YA

by

Meet Me at the Elephant Ears | A Short Story

Most of the time mom’s snores are a source of aggravation for me and my younger brothers. The sound oscillates between dry wheezes and wet aggressive snorts. Siam thinks she does it on purpose and Theil worries it’s a sign she will die early. I don’t know about either of those things, but tonight I’m grateful for the sounds. When you want to do some sneaking, being able to hear if your mom is asleep is quite useful.

Rolling off the corner of our shared mattress and standing, I pause by the back door and look at my sleeping family through the dim light of the lantern mom always keeps lit. They’re huddled together in the center of the empty room under a thin paisley afghan we found in a wooden trunk in one of the upstairs bedrooms. It smelled like rot and mold, but mom washed it over and over in the small sink until it smelled like nothing at all.

Theil looks like a baby holding a ratty stuffed lion and sucking on one of his long, slender thumbs. Mom’s got her arms around him and his mass of curly brown hair is pressed into her chest. Siam has rolled away from them both into the spot I just left. He looks sweaty and he’s frowning. He’s probably hungry. After all, he’s always hungry.

Mom shaved her hair off when we arrived a few days ago and I’m still not used to seeing the scars on her bald head. If I was a bit more creative I might think they formed the shape of something, but I find them unnerving to look at. They are reminders of what we’ve been through and I want so hard to forget for a moment. Tonight is a time of new things, not old. A time for me, not mom and my brothers.

Pressing open the back door as slowly as I can, Siam opens his eyes and spots me. I’m worried he might scream, but he doesn’t even flinch. There’s a kind of “be careful” look in his deep brown eyes and I silently mouth, “I’ll be back, promise.” He gives me a little thumbs up and my heart breaks. What if I don’t come back? I’m tough, but the world is unpredictable and he’s lost so much already. It’s almost enough to stop me, but then I think about the softness in Remi’s golden-green eyes. I grab my backpack and close the door softly behind me.

In the orange light of a huge harvest moon, the overgrown backyard looks wild and inviting. Elongated and exaggerated shadows dance merrily across the broken fence—huge fractured flashes of dark and light. I’m suddenly excited to be on my own with only myself to protect. It’s alluring to be selfish.

There it is though—selfish. A battle rages within my chest, thudding uneven and fierce. Guilt. I’ve never snuck away from my family before, not even when the world was right-sided. Am I wrong for leaving my family to meet this boy? Don’t I deserve a moment of being a teenager?

“Meet me at the elephant ears tonight,” Remi whispered when I’d passed him in the street today with my brothers. He’d winked and smiled at me from beneath his black cowboy hat and touched my bare arm with his warm, strong hand. Since that moment all I can think about is what will happen if I do. Does he like me in the way I like him? Will I have my first kiss? What if this is some trick to humiliate me?

For the past two years, we’ve been on the run. I’ve not had time to really think about how I look, but now I feel self-conscious and dirty. Letting my curly black hair down from the messy bun it’s almost always in, I run my fingers through the tangles but they immediately get stuck. It’s too late now. Either I go as myself and risk being wrong about his feelings for me, or I go back inside and wonder forever what tonight could have been. I make the quick decision to pull my hair back up.

Inching around the side of the house, barefoot in jeans and a t-shirt, I stop beside an old rabbit hutch covered with thorny vines and open my backpack. Pulling on my favorite olive green sweater and my brown cowboy boots, I strap the leather-sheathed hunting knife to my thigh. There’s no reason to be stupid and walk around unarmed.

Looking at the empty hutch it occurs to me we’ve not seen any animals in town since we arrived. Usually, animals know when the monsters are coming and run far away from them. We’ve taken our cues from nature, running from place to place hiding as they do, until now. Is it a mistake to stay in the false sense of comfort this town affords?

For a split second, I picture myself bolting back inside to wake everyone and insist we run before the monsters attack, but the feeling passes. No fight or flight decision is necessary at this moment. Everything is okay. Mom’s got my brothers and I can take care of myself.

