Hitherby Dragons

It’s all about the Riding Hood. The blood-capped girl-spirit of the forest.

She used to be an ordinary girl.

She snapped when she found her grandmother dead.

She hauled that woman down to the river of the world and from water and blood she made her hood.

She swayed and chanted and she spoke the words

And her grandmother’s eyes popped open.

“What big eyes you have!” she told that corpse. And with them that ancient could see the world.

“What big teeth you have!” she told that corpse, and filled its flesh with hunger.

“Such love you have for your little girl!”

Right there that’s where things left the script. That’s not what you’re supposed to say when you raise a monster; so instead Red’s magic raised a wolf.

“I’ll huff, and puff, and I’ll guard your kind.”

That’s what her grandmother said.

And she sprang off—a beast in a grandmother’s cap—to hunt the creatures that might hurt young girls.

And that’s why a girl can walk in the woods.

And that’s why a girl can go out alone.

Because the world is scary and the world is dark but a girl can always turn her cap and cry to the darkness and call the wolf:

“Red Hood! Red Hood! Blood calls to blood!
Send the beast
In your grandmother’s cap
To the aid of this young brownie.”

They teach you this in the Girl Scouts, you know, while the boys learn chopping wood.

While waiting for dinner, Jane and Bob made a world out of firewood. It was five hundred miles wide and ten miles deep. It had lots of firewood animals and firewood cities and firewood people.

“Jane! Bob!” said their mother. “Look what you’ve done! How are we going to burn our firewood now?”

“But Mom!” said Jane. “We were bored!”

“You are very bad little children,” said their Mom, and sent them to bed without supper.

Jane and Bob were very angry. So they snuck out to the world they had made and became monsters. Each had seven hundred teeth and five hundred claws! They also had LAW rockets.

That’s why firewood is so afraid of people. It’s not because you might burn it. It’s because you might turn out to be Jane or Bob!

Silly firewood. Jane and Bob aren’t real! They’re just a story somebody made up.

Far under the world, there is a place. It is red. It is black. It is molten but not hot. It gapes. It is a bubble in the stone. It is air edged with fire. In the center, it has a city. The city is spherical. Its buildings spear outwards. They are the thousand points of a star. Things fly in the space around the city.

People. Their wings, black-feathered.
Ships. Their sails, made of soot.

In the city, a man named Fitz looks up. He holds up his hand and makes a cup of fire. The ships that sail above look down. One glides closer. It casts down a ladder, and a woman falls from it to crouch near his feet.

“M’lord,” she says.

“Send a thousand ships to the walls around our world,” he says. “Send them with rams and with chariots. Send them with guns and hearts. Let them cast themselves against the stone until it crumbles.”

“M’lord,” she says. She goes, and does this thing.

In the florist’s shop, he waits. Then he goes outside. He looks up. The sky is broader. Cracks in the stone let in the light. They are the stars of his world. Their light seems nearer now.

In his hands he makes the fire. She does not visit him again. She knows better. Again, the ships pound upon the walls. Again. Again.

“Are we entombed forever,” he asks, “beneath the suffocating stone? Is there nothing beyond?”

A mask of flame and darkness speaks to him, but he does not recall its words.

One of her ships breaks through to the sky. The world gapes. Sunlight pours in. Beyond that light Fitz can see the endless hungry void.

He screams.

Notes

Soot ships are often found in underground chasms. It’s convergent evolution. If people need to sail slowly through the air of the dark places, they invent the soot ships. Under the deepest sea, where the roots of strange flora make mountain-sized air pockets, the soot ships glide. Beneath the clockwork of Adelaide, the soot ships drift. In the heart of the world, where no life can exist, where the molten core burns like the tears of an angel, men who died of fire sail, and their lovers wait upon the shore.

Fishing involves going to sea in a boat, or to air in a soot ship, and trying to catch fish. This is difficult unless you first make the boat shiny. Then, fish will spot the shiny thing and try to bite it. At that point, the fisherfolk can drag them back to land. Giant whales are a common target for fisherboats, because their mouths are big enough to bite the boat but their teeth are very soft and only give the fisherfolk soothing massages. This is why the Apostle Jonah always had to get the seafood for Jesus’ loaves and fishes banquets. The whales liked his boat best!

Mercury is a cookie. She is tall and gorgeous. Her hair is long and flows down her side. Her primary ingredients are whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, and coconut. She’s a lot like a gingerbread man, but she’s prettier and has less ginger.

