How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales (4 page)

“An owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water. An owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water. An owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water . . .”

Babes in the Woods

One time there was a man with no wife and two daughters. Eventually he married a lovely woman he met in a bar. She was gentle and cool. She had a nice rock collection and enjoyed whittling slingshots, but she didn't like children. It wasn't that she disliked the girls specifically—it was children in general. Her dislike was more of a discomfort: children had so many needs and they were so vulnerable. It made her nervous and caused her to drink. She knew it would be better if she weren't a mother—for the children's sake, not for her own. She didn't want anyone to know about this; she was gentle and cool, and didn't like to hurt feelings.

Before she knew it, she began depriving the children of food. She knew this was wrong, but she thought maybe then they would leave on their own—find another home where they would be better fed and have a good mother. Or it could be they would prefer the starvation—you never knew, these days, sad as it was—and then maybe, as a result of their own unfortunate choosing, they would perish. She didn't really wish this, but she thought of it; that is, she got the idea or image, inside of her head.

The mother hid the cans of tomato soup first; the daughters loved tomato soup best. She did this furtively, for she knew it was wrong, but she still couldn't help it. Next she hid the sardines, which the children ate after school, on buttered slices of bread. She hid the potatoes; their eyes always bothered the elder girl, so these were not missed. She hid the apples, the cherries, the Slim Jims, the walnuts, the flour.

The father did not notice the missing items too quickly, because he did not frequent the pantry. At work every morning he bought an egg sandwich for breakfast, from a silver trailer outside of his office. At work he sold windowpanes—over the phone. Every evening he brought groceries home, but they always were gone by the morning. So it went like this for some weeks, until at last the children really were nearly starving to death.

One night, after two Jack and Gingers, the father wondered what he could do about the bad situation. The cupboards were barren; even the mice didn't visit. No matter how much food he brought home, still it all disappeared. “What kind of monster would do such a thing?” he asked the wife. “It doesn't make sense that He would allow our children to starve.”

“He works in mysterious ways,” his wife answered, pouring pink wine from a box. The wife slurred her words, adding, “We need to take the children where He can't harm them.” She said, “Why not take the children away to the woods and slip off and leave them? Away from the monster.” Surely, this would be better than their starving to death.

The father did not agree with the idea of leaving the children in nature, though he liked nature and often walked in the woods with the children, looking for birds. He told her she spoke nonsense, as she so often did, and he wished that she wouldn't. They argued. They drank. Then the mother quieted down, apologized, and comforted him. The comfort pleased both of them greatly and they found themselves in harmony, calm. They agreed she would seek some outside assistance for the whole situation.

So after the father left, refreshed and hopeful, for his work selling windowpanes, the children were called from bed to their mother's lap, and she held them in her long and beautiful arms; it seemed there were more than just two arms at that moment. To the younger daughter, it seemed there were eight arms. The eight-seeming arms offered great comfort to the children, and also to the young mother. It is strange how consolation may be sensed in many places, even places where things that are very bad happen.
The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary,
as it is said.

The children gazed raptly upon their mother, whom they adored. She told them they were going on an adventure, and there wouldn't be time to change from their nightgowns. They were very weak and hardly could walk; but their mother had poached some eggs for them to eat as they set out. The younger sister didn't partake because she didn't like how eggs wiggled. “We're out here looking for fairy-tale monsters,” the mother said to the girls as they walked on the pine needles. She was drunk.

“We like our ogres and witches,” the girls said, holding her hands, one girl clinging hungrily to each side of her kind body.

“So you do, so you do,” said their mother. “And your monsters as well.” She tightened her hold on their warm little hands; never before had she been filled with such trepidation. She realized, slowly, it was the feeling of love: dread and fear for the children. This surprised her, because previously, she had not liked the children at all. Sometimes this sort of change simply happens in life. And so it was here. I won't do it, she thought. The conviction was total.

Yet, for some reason, when they were deep into the woods, she still went on with her plan. This is the way things happened for her—despite a decision to do one thing, she found herself doing another. Humans are foolish this way, which is a kind way of saying something about them. Brightly, the mother said they should go find some berries to eat. This would be old-fashioned, a real-life adventure. They were all so hungry, and they were the heroes of this very story: what a wonder it would be when they found berries and ate them and then they survived. That's how she got the girls away from her side. They loved their fairy-tale heroes as much as they loved their ogres and witches.

The mother ran home.

The girls wandered for weeks in the forest.

One day, they came upon a hut with the most wonderful sparkling windows, and they crept up and knocked on the door. An old witch came to the door and smiled at them; she said plainly, “Come in.” They went in and told her their mother was trying to starve them to death and had left them in the woods in order that they might starve. “What a monster,” this old witch, who was also a little witch, said. Unfortunately she also saw fit to settle them into a cage. The girls overheard her say to someone that they would soon be fat enough to kill, and then eat.

“Only a monster would harm little children,” said someone who stepped into their view. This girl wore a white dress and a white bonnet and high, lace-up white boots. She had white hair and was smoking a rose-colored cigar, like the bubblegum kind they got in their Christmas stockings each year. She was the most beautiful person they ever had seen.

