Winter
Winter
There is a presence in completely dark rooms - even rooms in ordinary houses - a sense of certainty that someone else is there. It fills all the space where you are not. It wraps long arms around you and whispers in your ear. It lets you know without a doubt that this house in the dark is not yours. I know this house is not mine. This story is not mine. Winter has come, and three days ago all the mirrors in the house stopped reflecting my face. The snow is falling. Frost draws illusory cracks on the windows and reflects the glow of candles. I can feel the house’s hunger growing in my belly, sharp as the corners of the sickle moon.
Winter is the hungry season. Nothing grows in the village on the far side of the forest. All the animals have already been slaughtered. I know the village, though I do not remember why. I know the mothers with their large red hands and the embroidery around the edges of their aprons. I know the fathers with dirt beneath their fingernails and teeth ground down to powder.
I can see two of their children reflected in the mirrors outside the room where I sleep. They repeat endlessly, passed back and forth between facing mirrors - two small dark lines walking across a field of snow, beneath a blinding white sky. Sometimes I imagine that they are two tally marks on a perfectly white sheet of paper and I know I have been here too long.
The children will be cold and scared. They will not have eaten in days. They will not know why their parents have taken them into the woods and left them alone. The dark presence wraps its arms around my shoulders and guides me down the long spiral of stairs. Every winter the house rearranges itself. But always the kitchen is right beside the main room. It will be warm and welcoming with a fire for the children to warm their hands over and thick stew simmering on the hearth stones.
I flinch and the dark presence wraps me tighter. It places my hand on the door at the base of the stairs. I open the door and there are the children, hands frozen to the bone, skin hanging on them where they should be plump. The presence knows I cannot leave them in the cold. So, I take them into the kitchen and let them sit in front of the fire and watch the hearthstones drink greedily the ice crystals that melt out of the weave of their sweaters. I ladle stew into earthenware bowls - chunks of lamb, whole onions and carrots, and bones at the bottom.
They eat crouched together without leaving the sheltering warmth of the fireplace. When they are finished, the girl stands and her brother follows, his hand pulling on the sleeve of her sweater. He is small and pale, blonde hair lifting from his scalp to float around his head as it dries. Glints of red catch in his hair from the firelight and reflect in his eyes. For a moment, I see him burning, his head wreathed in flames, his shy smile transforming into a scream. I shake my head and the boy as he is now returns to me, hiding in the shadow of his tall, dark sister. She turns to him, pulling smooth, flat rocks from inside the pockets of her apron, and hands them to him. The boy plays with the rocks in the corner of the fireplace, stacking them and laughing when they fall loudly on the hearthstones.
His sister looks once back at him before walking up to me.
I open my mouth to speak, to say, “Run while you still can. It’s better to die outside in the snow than to stay in here where it’s warm.”
But I feel the darkness coiling in my throat and instead I hear my own voice say, “My name is Anna. What’s yours?”
“I’m Claire,” says the girl, “My brother’s name is Jack.” She pauses, considering her words.
“People don’t just take children in and feed them stew. Not in the winter.” She holds up her hand as if expecting protest. “I understand. You want something. That’s okay. Whatever it is you want, ask me. I’ll do it. Just let my brother be. He’s small and not strong like me. But he’s smart and sometimes he sees things no one else does. So, you see, I have to protect him.”
“I understand. I had a brother once too, a long time ago.” As I say it, I realize it is true, though I remember nothing about him. “I don’t want you to do anything too hard. I’m all alone out here and I’m not as young as I was, so I could use a bit of help around the house.”
“I
can do that. I took care of everything after Mama died.”
I nod, wanting to put my hands around her and hold her, but fearing that the dark presence would put its arms around her too.
“Anna?” she says after a moment of silence.
“Yes, dear?”
“Jack doesn’t know why Da and Step-Ma left us in the woods. I told him we just got lost. Please…don’t say anything.”
“Jack is lucky to have a sister like you watching out for him.”
I smile, closing my lips over teeth growing gradually sharper. My hands shake and I clench them together behind me, fingernails digging in, creating crescent moons of whitened skin all along the edge of my palm.
