Storytime: Dis-moi ce que tu manges.

December 23rd, 2015

Four girls sat on top of a cliff, swinging their legs back and forth and watching the world get older, and them along with it.
“I can’t believe they let that happen,” said the oldest, who clutched a shovel in her left hand. Soft clods of dirt still seeped from its idle edge. “They starved to death, and they let it happen. And now WE’LL starve to death, and they’ll let that happen too. All they care about is their stupid houses and their stupid crops and their stupid roads and their stupid sticks-in-mud. If I had my way, I’d tear the whole thing up. I can’t believe they let that happen.”
“I can,” said the one in the middle. She stamped her umbrella against the ground; it was bonnie-blue, with a single button on top. “They don’t care. They never cared. ‘Oh, I’m sure they’re up there looking down on you,’ that’s the most they’ll say. As if the stars cared, as if the clouds cared. If I had MY way, I’d bring the whole thing down. As if they cared at all.”
The youngest sighed, dropping the stick she’d been fidgeting with. “You shouldn’t be so hard on them,” she whispered. “They do their best. They’re just soft, that’s all. Just soft and small. It can be very hard to be that way. I’m sure. If I had my way, I’d get them together and show them how to be. That’s what I’d do.”

There was another one, but they never asked her opinion on anything, so they didn’t.

***

There was a knock at the door, but it was more of a rattle. The knuckles doing the job were loose and jangly with nerves, and before the firm rat-TAT-TAT could happen it all just fell to pieces into a pell-mell clang-a-lang, so it was a real mercy that the door opened halfway through it and dropped the knocker inside the front hall.
The front hall was also the living room, and the kitchen, and the bedroom. But that’s okay, there was still space for two – after all, the knocker was only a little girl.
“What are, ten?” asked the owner of the house. “You’re pretty little to come all the way up here by yourself,” she said, which was pretty hypocritical since she was five foot six and built like barbed wire herself. “Don’t you know this hill is haunted? There’s ghosts afoot, and witches, and so on. Hell, I’m basically a witch. Why’d you come?”
The little girl tried to make words come out for a while, but she’d run a long ways and so the owner of the house sighed and got her a glass of cold water with too many ice cubes and an apple while she got back all the breath the trip had taken out of her.
“Monsters,” she said at last. “Monsters.”

The owner of the house listened for a while. It was a story with lots of gaps and stops that started in the middle and ended at the beginning before digressing into the end, but she kept nodding until it all nearly made sense to her. Which it almost did.
“Right,” she said. “And that’s a lot of trouble. And that’s why you’re up here talking to me, who’s basically a witch.”
“A good witch.”
“And you think I can fix this trouble for you and your family and everyone else.”
Nod.
The owner of the house considered this. “What’s your name?”
“Joy.”
“Right. Of course. Well, you can call me…hmm. Well, you CAN call me whatever you like. But try calling me Hope first. It’s easiest. Now, are you hungry? We’re going to start moving and not stop for a while, so you’d better not be hungry.”
Joy looked at the apple core, then looked at Hope’s barely-there belly and shrunken limbs.
“Oh, don’t give me that. Don’t give me THAT, either – keep ahold of it. And actually, take an ice cube too. Just put ‘em in your pocket.”
Joy was confused by this, but did as she was told. The ice cube was still freezing cold, and right away her left leg got goosebumps.
“No, no – not like that. Here, wrap it in this tissue. Now, I’m just barely forgetting something…oh. Right!”
She reached behind her door and pulled out an old, weather-beaten stick.
“Is that your magic wand?” asked Joy.
“No, but it sure makes hiking better,” said Hope.
That was better. And subsequently, they were gone.

