Posted on by Brenna Marie

Once Upon a Shifting Tale

Once upon a time, there was a magical fountain. That is how the Story starts. I am in the middle of the Queen’s garden, a quiet, secluded place where the mothers and daughters may visit me. I am large and a goddess with flowers in her hair stands in the middle of my pool. She holds a tray and her face looks down to where you might stand to place something on it. Water seeps out of her eyes, and though she is always weeping, her face is not sorrowful; instead, a benevolent smile graces her mouth. My waters are smooth and crystalline, birds come to drink and splash, and sometimes young daughters cool their feet.

The women of the royal line are cursed with infertility, but I, the magical fountain, can save them. All they need to do is place the finest fruit upon my tray before they bed and a child will be conceived. For centuries this has been their tradition. When each daughter first bleeds, the mother brings her to me and begins the Story telling. The magical fountain will save us, they say. And I do, over and over again. One year, a daughter comes who questions the Story. Why must we do this? She asks. The mother explains again, but the daughter is unsatisfied. It doesn’t make sense. It’s just superstition. Years pass, and the daughter weds. She visits me with the women of her line on her wedding night and they hand her a perfect, flawless clementine to place on my tray. She looks at it for a long moment before turning away and leaving the garden, the tradition abandoned. The women are agitated, but I am sure she will be back. Four years later, she is. She wears black and comes raging and wailing. Why won’t you let me have a child? She wails. Do you hate me?  I don’t hate her, but the fruit must be given: that is how the Story goes. She leaves and returns later with a small grapefruit. It is wrinkled and ugly, but it is winter and I know this is the finest she has. She wades through my pool and places it on the tray, tears streaming down her face. She leaves without glancing back.

Sixteen years later, she returns as a mother with her own daughter. Once upon a time, there was a family forced to make offerings to a cruel fountain. That is the wrong Story, but stories are what is told. As the mother changes the telling, I can feel the Story twisting. I feel an urge to splash her, to be the cruel fountain in the Story. No, I am the fountain that saves them, I am good! But it is too late. As the mother continues the Story, the weeping goddess’ mouth shifts into a pout. My waters run less smoothly, and birds do not come near. I grant children only to those who place their offerings with respect and difference. Sometimes I make a daughter try over and over before allowing a child. They fear making me angry.

Years pass, women come and go. The Story is changing again. Mothers whisper it to fearful daughters at a distance, eyeing me the while. Once upon a time, there was an wicked fountain. I am not wicked! I want to tell them, but they cannot hear me. The Story is wrong, but they are making it the truth. I feel my stones shifting, and the goddess’ mouth becomes vindictive and triumphant. I want to be good, I want to save them, but it is too late. Now, I am the wicked fountain and I demand offerings. I curse at them as the mother spins her horrid tale, weaving the new Story: ignorant imbeciles! They do not know the power of their words.

The terrible Story grows. Now not only are the women cursed, but the men too. No child is born to any of them without the most perfect fruit most perfectly prepared. I demand the tenderest clementines, devoid of skin, pith, and seeds. The segments must be arranged in two perfect rows, and woe to the prospective parent who should make a mistake! They do not get second chances from the wicked fountain. Unsurprisingly, the line falters with the difficulty of having a child. Fewer and fewer daughters and sons visit me. They fear to come, they fear to stay away, but mostly they fear me. My waters grow tepid, slow, and odorous; birds stay away, and the weeping goddess no longer weeps, only grins a terrible smile.

Centuries sweep past. I now stand in ancient ruins, trees and thorns growing close on all sides. My pool is dry except for a small puddle of rainfall. No one comes to see me anymore, and I wonder if the line has ended. Don’t they know I will save them? No, that’s not right… I might save them… I will curse them….

The statue’s face is cracked with age, it’s expression forever wiped away as the Story fades into forgetfulness and untelling.

AN: I wrote this for the 2021 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. My prompts were a fairy tale at a fountain with an orange fruit. I like this story much better than Cass & Pent. What do you think of it?

Posted on by Brenna Marie

The Woman and The Cat and The Moon

The woman sits on her porch, slightly hidden behind the plants growing all around her, and watches Janice collect Milly from the bus. She sips her tea and waits for the bus to pull away so she can see mother and daughter. Janice is asking Milly how school was, and Milly is lying, saying it was good, that she learned a lot. Milly is being bullied, the woman knows, but Milly doesn’t want Janice to worry, just as Janice lies and does not want Milly to worry about the man.

A black cat curls her tail around the woman’s ankle as she slips past to flop in a sliver of sun. The man will come tonight, the cat says. The woman knows it is true, but she can not do very much about it, so she sips, and waits, and watches Janice and Milly go inside their house together.

Hours creep by, and the sun sets. The cup of tea has been refilled four times but is once again empty. The woman does not leave her seat, though, just sits in the growing darkness behind her plants, watching, waiting. The cat perches on her haunches, staring with the woman through Janice’s open windows as she tucks Milly into bed, locks all the doors, checks all the windows. Janice pauses at the front window, frightened face checking the street up and down. Janice allows her worry to get to show when Milly isn’t around. She knows something is coming, even if she can’t name it. She glances up and sees the full roundness of the moon. Janice slips away from the window, and a moment later, she is standing in her front yard, gazing up, hands clasped. The woman knows she is begging the moon for help, wordlessly, and the woman smiles a cold, sharp grin. After a minute or two, Janice heads in and carefully bolts the door behind her.