“Claire, let’s start doing the dishes,” I say, “You wash and I’ll dry.”
The wash basin is full, as it has always been since I came to the house, and the water is warm against Claire’s skin, pulling some of the deep chill out of her bones. Her shoulders begin to relax, but her eyes remain hard and unreadable.
I look back to see the boy, Jack, asleep, his head resting in his hands and stones scattered at his feet. I pick him up and carry him to bed, the dark presence guiding my feet to where the children will sleep this winter. There is a candle by the boy’s bedside, spreading a small pool of golden light across the heaped covers, lumpy with down. The light catches in the eyes of the wood rabbit carved into the headboard and for a moment it looks knowingly at me. As I tuck her brother in, the girl begins to yawn, but stands still at the door.
“Come in,” I say. “Don’t you want to go to bed?”
“You sure you don’t have something else you want me to do?” Her eyes do not waver as she begins to unbutton her dress. She lets the dress fall and walks to me naked. Her nipples look violet in the half-darkness and her skin seems to glisten, as though touched with ice.
She reaches up to touch my cheek. The laughter of the dark presence echoes in my head as I catch her hand and shake my head.
“That’s not what I want, Claire. I just want to keep you and your brother safe and out of the cold.”
Claire stands silent looking up at me and her face is hard and cold as the northern ice that never thaws. Then the harsh planes of her face collapse into themselves and she is a child again, a small girl child, and she is crying. I hold out my hand and she follows me outside to sit in front of the fire. She is still naked and she shivers and crosses her arms over her chest to keep out the cold. Her nipples look hard and blood red in the glow of the fire, like pomegranate seeds, and her eyes are much too dark to be the eyes of a child. I think of my own eyes, back when mirrors still held my reflection, and before I know I mean to speak, my mouth is open.
“You’ll never have to show yourself like that again, for anyone. I’ll make sure of it,” I say, which is true. “I’ll take care of you and your brother from now on,” I say, and I suppose that is true as well.
She looks back at me, her face serious, but softer than it was. The remains of her tears turn her eyelashes to icicles. She takes a deep breath of the warm air.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I shouldn’t have, you know…” Her voice trails off as she gestures to her bare body. I bring her a patchwork quilt and she wraps it around herself gratefully. “I just-“ she stops again, deciding how to begin. “You’re just the first grown-up who’s done anything for us, for Jack and me, without wanting me to do that. At least since Ma died.”
“What about your father?” I ask, but I know the story already.
The mother hardly cold in the ground before the father takes the daughter to bed, his hand over her mouth so she can’t scream and wake her little brother. There is blood running down her thighs and she doesn’t understand. When he is done with her she finds a bruise like a deep purple rose on each thigh. The neighbors know. There isn’t much you can hide in a little village, but they say nothing. Children throw stones and call her names.
Claire looks up at me and her eyes are hard again, “My father? Who do you think taught me to do that?” Her voice is flat, without bitterness. “I had to. He said he’d hurt Jack if I didn’t. I’m his big sister, Ma always told me to look out for him.” Her voice is tired now, no longer flat. Jack’s name sticks on her tongue.
Claire doesn’t have to finish telling the story. I know how it ends. The father crushes the girl, his hot breath through ground-down teeth hot in her ear. There is pain, but she is used to that now. Then the sound of the door opening, a creak of un-oiled hinges, and the tombstone shadow of the new wife falls across them. There is an argument, heard through a closed door, and then the girl and her brother are left in the woods in the winter, cold and hungry, with their heads full of stories about wolves.
For a moment, I remember every shadow, every touch. I remember the hot breath and the bruises. And I remember a little boy and a little girl with red hair shining bright against the snow. He cries and she comforts him. They walk into the woods. It is the same story. It is always the same story. I only wish I could remember who they were.
Claire is looking at me now, expecting something and I don’t know what to do, so I open my arms and she climbs into them. She fits there perfectly, like she was my own child. For a moment I let myself imagine that she is my daughter and Jack my son and the house is just a house with darkness only where some tall thing blocks the light.