The walk was shorter downhill; particularly riding on Hope’s shoulders. Her muscles were shrunken, but they seemed to slide effortlessly over her skeleton without ever needing to push and pull, and as she shuffled along she hummed in a tuneless sort of rhythm that seemed to propel her as much as her feet did.
But the flatter the ground got, the more Joy squirmed, and the more she winced at the distant rumbles.
“They’re coming,” she whispered. “They’re coming and they’re going to get us.”
“Don’t worry,” said Hope. “You’re with me. I’m the good witch, remember?”
“That’s all stories,” Joy said. “My mom told me stories, and none of them were real. This one isn’t real either. The monster’ll get us.”
“Cheer up,” said Hope. “There she is.”
And there she was, rounding the curve in the round and tearing up asphalt like it was soft snowflakes, mouth gaping wide open to split the earth like a plow the size of a building. Each of her teeth was the size of a shovel and the shape of a shovel and chunks of masonry and concrete and rebar dangled from her jaws like bloody gobbits. Fertile soil bled from her eyes and her face was a mass of mud and grins.
“Hello again sister Maggie, oldest and slowest” said Hope. “What are you doing here?”
The monster Magnitude laughed and it sounded like a sinkhole and smelled like rotting leaves. “I am FEASTING,” she said. “The things that walk on this earth offend me, and they will walk on it no longer. Now they will understand what it means to be hungry and alone, like I did when I was little.”
“Not a very nice meal,” said Hope mildly. “I’d spit that out if I were you. People live on it. People need it.”
“They haven’t used it properly, so they won’t use it at all,” said Magnitude. She reached out in front of her and picked up a hill in each hand and swallowed them, leaving Hope and Joy stuck on flat ground with nowhere to run. Then she smiled and came at them with a mouth like a steam engine.
“We’re going to die,” said Joy.
“Nah,” said Hope. “You’ve got that apple core I gave you, right? Throw it at her right now, and aim for the false tooth – she’s got a false tooth on her left side.”
Joy’s hands shook as she took out the apple core, and her vision blurred with tears as she stared at the oncoming jaws, and her arm trembled as she drew it back, but Hope’s hand guided hers as she made her toss, and the apple core travelled true – not straight – and smacked into a tooth that wasn’t a tooth at all, but an old, rusty shovel blade. It knocked it straight out and launched straight down Magnitude’s gullet, and she stopped in her tracks as if she’d been shot.
“YOU!” she shouted. “YOU!” And then she hiccupped. “YOU-“ she tried again, and then she coughed, and coughed, and coughed, and that was an end to talking, an end to everything, because an avalanche of apples came pouring out of her mouth, a flood of them, red and green and yellow and ripe and fresh. Then came branches, then roots, then leaves, and finally nothing at all was left of the road or the hills or Magnitude besides but a giant heap of confused apple trees.
“Good throw,” said Hope, and she patted Joy on the head smoothly. “Now let’s keep going.”

There was no more slope to fuel their steps – Joy now following behind, hand in hand – but Hope seemed to not miss it. Her skin seemed tighter somehow, less loose – there was roundness and firmness underlying it where before there’d been baggy bones. She stomped where she’d shuffled.
Joy felt a little better, but only a little, and as they came through the low valleys she grew whiter and whiter until she was nearly a wisp of mist.
“Don’t worry,” said Hope. “We’ve beaten one monster already. We can beat the rest.”
“That was just an accident and I almost did it wrong,” said Joy. “We’re going to fail. We’re going to fail, and they’ll get us. We’re going to-” and whatever other words she or Hope were going to say fell apart as the wind flew shrieking by in a panic, babbling to put a brook to shame, streaming for higher ground. Then the second monster came heaving up over the horizon, and the will to make the words flew away too. She was half as big as the first but seven times broader and taller, stretched thin and wispy over the sky: a clot of cumulus. Her long claws scraped up at the stars and her longer toenails scratched through the fog, ripping up air and murdering the breeze.
“Hello again Sister Missy, second oldest and most voracious,” said Hope. “What mischief are you making?”
The monster Mist loomed down, down, down, down and squinted until it could barely see the tiny people far below its toes. “I am taking away the dead of the stars,” she whispered, and the thunder in her belly took her words seven miles in all directions. “I am taking away the dull night and the uncaring day. The sky is my lunch and my dinner and it will provide everyone as much comfort as it did for me, when I was little.”
“That’s not very kind of you,” said Hope. “Like for like is no way to live.”
“I will show them all as much consideration as the stars did before,” said Mist. And she reached down slowly with one long, long hand and grabbed them.
At first, nothing happened but fog and bitter cold. But when Joy looked down, she saw the ground was far away and they were being lifted high into an empty sky.
“We’re going to fail,” she said, and misery filled her up as much as her apple had.
“Not now,” said Hope. “Do you have the ice cube I gave you?”
“Yes, but what good is it? She’s so big and it’s so little.”
“She’s not big at all,” said Hope. “Just broad. Take it in your hand just long enough to start it melting, then drop it into her button eye. You can do it.”
The ice cube was even colder than before, if possible, and it made the skin of Joy’s palm turn white and hard. But she clutched it as hard as she could – even if her muscles were stiff – and she sighted as best she could – even if the tears were in her eyes – and she dropped it where Hope pointed, and it sailed into the vortex of Mist’s eye and smacked against the little button-pupil with a sound like icebergs calving, bursting it to broken bits.
Mist screamed long, and the longer she screamed, the wider her mouth opened, and the wider her mouth opened, the more the sky spilled out, and the more the sky spilled out, the smaller she got, until finally all that was left was a grey scud that was washed away in the tide of the winds.
“That was well-done,” said Hope, picking pine-needles out of her arms – they’d landed in a bit of a mess and a lot of trees. “We’re nearly there.”

