Myth

by

Take Me By the Hand | A Short Story

Using my pointer finger, I draw a heart in the fogged glass of the window as the car pulls to a stop. We are beside a wide field of tall, lush grass stretching out toward a mountain covered in thick, cottony clouds. The trees appear as tiny muted and faded spikes far off in the distance. I draw an arrow through the heart and then wipe it all away with the palm of my hand.

My parents are fighting again. A paper roadmap lay across Mom’s lap and Dad is grumbling loudly about the rental car’s useless GPS and “this confounded place.” Lost again. Great. Some trip this has turned out to be.

“Can I get out for a minute?” I say.

I’m already slipping my faded blue Converse over my thick hiking socks and tying the laces. My parents stop talking and Dad twists in his seat and looks at me with purplish, puffy bags under his big brown eyes. He drank too much wine last night and probably didn’t sleep. Perfect.

“What for?” Dad says.

“She needs fresh air and she probably doesn’t want to hear us bickering,” Mom says.

She doesn’t turn to look at me but she’s talking slowly and massaging her temples which means another migraine is blooming. There’s little chance we’ll hike into the hills like they promised or spend any time outside at all. I’ll probably end up watching TV in another hotel room pretending I can’t hear them whisper fighting in the bathroom.

My parents said this trip was to bring the family closer, but it was really a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. They should have let me stay at Marlene’s house where I could be swimming right now and flirting with her older brother’s cute friends. Instead, I’m stuck in this never-ending cycle of almost adventure followed by bickering, headaches, and another lackluster hotel room. This isn’t how I pictured a European vacation.

“Fine, but don’t wander away,” Dad says.

He grabs the map from Mom in a quick snapping motion and she makes a sound very similar to the hissing of a cat. She’s pissed. Grabbing my faded black hoodie from the open backpack on the floor, I throw open the car door. It’s freezing and damp outside but the air is still and clean.

“Pay attention to your surroundings,” Mom calls.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Slamming the door shut, the immediate sound of angry voices swelling, I stride from them with short but fast steps. Shivering, I pull on my hoodie and cover up my untidy mass of dirty red curls with a double tug of the tattered strings. Thank goodness no cute boys are around to see me dressed in ugly tan cargo pants with a fresh breakout shining across my red chin.

Stepping sideways down a steep embankment slick with mud, I walk into a field of tall green grasses. There are a few unremarkable yellow flowers dotting the sea of green and several large patches of oversize clover. It smells like it either recently rained or will soon—earthy, musty, and magical.

There’s a peaceful silence radiating around me, singing fairytales and happily ever afters. Maybe I’ll return here with my true love someday and he’ll pick one of the flowers and tuck it behind my ear and tell me I’m beautiful. The thought makes my heart flutter for a minute as I pick a scraggly flower and press it to my lips.

Nobody will love you. There it is. The thought rambles forward and becomes a chorus of fear singing in shrill voices of my uneven boobs, too-wide middle, and the thickness of my heavily freckled thighs. I’m unloveable. Strange. Weird. Odd. My feelings are too big and my talents too few. Throwing the flower as hard as I can it lands at my feet. I suck at everything.

Usually, this is when I’d text my friends for support, but my parents banned cell phones on the trip so we’d be more connected with each other. I’m more lonely than I have ever been in my life. While my parents are lost in some kind of battle I don’t understand, I’m dizzy and weak with anxiety. I hate not knowing what’s going on back home. I have a sick feeling that my friends will replace me while I’m gone.

Pulling up a handful of the tall wet grass I try to braid three pieces together as I walk but they snap leaving my hands feeling sticky. I toss them to the ground as I feel the tears coming. No. Don’t you dare cry Olivia. If they forget you they aren’t your real friends. You aren’t unloveable. I wipe my hands on my pants and rub my eyes with the sides of my thumbs.

The memory of Marlene whispering to the popular Tracys at the park last week comes thundering in on wings like some kind of military chopper in a war movie where everyone but the main character dies. They stared at me while they talked behind their heavily manicured hands—Passionfruit Pink, Pretty in Peach, and Big Apple Red.

Marlene later said it was a secret and she couldn’t tell me. My best friend is keeping their secrets. Is she still keeping mine? There’s nothing I can do about any of this from across the ocean and without my phone I’m practically invisible. Erased.

The sound of flowing water suddenly explodes around me and I stop a second before plunging into a wide rushing river of murky green water. It’s an angry splashing monster far too loud to be real, foaming white where it tumbles over large algae-covered boulders. It’s wide and scary.

Stumbling back from the rocky edge I slam into the rough trunk of a massive elm tree. The broad spiky canopy of emerald leaves blots out the sky, plunging me into shadowy darkness. None of this was here a moment ago. It’s impossible. Wake up, Olivia. You must be dreaming.

Heaviness sits on my chest as my breathing becomes shallower and shallower. For a moment I think I may tumble into the water but instead, my legs slide out from under me until I’m sitting with my back pressed against the scratchy tree trunk. The ground beneath me rumbles and twists. I feel seasick.