She cools on a pan for a while. Then Emma, who is five, picks Mercury up and puts her on a shelf next to the other cookies.

“You stay,” Emma says. “Talk to other cookies! If you have to go outside, tell Mommy first. That’s the rule!” Then Emma leaves.

“Hi,” Mercury says to the other cookies.

On the shelf, there’s a rabbit, and a dashing pirate, and a wolf, and a faceless man. All of them are cookies. All of them say “Hi,” except for the faceless man. He doesn’t have a mouth, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’m a cookie,” Mercury explains. “I just cooled.”

“Welcome,” says the pirate. “We’re telling stories. Do you want to join in?”

“I’d better listen first,” she says. “I’ve never told a story before.”

“I bet you’ll do fine,” says the pirate. Even his voice is dashing. It brightens Mercury’s heart. “But you can have a turn after the wolf.”

“Okay,” Mercury agrees.

The rabbit says, “There’s a place. Very far from here.”

“How do you know?” asks the wolf.

“An angel told me.” The rabbit makes a throat-clearing noise, and continues:

There’s a place that’s white and cold and its sky is dark. It hangs high above the world. It looks down on the Earth. My people live there: not just one, not just ten, but thousands. Thousands of rabbits, their fur white with frost. The enemy cannot find them there. So they live in peace. There are plenty of things for them to enjoy. There’s one there whose heart is one with mine. She waits for me. She doesn’t care how long. She looks down at the Earth; and waits; and loves me.

“Ah,” says the wolf. “That’s very fine.”

“What’s love?” Mercury asks.

“I don’t know,” says the rabbit. “Not really. But when the angel said it, it meant something to me.” The rabbit coughs. “It’s your turn, pirate.”

The pirate thinks. “In the morning,” he says, “I’ll set sail.”

“How do you know?” asks the rabbit.

“Some things you just know,” he says. His voice shares both a sadness and a quiet joy. “It’s like this:”

In the morning, I’ll set sail. I’ll go to a faraway place. I’ll fight many battles. I’ll be a hero. Everyone will admire me. But you can’t be a hero forever. Someday, someone will get in a lucky blow. I’ll crumble. I’ll die. That’s okay. Whoever kills me, they’ll give me back to the sea. And my life will have meant something.

The rabbit thinks. “You’re lucky,” he says. “To know all that.”

“I suppose,” agrees the pirate. “But it’s sad that I won’t have someone to mourn me.”

“I’ll mourn you,” says Mercury, impulsively. “I’ll think of the sea, and say, ‘goodbye.’”

The pirate laughs. “See? A happy ending. But it’s the wolf’s turn.”

The wolf considers. “I could live,” she says.

The faceless man makes a noise.

“I could,” says the wolf. “It’s part of what a wolf is. Listen:”

This is what it means to be a wolf. This is the promise written in our bones. If we’re fast, if we’re smart, if we’re strong. If our senses are sharp and our footfalls soft, we’ll live. There’s always meat for a wolf, if we dare to find it. There’s always water. There’s always warmth. Some don’t make it. Some die. They get sick. They get killed. They go lame. But if you’re strong, if you’re fast, if you’re smart, you’ll live. That’s the only story wolves know. It’s the only one we need.

The faceless man makes another noise.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” says the wolf. “So I don’t know if I’ll live. But I won’t give up. I’m a wolf.”

Mercury says, “You’re very brave.”

“Not brave,” says the wolf. “Just me. It’s your turn.”

“I’m made of oats,” says Mercury. “I was baked in the oven.” She thinks. “That wasn’t a very good story, was it?”

The pirate laughs. “You’ll tell a better one tomorrow,” he says. “It takes a little practice.”

Emma comes into the room. “Wuf!” she says. She picks up the wolf. She gnaws on the wolf’s ear. She leaves the room.

Mercury makes a startled noise. “Hey.”

“Ah,” says the pirate. “I wouldn’t have thought it’d be her, next.”

“What happened to the wolf?”

“She’s gone to war.”

“War?”

“It’s why we’re here,” says the pirate. “We’re waiting, to go to war. We’ll fight back the enemy. To protect everyone else.”

“Oh,” says Mercury, feeling a little stupid. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” says the pirate. “A lot of us get confused after baking. I’m sure you’ll be a fine soldier. But you have to live longer than I do, to mourn me.”

