Tales From the Burning Prairie

“Do angels walk among us?” The question never varied in its essence, only in its particulars. This time, the author of the latest bestseller about angels asked the question.

Veronica studied the woman, who went by the highly improbable name of Serendipity Fogg. Ms. Fogg was somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, with just the slightest hint of age showing in the creases around her eyes and the slightly wobbling flesh under her chin. She wore the uniform of too many New Age writers—long Indian-print skirt, loose tank-top style blouse in matching painted silk, chunky indeterminate-ethnic jewelry, and ugly sandals. Serendipity wore her doe-brown hair in a long, shiny curtain to her waist. It seemed to be the woman’s one concession to vanity. Her face was completely bare of make-up; and she had taken no measures to remove the beginnings of a faint moustache.

Ah well, Veronica sighed to herself, this part of her trip was wasted. This woman did not possess any more knowledge or wisdom than had any of the others. Crossing the country, she had met with preachers, dreamers, charlatans, and madmen. All claimed to have seen or been visited by angels. But none of them had. Except, maybe the poor, mad ones. There was no way to tell what secrets truly hid inside those tortured minds.

It had been too long, years maybe, since she had met anyone else like her. Oh, there were plenty of people who talked about angels, or collected angel images, or fantasized about angels. Whole little societies had sprung up around the idea of angels. These angel enthusiasts could be found in catholic bookstores, metaphysics classes, New Age shops, and the big chain bookstores when authors came to sign their newest angel books. Tonight was just such a night; the bookstore was crammed with angel enthusiasts. Veronica thought of them as addicts, there to get their fix of angel lore, enough to tide them over until the next book was published or the next photograph of an angel-shaped light or cloud was passed around.

She liked to come to these things when she wasn’t working, but tonight she had a job to do, her mission was here somewhere. Veronica scanned the angel-loving crowd, looking for just the right kind of face, the correct look in someone’s eye, the glow that says “I have been chosen,” even if that person doesn’t know he or she has been chosen. So many years (decades?) on the job had given Veronica a finely honed intuitive sense for her quarry.

The message this time was short, she shouldn’t have to spend a long time delivering it, but time meant very little to Veronica and she didn’t do anything halfway. A creature of excellence, she would make sure the recipient of the message fully understood and knew just which way to go.

Since time was always on her side, and since her intended hadn’t shown up yet, Veronica decided to have a little, harmless fun. She rose up two inches off the floor and glided over to the line to meet the author. Not one of the dozens of angel fanatics noticed her feet hovering ever so slightly above the floor. Just as she reached Ms. Fogg’s table she spotted her mission. It was a young woman this time, one wearing the nametag of an employee. The young woman was patiently answering a customer’s questions, so Veronica had a few minutes to spare.

Serendipity Fogg greeted her with the same pale pleasantries that everyone else had received. No spark of recognition, not even a glimmer of real interest. For all Ms. Fogg’s New Age pretensions, Veronica knew she stood before a stout non-believer. And she felt offended for all the other people there, the ones who really did believe in angels.

I’ll show her to toy with people’s dearly held beliefs, Veronica said to herself. And as the author reached out to shake just another admirer’s hand, Veronica the Wayfinder decided to show her the way. Dodging the offered hand, she instead touched her finger to Serendipity’s forehead, just at the third eye. “Now you can see,” said the Wayfinder.

Before the author had time to respond, Veronica slipped away. She had spotted her mission, who was alone for the moment, so she cornered the young woman. “Ana, I’ve come to tell you that it is time to go home.”

Confused, the woman looked at her and said, “Uh, no. I’m not scheduled to leave until 9 pm.”

“No, Anasazi, it is time for you to return to where you belong. I have been sent to tell you this. There was one place where you felt truly at home, you need to go back there.” The girl wasn’t answering so Veronica continued, “I was told that you would understand, that you have wanted to go back for years. It is time.”

The young woman shook her head and worked to refocus her eyes. This stranger’s voice had reached deep into her head and made her think of Post, the town she had left a decade before. Ten years had passed in a blur of dead-end jobs, half-hearted friendships, and failed romances. Her heart had ached for years, lonely for a place to call home. But Post?

She had ignored all the people who told her she would come back. That Post would always be her home. But now Ana knew that they were right, had been right from the very beginning. It was time to go home. Home to Post.

Veronica knew all these thoughts, could see them written plainly on Ana’s face. But something still seemed to trouble her.

Touching the nametag on her chest, the one that read simply “Ana”, she asked, “How do you know my full name? Nobody but my mother calls me that, and then it’s only when she’s angry. Nobody knows that name!”

The Wayfinder just smiled and said, “He does.” Then Veronica turned and left, still hovering just above the floor.

From that night forward, Ms. Serendipity Fogg dropped her pen name and started using her birth certificate name again. As a writer, Mildred Fogg was nowhere near as popular as Serendipity had been but as a person, she was happier. Now she could see all the wonderful things that really did exist in the world. And never again did she have to ask if angels walked among us, because she could see them. Sometimes they were angels all the time, sometimes they masqueraded as humans, but most of the time, the angels Mildred saw were real people doing angelic things for others.

As for Ana, she found her way back home.

The mannequins on the front porch made him jump a little. Every time he saw them, they were arranged or dressed a little differently, as if they possessed some kind of glacier-slow life that he only saw in flashes. But Fort knew that Miss Rose paid careful attention to her “girls” as she called them, changing their outfits and posing them. And he knew that many more were inside the house; in the kitchen, at the dining table, sitting demurely in the parlor, in the upstairs bedrooms, and in the attic.

Rose Dose was the 70 year old widow of the old town doctor, Dr. Dose, but everyone called her Miss Rose. In any other town, Miss Rose would’ve been the town eccentric or the town crazy, but here no one thought her, or her astounding collection of store mannequins, particularly odd. No odder than old Jerry, who had nailed dozens of old guitars to the outside of his house, or Mary Gibson, who had filled her kitchen with ceramic pigs. Just another collector.

He knocked on the door and called out, “Miss Rose, are ya’ home?”

“Fort, is that you, honey?” a high, sweet voice answered from the back yard.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve got your birdseed.”

“Oh, that’s fine, that’s fine. Be a dear and bring it ’round back, will you? I need some help with Howard.”

He walked back to his truck, chuckling to himself, and pulled the seed off the tailgate. Then he hoisted it to his shoulder and walked around to the back yard, where he found Miss Rose, dressed impeccably as always, wrestling her one and only male mannequin out the back door.

“I thought Howard would like to be outside today, to show off his new hunting outfit. It’s not new really, the Doctor loved to hunt and I found some of his old gear in the attic,” she told him. Then she sighed and continued, “Of course, the poor dear couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, good thing he was a better doctor than hunter!”

Fort smiled at that, Dr. Dose had been a good doctor, but since the gear looked practically untouched, he could believe the part about being a poor hunter.

“And besides,” she continued, “Howard would probably want to get away from the girls from time to time, if he were real.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure he would,” Fort answered with a grin. “By the way, why’d you name him Howard and all the rest are just ‘the girls’?”