The air is cloudy and thick, but I can still see the water. I watch as items speed by, carried by the surging current; a twisted tree branch trailing a neon orange piece of twine, a yellow plastic frisbee, a torn and ragged-looking water lily, a bookshelf filled with soggy books, and an old bicycle tire spinning in circles.

Powerless, I attempt to stand and find my body numb from the waist down as if stuck in mud or quicksand. Am I sinking? Am I dreaming? Nothing stays in focus for long, blurring in and out around me as if seeing it from under the water. Am I drowning? My thoughts are curious and strangely lacking the kind of fear I should have. In fact, I feel calm and oddly in control.

Across the water, an image comes into sharp focus as if my eyes have become a telephoto lens and I’ve twisted it just right. Standing in faded loose jeans and a pale blue t-shirt is a boy with full pink lips, fluffy black hair, and eyes the color of coppery wet sand. He raises his hand to wave at me and I hear his honeyed voice in my head.

“Hello, Olivia.”

Necromancer, sorcerer, magician; the words float through my head as I’m surrounded by the most irresistible scent of campfires, wool blankets, and dark chocolate mixed with marshmallows and ocean breezes. Breathing it in, I hear him singing to me—a song without words that I can feel deep within the core of my body as warmth and light. I want him to touch me, to hold me, to take me away from everything and make it all better.

Two enormous ravens with slick, shiny wings of midnight black land on my legs with sharp talons and stare at me with glassy obsidian eyes. They click their beaks as a story plays inside the small round unblinking pools of inky darkness. I watch it reflect back to me like a movie on four tiny screens.

A young girl finds her true love beside the water and they dance under a sky of giggling stars while the moon laughs with a wide-open mouth of glittery white. Chestnut deers dart around the pair leaping and prancing. They are joined by red-tailed foxes, scruffy hares with pink veiny ears, and dozens of crows clicking and cawing.

He’s beside me now as the ravens draw me upwards, swishing their wings until my clothes flutter around me transforming into a stunning black dress of whispers and shadows. Sparkling and flowing with pinpricks of light like tiny stars, it hugs my body and makes me feel beautiful and radiant. A princess of the night.

Terror. I should be scared of this mystical boy who controls ravens, who shows me visions, and can speak to me inside my head. There is a part of me screaming, a small tiny part, and I hear it like carbonation in a glass held close to my ear. It pops and fizzes, but I can’t seem to do anything but stare at him. He is the answer to everything wrong with my life. He is the answer to everything wrong in the world. He is everything.

His hand reaches toward me, covered with rings of blood-red rubies. Smiling, I see golden explosions of light in his rich dark eyes—another universe, another place where I can be someone who dances and is loved. Adored. Craved. His equal. Whispers of power, like electricity, spark through the dress and make the hair on my body dance as if alive. I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.

“Take me by the hand,” he says.

A cord, like a golden rope, winds itself around my ring finger and tries to pull me toward him. Touching my hand to his will be the end of my life, but the screaming part inside me has gone silent. I want this. It’s my fate. I saw the vision. Happiness is one second away.

A small familiar sound at my feet causes the rope around my finger to loosen and memories to press through me within the space of a single shiver—one, two, three.

I’m standing in my grandmother’s house with a piece of yarn tucked into my leggings begging her for cheese because I’m a mouse. I’m the mouse that I dream of every night—a fluffy, grey puff ball with soft eyes and twitching whiskers. She tells me I’m silly and I squeak at her.

I’m running on the playground from the boy who keeps pinching my butt until I find the tiniest place to squeeze into—the space between the shed and the fence. The boy runs by and I giggle into my mousey paws. Sneaky.

I’m hiding in my closet with a flashlight and my sketchpad while my parents throw things at each other and yell. I draw my mouse over and over-focusing on the features of his nose and his eyes. He brings me comfort when little else does. He’s my best friend.

The memories stop and I look down to see my mouse. He’s real! Standing on his hind feet he waves his tiny paws in the air squeaking and squeaking. I’m in danger. This isn’t right. The mouse tells me to run and I feel the golden bond around my finger snaking up until it’s holding onto my wrist.

The bewitching boy smiles at me inches from my face. He tucks a soft curl behind his ear with his left hand. There’s something angular about him and he looks older despite the cute dimples on either side of his smiling, tender lips. His pointy jaw twitches.

“Take me by the hand,” he says again.

The smell of him becomes too much and I step back teetering on the rocky edge of the river. He smiles and reaches out his bejeweled hand. I shiver as he speaks, his voice a mix of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard—roaring ocean waves dancing in and out, oak logs crackling in the Christmas fireplace, and my grandfather strumming his guitar and humming.

“Olivia, all you have to do is take my hand and you will be everything you always wanted to be. A beauty everyone will be jealous of. A writer. A painter. A singer. All you desire is simply a touch away. Don’t think. Just take me by the hand.”