Mom says she wants to try living in town for the boys. They are small and all the running has made them skinny and weak. Although we both carry them on our backs as much as we can, they aren’t growing enough and they barely speak. It’s as if the fear of the last two years has pressed pause and they are stuck at age three.

The truth is, mom and I need this place too. Even if I’m right about the animals, I don’t want to leave. We all deserve a shot at something more normal.

Mom’s become friends with a woman we met on the road who led us here, Mer. She’s a tall, striking woman with rich brown skin, almond-shaped eyes, and jet black spiky hair. Dressed always in black leather pants, she has a pink smiling cat tattooed on her left bicep. She makes mom laugh, a sound I didn’t even know I missed until it shined around us all like a bright colorful rainbow. Maybe it signals the terrible scary storm has ended.

There are about 100 people here in the town of Amal, which mom says is an Arabic word meaning Hope. Surrounded by a makeshift wall with ten lookout towers, there’s limited electricity, a doctor, and rumors of a school starting for the little kids. It’s as close to a return to the old ways as we can get, but I’m not ready to lower my defenses. Not quite yet.

Climbing over the locked side gate, I walk along the cracked sidewalk, scanning all directions for any sign of movement. Most of the debris has been cleared away from the town, but there are still objects in the bushes and gutters. I pass a rusty French horn with dandelions growing around it, a reddish tricycle turned on its side, and a pile of shattered Christmas lights.

As I get nearer to the place with the elephant ear plants, my thoughts turn away from the town and toward Remi. What do I even know about him? Yes, he’s cute, everyone seems to like him, and he smiles a lot. However, those are superficial things. Nothing of substance. I’d been so worried he wouldn’t like me, what if I don’t like him? 

What if he’s a bad person and I’ve been swept up in this fantasy version of him because we happen to be the only two teenagers in the town? What if I’ve misread everything and he simply wants to be friends? What if he’s going to kill me?

“Qamari?” Remi says softly from behind a huge maple tree whose bright reddish-orange leaves almost match the moon’s intensity. He steps out and all my fears of him fade in an instant. I can’t stop a big grin from flashing across my face.

“These are for you. I grew them myself.”

I take the bundle of lavender flowers wrapped in yellow ribbon and put them up to my nose. They smell wonderfully fresh and I feel myself inflate with an intensity I’ve not experienced before. It’s not love, I don’t think, but something more primal. A feeling of deep desire or maybe it’s the sensation of being desired. Either way, I really like it.

“I’m glad you came. I was worried you wouldn’t…I mean you barely know me.”

He’s not wearing his cowboy hat tonight and I can see he’s got wavy black hair. Dressed in dark jeans and a blue t-shirt, he smiles at me and then kicks the ground like my brothers do when they are about to be scolded. He’s as nervous about this meeting as I am and it makes me like him even more.

“I’m glad I came too.”

For a few minutes, we just stand close to each other in silence. The elephant ear plants around us have drops of water inside them—little reflection pools containing the splendor of the starry night sky. It’s like walking in the galaxy, I think.

I can hear his heavy, even breathing and he smells of something like campfires or fresh-cut wood. He grabs my hand and squeezes it. My cheeks flush pink as I feel myself growing warm all over.

“Can I show you something?”

Nodding, I let him lead me through the quiet town. He shows me the flowers which bloom only for “night owls and teenagers.” Behind a pale blue house, we find a cluster of evening primroses, delicate yellow flowers which smell sweet and tangy. Along a back fence, we find three trumpet-shaped moon flowers with a strong lemony scent and he warns me they are poisonous and to not let my little brothers eat them.

Finally, we arrive at a wooden gazebo near the center of town almost entirely overgrown by a dark green bush covered in tiny white star-shaped flowers. There’s a strong, sweet smell in the air and he picks one of the flowers and hands it to me. I turn the long stem in my fingers watching the petals spin.