A wistful look crossed Miss Rose’s face. “I bought him from Howard’s Department Store in Joplin, when they went out of business. Such a nice store, pity.”

Miss Rose indicated that she wanted Howard positioned in the bushes by the gazebo, facing the back of the property. She talked about bringing more of the girls outside, for an old-fashioned garden party. So many beautiful gowns and dresses were still in storage, just waiting for their turn to be worn again. Once, her dreadfully serious daughter-in-law had remarked, negatively, about just how many gowns Rose owned. Katherine had assumed that Rose’s father or husband had bought them all, but Miss Rose had once been a smart single girl who worked in a very nice dress shop. In fact, due to her trim figure, she modeled sample sizes for customers and bought those samples at a nice discount. And being a bit of a collector, she never could bear to part with a single, hard-earned dress. So here they all were, decorating her girls.

Fort frowned when Miss Rose mentioned Katherine, because that made him think of Reid, Rose’s son. “Uh, Miss Rose, is Reid coming in for Christmas or summer vacation this year?” If it was vacation, Fort knew he would have to put Howard and the girls in storage soon.

“Don’t you worry, Fort. Reid and Katherine won’t be coming until Christmas this year.”

That was good news. The businesses downtown borrowed Miss Rose’s girls for their holiday windows, and the store employees did all the work.

“He doesn’t like the girls?” But Fort already knew the answer to that question, he just liked to hear her stories.

“That boy is just as much of a sour pickle as the Doctor was, bless his heart,” Miss Rose proclaimed, gently shaking her head. “I loved that man dearly, but how could he not see the funny in being a doctor named Dose?” It was rhetorical; Fort just smiled.

“I’ve always loved being Rose Dose, makes me sound like a medicine you’d actually want to take.”

He laughed at that. Fort thought, but didn’t say, that Miss Rose Dose was good medicine indeed. If he was fifty years older, he’d be on her doorstep with a bouquet of daisies every Friday night.

Bird seed delivered and Howard positioned, it was time for Fort to get back to work. Rose walked him to his truck and waved as he drove away. If I were fifty years younger, she said to herself, I would…But she couldn’t finish the thought, when she was young, girls just did not pursue young men. Sometimes she envied younger women, even Katherine, who just seemed so free, so unrestricted.

She shook her head and wished for the hundredth time that she knew a single young woman for Fort, but all her single acquaintances were also old widows. And it seemed like they were all competing for the same few widowers. Ah well, time was a cruel mistress with a nasty sense of humor.

Time was also unkind to her dresses, no matter how carefully she packed them away. Upstairs, in the attic, a long row of cedar chests held her precious frocks, folded away in tissue paper. Rose went to the one labeled “Spring” and opened it, releasing the scent of cedar and old fabric into the stale air of the attic. Even slightly yellowed with age, the spring dresses and gowns were lovely. Swiss dots and eyelet, tea rose prints and crinolines, boat necks and sweetheart necklines, pearl buttons and crisp cap sleeves–all things she didn’t see in the current styles–made her miss the grace of her youth.

Enough of this self-indulgence, she thought as she stood. The slight creaking in her hip reminded Rose that she wasn’t that youth anymore. “Time to get the girls dressed!” she said aloud.

It may have seemed like Rose talked to the mannequins as she dressed them, but she was really only talking to herself. Recalling this party or that wedding to which she wore some dress, and thinking about the days before the Doctor moved her to Post. Oh, how she grumbled at that! But she grew to love the slower pace and the people. While other small towns were insular and unwelcoming to strangers, Post had seemed to gather her into its fold. Even after the Doctor passed away, Rose knew she would stay. And she was glad she did, nobody ever said anything negative about her girls, except for Reid and Katherine. They seemed to take her mild eccentricity as a personal insult!

The dresses were all hanging in a closet downstairs, with any luck the wrinkles would fall out by morning. It had been a long day, but productive in its own way, so Rose went to bed.

She woke the next morning, just as the sky was starting to pink up with sunrise. Rose loved early morning, which was quite a change for her. As a young woman, she loved to stay up and out late, even when it scandalized her father. When she was a young mother, her son refused to stay down for the night, sleeping fitfully and waking every two hours. She didn’t get a decent night’s sleep until he was ten years old! Then there were the house calls, the bane of every doctor’s wife. Finally, Reid went off to college and the Doctor stopped making house calls. But after so many years of broken sleep, Rose couldn’t fix it. Now she woke literally before the chickens, the neighbor two houses down had a rooster. She had been awake at least an hour before he crowed.

Rose began to plan for the garden party tableau, as she called it. First she’d dress the girls, then she’d call her neighbor to help move them outside. The wrought iron table and chairs were already set up in the gazebo, but she’d put a pretty tablecloth on it and use her Blue Willow china. She was deep in preparation when she received two pieces of news, one good and one bad. The good news came in a phone call. The local newspaper, The Post Post, had run a piece about her girls in the Living section one Sunday and apparently some photographer from Kansas City had seen it. He wanted to take pictures of her collections, mannequins and dresses, for some big paper up there. He would be there tomorrow. The bad news, like so much bad news before, came in a letter. It was from Reid.

Not that hearing from her son was bad. Rose loved him and was so proud of him. He was a doctor, just like his father. And even if she didn’t understand, Reid saw something in her dour daughter-in-law and they had been married for ten years. Quite an accomplishment in this day and age, she thought. No, the bad news was that he and Katherine would be stopping by on their way to Dallas, where he was interviewing at a big hospital. The letter said, “next Wednesday” which should have been enough time, except mail took a little longer to get to Post. It was already Tuesday. So tomorrow would be busy, the photographer and her son would both be here.

Miss Rose spent the rest of the day getting ready for the photographer; there was no way to prepare for Reid and Katherine. The girl from next door and Fort both came over to help and her new tableau was done in record time.

For the first since he left for college, Rose had a restless night because of Reid.

Wednesday morning arrived too quickly. Miss Rose dressed more carefully than usual and made sure to wear lipstick. There was no way to know who would arrive first, the newspaper man or her son.

to be continued…..

Continued.

The photographer got there first by a few minutes. He was unloading his equipment when Reid and Katherine pulled up behind his car. Rose, standing on the porch and surrounded by mannequins, smiled and waved at them. Katherine couldn’t believe it; Rose had lied to them. The last time they had visited there had only been one mannequin in the house, the one wearing Miss Rose’s wedding gown. Reid had been pleased; his mother’s collection was a constant source of worry. To Reid, everything had a reason or purpose or deeper meaning-was his mother lonely or senile, should she really be living by herself?

The car had just barely stopped moving when he jerked it into park with a “tunk.” Ignoring car safety as well as social niceties, Reid left the driver’s side door wide open, ignored the photographer’s greeting, and left his very pregnant wife struggling to exit the car on his way to confront his mother.

“Reid. How nice to see you,” but Rose didn’t mean it, her normal smile had replaced by the look someone gets when they have to take a very bitter medicine.

By this time, Katherine was carefully making her way up the front walk. The photographer had seen her difficulty and helped her out of the car, forever earning Katherine’s highest praise of “What a nice man!” She heard Reid demanding to know what was going on, why were there mannequins on the porch, and who was the guy with the cameras.