I would cook for them. We wouldn’t have lamb and onions like the house provides, but I know how to make traps to catch small animals and where to look to dig up the nuts squirrels bury for the winter. Claire and I would do the dishes together every night; I would wash and she would dry. When spring came we’d teach Jack how to plant a garden. I’d trade vegetables for wool and sew him a better toy than those rocks he plays with.
I smile slightly and feel my teeth, teeth grown sharp enough to cut. My stomach clenches with a hunger not my own and my arms stiffen against Claire’s small body. I can see the dark presence now, sliding like oil over the windows and whispering around the edges of the fire place. Its cold fingers crawl along the nape of my neck and disappear into my skull. It knows my dream and its hunger is knives in my belly.
I push Claire out of my arms. I can’t make her feel safe here. I can’t let her feel like she belongs. If I do, she won’t take her brother and leave. It would be better for them to wander in the woods, to die in the snow if they must, than to stay here with the darkness and what comes after.
Claire turns her head up to look at me, confused. I try to put into my face my disgust at myself, at the house, and every terrible thing I’ve done here and I turn to face her and she sees. Hate me, I beg her with my eyes, afraid to open my mouth with my teeth grown so long and sharp. Hate me and run. Save your brother and yourself.
Claire recoils from me and dashes a few steps away. Then she turns back to look over her shoulder. “You can think whatever you want about me, about what I did. Just don’t throw us out. I can work. I’m a good worker. I’ll take care of the house for you. I just have to protect Jack.”
The dark presence wraps around my neck and makes me nod and smile to her, like the mother I cannot let myself become. She turns and walks away back to the room I’d given her and to her waiting brother. Her hands shake only a little as she opens the door. She is far enough away now that she won’t see my teeth, so I try one last time to save her.
“There is only one rule here,” I call after her, “Only one thing I really need from you. Promise me you won’t go down into the cellar under the house. It’s full of old rusting things and isn’t safe. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to keep your brother out of there too.”
She nods, but the animal wariness is still in her eyes. Perhaps she would hate me enough to disobey. Perhaps she would find the room. Perhaps she would take her brother and run before it is too late. If the house had not stolen the words to all my prayers, I would get down on my knees and pray God make it so. But, even still, I can feel the hunger and the cold twisting in my belly, and my teeth growing long and sharp enough to cut the inside of my lips.
The house is different every winter. Its rooms find new arrangements, its stairs new twists and turns. But, always there is a thin door in the kitchen, almost hidden between the stove and the washbasin. Behind it there are always stairs, leading down into the cellar. Every winter, when I walk this way - as I do now - the cellar is different. But, I do not need a candle to find my way. The house guides my feet, softly across the cold stone floor, until my hands find the door to the brick room.
I open the door, but do not enter. The toes of my stockings just reach across the divide between stone and brick to touch the barest edge of the room beyond the open door. The floor is warm, like a child sick with fever, and the mortar feels soft as flesh. I raise my eyes to the far side of the room and, though it is dark, the house forces me to see them. The children are bloodless shadows against the wall, glowing faintly where their skin merges with the brick. Some are almost whole; hands and feet still free, and they flutter like trapped moths - others are nothing but eyes pressed into the mortar between two bricks.
Their pain comes to me in the air of the room, an animal scent of wet fur and piss, and for a moment I hate them. I bare my teeth. They have grown long and sharp even behind my straining-closed lips, but now I feel them, thin and prickly as needles, meeting above and below my lips like perfect white sutures. They cut my skin, but draw no blood.
I do not hate the children that have come to me winter after winter. I do not hate them when the dark presence wraps its arms around me and I take them by the hand and lead them down the stairs and into the cellar. I do not hate them when I take them to this room and hold them against the wall, feeling the brick slide under their skin, pulling them into the house. But, I feel hunger sharp as the teeth of the winter wind. My belly is empty and soon it will be full. And I do hate. I hate myself for my weakness, for bringing the children here. I sing to my trapped, dying children. I sing them a lullaby that I do not remember learning. I tell them of a mother who so loved her son that she pulled the moon down from the sky for her baby boy to play with. I sing of love and feel the hooks of the house burn cold under my skin.