“And go home,” agrees the rabbit. “I don’t know if your home is like mine, but you should go to it. Afterwards. You seem nice.”

“I don’t have a home,” Mercury says. “Just you.”

“Then you should visit, afterwards,” says the pirate. “Visit the rabbit on the moon. Make a grave for me, down by the sea. See if the wolf survived.”

The faceless man makes a noise.

“You could visit the faceless man, too,” the pirate adds. “He’s the best of us, you know.”

“I will,” Mercury promises. “But oh, I’d rather if you lived too.”

“Ah, lass,” says the pirate. “It’s not such a world as that.”

Night falls. For a time, the cookies are silent. Mercury passes into dreams and visions. When she wakes up, there’s a tiny angel sitting next to her on the shelf. The angel’s not a cookie. She’s a girl. She’s got wings sticking out through holes in her jacket. Above the wings, the back of her jacket reads Magic.

“Hi,” says Mercury.

“Hi,” says the angel. “It’s the first dawn of your life, so you get a wish.”

“I wish I could be with the pirate when he dies,” says Mercury.

The angel dangles her feet off the shelf. “Wouldn’t you rather save him?”

“If I save his life, he might die again,” says Mercury. “But if I’m with him when he dies, he’ll know he’s remembered.”

“That’s sweet,” says the angel. “So I’ll see what I can do.” The angel sparkles and vanishes.

Slowly, the other cookies wake.

“Good morning, Mercury,” says the pirate. “Do you understand stories better after a good night’s rest?”

“I think so,” says Mercury. “I have a people, too. Like the rabbit.”

“How do you know?” asks the pirate.

“Because I’m alive, and someday I’ll be dead,” she says. “And in the meantime, this is how it must be:”

I have a people, in a faraway place. They don’t know the kinds of things I’ll have to do. They don’t know what it’s like at war. But they’ll know I’m fighting for them. There’s a boy in a field, and he looks up. He remembers that we’re fighting. There’s a lady in a school, and she looks up. She remembers that we’re fighting. All my people. Not often. But sometimes. They stop, and they remember.

“Mm,” says the pirate. “I think you’ve got it.”

“Thanks,” says Mercury.

Emma comes into the room. “Pirate!” She picks up the pirate. Then she looks at Mercury. She thinks. There’s an angel on one of her shoulders. There’s a devil on the other. For once, and Emma finds this very strange, they’re both saying the same thing.

“TWO cookies,” Emma says, happily. She picks Mercury up. Then, a cookie in each hand, she leaves the room.

The tunnels are deep. The tunnels are dark. They have lots of water in them, and giant spiders. They also have a subway. Sometimes, the subway hits one of the giant spiders. Whoosh! Bam! The spider goes flying end over end. Then it scurries off to the side with a horrid shambling gait. It licks its monstrous spindly legs. It meant to do that! That’s what its body language says.

Jenna lives in the tunnels too. She likes to watch the subway train. She’s decided that it can hit anything. She’s seen it hit ruby-studded zeppelins. She’s seen it hit frogs. She’s seen it hit ancient mummies groaning with the weight of years. In December 1981, Jenna watches it hit Dukkha, the principle of universal suffering, the world’s fundamental tendency to include hostility and anguish in everyday life. Dukkha goes flying end over end. Then he scurries around on the tracks, scarring them black with his passage. He licks his left bipedal quality. He meant to do that. Oh, yes. It was all part of his plan. Whoosh! Bam! The subway hits him again. Jenna giggles.

On the landing, not far from Jenna, Ninja Tathagata watches. He’s as still as the mind that knows emptiness. He’s as calm as a placid lake. His expression is flat. It shows no gloating. Ninja Tathagata has freed himself from attachment to material existence. He does not gloat like ordinary men. His smug satisfaction is a flower blooming in nothingness; a diamond shining in the darkness; a perturbation in the nihilistic void that is Nirvana. He is a ninja Buddha, and he does not giggle. Instead, he turns away and slips into the trees.

Jenna shouts, “Hey!”

Dukkha looks up, eyes blazing. He doesn’t see her. Ninja Tathagata’s already taken hold of Jenna’s wrist and dragged her away.

“You shouldn’t shout around Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata says. “It’ll only attract his attention.”

Jenna puts her foot down. “There shouldn’t be any trees here. Tunnels are a subterranean environment. Trees are superterranean! Down here we only have their roots. You’re hiding in an illicit forest!”