The witch snarled, “Don't speak to your mother that way. You are my only joy.”

And so it went. For some months, maybe years, this young white-haired girl would tell them to stick their hands out so she could get a good feel of their fingers. That was the way her mother had asked her to measure whether they were fat and ready to eat. The elder girl would poke her large fingers out through the wires, but her sister would only hold out some sticks. The young witch would take a drag of her cigar and say to the older girl, “Gee, you're getting fat.” But the sticks the younger sister stuck out felt hard and she would shudder and call her
skeletor,
fondly. Then she'd report to her mother that they weren't ready yet.

So it went on. Then, one evening, with no explanation, for none was necessary in a world where good and evil work in mysterious ways, the young witch took the older girl's hand and led her from the cage into the hut's cozy kitchen. With a shrug, she told the older sister to get in the oven. The older sister said simply, “I won't.” The young witch shrugged again, and offered her a pale blue cigar. By now they were both teenagers, the older sister and the young witch. Together they sat by the oven, chatting a bit, passing the time companionably; they had become, in their way, really good friends.

Soon they heard the mother's footsteps. The older sister hid behind the oven, cupping both lit cigars inside of her palms. They got burned. “Mom, can you check on the fire?” the young witch said. The old witch opened the oven and the two girls rushed toward her, pushed her in, slammed the door shut, and ran like a pair of beautiful twins to let the little sister out of the cage.

And then they all ran toward the pale light that shone at the edge of the woods. They stopped by a tree now and then to have a smoke and a laugh.

They hadn't gone far before they ran into the father. He was looking for them as he had been doing nightly for years. When they saw him he was holding a flashlight in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other and he was crying a bit. When he saw them, he began crying harder. He hugged them—not seeming to notice there were three girls, not only two—and he sat them down on some tree stumps.

He began to tell them a story. The father had arrived home from selling windowpanes one night, and he had seen his children were gone. He accused his wife of doing them harm. She had denied it—wept and drank gallons of wine. “I never would hurt them,” she said. “I'm a good person.” She was the one who called the police to report they were missing. The father and mother had held a press conference. “Dear Lord,” she had wept for the cameras, “please return my dear girls to me.”

A popular news show had covered the story. “The universe works in mysterious ways,” the blonde broadcaster said. “Pray for the girls in the woods, let us all pray. Also for soldiers.”

And then the mother went away—to a hospital—and the father was lonely. He had neither his daughters nor wife; he ate frozen dinners, not even thawing them out, after work every night. He listened to AM radio, and weeping he sang along.
If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts could tell.
Eventually the wife returned home. All was quiet and sad.

And then one day—the day we're discussing here, the day when the girls were running with the young witch through the woods—the father came upon them at last and told them this story.

The story's end was consoling. The father took them back home—the white-haired girl too, whom he loved right away as his own. Of course, the girls had undergone changes. They were chain-smokers—those pastel cigars, the ones that come over from England in all the colors of the rainbow, tidily arranged in a small box. The colors matched a series of rainbow fairy-tale books the girls had on their shelves, the books with the monsters and ogres and witches.

And how the three girls ruled the house—how they ruled! “To think of it,” the father said. “To think I sold that witch her sparkling windows—and you three barely escaped.”

The mother did everything she could to take care of their needs. Anything they wanted—books about vampires, skateboards, rainbow cigars—she provided to them. It was such a joy to do this that she often wept while doing the dishes, or while helping them with their homework.

The girls had a lot of schooling to catch up on; though they were gangly young women, they had been placed in fifth grade. At recess they hung out by the monkey bars, smoking. It was not the custom, but the school allowed this; the town was so grateful to have the children home safely they had changed some of the laws, including those about smoking (for minors who had been missing and found). Even the third girl, who hadn't disappeared into the woods, but who had only emerged out of the trees with no explanation, was considered quite special by all, as she should have been. All was well in the world.

By the light of a lamp in the shape of the earth, the mother read the same book every morning and night. It had no fairy stories inside it, but it did offer a path, and she never strayed from it again. And though she still wished to poison herself, only when she herself dies will that wish go away. And to this very day she is still living, you see. She lives for her daughters. That's the beauty of things.

Bird bird bird bird bird!

Bird bird bird bird bird!

Friend friend friend!

Friend friend friend!

I am yours to the end.

I am yours to the end.

The Girl with the Talking Shadow

My shadow learned to walk when I learned to walk, and her first word was also my own. When I lost my teeth, she lost her teeth too. The Tooth Fairy left me a quarter; my shadow left me her teeth—under my gums. Over time they grew in. My shadow was mean, but I always found her a comfort. Besides, there was no getting away from her, that much I knew. As fast as I'd run, she'd run. Wherever I'd go she went, bigger or smaller depending on the hour, but always there like a friend or a horror. And her gray aspect slid toward me from the ceiling at night—a mirror of me made of shadows—even when my eyes were closed I could see her. She had a vague edge, a definite darkness.