She heard Rose say, “Reid, it’s none of your concern.”

“Oh, I think it is!” he answered, a slight threat to his voice.

Katherine stepped onto the porch, puffing slightly with the effort. “Mother, we’re just…worried about you,” she said. Reid’s face was starting to turn red with all the yelling and she patted his arm trying to calm him.

“Oh, posh!” her mother-in-law answered. “There’s nothing to worried about. I just didn’t have time to put the girls in storage. And that man is a photographer from the Kansas City paper, come to take pictures of them.”

The thought of his mother’s oddities being splashed all over the paper, even in some back section, was almost more than he could take. “What? Now, mother…”

“Don’t you ‘now, mother’ me, young man! You may be too big to put over my knee, but if you don’t take that disrespectful tone out of your voice I’ll wash your mouth out with soap!” The delicate, lady-like, impeccably dressed Miss Rose had taken her much taller son’s ear in her fingers and was giving it a cruel pinch.

With a wincing face and a reddening ear, the younger Dr. Dose cried out, “Ow, all right, all right!” then a pouty, “I’m sorry,” when she let go the offended ear.

Miss Rose brushed imaginary wrinkles out of her crisp, summer dress and smiled at the now wide-eyed newspaper man. “Never mind my rude son, young man, come on in and sit down. You too, Katherine. Reid didn’t tell me you were having a baby!” She shepherded them all into the parlor, and served them iced tea.

Katherine sat quietly listening to Rose answer the other man’s questions. Not only was he taking pictures of Miss Rose and the girls, he was writing a feature about them, too. Miss Rose’s stories, and the way she told them, thoroughly charmed not only the photographer, but Katherine as well. Even her husband began to relax and enjoy the anecdotes, even if he liked to pretend he didn’t. She sighed to herself, if only her own parents were this open and friendly, instead of serious and distant, life would have been much more fun!

The last question the newspaper man asked was: Where did they all come from? Katherine was curious too. Miss Rose answered with a chuckle, “You’d be surprised. Some came from department stores, some from the store fixture shop in Tulsa, and many were gifts. More people than you might expect have a mannequin or two. And when they find out I collect the girls, they give them to me. You know, if I put all my gowns on dressmaker’s dummies, I’d just be proud. Since I put them on the girls, my son, at least, thinks I’m crazy.”

The photographer excused himself to take the rest of his pictures. “Mother, I never said you were crazy! Like Kath said, we’re just worried about you. We don’t want you to be lonely,” Reid said, taking his mother’s hand.

“Honey, I’m not lonely, not around here. But it’s sweet of you to be concerned,” Rose said, removing her hand from his. “I’ve just always like playing dress-up and the girls let me do that.”

Katherine interrupted, “I may have somebody here you could play dress-up with.” She patted her growing belly and continued, “We found out we’re having a little girl.”

“That is good news, Katherine! But you all live so far away.”

Reid looked over at her, and she nodded. Then he said, “That interview in Dallas? I lied. The interview is here, in Post. Dad’s replacement wants to retire and move, so his office called me and asked if I’d like to take his place.”

He paused, and Rose said, “And? Son, you never could just get to the point.”

“Well, we didn’t want to get your hopes up, in case it didn’t work out. But we’ve already decided to take it. And move back here to Post. You okay with that?”

“Of course, I am! The very thought.” And she hugged both of them.

Months later, after Reid and Katherine had moved into a nice little house not far from Rose, and after the baby was born, Miss Rose Dose got rid of most of her “girls”. She couldn’t have a grandbaby over if the house wasn’t safe for children! And as a brand-new grandmother, she just didn’t have time to play with dolls anymore. She saved some of her favorite outfits in the last remaining cedar chest, just in case her granddaughter, Olivia, turned out to be the kind of girl who liked to play dress-up.

On occasion, Katherine would drive by the windows downtown just to look at the mannequins and dresses that graced the shops year-round now. Only two mannequins remained in Miss Rose’s house, up in the attic. One of the girls, wearing Rose’s wedding gown, and Howard, still in his hunting gear.

Individual Project 4

Page 334, #9-Imagine a character who is your complete opposite in some specific way…Now choose an action (walking to school, eating in a café, making a sale to a customer), and write a scene in which your “opposite I” character is performing that action. Make the character sympathetic and intriguing…allow the detail and dialogue in the scene to gradually reveal this to the reader.

Today started as a quiet day, like too many before it. Sunday is a perfect day for sleeping in and I gave it my best. But, even when I don’t set the alarm I still wake up at seven. The mattress had just the right amount of “give”, the sheets were crisp and fresh-smelling, the pillow was cool against my face, there was plenty of room, but sleep would not return. Sleep, like a vampire, had fled at the first sliver of sunrise.

Putting off the inevitable no longer, I pushed myself out of bed. Eight o’clock passed, and then nine; I made breakfast and read the Times. I don’t like to talk myself so the house was mostly silent, broken only by the sizzle-drip of the coffee maker. Well, silent until the phone rang. It was my mother.

“You are going to church this morning, aren’t you, Lanie?” She didn’t even let me answer. “They keep asking about you, especially that nice Alfred! You could do worse, he’s a pharmaceutical rep and his mother says he makes nice money!”

“Mother, would you please stop talking about me to your friends? I’m sure Alfred is a perfectly nice man, but I’m not interested.” I’m sure he is, and I’m just as sure that my mother could go on all day about it if I didn’t cut her off.

She was undeterred, “Lanie, this has gone on long enough. You really need to move on!” Move on, what a despicable phrase, obviously coined by someone who had never had to actually “move on” from anything.

“Look, Mom, I really don’t want to sit there all alone and pretend to be happy.”

“Nonsense! You can sit with us.”

There was really only one way to handle this, “Goodbye, Mom, I’m hanging up now!” And I did.

I didn’t have anywhere to go; no one was waiting for me. The Times was still waiting so I sat down to read. The room seemed bigger, emptier with half the chairs gone. Each brush of each page echoed in the nearly empty room. After reading the paper, I went to the closet to get dressed.

Half the closet was bare; I still couldn’t bring myself to move my clothes over. I guess I still clung to hope. Hopeful or hopeless, I had to wear clothes.

Dressed now, the rest of day stretched before me. I could go anywhere, do anything, and not have to worry about meshing my plans with someone else’s. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. The morning had been pleasant and relaxing. Tonight, I would try sleeping in the middle of the bed.

I left the newspaper sections where they fell.

My classmates didn’t get to edit this one, so have at it, folks! Tell me if you like it, if you didn’t, whatever.