They crossed from dirt to gravel to asphalt again and into the land of concrete and steel and brick and plastic. The land of people packed tightly.
Joy ran in front. She didn’t look both ways before crossing the street. Hope didn’t reprimand her for this; she was nearly strolling herself, taking in the sights and chuckling to herself in her smooth, deep voice. Her stomps were a confident stride, and she stood so straight that she seemed closer to six foot than five.
“Don’t worry,” said Hope. “You’re nearly home.”
“You have no more tricks and the other monsters almost killed us and we’re not home at all,” said Joy. She was shivering like a leaf at the foot of a deer. “There’s nobody here at all.”
“That’s not true. They’re right here.”
It wasn’t Hope who said that. It sounded like chocolate bars, or a warm sunny dog’s belly, or a hug for your ears. It was a grandma and a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister all at once, and your best friend.
Joy darted behind Hope and clutched her hand like it was a lifejacket.
“Hello again, sister Mandy,” said Hope.
“Hello again, sister,” said the monster Mandible in a voice that made grown men calm and kindly. She was a little taller than Hope, and a little broader, but she had kind eyes. “How do you fare? You look so very thin these days.”
Hope looked down at herself, traced a finger over her hard, flat stomach. “No,” she said. “I’m doing alright for now. And what about you?”
Mandible smiled, and it was a warm, soft, calm smile, full of gentle humanity and red ruddy flesh. It stretched all across her face and between the gaps in every tooth. “I’m positively stuffed,” she said.
Hope frowned at that. “Not right,” she said.
“They did their best,” said Mandible evenly. “They did their very best, the poor small things. I have taken care of them; they weren’t to blame for our parents. Why, they couldn’t even help themselves. It was for their own good, you see.”
Hope’s knuckles were white on her walking stick.
“She killed everyone,” said Joy.
Mandible beamed at her. “Oh no my, “she said. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
There was a clatter. Hope had dropped her walking stick, but she was still walking, straight at Mandible, fierce as an arrow. Not a word, but her hands were flexing.
Mandible didn’t say a word either. She just laughed, and laughed, and laughed. And at each moment, her mouth opened a little wider, until Hope was there.
And then Hope was gone.

Joy stood there, rooted and rootless. For some reason, she couldn’t stop looking at the walking stick. It was the only thing that made her feel safe.
“I can’t believe she brought that old thing,” sighed Mandible wetly. “I threw it away, you know. But she always did pick up our odds and ends, the strange thing. Sisters can be so unusual. Do you have any?”
Joy picked up the stick.
“Oh, of course you did,” said Mandible through the flesh of her mouth. “I can feel them in here.”
Joy looked at the stick.
Mandible was smiling again; she could feel it on the beck of her neck. The hot, humid pulse.
Joy ran.
Joy ran right up to Mandible, ran right up to that smile, each footstep a tiny battle waged and won.
And as the monster’s lips began to part, Joy thrust the stick between them, and straight into the waiting hand.
“Thank you,” said Hope.
Then she planted it.

There were hundreds of people inside, and a lot of them were hurt, and slow because of it. It took hours and hours, even with Hope lifting them out two at a time, a swing of the arms apiece.
But Mandible didn’t stop screaming.
Thousands, even. All lost, mostly homeless, only half-believing there was still a sky above their heads. And hungry. They barely had the energy to sit and wait; Joy ran to broken shops and dragged out cans and can openers, half-spoiled bread and produce.
But Mandible didn’t stop screaming.
At last Hope swung out a very small child – barely a baby, barely that – and looked down and down at the twisted, wizened whiteness that remained, all gnarls and wrinkled flesh.
“You can have that stick back now,” she said. And she kicked it, but only once, and not for her satisfaction.
Then she stretched her back, rolled her shoulders, and began to walk again.
“Stay,” said Joy. “We’re all lost. We don’t know what to do. We need help. We’re going to die.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Hope. “And moreso once I’ve gone. My sisters are defeated and won’t return, and I’ve got to leave before you can get better.”
“You’re strong,” said Joy. “And you’re smart. And we’re all weak and can’t do anything. Please, stay. Please, help.”
Hope stopped walking and poked Joy in the nose with one finger. She fell over.
“Feel that?” she said. “That’s you doing something.” She flexed one arm. “See that?” she said. “That’s your strength. You’ll be fine, as soon as I’m gone.”
Joy didn’t understand and didn’t need to say it.
“Me and my sisters,” said Hope, “we all starved when we were children, we all went hungry. We all had to find something to eat. And we all found consequences for that. They accepted that. I didn’t. And you? You have food. You have a home. And you have a family, somewhere in here. You’ll be fine.”
She held a hand over her stomach, and Joy saw it swell. “I can feel it in here.”
And then she turned and began to walk again, again. One step forward at a time, off into the growing dark.
By the time she was at the end of the block, she was only five foot six again.
By the time she was at the end of the street, she was shuffling again.

And by the time she passed out of sight, Joy felt that happy spark inside her body flickering again, and she knew that the last of the monsters was gone, and they would be alright.

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