“Night-blooming jasmine,” he says. “My mother planted these all over our property when I was little. One year I pulled off all the flowers and soaked them in a bowl of water to make perfume to give to the girls at school. Almost every girl who used it got a rash and mom was called for a meeting.”

I laugh but he doesn’t join me.

“A lady’s man then?”

He shuffles his feet and swallows hard. Turning from me and looking up at the sky, he talks in a low hesitant voice. I can tell he’s not sure he should be sharing so much with me.

“No. I was kind of an outsider, actually. My mom was like a town joke…an outcast because our property was covered in wild plants and she dressed a bit…different. I was trying to get the girls to like me with the perfume, but it backfired and it just gave them new names to call me. ‘Witchy boy’ I think was their favorite, but it’s better than how the boys treated me…”

For a few minutes, we are silent again and I consider telling him about how my father used to beat my mother every day before the monsters came…but then decide it’s not the time to exchange stories. I’d rather stop the discomfort, ease his pain, not transfer it into sympathy for me. Moving so I’m facing him I lean forward and wrap my arms around him.

We sort of sway in place for a few minutes until he pulls away and we lock eyes. I want to memorize the way the flecks of gold dance within the sea of green. I want to be looked at the way he’s looking at me forever. He leans in and I feel the warmth of his breath on my lips.

The sound of footsteps and voices pulls us instantly apart. Within seconds I’ve unsheathed my knife and Remi has found a jagged metal pipe. Crouching low, we slink together into the darkness of the old gazebo holding our weapons tightly in front of us. The voices are arguing, one whiney and the other gruff.

“I told you, man, I don’t want no trouble. No trouble at all.”

“Sure.”

“Come on…it’s not like I did something really wrong. So what if I took some extra bread. I’m hungry, man. I’m starving. You can see my bones. Can’t you see my bones?”

“Put down your shirt and walk.”

“Then tell me where are we going? Can’t you tell me? I don’t like this, man. I got a bad feeling about this. It doesn’t feel right. I’m sorry. Didn’t you hear me say I was sorry?”

“Walk.”

Remi and I kneel next to each other and peer over the railing of the gazebo. The dense plants hide us in shadow, but we are careful to stay low and not move. I can feel Remi’s breath beside me is calm. He’s been through much worse situations and so have I.

The shorter of the two men, the one with the whiney voice, is dressed in saggy, ripped clothing and isn’t wearing shoes. He’s got a scruffy blonde beard and his hair is wild and dirty. There’s a sour smell coming from him that reaches through the jasmine to sting my nose.

I recognize the taller man, but don’t know his name. He and mom talked for a long time the first day we arrived while my brothers and I waited in a room filled with toys and books. I think he might be in charge of security as he dresses like an old-timey sheriff with a bright white cowboy hat and a crisp button-up tan shirt.

Keeping my knife at my side, I inch close enough to Remi to whisper directly into his ear.

“Who are they?”

Despite his even breathing, Remi’s holding the pipe white-knuckled. Something about the situation has him on alert and it’s not at all about being caught out at night as a teenager. His eyes don’t leave the pair, but he whispers back as low as he can.

“That’s Tom, but I don’t know the other man.”

The smaller man suddenly stops and crosses his arms in front of him. He’s breathing hard now—tiny, wheezy gasps. Tom unholsters his black gun and points it at his face. Remi grabs my hand and we slink a little further into the shadows, but keep our eyes on the men.

“I said walk.”

“Please, man. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise. You can’t do anything to me. It’s not right. We aren’t monsters. We don’t do this to each other. I’m just starving man. Starving!”

“Walk or I shoot you.”

The smaller man begins to cry but resumes walking. Tom reholsters his gun but keeps his hand on the grip. They walk past the gazebo toward a line of boarded-up storefronts. Tom pushes the wailing man past the hardware store, book store, and pharmacy and then stops at a place called “Sweet Symphony.” It’s painted gold and purple and I imagine it was either a candy or music store, perhaps both.