This vacation was not turning out the way Irene had envisioned at all. It was bad enough that Bob’s mother had insisted on coming with them, but then she wouldn’t pay for her own room. Bob and Irene hadn’t spent more than thirty minutes alone in the past week. So much for the second honeymoon.
She liked Frances, really she did, but this week was pushing her to the very limits of her patience. The evenings were the worst. After the day’s activities were done, there was nothing more to do than pass endless minutes watching the tiny television and then try to fall asleep listening to mother and son snore the same snore. Tonight would be different. Tonight she would be so tired that she would fall asleep first!
Morning had passed quickly at the Desert Museum. Lunch had dragged on at its customary, old lady’s pace; but she was here now, finally. The Petroglyphs were the centerpiece of their vacation. Irene spent several days at the Central Library studying the Mogollon people and their rock art, and here she was, looking at the rocks with her own eyes!
Frances decided against following them up into the rocks and stayed down at the gate, talking to the guard. The wind had picked up and was now whistling through the rocks, but she could still hear Frances’ voice as she chatted to the guard.
Bob, holding her hand, helped her climb to the top of hill. It wasn’t a very big hill, but the view from the top was still breath taking. Picking their way carefully down the other side, they stopped and kissed. She wrapped her arms around his waist and sighed into his chest. Why couldn’t they be here alone? This wasn’t the first time she thought it, but this time she didn’t try to squash the thought the moment it occurred.
There must be an airfield nearby, because a jet flew right over them, close to the ground at first but climbing quickly. Still, in the background, she could hear Frances. Mostly unintelligible, an occasional word would drift up on a gust of wind. “…Sciatica…”, she heard once, and then, “…coffee…” Irene had to smile. Frances loved her coffee.
Then Bob called to her. She couldn’t see him anymore. He must be behind that large rock, she thought.
“That’s odd,” she said aloud, as walked around the large rock. Bob wasn’t where she thought he would be, and now she couldn’t hear him anymore. “Bob?” she called, once and then again.
He’s around here somewhere, she thought, and then shrugged. The rock pictures were amazing here, deeper and cleaner looking than they were on the other side. Look, there was a picture of a man and something that looked like an elephant! Was that a flying saucer? She looked around for Bob again, because she wanted to share all these things with him. Where was that man? She stopped to listen and couldn’t hear him, or anything else for that matter. Had Frances finally run out of things to say? The stillness was unnatural and Irene was starting to get concerned.
“Bob!” she called out again, much louder this time. “Hello?”
Weird, she said to herself. Then she noticed something else. While she was calling for Bob, she was also turning in circles and now wasn’t sure which way to go.
Only one thing to do, she thought, go up! As she climbed up, she had a momentary spell of vertigo and grabbed a rock for support. Her hand was resting on a carved face, “Sorry,” she said as jerked her hand off the old face. She must be going in the right direction; the glyphs were starting to look older and more worn again.
That’s when she heard Bob. “Irene? Where are you?” he called, an edge of panic to his voice.
“I’m right here!” she answered.
Then she heard Frances, still talking to the guard. That woman could talk to anyone. Another a jet flew by, higher this time. The unnatural stillness was dispelled, which made Irene very happy.
“Where have you been? I thought I lost you!” Bob hugged her so tightly her spine popped a little.
“Just on the other side of that rock,” Irene answered and pointed.
“No, you weren’t. I just looked over there and you weren’t there!” Bob said, “It’s been almost half an hour. I thought I was going to have to go down and call the police, or the sheriff, or marshal or something!”
That couldn’t be right! “Honey, according to my watch it’s only been about five minutes.”
On the breeze, Frances’ words flew up to them again; this time they could hear the guard answer back. Then Frances giggled like flirting teenager. That’s when they looked down at the gate and saw that Frances had wedged herself inside the little booth with guard.
Shaking their heads at the same time, Bob and Irene made their way down to the gate and collected his mother.
Only later, did they notice that their watches were off by about 25 minutes.
Odd, thought Irene, right before she drifted off to sleep, snoring happily.

My five-year old, Monkey, wrote a fairy tale for his Pre-K class last week and it was so cool that I just had to share it with you. First, I have to get permission.

Me: Hey, Monkey, is it ok if I put your story on my blog so everyone can enjoy it? Monkey: Yeah!

Ok, done.

A-stick’s Castle

Once upon a time, there was a unicorn. The unicorn lived in a beautiful castle, made of wood and bricks. He lived there with a king and queen and they were very nice. They fed him hay and apples and bananas and milk so he would have energy to fly. He was a unicorn with wings. Some unicorns don’t have wings to fly.

His name was A-stick. The king, named Monkey, and queen, named Pumpkin, built a tower out of bricks. Inside the tower, they had a dining room table and chairs. It was a dining room for the unicorn, and they let the unicorn eat inside the dining room in the tower. The king and queen ate in the dining room in the castle.

And they lived happily ever after. The end.

This is the first of my assignments for my Creative Writing class. I don’t know what grade I’ll get but I’d love some feedback from my friends. Tell me what you think!

 