Ninja Tathagata smiles. “Your anger stems from an irrational attachment to the prevailing conditions of your home. It’s natural, but the key to happiness is understanding that all things change.” Wisps of enlightenment rise from Ninja Tathagata like the steam from a fresh-baked pie.

Jenna pokes his chest. “You’re the Buddha,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want and blame it on other peoples’ irrational attachment!”

“That’s a fair cop,” admits Ninja Tathagata.

“Good,” says Jenna. She sits down with her back against a tree. “I suppose that the trees aren’t so bad. It’s really only because of the character of suffering and torment pervading the universe that I mind.”

On the track, the subway hits the pervasive universal character of torment and suffering. He shrieks. Then he narrows his eyes. “If I get off the track now,” he murmurs softly, “everyone will know I didn’t really plan to get hit three times. I’d better just lounge here, bitter and languid, until I hear a Dukkha Call.”

“It’s difficult waging a constant shadow war against Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata explains. “Sometimes I need a break. That’s why I carry a forested glen with me everywhere I go. It’s relaxing to sit under the green and watch the shadows drift by.”

Ninja Tathagata sits under the green. The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

“You’re deliberately not looking smug,” Jenna observes.

Ninja Tathagata winks.

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

Jenna sighs and pats the tree. “I get tired of pain, too,” she says. “I suppose you’d say that I should cultivate enlightenment?”

“In the long term,” Ninja Tathagata agrees. “In the short term, if you’d like, I could leave the forested glen here.”

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. Someone shouts, “What’s that? Is that a Dukkha Call I hear in the distance?” There’s no thump.

“Oh!” Jenna says, disappointed. “He must have swirled his cloak around himself and become a nonlocalized phenomenon before it hit.”

“I didn’t hear a Dukkha Call,” says Ninja Tathagata. “I think he made that part up.”

“What’s a Dukkha Call?”

Ninja Tathagata doesn’t get a wicked grin. His sudden, mischevious impulse is a blind man’s sunrise; a fire without fuel; a warmth and a heat rising in and filling and falling in the emptiness of Ninja Nirvana. He stands and walks over to a pile of leaves. “Help, help,” he says. “The placidity in my heart is stifling my potential for growth.”

With a swirl of his cape, Dukkha localizes. “Then face the malevolent wrath of Dukkha!” he shouts. Under his feet, the leaves give way.

“The covered pit is a nice touch,” Jenna admits.

Liril is in bed. She hugs her doll. It’s named Latch.

Micah walks up to his bed. He hesitates. He lingers. He waits too long. The sniggly, snatchy hand of the horror grabs his ankle. He sucks in breath. The room is still. But Liril is ready.

Liril tumbles out of bed. She draws a gun. It’s not a real gun. It’s made of plastic. But it’s got a string wrapped around its handle that she found in a mean dog’s yard. It’s got mud on its barrel from the shores of the scary lake. It’s been blessed by that weird lady from the house down the road and cursed by that guy who stands around near the grocery store. She fires. There’s an explosion and everything happens at once.

There’s blood and there’s skittering and Micah’s desperately hacking at the monster’s arm with the knife edge of his hand. The creature’s out in the room now, and it’s screaming, and its great floppy feet crush the Lego Man. A cuff of its squirmy arm sends Liril staggering back, and Latch’s head cracks. Then it shrieks; and wriggles, bleeding, between the slats of the venetian blinds; and it’s out the window and into the night and they shall not see its like again.

Liril slumps against her bed, and Micah against the wall.

Micah says, quietly, “It’s gone.”

Liril looks at the Lego Man and Latch. She touches the welt on the side of her face. She looks at the creature’s blood. “Screams. Lots.”

“We can’t surrender our room, Liril. It’s part of being people. We have to be able to stop things like that. To cleanse them with fire and the sword. If we can’t, then we don’t have any power, and when the nightmares come, they’ll just take us. So I have to have priorities. If there’s a monster under my bed, I kill it! It’s grabby. I have to.”

“You were scared.”

“It had a buggy face!”

“. . . I’m sorry.”

“You used the gun. You shot it. How about you justify it?”

“Dead Lego Man? Latch? The blood?”

Micah nods firmly.

Liril says, “I woke up. I got dressed. I went outside. I looked at the dawn. It was pretty. I told it, ‘You are pretty.’ I had cereal. I had toast. Then I said, ‘Good morning, Micah!’ You said, ‘We’ll kill it today.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

“So you’re just going along with me?”