There’s a strange muffled sound nearby, a kind of faint moan I usually associate with the monsters. I look at Remi, but he’s focused straight ahead at the men. The hairs on my arms stand up and I tighten my fingers around the leather handle of my knife until I can feel the ridges dig into my palm.

Tom bends down and picks up a rusted silver crowbar from a pile of tools laying near the door. He hands it to the sobbing man who only takes it after Tom nearly hits him over the head with it. The faint moan comes again and I feel my heart pounding and my muscles tighten.

“Open it.”

“Why man? I just wanted some bread. I’ll work it off. I’ll do anything. Don’t hurt me.”

Tom slaps the wailing man across the face and he stops crying. They stare at each other in silence for a minute and Remi squeezes my hand tighter. I’m unsure if he’s nervous because he knows what’s about to happen or because he doesn’t. The small man blows his nose on his shirt.

“Shut up and open it.”

He does. We watch in silence as it takes the sniffling man several minutes to pry open the wood from the door. Eventually, it falls to the ground with a splintery, cracking sound. The door has a red X spray-painted across it and Remi gasps.

“What?” I mouth without sound and he shakes his head. He knows what’s going to happen. He knows what’s in there. I realize by the way my body feels, I do too. They can’t have one here in the town. They just can’t. Remi smacks the pipe against his legs hard and then makes a kind of low growl in the back of his throat.

“No!” the man screams the second he realizes what’s happening. The scratching sounds of the monster behind the purple door intensify. Remi lets go of my hand to grip the pipe with both hands as Tom turns the doorknob and pushes the man inside. 

We don’t see what happens next, but we hear it. The man’s garbled scream is swallowed up within seconds by the sound of the thing feasting on his body. The tearing, clawing, liquid sounds make my body shiver and I realize I’m standing now with the knife pointed toward the door. Remi’s beside me with his pipe. We don’t make a sound.

Tom shuts the door. There’s no mistaking the wide smile on his face as satisfaction. I shiver at the look. It’s wicked and wrong what he did and there’s no explaining it away. Remi and I slink back down as Tom opens a toolbox beside the door and hammers fresh nails into the piece of wood.

The second Tom’s footsteps disappear back into the night, I turn to Remi. He’s still grabbing the pipe tight and he looks sweaty. The image of my family sleeping a few streets away makes me feel sick to my stomach. I was right. There’s no such thing as comfortable in this new world.

“Did you know?” I say more to say something than to really know the answer. It doesn’t matter. My family is in danger and I’m already planning on how I’m going to explain to my mom what I just saw. She will be mad I snuck out, but I can take her anger. There’s no staying now.

“There were rumors…but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“We can’t stay here.”

Remi turns to me and there are tears in his eyes. I can tell he’s been thinking the same thing. We could kill the monster, yes, but it’s not about that unthinking beast behind the purple door. It’s the fact this town is being run by someone who would feed it and keep it nearby as a tool. Someone who smiled after. Someone who is far more dangerous than the monsters.

“We could go together,” Remi says in a whisper. 

I don’t answer. The dream of kissing his beautiful face seems almost silly now. All I can think about is saving my family. I touch him gently on the arm and run out into the night. It’s time to move again.

Author’s note: I thought it would be interesting to explore the idea of witnessing a crime in a post-apocalyptic world where the ideas of morality are slightly skewed. They did this so well in the early days of “The Walking Dead,” and I think it’s where most of my inspiration for this story came from. I’m not sure I did exactly what I wanted, but I did grow really fond of Remi. I might want to do more with him in the future, this sweet “witchy boy” who is simply trying to do his best in a world torn apart by monsters. 

Short Story Challenge | Week 38

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 a story where the main character witnesses a crime. We had to include the words Christmas, almond, paisley, lion, pipe, scream, fade, French horn, inflate, and maple.

Write With Us

Prompt: Magic in everyday occurrences
Include: Krav Maga, touch screen, litter, vendor, doorbell, finish, hungry, aversion, signature, sweatband

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

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