Wiley hated the hospital, but more than that, she hated that Gran had to be here. It had been five hours since the call, and Gran was still unconscious. Whether it was another five hours, or five days, didn’t matter, Wiley would stay until she awoke.
The chairs were incredibly uncomfortable and she had tried every one. What she really wanted was to curl up on the hospital bed with her grandmother, not so much to comfort Gran, but to comfort herself. Instead she had to content herself with watching and worrying and occasionally stroking her dry, papery arm. Nurses bustled in and out, always looking slightly perturbed and, once, a doctor came by and said a lot of words at Wiley, none of which she could remember.
She managed to doze off once, the room was so still and the time was passing so slowly, but was jolted awake by the whir of the automatic blood pressure cuff. As she unfolded herself from the tight, protective posture she found herself in, she noticed that a foot had fallen asleep as well. Standing and stamping the offending foot, she looked over at Gran, hoping for some kind of change, any kind of change.
This wrinkled, dried-up husk of person didn’t even look like the grandmother she knew. Gran had always been proud of her “girlish figure” but always embarrassed by her round face and chubby cheeks. Knowing how she felt about it, Wiley never said it aloud, but she loved those apple cheeks.
So many thin, older women start to look sunken and hollow and older than their years, but not Gran. Her plump round face belied her age. When she smiled and laughed, those cheeks would rise and redden and her eyes would crinkle, the only wrinkles that usually lined her face. Today, all that joy and life seemed gone and at long last, she looked every one of her 85 years. Those cheeks, no longer plump, were wrinkled and dark.
She looks so old, Wiley thought, “She doesn’t even look like herself.”
She must’ve said this last out loud. A nurse had entered, quietly, and said, “I know, honey, it’s the stroke.”
The nurse then, calmly and efficiently, performed all the little tasks that mystified Wiley but were crucial to her grandmother’s care. The nurse smiled and patted her hand when she thanked her for that care.
She sat back in the least uncomfortable of the chairs, fully expecting to nod off once again, but at that moment Gran stirred just a little. Wiley wasn’t sure she had really seen the slight movement of an arm, perhaps it was just wishful thinking causing her to see good signs mixed in with so many bad ones. But, no, Gran’s arm really did move. She was raising her hand! The movements were shaky but real.
An eye fluttered open and looked around the sterile room. A kind of panic, or maybe just confusion, dawned in that darting eye until it stopped on Wiley’s face. She had moved to the head of the bed, finally smiling to see Gran awake.
“Hi,” she said with a small, relieved smile. “You’re in the hospital. The doctor said you had a stroke.”
Gran seemed to process that for a moment, before trying to speak. “My house….”, she managed to say.
“No, Gran, you’re in the hospital.”
“Shhh, go…my…house.” Some life returned to the one open eye while she said this, but the light looked different to Wiley, harsher almost desperate.
“Bedroom closet…box…pictures. Call Dad…Sam.” The words that she forced into existence seemed to drain her of energy and she once again sank into sleep.
Wiley called her dad and her husband as Gran had told her to do and told them to come to the hospital. She only said that she needed to get some things for Gran and would be back soon.
It didn’t take long to drive to Gran’s house. Wiley unlocked the door and entered. Gran had only been in the hospital a day but the house felt…bereft, as if the house itself knew its mistress was gone, and might not come back. She made her way through the living room and past the kitchen, to the back of the house and the two bedrooms. Wiley had only been in Gran’s bedroom a handful of times, it was old-fashioned and musty, not very interesting for a child. She kept the rest of the house so lively and warm and welcoming that Wiley had never even wanted to explore the bedroom. Now she had no choice.
She looked around, searching for even a hint of her grandmother’s personality and found tiny pieces here and there. The wallpaper had never been changed because it was “perfectly good”; a child of the Depression, Gran made do and never wasted anything serviceable just because it was out of style. The background was dark beige but may have started life lighter or brighter, and had tiny clusters of rose-colored flowers. There were odd, square lighter patches of color and one corner near the ceiling was starting to curl.
The dresser was buffed to a shine; there hadn’t been time for it to gather any dust. On top was a large doily and Gran’s jewelry box and sitting next to it, a glass dish holding her (and Wiley’s) favorite peppermints. She popped one of the powdery, chalky candies in her mouth and looked in the mirror. The glass was silvered and wavy with age, but Wiley liked it. She could just barely see all of her face when she sat down on the bed.
It was not a comfortable bed, at least not for Wiley who had been thoroughly spoiled by her own big, soft bed. She didn’t have to see it, but she knew there was a piece of plywood between the mattress and box spring. Gran liked a firm bed; she said it kept her back straight. She lay back and ran her hand over the bedspread. It was white and nubby; Gran called it ”candle wicking”. It didn’t seem like something comfortable for sleeping, but there was a warm, soft blanket folded carefully at the foot of the bed. Wiley sat up and picked up the end of the blanket, she held it to her cheek and breathed in its scent. It was Gran’s scent, a mixture of rosewater and Ivory soap.
She couldn’t put it off any longer, it was time to look for the box. It was an older house, so the closet was small. The door had the same kind of faceted glass doorknob that was on the bedroom door. Gran’s favorite housecoat hung on a hook on the inside of the closet door. The dresses and skirts and blouses (no pants) were hung carefully on the bar. The shoes with the sensible heels were kept in their original boxes, some yellowing with age. The pocketbooks and handbags were lined up neatly on the shelf above the bar. Wiley took Gran’s white, patent leather, Summer purse off the shelf; the clasp made a pleasing “snap” when she opened it. She closed it again and slid it back to its place on the shelf.
All the boxes in the closet seemed to contain only shoes and Wiley was about to give up, when she spotted a metal box tucked away in the corner, underneath the longer dresses and skirts. Just as she reached for it, she heard the front door open. Before she even had time to get scared, her father called out, “It’s me!” and walked back to the bedroom.
He said he didn’t want her to be alone right now. Whatever that means, Wiley thought. “Did you find the box?” he asked.
“Wait, what, how did you….” she was confused.
“I stopped by the hospital,” he said, “and came over in case you had any questions.”
“Well, I’ll let you know,” she answered.
Still confused, she pulled the box from the closet and stood up. She set it on the dresser and opened it. It was filled with pictures. There were pictures of Gran and her grandfather, many of her father and even more of a girl she vaguely recognized but couldn’t place. There were family group pictures, many with this strange girl in them. Wiley looked at her father and raised an eyebrow but kept digging. Under the photographs she found a bundle of letters addressed to a Dolores Jones and next to the bundle, a very official-looking document. She unfolded the document and read it; it was a birth certificate. Her birth certificate.
She scanned it but stopped when she got to entry for mother’s maiden name. It said “Dolores Jones”, not “Barbara Finney” which was her own mother’s maiden name. She read further, the line for father did not read “Farren Jones”, in fact it didn’t read anything, it was blank.
Even more confused, she sat down on the edge of the bed. “Dad,” she looked at him, at Farren, at the man who should’ve been listed on her birth certificate, “what is this?”
He told her the family secret, after all, it was her secret, too. Her mother, Farren’s baby sister, was an “unfortunate girl”. She was unfortunate enough to find herself pregnant out of wedlock at a time when that just wasn’t done. Gran couldn’t send her away in shame, so Dolores had stayed home to have the baby.
“But something went wrong,” he said, his voice catching on the words, “our father wouldn’t let her go to the hospital during the day. He wanted her to wait until night, so nobody would see her. By the time it was dark, it was too late. The doctor got here in time to save you, but it was too late to save Dolores, your mother. She held you as long as she could and then asked me to take care of you. So Barbara and I adopted you, and I loved you as much as any father could. At first, because you were my sister’s baby and then because you were your own, lovable self.”
“Daddy!” It was all she could say and she hugged him.
They went back to the hospital together and told Gran that Wiley knew the Truth. Wiley’s husband Sam came in and they told him the Truth, too. They were all gathered there, letting the Truth seep into their minds and souls, when Gran took her last breath. Her final wishes had been honored and she died, finally at peace now that the Truth was known.

Somewhere, somewhen she had lost herself. Maybe her self was swimming around with the junk at the bottom of the diaper bag, maybe it floated away on the echo of one of the many times she yelled at her children, maybe it could be found again someday, maybe not. She loved them, she really did, with a fierce love that she feared would burn a hole right through her chest. So where did this smoldering pit of anger come from? Everyday she tried to douse it, and everyday fresh, dry kindling was thrown on top.

She had waited so long for them, had gone through all the tests, the procedures, the drugs. She hadn’t even minded all the usual miseries of pregnancy. But.
But she hadn’t been exactly a young mother when they were born. She had 36 years all to herself, well, a decade of that with her husband. They were both quiet people, homebodies by nature. It was a comfortable life, with little conflict. They had worked out their differences years ago; all the rough edges had been worn clean. As with all long-marrieds, they had a short-hand of conversation, a repertoire of very inside jokes. A look or a raised eyebrow applied at the right moment could trigger fits of laughter. They were so content, wouldn’t a child fit seamlessly into their lives?
But no one had been there to tell her that her dreamy, foggy visions of motherhood were setting her up for failure. But if someone had told her that reality could never live up to her expectations, would she have even listened? Maybe she would have dismissed their warnings with an imperious wave of her hand, arrogant and confident that life would magically shape itself to her plans.
But she had no idea how very much she would miss her previous quiet life. It wasn’t so much child-noise that bothered her, it was talking all day, answering the same questions over and over, guiding and correcting constantly, reaching her limit and shreiking like a mad-woman. For a time, she and he lived somewhere else; she didn’t know anyone, not even their new neighbors. There were days when she would say ‘goodbye’ to her husband at the train in the morning and ‘hello’ to him when she picked him up in the evening and not utter one word in between. Not even to herself, not even to the cat. It was this blessed silence she missed, her own silence, the lack of her own voice, the prominence of her thoughts in such stillness.
But now there were new conflicts between them. There were no smooth, seamless transitions. Maybe the rough edges had always been there, only lying dormant. Tectonic plates in the stillness between quakes, pushed into renewed activity with the expansion of their family.
But she knew she suffered through some kind of post-partum something after each baby. What good could that information do her now, where was she supposed to go with that? They were far too old for anything post-partum to be tearing her to pieces right now.
The anger was there, it was a fact to be dealt with, a struggle to surmount. Maybe the largest portion of the problem should be laid properly at her own feet. She craved silence like a drug, but needed to talk with another adult. When he came home in the evenings, she couldn’t stop herself from peppering him with all that had been on her mind all day. And as deeply and painfully as she loved her children, sometimes she thought she would cry if she heard her name one more time. Maybe it was because her name was no longer her own, it had been replaced by Mama.
Or maybe it was because she was just one bad mother.

