Working with a fresh hide, Frank had smears of blood all over, including his face from putting the mask on and off, and from his seeping wound. Of course, he would never understand what or why, that morning, people stared at him so frightfully as they rode past him on Monkton Road, bustling on a Monday with the beginning of the week activity, or why, when he walked by the train station and the Monkton Hotel to fetch fresh milk from a nearby farm, people staying there for the night gawked at him and children pointed. What they saw, that Frank didn’t, was an enormous man who could lift a tree, with clothes that were now threadbare and ripped, with a shaggy beard and blood marks all over his body, and a face that even from a distance was not normal. If he had been better dressed they might have taken him for a butcher, but no one could convince themselves that this man on that crisp fall morning, walking so intentionally but so clearly distraught was anyone more than a person to avoid at all costs.
Frank was giddy with excitement. He almost broke into a full trot as he climbed the long hill of Monkton Road toward Bluemont to gather the milk, deciding that morning not to sit around for the afternoon delivery. He couldn’t wait to get back, to put his mask on, to watch the piglets eat with relief. He could talk to them again, hear their quibbles even, and help them. He’d apologize profusely for his failure to save their mother and try to explain how hard he tried, that the wheel and the water overwhelmed him, even if he was a strongman. He ran to the farm and took four large jugs from the farmer’s crate.
The endorphins and the adrenaline coursed through him intensely, drugging him with a keen sense of singular purpose as he trotted back, past the train station and the Monkton Hotel. He grabbed the mask on his way back up Monkton Road after quickly warming the milk, and headed toward the pen. The day was perfect, a rural wonderland, the giant rolling hills of Baltimore County, lined by full woods of oaks and tulip poplars. The sky was a pale blue and the sun was warm. He hopped the pasture fence and strode toward the piglets. He held the heavy mask, looked at it momentarily, pulled it on. He sank himself down into the mud, half laying, grabbing the bottles and putting a few by his belly, as Milly might have done, and waited.
He’s not sure what he expected to happen exactly, but what he didn’t expect to happen was nothing. The piglets barely raised their heads. They attempted to eat but turned away from him; one turned toward him and tried again, then turned away. And the others shifted periodically. He thought there had been a mistake and touched his face to make sure he had the mask on correctly. The smell of the mask was intense, moist underneath from the newly skinned sow, his humid breath getting trapped under the thick hide. He snuggled closer to the piglets, pushing the bottles into their faces, half his body covered in mud. He cleared his throat a bit, tried to open his ears. Nothing.
The silence grew bigger and bigger. Frank was perspiring under the mask and his warm breath formed droplets on his face. He was starting to panic as he poked around and tried to shift them carefully. They were weak. Was the mask too big? Was he wrong to mix a few hides? Was the thread too big? He tried desperately to get noticed, to hear something, anything. He checked the milk again to see if it was too hot. “Please,” he whispered. “Please.”
What Frank didn’t know at the time, and would never learn, is that the Miller had already fed them. He had grown frustrated that Frank was so busy with whatever he was doing with the hides in the barn and not tending to the piglets, that he decided to take a turn himself. Within moments, the Miller had realized the problem: the bottles they were using had nipples with a hole that was far too small, and were getting clogged with the mash inside. The piglets were getting just drips of milk, and with a quick cut of the top end of the nipple, they easily guggled through every drop he had.
But Frank interpreted the piglets current peaceful state as a sign that they too were dying, that they had given up, that they missed their mother and he had failed, again, not just for her but for them. In a futile cry of anger and frustration, he stood up, ran down to his barn, mask on, covered in mud and streaks of blood. From a distance, those who saw Frank that day running down Monkton Road in the crude, grotesque mask of a pig, were shocked with fright, unable to process the scene. Later, as they replayed the picture of an enormous pig-giant and tried to describe it to their neighbors, people shivered at the notion that a monster lived so close to their house, that Manor Mill was harboring a crazy, dangerous beast.
From the open Dutch door on the third floor of the Mill, the Miller saw Frank charging down the road, in his wildly crude mask, a full bottle of milk in each hand, and covered in mud and dried blood. He too was petrified by the scene, and could sense the rage from the road. He realized at that moment how scared he had now become just living on his own property, but he also recognized that he was the only one who could do something about this problem, that his business, the peace that enveloped Monkton, and for that matter, his life, rested on him acting. While he didn’t know what was racing through Frank’s mind, he thought he understood.