“You’re my friend. I know you’re right. I just think it’s awful.”

Micah frowns. “What if I told you to shoot yourself?”

Liril thinks. “I would be surprised. But you’d probably have a good reason.”

Micah peers at her. “Do it, then.”

Liril puts the gun to her head and pulls the trigger. There’s a click. Nothing happens. She smiles wanly. “I don’t have a real gun.”

“Ah.” Micah slumps. “You’re smart.”

Liril shrugs. “I think that it’s bad,” she says. “Killing is bad. People are supposed to live. That’s why the sun shines so brightly.”

“Is that what the sun’s for?”

“Uh huh. Most things have reasons.”

“Then why is there so much blood?”

Liril’s mouth quirks up a little at one side. “Maybe we forgot to try talking to it.”

“I talked to it,” Micah says.

“Oh?”

Micah nods firmly. “It said it only wanted my leg. I could have the rest of me. It would even grant me a magical kingdom and lots of gold. But I’d have to hop.”

Liril giggles. “Really?”

“I said no,” Micah says. “I don’t trust monsters.”

“Do you ever think,” Liril says, “that we’re the monsters? I mean, to it?”

Micah shrugs. “We are,” he says, “but it doesn’t matter. It came to our house, and we didn’t ask it to, and now the Lego Man is dead.”

“I can put his head back on,” Liril offers.

“And the creature’s off somewhere bleeding.”

Liril smiles a little. “It’s okay,” she says.

“It is?”

Liril nods.

Outside the window, the creature under the bed staggers in the night. The moonlight presses sharp against its skin, like a blade. Its nostrils flare. It smells something. It’s a magic road. Its drawn in crayon. The creature slithers and stumbles to the road, and down its path; and onto a piece of paper, nailed to the garden, fluttering in the wind. There’s a palace drawn there for the monster to live in, and it’s full of legs; and it’s signed Liril.

“Everything will be okay,” she says.

The horror snuffles and snorts and staggers to the sidewalk. There’s another house down the road. There are kids there. They have legs.

It doesn’t choose the palace.

In the night forest, it comes. It has a wide and awful maw. It snuffles. It snorts. It chitters, hideous and resonant. Its great mandibles scrape along the ground.

The forest is almost empty. It is almost always empty, when the horror walks.

At the edge of the forest, a copper frog pokes at the bramble wall. “Please,” she whispers. “Anyone. If you are there. If you are anywhere. I cannot find my hiding place. Lead me to your own.”

The bramble is silent. The forest is silent, save for the chittering of the beast.

“It will find me,” says the frog.

It has been a very long night, and there will be no dawn.

Piercing and bright, a rooster crows. The horror turns. The frog begins to hop, furiously, towards the sound and its promise of salvation. “Where are you?” she asks, as she hops. “Where are you?”

There is a glint of light. The frog dives into the brambles. The horror’s maw slams into the ground where she had been.

The rooster’s hiding place is small, and dangerously close to the edge of the wall. The brambles shake as the creature’s mandibles probe them.

“Thank you,” whispers the frog. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Shh,” the rooster says.

The thin layer of wall that protects them begins to tear.

“That’s done it,” says the rooster. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t help you after all.”

A long, prehensile tongue snakes into their hollow. The rooster pecks at it and it retreats. The brambles that shield them continue to tear.

“We’ll fight it,” says the frog. “I’ll do my best.”

She croaks a croak of war. She waddles in place, shaking the brambles.

“To the north,” the rooster says.

The copper frog listens. She can hear it. To the north, the battle cry of two more frogs. The horror hesitates. The racket of the frogs grows louder. The horror pulls back. It begins to tromp north. It begins to tear at the brambles near the sound.

“To the north,” the rooster says.

There is the furious cry of an eagle, to the north. And the yowling of cats. The creature, hesitantly, moves north.

“To the north,” the rooster says.

There is the brazen trumpet of a hiding elephant. A flock of seagulls squabble.

Belly low to the ground in hunger, the creature runs.

“That should hold it,” says the rooster, “’till the dawn.”

The copper frog sinks down.

“There will be no dawn,” she says.

“Pardon?” says the rooster.

“It was my job,” says the frog. “Like the twilight frogs, whose croak calls twilight, and the terces frogs who bring nine a.m. I called the dawn. But I am helpless.”

