissa snuck her hand inside the box and petted the rat’s coarse gray fur, before they set it free in the backyard. Larissa defended herself, saying even the rats were God’s creatures, but in truth she enjoyed the thrill of touching something disgusting. She felt as if the touch crawled somewhere underneath her skin, pulsing, when later, her mom would guide her hand to a suitor’s. The man’s mouth would feel warm and breathy against her knuckles, and Larissa comforted herself with the amusing image of him placing a kiss on a rat’s forehead instead. The thought kept her from flinching, from taking her hand out of theirs.

“Such a promising young man,” her mother would say later, after Guilherme or Matheus or Mathias or Carlos left, her croon carrying an unspoken question that didn’t linger in silence for very long. The words loomed over their heads at the dinner table and then fell down like rocks aimed at Larissa’s head: “What did you think of him?”

Larissa’s beauty had gotten her into this situation, so she figured it could get her out of it as well—and that was what she did, making a show of looking away, smiling sheepishly, giggling behind a delicate hand. “I don’t know, mom,” she would say, her voice as soft and shy as a song, her slim shoulders climbing to her ears in a charming gesture. Her father would grin at her embarrassment, and so would Déia, and the topic would be gracefully swept away like the unused traps her mother removed after failing to catch a rat for several weeks in a row.

At night Larissa would sit by the window in her sleeping gown. The moonlight couldn’t do much against the tree shades surrounding the house, which made her invisible, even with the curtains wide open. Larissa would open the window and sit there catching her death alongside the evening breeze, watching the bats that perched on the branches to attempt to get some fruit. Sometimes she would bring them food herself, and let her legs dangle on the outside, her arm stretched out with a juicy offering that would soon be plucked out of her palm. The bats never lingered much, but Larissa enjoyed them anyway. She kept her eyes wide open to any movement in the dark.


Mr. Gonçalves showed up on a day where Larissa hadn’t gotten to touch any rats, which meant his kiss went undeterred, a light smack against her skin that carried an unforeseen pressure and the prickly touch of his mustache. Even Larissa’s mom could not have called Mr. Gonçalves a young man, but all other kinds of compliments could be attached to his person—handsome, cultured, of good birth, rich. He made Larissa’s dad laugh out loud during dinner, made Déia blush to match her hair colour. Larissa just sat there and watched. To her eyes Mr. Gonçalves’s qualities reminded her of a clumsy game of pinning the tail on the donkey—all the nice words dangled from him like strips of paper, undeniably present but somehow flimsy and out of place.

Her hand burnt on the spot he had kissed her, like a scorching brand sunk into a cow’s carcass.

She herself was stiff during dinner, falling into silence more often than she meant to. That was not a man that could be hand waved away with some performance of girlish immaturity. Her hand burnt on the spot he had kissed her, like a scorching brand sunk into a cow’s carcass.

After he left, Larissa faked a stomach ailment to go upstairs earlier, sneaking a fruit bowl under her gown. She locked her bedroom door and took the bowl to the window, hoping the bats would distract her, but none of them wanted to eat from her marked hand.


Déia spent the following morning babbling in Larissa’s ear about Mr. Gonçalves. He wanted them to go visit, wasn’t that wonderful? Mr. Gonçalves’s home had three maids, all who kept everything staggeringly clean and pest-free. Larissa bit her tongue to not cut her off and tasted blood.

She watched her family spin around her, seemingly in competition for who was more excited for her upcoming and apparently inevitable marriage. She thought of how bats are blind in the daylight and fantasized about being surrounded by a swarm of them, all incapable of noticing her.


The formal invitation to Mr. Gonçalves’s mansion came the next morning, wrapped in a clean, tasteful green ribbon. Larissa’s father unwrapped and read it aloud in the living room as her mom took both hands clenched together to her cheek.

“There might be bad weather,” Larissa said, as he finished. “Perhaps we should suggest a different week.”

All three of them looked at her as if she had said something preposterous. Larissa wanted to shrink under their gaze, to go hide inside the walls.

“It’s such a nice day outside,” Déia said. “I can’t imagine the weather will worsen until the weekend.”

“Right. No reason to change the date,” her father agreed. Déia, who rarely said anything their father deemed right, beamed with pride. He was looking at Larissa when he added, “Don’t be nervous, my dear. He is already set on you. All of this is just formality.”

Larissa slid her hands underneath the long sleeves of her dress in her lap. She nodded and sunk her nails in while scratching the kissed spot on her knuckles, fully aware she would never be able to rip it away.


Larissa ran into Déia in the kitchen, late at night. She was rubbing herbs against her teeth, a trick her mother had told her could whiten them. Larissa stared at her sister in candle light, loved her in silence as she gathered her customary bowl of fruit. “Do you think it might work?” Déia asked, her voice muffled by the leaves she was keeping inside her upper lip, bloating it as if she had been stung by something poisonous.

“Maybe,” Larissa said. Her own voice sounded muffled to her ears, though whatever was inside her mouth was clearly not visible to anyone else in her family. Then, without thinking, she added, “They’ll still be crooked anyway.”

Déia could have climbed inside the walls if she wanted to, could have spread her wings and hung upside down from the ceiling without anyone saying a word.

Déia’s eyes widened. Larissa couldn’t see it properly in the dark, but she imagined her sister’s eyes filling with tears. Déia pressed a hand against her mouth, maybe not wanting any sobs to ruin her beauty ritual, and stepped away, running upstairs to her bedroom. Larissa felt no guilt. Déia could have climbed inside the walls if she wanted to, could have spread her wings and hung upside down from the ceiling without anyone saying a word. Unseen, unbranded.

She heard Déia’s sobs when she passed by her sister’s door. Larissa wanted to call her, not to apologize but to explain, but whatever was underneath her tongue would fly away at any attempt at explanation, and she couldn’t risk it.

The fruits on the bowl moved as if trembling when Larissa locked her bedroom and went to the window. She sat on the edge and ate them all herself, letting the juice trickle down to her chin and stain her nightgown. She slipped the straps down her shoulders and let the night touch her naked chest. She bit and chewed and swallowed and started to see better, to distinguish the branches outside her house, the small beetle that crawled over the tree, the bat that sat perched on one branch, looking at her longingly, knowing better than to step in to steal food away from an equal. Larissa removed her gown and felt dark, coarse hair growing over her skin, burying away the brand underneath, deep enough that no one would ever see it again. She licked the last bit of fruit from her fingers, tongue tracing the newly sharp ends of her claws, and jumped.