Bones & All

Chapter 2 picks up in the present, the day after her mother abandons her. Maren’s mother leaves an envelope containing some money and her birth certificate. Maren doesn’t know much about her father, Francis Yearly, but her mother still wears a wedding ring. As far as Maren knows, he left after the incident involving Penny Wilson. She thinks her mother wants her to use the money to go to Sandhorn, Minnesota, to find her father. Instead, Maren wants to go see her grandparents, which should be where her mother is. She packs her books, as well as “other books, their books” (29), in addition to other mementos from her victims. She gets on a bus and buys a ticket to Edgartown, Pennsylvania, where her grandparents live.

Maren describes having two kinds of dreams about Luke, the boy from camp. In the first, she only hears his voice talking about his plans for the future. In the second, they’re in the tent in the forest, and Luke has red eyes. He doesn’t scare her, however, since she thinks she deserves whatever happens.

Maren recalls having asked her mother once if other people were like her. If so, she wouldn’t feel so alone, even if it wouldn’t make her feel better about what she does. She often reads at the library and realizes that she only identifies with creatures in fairy tales. She also fixates on a grim Francisco Goya painting, Saturn Devouring His Son, which depicts a titan devouring his child since a prophesy claimed that one of his children would overthrow him.

Maren reaches her grandparents’ neighborhood, and she waits until it’s dark. When she looks through the window, she sees Janelle serving dinner to Maren’s grandparents. Maren’s grandmother hugs her Janelle, and they cry. Then Maren’s mother smokes a cigarette, which she never does. Maren suddenly realizes what she has cost her mother.

Maren breaks into a car and sleeps. When she wakes up, she remembers an exchange with a boy named Stuart from sixth grade. Stuart looks over her shoulder when they are supposed to be researching termites. He tells her about certain spiders eating their mates, which is called “sexual cannibalism.” When she asks if other species do it, Stuart asks why she always wears black. Then he mentions that everyone thinks she is weird.

Maren knows that the boys who like her are weird. She usually lets them convince her to visit their rooms. The pattern always repeats itself. She eats them, hides whatever evidence she can, and then she and her mother move.

The narrative shifts back in time to Maren recalling the night she killed Jamie Gash. After Luke, Maren and Janelle moved to Baltimore, where her mother landed a good job at a law office. There are hints that she will get a promotion soon. Before a Christmas party at her boss’s house, Janelle begs Maren to “be good.” At the party, Maren reads on her own away from the adults. Then she meets Jamie, the son of the host. He asks her if she wants to see stars through his telescope. In his room, she sees various books, including several copies of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

Jamie is telling her the myth of the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas, when Mrs. Gash interrupts them. They return to the party, but Jamie takes Maren downstairs as soon as he can. He exposes himself and asks to see her private parts, then tries to kiss her when she stalls. She eats him, puts his clothes in a bag, and stashes it in the corner. Upstairs, Janelle senses something is wrong. Mrs. Gash apologizes and assumes that Jamie upset Maren. They drive home without speaking and Maren knows her mother’s promotion is in jeopardy.

The chapter concludes with Maren describing the two types of hunger she learned about during that incident. One can be sated with normal food. She compares the other type of hunger to a great hole that can only be filled by the shape of a person.

Maren goes into an Acme grocery store. After she retrieves a can that an old woman drops, the woman—Mrs. Lydia Harmon—asks for help getting her groceries home. Maren is relieved to have something to do and gets on the bus with her. As the bus drives, Maren sees a man with a slashed ear watching as they pass. She thinks he’s smiling at her.

Mrs. Harmon has a cat named Puss. After she feeds him, she serves Maren breakfast. Maren looks at the Harmons’ wedding photo. They were married for 52 years, and Mrs. Harmon, now widowed, is 88. Maren realizes that Mrs. Harmon trusts her. In fact, she invites Maren to use the spare room while she naps. She promises to teach Maren to knit when she wakes up.

Maren sees a sculpture of a sphinx in the bedroom. On closer examination, she sees that it’s a trophy that Douglas Harmon won for an essay on human consciousness in June 1930. When Maren goes back to the living room, Mrs. Harmon has died peacefully on her couch. Not knowing what else to do, Maren takes two balls of yarn and some wooden knitting needles before going back to the room to sleep.

When she wakes, she finds the man with the slashed ear in the living room, eating Mrs. Harmon with his head buried in her stomach. Then he eats her fingers and legs, forcing Maren to confront how horrible she must look when she eats someone. When he finishes, he smiles at Maren and says that he never eats live people.

The man’s name is Sullivan, but he goes by Sully. He says that he knew what she was when he saw her from the sidewalk. He says they’ll always be on their own, and that every eater thinks they are the only one. Maren notices that his left index finger is mostly gone. He claims that someone bit it off in a fight. Then he shows her a long rope made from people’s hair. He finds it poetic to make something beautiful out of the people he eats.

Sully weaves Mrs. Harmon’s hair into the rope as he asks about Maren’s first victim. He says he ate his grandfather at age 14. Afterward, Sully lived outside for weeks, hunting game. After Maren tells him about Penny, he correctly guesses that she had located her mother in Edgartown but couldn’t reveal herself.

He tells her about island tribes of cannibals who think eating their relatives lets them absorb their strength and wisdom. Then he makes caramelized pears and eats Mrs. Harmon’s carrot cake. Sully says that his grandfather might have been an eater, which makes Maren wonder if it’s hereditary.

The phone rings and a woman named Carol leaves a message for “Aunt Liddy” (83). Maren says her dad might be an eater and that she wants to find him. They go to their beds, and Puss sleeps with her. In the morning, she finds a note from Sully. He says not to follow her parents and offers to let her stay with him. He also leaves a copy of RINGLING BROS. KEEPSAKE BOOK, a flip book that shows a trapeze act. Maren takes Mrs. Harmon’s locket with her and buys a ticket for the next bus, which is heading to St. Louis.