“Why is that?”

“My love was called away, beyond the sky. I cannot save him. I am no hero. But still I must go, to the gate at the wide world’s edge, and seek to bring him back. That is why this night has been so long. The gate closes at dawn, and I am no fast traveler.”

“Ah,” says the rooster. He scratches at the ground. “Then you can’t very well call the dawn,” he admits.

“I should go,” says the frog.

“I’ll walk you there,” says the rooster.

“I’m sorry,” says the frog.

“When you’re gone,” the rooster says, “I’ll call the dawn. Every morning. Until you return.”

“That’s sweet,” says the frog. “But you’re a chicken.”

“I’ll do my best,” the rooster asserts.

“Did you fetch the morning eggs, Danielle?”

Danielle holds her hands over the breakfast table. They are cupped together. She separates them. Rubies fall. Sapphires too, and emeralds. Seven gems, and an egg.

“I see.” Her wicked stepmother narrows her eyes. “The hens have not lain eggs properly in several days.”

“I feed them the normal feed, mother.”

Danielle’s wicked stepmother is named Glory. She clicks her sharp fingernails on the table.

“Danielle,” Glory says, “these gems are very fine, but what may I eat for breakfast?”

“Perhaps they are edible,” says Danielle. She taps a ruby. It rings, lightly, like a bell.

“I should have the wealthiest chamberpot in the world,” Glory says, “and not be full from it.”

“Mother?”

Glory shakes her head. “It is no matter. I shall have bread and cheese. Clean the cinders, Danielle. They are a disgrace.”

Danielle curtsies. She goes to the closet. She takes out a broom and a pan. She holds the broom at her left side like a sword. She leaves the room and goes to the fireplace. The room is full of cinders and ash. They are being fanned onto every surface and every wall by seven cinder pixies. In the center of the room stands the cinder troll.

“I’ve been sent to clean this up,” she says.

The troll looks her up and down. He snorts. “You’re not much,” he says.

Her right hand crosses her body and takes the broom’s hilt. In a long circular motion, she brings the broom up and around until its bristles face the troll. Her left hand joins her right at the broom’s base. The broom is heavy, held in this fashion, but her arms do not tremble. “I am whom my mother sent.”

The cinder pixies go still. The troll looks her up and down.

“It’s my right,” says the troll, “as a cinder troll, to push the cinders out into the room.”

“And mine, to sweep them back.”

The troll hesitates. “Perhaps,” he says, “one quarter of the room in soot, and three parts clean.”

Danielle closes her eyes. She thinks. Then she opens them. “They say that every one of us lives seven lives,” she says.

“Aye.”

“And that we should be kind to those we meet. For anyone may have been one’s mother, in another life, or one’s father, or one’s child. One’s lover, or one’s friend.”

“That’s wise,” says the cinder troll.

“In another life,” says Danielle, “I believe that we were friends. For there is a light in your eyes that my soul knows. But in this life, I have a duty, and I must drive you back.”

She steps forward. The troll steps back.

She steps forward. The troll is still. Then he reaches behind him to the fireplace and draws forth a poker, and takes it in his great strong hands.

They duel.

“I had not thought,” says the troll, “that Glory would have a loyal servant.” He is breathing lightly though Danielle’s lungs burn. Each clash of poker and broom makes her arms ache.

“She is my mother,” Danielle says.

“That,” says the troll, “cannot be so.”

Cinders in the air swirl into Danielle’s mouth, and she chokes. Her eyes water. The troll strikes, the poker winging her shoulder, and her left arm goes numb. She falls backwards. The troll does not advance. After a moment, he holds out his hand to help her up. She takes it. She backs away. She reassumes her stance.

“She has taken me in,” Danielle admits. “The mother of my birth is gone.”

“Ah, so.”

“My true mother went adventuring,” Danielle says. “To find a lost prince, they sent out seven maidens; to find each lost maiden, they sent out seven princes; and for seven princes lost, seven maidens each; and so in progression were all the heroes lost, and my mother among them. And I was left behind.”

The troll feints, then brings the poker around hard. The broom cracks, though it does not break. The poker lunges for Danielle’s face, and she steps back.

“And why have you not gone?” asks the troll.

She looks at him. She does not answer, for she does not know. Slowly, she brings the broom back to her side. She sets her feet. Her eyes burn.

“Are you surrendering?” the troll asks.