Thankfully, the problem he perceived was quick to solve. That afternoon, waiting for the piglets to be hungry again and for Frank to calm down, the Miller walked to the barn and peered in. He could hear Frank upstairs walking around. He saw the bottles on a slab of wood and walked over, quickly cutting the tops of the nipples. “Frank,” the Miller called up. The footsteps stopped. He reconsidered his next statement. “Frank, I brought milk from a different farm. Try that.” He left the barn, walked quickly to the third floor of the Mill and waited.
Frank, heavy in mask, and without much else to do, forlorn and shaken, had no reason not to try again and made his way back to the pen with the new milk. He had not taken off his mask and had gotten used to the intense stench and difficult line of sight through the unevenly cropped eyes. He trudged up the hill, sat in the mud, still unbathed from the morning, and pushed the bottle into the piglets snout. And with that, they ate, and ate, and ate. Frank’s heart opened wide.
——
They grew to be as big as large puppies almost overnight, except for Bulgur who would not take to the bottles of milk that Frank warmed up in boiling water and fed to them three times a day, adding more mash to fill them up. Managing the baby pigs, and their bottles and food, while also keeping the pen clean and organized, and ensuring they were all fairly and evenly fed was enormously challenging. This all provided some distraction from the horrific event that led to Milly’s death. For the first week Frank slept with the pigs, empty bottles strewn about like lifeless carcasses as he crashed.
Quickly, the piglets grew big and fat, ready for the trough that Milly used, except for Bulgur who remained small and scrawny, and who had trouble walking. The farmer had already sold most of them within a few weeks, delighted by his return on investment, until there were just two left. Frank dreaded this moment and hoped no one would buy Bulgur. For the Miller’s part, Bulgur was costing him too much money, and too much of Frank’s time. If he couldn’t sell him, he needed to do something else.
Not knowing whether it was the milk, or the bottles, or the fact that Frank liked to lie down next to Bulgur, Frank always remained masked, from the moment he left the barn up until he returned, in part because he felt that by wearing the mask before seeing the baby pigs he’d be more comfortable and at ease, his face used to the close air that got trapped. From any distance, of course, Frank K. Mason looked like a horrific beast, so terrifying that as word got out, local farmers and families avoided Monkton Road in the morning and early evening altogether, knowing that was when Frank was most likely to be walking, and they found other mills to do business with, even if they were further.
“Shoppers are getting uncomfortable,” The Miller worked up the courage to say to him one sunny afternoon, the first words in weeks he had spoken to him. The Miller caught him coming out of the barn just before he pulled his mask on. “And I need to talk to you about your pig.” The Miller and Frank had become distanced from each other, as the wheel’s broken paddles and bent frame went unfixed, leaving Manor Mill barely functioning as it turned on its axle with a fraction of the original efficiency. Frank had always been available and helpful, but after the accident, and caring for the pigs, it was as if the wheel and all the mechanics of the Mill were a distant memory and an irrelevant distraction. Manor Mill seemed headed to a slow death, too, as the Miller spent out the small windfall of Milly’s offspring. Those were the last words the Miller said to Frank K. Mason. Frank gave him one last look, put the mask on and stood there, hulking over him. Frank smelled of sweat and mud.
——-
The Miller had managed to sell the last remaining pig, except for Bulgur, who seemed to be growing smaller every day, and who clearly had some sort of disorder or problem. The Miller had conceded the argument that afternoon when Frank towered over him, his arms flexing slightly, and he stood frustrated day after day as Frank spent all of his days with Bulgur, nursing it and trying to entertain it with some yarn and a small makeshift doll. But Bulgur sat lethargically, the playful banter of his brothers gone, and he became weaker and weaker. When the Miller heard a loud baleful cry from the distant pen, he knew Bulgur had died.
Frank K. Mason was never seen again. The Miller was so distracted by the jobs at hand that he barely noticed Frank walk by that morning shuffling toward the barn. After a few days, the Miller wandered over to the barn only to see a ”Keep Out” sign, and, owing to his nervousness around Frank from before, decided to obey. After weeks and then months, the Miller had still not seen him, but the sign remained. Grass and tall weeds formed around the barn, but by the time the Miller might have noticed odd piles of bones here and there, new open graveyards forming all over the property, the Mill had shut down. The Miller was gone, but Frank remained.
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