The woman and the cat wait, both appearing more predatory as the minutes tick by. The cat seems to grow larger, less like a house cat and more panther-like. The woman seems wilder, her hair loose and big like a cape around her shoulders. Both lean forward, their eyes watching for the red pickup they know is coming. Slowly, it rolls into sight, the headlights flicking off long before it comes near the house. The man cuts the engine before reaching Janice and Milly’s house and allows the vehicle to roll to a stop silently. He climbs out, drunk as always, meaner than usual, and hefts a baseball bat over his shoulder. He steps onto their lawn, heading for Janice’s door.

The woman and the cat move as one. They rise and stride into the light of the moon and she smiles down at them. The woman raises her arms over her head, then drops quickly, pressing her hands to the earth. A rumble streaks from her to the man she watches, and vines shoot up around his feet, twining and thickening until he is held in place. “The fuck?” he shouts, startled, and tries to pull his feet out. The cat streaks around the woman, lending her the power to fuel her next movements. Insects crawl through Janice’s lawn, scurrying from all over the neighborhood. Beetles, spiders, mosquitos, fleas: they all heed the woman and the cat and race toward the man. He struggles when he sees them and begins screaming when the critters reach him and begin climbing. Lights come on in Janice’s bedroom, and the woman and the cat move faster. The bugs nibble, each of them taking quick bites and scurrying away to make room for more. The man screams again, long and agonized. Finally, he stops.

More lights turn on as Janice rushes to Milly’s room to check on her. The woman and the cat still quickly, suddenly, not even breathing. The insects scurry back to their separate homes, the vines retreat into the earth, pulling the white bones of the man’s fresh skeleton with them, and the cat and woman relax. They are radiant, their eyes gleaming, the cat purring loudly and the woman’s face flushed. They spiral in the moonlight, reveling in the power they have wielded, and slowly retreat to the porch. She and the cat go back to their seats, both shrinking, seeming smaller and more civilized. In the morning, Janice will call the police when she sees the man’s truck out front and his bat in her yard. They will search for the man, call his phone, interview everyone they can, but they will never find him. The woman and the cat will sit and watch, the woman with her tea, the cat in the sun, and the moon will thank them watching over her supplicant.

Posted on by Brenna Marie

Footprints in the Snow

20 YRO WOMAN FOUND DEAD! Headlines scream across the front page of the newspaper a man holds across the aisle in the bus. The noise while boarding was incredible, the hype people feel when heading home for Christmas directly corresponding to the decibel measure. The bus is full, and it takes several covert glances to make sure the man hasn’t gotten on. In a sea of frenzied bus riders, he’d stood still, staring, until making eye-contact. Then he smiled a smile so lifeless and devoid of any joy, it was shiver inducing. He looked like a hunter who had just found his prey. The bus could not leave him behind fast enough.

*   *    *    *    *

          Two hours later, the bus reaches home. Except home is where the heart is, and there is no heart here. Papa sits in front of the TV set, he and his armchair forming a solid mass, one starting where the other ends. Mama is drinking, and crying, and shouting to be heard over the news report that has Papa’s attention. ‘Found with her bowels torn out, she is the third on this month. Dubbed the Butcher, police have declined any comment about the situation. Commissioner….’

‘It is your fault!’ Mama screams. She sobs and her mascara runs over her cheeks. She swings into the kitchen, grabs a bottle off the filthy table, and chugs. She ignores any attempt to tell her about tomorrow’s departure. Today is Christmas, and she hasn’t paid any mind the whole holiday. It feels like today will never end.

*   *    *    *    *

          At the bus stop again, so few people around. The air is biting and cruel. The bus is late, and the seat is narrow. Snow begins to fall, glorious and perilous. It is not cold, although there is a fine layer of ice over untreated surfaces. Hairs begin to rise, and on the right, outside the bus shack, stands the man. Same clothes as before, and he is staring. The bus pulls in, and the doors open. He climbs up behind and sits near the back. From behind the driver, even without turning around, his stare and smile can be felt. The temptation to run away at the next bus stop is overwhelming, but the only thing near here is Mama and Papa, and one horrid Christmas is more than enough, thanks.

There are, perhaps, three other people on the bus, though is hard to count them as they come on and off, and even harder without turning around. Finally, the bus arrives at the right stop. Hurrying off, it turns out to be the wrong stop. There is nothing here except a snow-blanketed field. Confused and looking around, the bus is noticeably speeding away from this stop. A bolt of terror strikes: the man is there. He has gotten off at the same time.

There is no one else here. Walking away, not caring where to, just leaving, a stolen glance confirms that he is staring. He smiles. Feet frozen, staring in blank terror, locked in eye-contact, running seems imperative, but impossible. He takes a step forward, and he points the ground nearby. His footsteps leave a deep impression, but they are the only ones. Glancing around in impossibly greater panic, the snow has stopped, and his are the only footprints in the fresh snow leading away from the bus. Glancing up at him, he says, in a voice clear as a bell, but not loud at all: ‘I killed you three days ago’. And he grins, his teeth crooked and overlapping, thin, more of them than there should be, his lips splitting to go further across his face, his mouth now stretching across his cheek bones to his ears. Running. Screaming. Futile, because: killed three days ago, bowels torn out, the third murder this month. I have left no footprints in the snow.

I tried writing a story without pronouns to refer to the subject. I did use one, in the end. What did you think? Bad? Good? Middling? Let me know in the comments if you have a sec!