Danielle shakes her head.

“Then we will end this now,” says the troll.

“May we be friends again,” says Danielle, “when next we meet.”

The troll steps forward. There is tension in the great muscles of his arm.

Danielle’s shout splits the air and makes the cinder pixies flutter. She strikes. There is a crack like the breaking of the world. She is past the troll in a single motion, stumbling to a stop, kneeling in the ashes, and her broom is nothing but splinters.

The troll falls, and the room is clean.

The first goat crosses the bridge from east to west. It traipses on the wood, tap tap tap.

The troll stands there, looking surly, staring off into the distance.

Mr. Eugene Barrett II stands stiffly on the eastern side. He is dressed in a pinstripe suit. It is neatly pressed. He looks profoundly uncomfortable.

“There will be a second goat, you know,” says the troll.

“Er, yes,” says Eugene. “I suppose there must be.”

“I will roar, and brandish my claws, like so,” says the troll, roaring and brandishing his claws. “And I will say, ‘You must be the second billygoat, larger and tastier than the first. I have prepared a mole sauce for you!’”

Eugene is silent. The troll is silent. Finally, Eugene says, “Those are difficult. I mean, I heard that they were hard to make.”

“Extraordinarily!” roars the troll. He brandishes his claws. “Particularly with these things for hands.”

“I say.”

The troll snorts. He waits. He watches. The second billygoat traipses up. The goat eyes Eugene warily. Then the troll roars and brandishes his claws.

“You must be the second billygoat, larger and tastier than the first! I have prepared a mole sauce for you!”

“I am not a mole,” notes the goat.

The troll blinks three times.

Eugene ventures, “I believe he means the Mexican sauce based on—”

The goat looks dangerously at Eugene, who is suddenly aware that the second goat is much bigger than the first.

“Perhaps you could let me go,” says the goat.

“No!” roars the troll. He brandishes a claw. He counts off on his fingers. “First, I am hungry. Second, I have already prepared the sauce. Third, I am ruthless. Fourth, I am educating this banker! I must set a good example.”

The goat laughs. “Perhaps he should leap on me with his great terrible fingernails and rend me to shreds. It would be active learning!”

“Er,” says Eugene. “I really don’t think—”

The troll makes a gesture to silence him.

“Very well,” says the billygoat. “I suppose I am doomed, then. But … but it occurs to me …”

“Yes?” asks the troll.

“I do have another brother, larger and tastier than myself.”

“You don’t say!”

“I do,” says the goat. “I do indeed. And we might be too much of a meal, you understand, taken together.”

“I might run out of sauce,” ruminates the troll.

“Verily.”

The troll’s nostrils flare. “Then go,” he says. “Go across the bridge.”

“I could go with him,” says Eugene. “To show him the way.”

“No,” says the troll.

“I was really supposed to ride across on the first goat,” says Eugene. “To rescue some sort of princess—”

The troll’s gaze is flat and level. “Is that so?”

The second goat crosses the bridge from east to west. It traipses on the wood, clank clank clank.

Eugene sighs.

They wait.

“Do—” Eugene pauses. He gulps. He speaks again. “Do trolls have treasure hoards? I mean, like dragons?”

“No!” roars the troll. He brandishes his claws. Eugene shrinks in on himself. The troll thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe. Perhaps. I suppose. Some.”

“Some treasure hoards?”

“A few,” says the troll dismissively. “They are small and unworthy of mention.”

Eugene says, “Ah.”

“Why do you ask?” says the troll.

Eugene shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I like money,” he says.

The third goat approaches.

The troll looks thoughtfully at Eugene. He asks, “Why are you even here?”

“The guys,” Eugene says. “You know. The guys. They thought that I should have a marvelous fantasy adventure. You know. To loosen up. To learn—you know. Claw brandishing, goat riding, princess-saving. And such.”

The troll looks Eugene up and down. Then he looks up at the goat.

The goat’s hot breath comes down on the troll’s head.

“I hate trolls,” rumbles the third billygoat.

It looks at Eugene.

“Also,” it adds, “bankers.”

“These people,” the troll says to Eugene. “These ‘guys’.”

“Yes?” Eugene asks.

The troll shakes his head. “They are not your friends.”