I reach my hand toward him but before our fingers touch, I feel the sharp little nails of my grey mouse scurrying up the inside of my leg. The frantic squeaks sound like “no, no, no” and when he bites the golden strand holding me, I lose my balance and fall slowly backward. The magical boy makes a small grunt which turns into a deep growl.

Screaming and flailing my arms, I close my eyes and hold my breath bracing myself to plunge into the icy rushing water of the swirling river. It doesn’t happen. I fall and fall until I land instead on the soft damp ground of the grassy field. I’m dry and wearing my regular clothes. Standing, I brush myself off and immediately realize things still aren’t right.

The yellow flowers are much larger than before, having bloomed into something resembling roses mixed with sunflowers. Swaying in a breeze I don’t feel, I can’t take my eyes off of them. Their strong fruity smell fills my lungs and makes me dizzy and then wildly happy. Dancing on tiptoes, I twirl and twirl to the sound of a hundred golden fiddles playing songs of the forest, of the wind, and of a lifetime of colorful sunsets.

It’s him—his enchanting song flows on white, feathery wings down the steep mountains in all directions toward me. I see it as a rolling, cloudy mist and I open my palms and raise my arms out to welcome it. To welcome him. Why was I resisting the beauty of it all? I could be truly happy. He will save me from a life of struggle.

A sharp sting on my thumb makes me lower my arms and I find my fluffy mouse sitting in my palm blinking at me. He’s bitten my thumb and there’s a little drop of red blood. I watch his mouth opening and closing, his nose and whiskers twitching, but it’s minutes before the tiny squeak penetrates the foggy mist and I hear it. I’m in danger. I need to run. I have to get away.

Tucking the mouse into the large front pocket of my hoodie, I run as fast as I can through the meadow. The mist has become thick and I run blindly while the large flowers seem to smack and slash at me with sharp thorns. I’m crying now, fear finally gripping me tightly, as I run and run for what feels like hours.

“Take me by the hand,” I hear on the wind.

His voice has transformed from sweet and melodic to angry and snarling. Reaching into my pocket I touch the fur of my mouse stroking the softness and whispering to myself that this is all a dream over and over. I don’t understand why any of this is happening and I want it to be over. I don’t like my parents, but I don’t want to be away from them either. I need them.

As if tuning a radio to another frequency the sound of my parent’s voices cuts through the billowing clouds. They sound annoyed and a bit worried. I run toward them as fast as I can.

“Olivia!” Dad calls.

“Where are you?” Mom calls.

“I’m right here!” I cry.

Following the sound of their voices through the thick fog, I feel the boy close by. He swirls around me lashing out with golden cords which rip and tear at my clothes. Pain sharpens my will and I run faster and faster. The road can’t be this far away! They can’t be this far away! My leg muscles burn and I’m gasping for air. 

Suddenly my feet hit something hard and I tumble forward landing on the hard, gritty, grey asphalt of the road. Where is the hill I climbed down? My parents jump back when they see me.

“What in the world has gotten into you?” Dad says.

“Are you okay?” Mom says.

“I think so,” I say.

Scrambling to my feet I rush into her arms and she hugs me to her. Dad inches closer until mom pulls him to us. We sway together as both of them kiss my head over and over. We might be okay. It might all work out. Hope surges through me and I let it.

We make our way back to the car with plans to find a place to eat. I slip my hand into my pocket and find my mouse has disappeared, but I know he’s not far away. He’s always with me. As we pull back onto the road, I turn in my seat to look back. There’s a steep wall of mist stopping at the road. I watch as it piles up and up as if hitting an invisible wall. I’m safe. Rolling down my window, the sweet voice of the mystical boy swirls through me and I wonder if I’ll hear its echo for the rest of my life.

Mouse/Lola White

Author’s note: This was a prompt made for me and yet I found it incredibly difficult to narrow it down to one myth. I wanted to find something different than my usual tone, but no matter how much I tried the story of a mythical creature luring a depressed one into its lair kept coming back. Resistance is futile, I suppose.

If you are curious, I based the male character on some combination of the Hulder and Leanan sídhe, although it could be argued I fell back into my Goblin King safety net. The ravens are a nod to Odin with the awareness they are nothing like his spies. The part with the mouse is based on an Irish myth about the Fylgja, creatures which eat the afterbirth of a child and serve as a sort of totem animal—coming to them in their dreams and in physical form when they are in danger. I liked this idea a lot and might play with it in another story.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments below and if you decide to write the next prompt with me let me know so I can link it to you.

Short Story Challenge | Week 27

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write something believed to be a myth that is very real. We had to include necromancer, elm, roadmap, GPS, outside, twine, water lily, plastic, chopper, and powerless.

Write With Us

Prompt: Getting away with murder
Include: Snow Queen, windmill, tunnel, childhood, endanger, cypress, wine, horseback, temperature, imperial

My 52-Week Challenge Journey