The loose board creaked as she stepped out onto the porch. Have to get Cletus to fix that, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. She touched the back of one hand to her forehead and pulled the cheap cotton of her dress away from her chest with the other. So hot already and not even noon, she was pleased the housework was done. Of course, it was a lot easier with her new daughter-in-law to help. Odell had picked such a fine girl; Mary was pretty and delicate-looking, but she was a farm-girl and bred to hard work.

Cletus, Odell and the hired man were cutting and baling hay, she couldn’t see them but every so often their voices would drift in on the hot August breeze. They would come in for lunch soon and probably eat on the wide, shaded porch. It was too hot in that house even with the windows open and all the box fans running. It wouldn’t be that hot in the house Odell and Mary were building on the parcel of land she and Cletus gave them for a wedding present. They were putting in central heat and air, no window units or floor furnaces for them.

“Ruthie,” said Mary, in her deceptively dainty voice, “I brought you some tea.” Iced, of course. They sat down on the flowered cushions she made not just to keep legs from frying on the hot metal chairs, but also to hide the rusty patches Cletus hadn’t fixed yet. Mary didn’t sit for long, that child never did. This time she jumped up to go hang a load of wash on the line to dry.

Mary pinned the sheets and towels to the line and dreamed about the many, many loads of wash she would hang on the clothesline behind her very own house. Not that she didn’t like Cletus and Ruthie, she did, but she just wanted to set up her own home. She couldn’t wait to hang the curtains she was making and to put the dishes just where she wanted them. They would get a lot of the work done this winter and maybe by this time next year she would be in her own house, perhaps with a baby on the way.

Ruthie was looking forward, too. Not that she didn’t like having Odell and Mary in her home, she did, but she was looking forward to having fewer people underfoot. And the thought of spending some of the hottest afternoons in air conditioning surely did have its appeal, so much the better with grandbabies to hold. It would be easy since their parcel of land, and the new house taking shape on it, was directly across the gravel road that ran in front their house.

“There, those should dry real quick in this heat, then I can hang Odell’s shirts,” the younger woman said, sitting down again. But for now, for a moment, there was nothing else to do. Nothing to wash or scrub, no meals to get, no men to fuss over, no buttons to sew back on, no gardening to do, no dogs to feed. Nothing to do but sit a spell. It was such a rare occurrence in a country wife’s day that they took full advantage.

Sitting on the porch, looking at the house-in-progress or at some point off in the distance, they didn’t notice him at first. The young man walking eastwards on the road spotted them and waved. Ruthie waved back but Mary didn’t; she was still too newly married to be comfortable waving at strange men. He took her wave as the welcome it was and picked his way across the cattle grate. The women took his measure as he walked the long driveway.

Kind people would call him slender, but he was plain scrawny. He wasn’t as tall as Mary first supposed, it was his skinny build that made him seem taller. To Ruthie, he looked the way cows did when they were malnourished and hopped up from her chair and ran to get him Cletus’ lunch. In her mind, Mary compared the young man to Odell and found him wanting. After a life spent cattle farming, Odell was strong and self-assured; he knew who he was and his place in the world. Their guest was little more than bones-his clothes hung awkwardly on his body and his face, well with some weight he might be handsome. But his skin, Mary thought, looked like it was pulled too tight over his high cheekbones and squared jaw, it looks like it hurts. All she said aloud was, “Hi.”

Ruthie returned with a sandwich and tea. “It’s not fancy, but it’s good. I can make Cletus one later.”

He thanked her and ate his sandwich, occasionally closing his eyes and smiling, but not speaking until it was gone. He thanked them for the meal, the first he’d had in two days, and stood to walk on. Ruthie brushed aside his protests and told him to stay in the shade and finish his tea. So he did just that, taking the opportunity to study his hostesses.

One young, one not so young, both dressed in simple cotton dresses. The young one was pretty and friendly, but no more than that. No coy glances, no preening, no stray touch to his arm, no sultry invitation to sin. He could hear a male voice in the distance every so often, and she would smile off that way. The voice of her husband, no doubt. He watched the not so young one; she must have been a beauty once, he could see a ghost of pretty on her worn face. She had seen good years and lean, and never once wavered in her love of her man and her land. That much he could also see in her face. The women seemed so good and true, so steady and strong; their brows had never been troubled with duplicity, only honest worry.

The older woman wore shoes that his grandmother called brogans, but the younger one’s feet were bare and white on the weathered, gray boards. Wisps of hair escaped their braids and clung wetly to Mary’s face and neck; a trickle of sweat made its way down her throat and into undergarments only barely obscured by her dress. He looked away, not wanting to want what he could never have. If only.

If only all the women in his life had been like these two. A futile wish, he knew, but he couldn’t help but wish it. His mother, too young when she had her bastard child, was killed by another woman, over a man of course. His grandmother never let a day pass when she didn’t remind of him of his status as burden. After leaving home at 15, he found himself involved with bad woman after bad woman. How different his life would’ve been. To be raised by a woman like the older one and bed down with a woman like the younger one, he would not be the thing he was now.

“I have to get back on the road,” he said, standing quickly.

Ruthie stood when he did, “Wait,” she said. She opened the screen door and retrieved a bag from inside. “Here you go, young man, enough to get you through at least tomorrow. You dropped your pack by the driveway, if you have a canteen you can fill it at the well.”

Which he did. The women waved at him and he waved back. And the killer walked on. Working his way east, leaving what remained of the brightly-painted bad women in his wake. And they would never know how close they came to death. Oh, not from him, after meeting Ruthie and Mary, something in the killer broke. It felt like a bad fever breaking in the night, leaving him weakened and sweaty, but free of infection. His freedom solidified later that night in a hobo camp.

There was another drifter there like him. Not one of life’s wanderers like the hobos, but another Very Bad Man. The evil that used to live inside the young man must have resonated like a tuning fork as it left him, and this Very Bad Man could feel it. He confided, deliciously, about two women he had been watching for a time and what, in painful detail, he would do to them at first chance. The young man knew that the Very Bad Man meant the two women, his two women, and kept watchful.