Author’s Note—

Of all the stories on this site, Gnostella is the one I do not like. It makes sense, and is important, but it just doesn’t make me happy. It’s possible that it’s just the name—that the original story is not absurdist, and the name is. So maybe I could just change the story name and the character name to something like “Inverse Ella.” That might work. Or I can replace the whole thing—not on the site, but in the monthbooks and your hearts—with this.

Remnant Ella

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful girl named Danielle. She lived with her dear father, her wicked stepmother, and two wicked stepsisters. Her dear father held the Gnostic belief that the world and its Creator were inherently cruel. Faith and virtue were opposites in his sight. Dispirited and disgruntled by his gloomy philosophy, Danielle’s wicked stepmother set fire to the library, burning Danielle’s dear father to death and destroying all his wonderful Gnostic tomes. Because Danielle sat in the cinders and rubbed the ashes on her face to mourn, Danielle’s stepsisters called her “Remnant Ella.”

Danielle became a beautiful princess. She met her handsome prince. Together they overcame many hardships and sorrows. Down they cast the stepsisters, and the wicked stepmother, and other instrumentalities of their torment. They brought peace to the magical land in which they lived. Then they lived happily ever after.

One day, as Danielle moved through the corridors of her castle, she tripped over a cat, who hissed and said,

How long have you lived now?
Do you even remember?
Who are you to deserve to be happy forever?

“That is an imperfect rhyme,” Danielle said. “I expect better from a magical animal.”

The cat scurried away.

One day, Danielle leaned out a window and beckoned a bird down to her finger. It came, with a certain reluctance, and landed there, and sang:

At last you’ve found happiness,
And yet, all the same:
Your life is a horror;
Your father’d be shamed.

“What do you mean?” Danielle asked.

The bird only sang.

So Danielle went to a mirror in the castle, inherited from her evil stepmother, and asked it, “Why shouldn’t I live happily ever after?”

The mirror showed her the lives of two peasants, one beautiful and one handsome, who had lived in her kingdom for many years. They lived together and loved together and overcame many sorrows. They brought forth life from the earth. They strove. Then, inevitably, the swords of circumstance and pestilence struck them down.

At that very moment, Danielle saw, the dead peasants stood before the three thrones of a god of judgment; and one aspect of the god sat to the left, and one to the right, and one between them. The ex-peasants stood there to face the penalty faced by those who die, and the handsome ex-peasant said,

“What is it that the prince and princess have that we have not? We lived, and we died, in sorrow and in pain; while for more years than men can count, they have ruled in that castle, defying time, defying age, defying sorrow; they are like ghosts, eternal beyond the boundaries of death; they are like demons, mocking the pain of others’ lives.”

The left god and the right god looked off into the shadows. The god in the middle leaned forward.

“The world is not fair,” said the god in the middle, “but as you make it so. Dreams are not real, but as you craft them. Hope, and magic, and life are choices. It is not for a person to blame the gods if they do not live happily ever after; rather, I think, this is a flaw in the greater portion of humanity.”

Then the beautiful ex-peasant spoke, and said, “This is an excuse.”

Danielle, watching, felt her nostrils flare.

“To live,” said the beautiful ex-peasant, “is to choose hope, and magic, and life, and dreams. To live is to want the happy ending. And who is there who is not good? Who is there who does not deserve happiness forever? We are flawed, we have many flaws, but if we are not all magical princes and princesses with destinies of greatness, that is not our flaw but the world’s.”

The god in the middle shrugged, then, and grinned, and he was not concerned. He said, “You are bitter creatures. I make my judgment: your existence after death shall be as expressions of that bitterness. You shall be creatures of ashes and sorrow. Your touch shall bring an end to joy. Your happiness shall be schadenfreude.”

He sat back against his throne, and the mirror turned to black.

Danielle nodded to herself, and said, “It is true; my father would be shamed.”

She broke the mirror. She cut herself upon a length of silvered glass. As her life drained out, she spoke a spell:

Ah! That the world should know such gods no more.
May my blood be a poison unto their throne.

Such a poison as this covered Snow White’s apple; such a curse as this doomed Sleeping Beauty; it is the red of such blood as this that stained the dancing shoes. And in their halls the gods dared not face her judgment; and two of them, the left god and the right, left their thrones. Into the darkness behind their places, they walked, and what happened to them thereafter is not known.

The beautiful ex-peasant and the handsome one took their places on the thrones; and why this should have happened is a mystery. Only the old men and old women in their huts, their mouths gaping with missing teeth, know that answer; and what it means, they do not say.