Later that night, the Very Bad Man crept from camp headed west. The young man followed him and killed him. He wiped the lead pipe clean and stuck it in the other man’s pack, then he found a good-sized rock and laid the man’s head on it. It was possible that the cops would think him responsible for the other killings and close all the cases. But he wouldn’t stick around to find out. It was still possible to disappear into the mountains and live like a hermit and that is what he did.

The next day the sheriff paid the farm a visit. “Seems like a bum died just up the road from here,” he told them. He didn’t tell them about the lead pipe or that the bum seemed to be headed towards their house. No use to scare them.

Ruthie had to see if it was the young man they fed the day before, he seemed troubled and left in a hurry. When she saw the man, she was relieved. But she would never know that she had a guardian angel, and that the angel was a killer.

Louise never intended to be a Liar. It was one of those things that just seems to happen, to take on a life of its own. It all started with her husband, the one she should never have married.

Growing up during the Depression was a hardship for everyone, at least everyone she ever met. Her family lived in the rolling hills in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, not far from Joplin or Galena, depending on which road you took. They never took those roads. Instead, when speaking of “going to town”, they meant Miami. The little town seemed so cosmopolitan to them, with its stores and the Coleman Movie Theater.

Louise and her brothers and sisters (2 brothers, 3 sisters) had their share of fun growing up. There were animals to play with, they even had a goat-cart. Not many toys to be had, but the whole countryside was their playground. They did what odd jobs came their way, on top of their regular chores (for which they didn’t receive one dime), they gathered berries in season and sold them to the general store. The nickels and dimes and even pennies would buy them double-features and popcorn at the Coleman. The boys did things boys did in those days, tipping outhouses and sneaking a cow into the doctor’s office. How they got it up those rickety stairs, Louise could never figure out.

As for Louise, she was the oldest and had recently discovered new pastimes. Likely boys would come calling and spend their own nickels and dimes on the movies and popcorn; Louise now saved hers for fabric and buttons and fancy hats. She was the beauty of the family, tall and athletic. Her long legs and shiny black hair drew admiring looks wherever she went, much to the chagrin of her father. He didn’t think too much of his oldest daughter, he didn’t care that she was the smartest student in the tiny school, she wasn’t a son. Not being male was sin enough for him, and he punished her appropriately. Her love of tennis especially infuriated him, the immodesty of the outfits were an affront to his rigid sense of decency.

The last time he took a switch to her, she was 16 and a big, strong girl. She broke free and pushed him to the floor. Then she informed him that if he ever raised his hand to her again she would kill him. She meant it and he believed her. Knowing she needed to leave soon, she married, perhaps unwisely.

Her new husband had been the oldest of her suitors; her logic led her to believe that alone made him the best choice. Louise was wrong, but the rigid, stubborn streak she inherited from her father would not allow her to admit it. So she tolerated his drinking and infidelities, but it was his disdain for honest work that she couldn’t abide.

The Depression ended and the War started. Her brothers enlisted right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor (one would die in the middle of the ocean and one would see his fellow soldiers’ blood stain the water and land of Normandy but survive himself), as did all of her old swains. She dragged her no-good lout of a husband to Joplin to enlist. He was relieved and she enraged when they wouldn’t take him. The army sited his sole support of his dependents as the reason. Louise laughed a harsh and bitter laugh upon hearing this. She took in laundry and ironing and sewed dresses for other women’s children to support them and their two children.

Some time passed and she heard that Douglas Aircraft in Tulsa was hiring anyone that could do the job. She left her children in her mother’s care when she and her husband Harold went to Tulsa. Louise was competent and still strong and got work assembling bombers. Harold wasted most of his time in bars, spending the money Louise forgot to hide. She finally reached her limit, took all her money, put it in the bank and told Harold to get his own money if he wanted to drink.

When she got back to their rooming house after her shift, he was gone. It wasn’t like all the nights when he was at the bar down the street, this felt emptier, freer somehow. His clothes were gone and his shaving kit, too. She found a letter on the dresser. Just like the yellow dog to leave a letter instead of telling me outright, she thought. The letter said he never wanted a family and he was leaving with someone named Mildred. Some barfly floozy, no doubt.

That was when she gave birth to The Lie. It was easy, he had no living family so she sent a letter to her mother saying he died and she had him buried in Tulsa. The letters flew back and forth. The kids could stay there, no she didn’t need help, she would decide what to do after the war, no don’t tell anybody else including the kids, she would do it.

So she worked hard and saved her money. After the war, she went back home to work so her mother could continue to help her raise her children. No one could understand why she wouldn’t take any of the help available to widows. Nor would she entertain the notion of remarrying. Even if that coward had had the courage to face her and give her a divorce, she would never be tied to a man again. Her fortunes, and those of her children, would be hers and hers alone. She’d filed her divorce papers in Tulsa, but he couldn’t be found to sign them. So even if she wanted to, she couldn’t remarry. And her pride. Her pride had conceived the lie in the first place and now it kept it going. Louise would not be the abandoned wife and her children would not be abandoned, either. People were so cruel, much better to pretend forever that he was dead.

She scrimped and saved for years, making their clothes, growing vegetables in the yard, making do. Then one day she did something that single mothers rarely did in that day, she bought a house. And she paid cash for it, no mortgage for her. It was small, but it was clean and decent and close to the kids’ schools. Her oldest had a glimmering of understanding and worked at any job he could find to buy extras for himself. But her youngest, she complained bitterly at not having all the things her friends had. Louise did her best, but it was never enough.

To her credit, Louise hated The Lie. She tried to be truthful in all else, but that was difficult. The Lie engendered other lies, spreading its tentacles to all areas of her life. It would’ve been so much easier to delude herself into believing The Lie was true. She tried to, but that pride of hers wouldn’t let her accept The Lie as reality no matter how bitter a cup was the Truth. She got very good at redirection, changing the subject, clouding the issue. Louise thought she would get away clean, that her children most of all would never find out.

Almost, she almost got away with it. Her oldest was grown and gone, with a wife of his own and her youngest was just graduating high school. She had plans to go to secretarial school and get a job in the Big City. Which big city? She didn’t know. Louise was just starting to relax with her last chick getting ready to fly their cozy nest for the hazards of Life. Until.

Until he showed up, practically at her front door. The daughter arrived home from school one spring day, scared to death of a strange man that had followed her home. Louise looked out the window and instantly recognized the shabby figure sitting on the curb. It was her husband. Instructing her frightened daughter to stay put “or else”, she went to talk to him.

“Harold. What do you want?” She put her hands on her hips and waited for him to answer.

“Can’t a man come to see his wife and kids?” He squinted his yellowing eyes up at her, his worn-out face begging for a ‘yes’.

“Not if he’s been gone for 15 years. Not if he left for some drunken floozy. Not…”she cut herself off because she realized that her voice was growing louder and causing a scene was not her way. “Well, you look clean enough, smell a little boozy though. Come inside the house, somehow I’ll deal with this too.”

“You always were a direct woman.”

Her daughter was in a state of panic as she led the man into the house. ‘Aflutter’ Louise’s mother would’ve called it. Grabbing her daughter’s shoulders to stop her, she said, “Suzy, I have to tell you something, well a lot of things, it’s not going to be easy for you to understand.” The girl stopped moving and looked right at the man.

“Mother, who is that?”

“That, my dear, is your father.”

It took the better part of an hour to help both of them understand why she Lied. That she was not just protecting herself, but also her children. That had she admitted her mistake in marrying him, maybe they would think they were mistakes as well. “And, Honey, you were never a mistake.” At the end, she said, “Well, we’d better call Frank and tell him about your father.”

“He knows,” said Harold in a sad, eroded voice. “I went to see him day before yesterday.” He said that he was dying, soon. Years of drink and poverty were claiming their bounty. He needed to make his peace before he died. Louise shook her head and looked at her arms crossed over her chest. Fifteen years may have passed, but Harold’s first, last, only thought was for himself, no matter who else was hurt.

The Lie was over and the truth was out. She called her son, and apologized for Lying all these many years. Each of the three offered to continue The Lie with her, but she refused. The truth had set her free. With a maturity her mother didn’t know she possessed, Suzy told her that everyone else should be told, too.

It didn’t take long for the truth to filter through their little town. Most people had always admired Louise for her strength and competence, and the truth didn’t lessen that admiration one whit. In fact, most of her friends thought they might also make up a more dignified story when faced with such an awful situation.

She had never loved him, but she had liked him once upon a long time ago and her anger had burned itself out many years before. He had helped her get out of her childhood home and in gratitude for that, and since he was still her husband, she moved him into Frank’s old room. He was right, he did die soon, but he got to know his children first, and Louise was glad that she didn’t rob a sick, old man of his last happiness.

His funeral was small, he hadn’t made a single friend in fifteen years, but his wife and children were there and even a handful of her friends. And so The Lie became Truth, finally. And she found that now, no longer a Liar, she could move on with her life. Her daughter left for the Big City (she decided on Chicago), her son had a son, and she remarried. He was a farmer, he never drank, and she loved him.

Sometimes the boundaries between city and country are difficult to determine. The city outgrows its original limits, in fits and spurts, in bits and pieces. A neighborhood attached to town on one end will project out into what used to be pasture. Not so bucolic, these projections. They stick out awkwardly, like gangly arms from too-short sleeves and bony ankles peeking under high-water pants. I grew up in one such neighborhood.

When we moved in it looked typical of its ilk. Sod yards, no real trees. Not trees for climbing anyway, only sad, scrawny things held up by lengths of garden hose-covered rope. They seemed inadequate to the task of surviving in Tornado Alley. And indeed, the first real storm season took most of these pathetic specimens right out of the ground. And all the houses looked the same, which has probably been a common complaint since people moved out of caves. I can just hear early hut-dwelling housewives complaining about the hut her poor husband built out of mud, sticks, and hard-won pelts. How their hut looked just like every other hut in the village. That was my mom’s chief complaint, not her only one, mind you, but the one she trotted out most often.

I didn’t mind, there were lots of kids to play with and a Mom-and-Pop store at the end of the next street over. There were also woods on two sides of our neighborhood. We were very close to the river, not close enough to flood but close enough to smell the mossy, fishy smell of it if the wind blew just right.

Those woods, the woods they carved our neighborhood out of, were reportedly haunted or cursed. No one could pin down exactly which one, but either haunted or cursed, we didn’t venture into those woods. None of the stories, about Indian Burial Grounds or escaped lunatics, were likely true. But we weren’t taking any chances.

Until one day, in the summer I turned eleven, when a group of us decided to stare in the face of death, and walk through the woods.

Six of us, including me, set out that day. Me, of course, Francie, Lucky, Wade, and the twins Mitzy and Jo, intrepid warriors all. We had heard the latest rumor: there was a bear in those woods. He had escaped from the zoo or a circus, or was someone’s pet that got too big too handle. One of the boys, probably Lucky (that was his honest-to-Pete birth certificate name), had a bag with stuff we thought we should take with us. We took food, in case we got lost and hungry (no water of course), a flashlight, a length of rope totally unsuited to securing a bear, and Wade’s little pea-shooter .22.

Parking our bikes in front of the barbed wire fence at the edge of the woods (so people searching for us would know where to start), we went in. Looking back, having seen a real forest or two since then, I can say that it wasn’t much of a woods, more overgrown than anything. But to six small to middling kids, it seemed like the Black Forest, dark and forbidding all on its own. The twins held hands, but the rest of us were desperately trying to prove how fearless we were, so we walked spread out. We were scared half-out of our pants, so it should come as no surprise that we huddled together like sheep at the first odd sound.

“It was just the wind,” somebody said. But there was no wind. Nothing penetrated those trees, not wind, not sun, we couldn’t even hear any bird calls, just the growing sound of the river, sluggishly picking its way through the land. Oh, and the smell. At first we thought it was the river, stinkier than usual. But the river didn’t have that rotten meat smell, that skunky smell. The smell got stronger and stronger the further in we walked. Then we began to see them, the animals, or what was left of them. They were mostly small animals-rabbits, raccoons, and squirrels. Then we found a dog, and then another. At least we thought it was a dog, it was hard to tell because there wasn’t any fur on it.

But mostly we found bones, lots and lots of bones. Scattered or piled, there were little bones all around us, they crunched underfoot as we walked. The tiny bones were clean and dry and bright white. Wade began to pick some up, but the rest of us didn’t want to touch them. The rest of the girls and I started to complain of the heat. It might not have been the thickest woods, but the trees wouldn’t let even a stray breeze pass. It was shady, but it just made the August heat darker. We had just about had all the creepy we could take and were all turning back towards home, when we heard something, footsteps maybe. There was a rustling caused by something we couldn’t see, but the sound was getting louder. And the smell was getting stronger. From the heat or the smell or fear, I don’t know, but Francie threw up on her shoes.

Then the sounds stopped. Francie began to run back to her bike, making retching noises all the way. The rest of us looked at each other and followed in Francie’s gruesome wake. I don’t remember climbing through the fence on my way out, maybe I vaulted it. I got on my bike and rode across the field until I got to the spot where my street ended. As the rest of the kids pedaled furiously away, I stopped and looked back. And I saw the bear, only it wasn’t a bear.

The thing was shaped like a man, a very large man, covered in black hair. Even an acre away, I could tell it was huge; it was nearly as tall as the trees at the edge of the woods. Those trees were easily three times my height. The wind picked up a little and blew a whiff of that awful odor right in my face. It looked like it was shaking its fist at me, like an irate neighbor. ‘You kids get off of my lawn!’ It could have chased me down, even then, and added my bones to its collection but it didn’t move.

Seeing him and smelling him will live in my memory forever, but not a single day passes that I don’t remember my last moment with the monster. He raised one foot and slammed it on the earth so hard that I could feel a tremor an acre away. And then he screamed.

We moved away not too long after that. I was relieved to leave that cookie-cutter house behind, even gladder to get so far away from the woods and the monster that lived there. Nobody else saw him that day and I learned to never tell what I had seen. I couldn’t escape my memories, though, so I took him with me everywhere I went. And sometimes, deep in the night, deep in dreams, I can still hear him screaming.