My mouth is dry as I walk up the stairs and close the door. I find my bed and lie, eyes open. I dream of wolves, fur white against white snow, almost invisible except for the jeweled red of their bloody mouths. I dream of bats, wheeling cold and sharp against the night sky - so black against the darkness that they cannot be seen except for when a flapping wing hides, for a moment, the stars. I dream of a field in winter, the snow half-hiding broken granite teeth. There were names here on the stones, but time and winter’s ice have washed them clean.
I wake to sunlight glittering in the snow that covers the windows. It is morning, but my room is full of twilight. I close my eyes and let my mind slip out through the cracks of my skull. I see the boy, Jack, still wrapped in covers in his bed. He sucks his thumb, eyelashes casting long shadows across his face. Claire’s bed is made. She is in the kitchen, stirring a pot of oatmeal over the stove. The candles in their wall sconces have dripped wax on the floor and dust gathers in the corners of the room, new-grown cobwebs span the corners of dark hallways. The house has changed again while I slept.
Claire will work and she will feel that she earns her keep. She will stay. I know that now. I cannot hope for her to take her brother and run out into the snow, away from a house where no dust gathers, where plates clean themselves while your eyes are turned, and fresh candles grow from the stumps of those that burn themselves to ash.
Claire curtsies when she sees me in the doorway to the kitchen. I smile, my teeth no longer quite so sharp, and wish her good morning. I move to take a turn stirring the pot of oatmeal, but Claire is reluctant to let go of the wooden spoon. Her hands are dry and chapped from her time out in the snow. We do not talk of last night and the things she said beside the fire. We will never speak of that again.
The smell of oatmeal wakes her brother and we both hear the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. He comes into the room and Claire abandons the oatmeal to my stirring. Jack attaches a hand to the ties of her apron and says nothing. I serve them oatmeal and pretend to eat my own. Claire waits until she has finished her bowl before she speaks.
“Anna?”
I nod. The dark presence hangs in the room, but I do not feel its tightness in my throat.
“I’ve done some cleaning up around the house already, but there is a lot more I can do. I can sweep and wash the floors and polish the silverware and heat up some water to wash clothes and-“
“You’re a smart girl,” I say, “I know you’ll take care of my poor old house. It’s just nice to have children in the house again. I get lonely out here in the forest.”
Almost without my noticing, the darkness has crept into my mouth and speaks through me to the children. Claire nods, pleased, but Jack just piles his stones on the table in front of him and does not look at me. His knuckles are white where they clutch at his sister’s dress.
Claire and I clean the dishes as we did the night before and I do not tell her that the house will clean them whatever we do. Afterward she trails close behind me as I find this winter’s location for the broom closet and hand her one of the brooms. She is eager to be useful, her eyes finding every dirty footprint and dusty corner the house has made for her. Jack walks behind her with his pocketful of stones, thumb back in his mouth. His eyes glow yellow with the reflected flame of a candle, but there are none lit. I think again of my visions, the brother burning and the sister under ice.
I call after them as they walk to the kitchen - Claire to sweep and Jack to watch - “Remember. Clean any part of the house on this level and upstairs, but don’t go down into the cellar. It’s not safe down there - and Claire?”
She turns to look at me.
“The door to the cellar is through the kitchen. Try to keep Jack out of there.”
She nods and takes Jack’s hand. “I’ll keep him close to me.” I do not see a flicker of curiosity in her dark eyes, only relief at having found a safe place for her brother. The dark presence laughs at me out of the door frames and the corners of rooms. It does not matter what I say. Claire will not go into the cellar and find my secret until I take her there myself. I cannot save her.
Claire is down on her knees in the kitchen with a wet rag, scrubbing the stone floor. Jack sits next to her, building a tower out of his stones, carefully placing the biggest stone on a level part of the floor, then putting the next largest on top of it until he has the smallest stone balanced precariously on the top. Laughing, he knocks the tower over, scattering stones across the floor. Claire looks at him sharply and he gathers them up and brings them to her.
“Tell me a story,” says Jack.
Claire smiles and dips the rag into the bucket by her side. “Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy-“
“Is that us?” asks Jack.
“Who’s telling the story here?”
“You.”
“The boy and the girl got lost in a dark forest in wintertime and they were very scared-“
“You are talking about us. I bet they find a house next, with a nice old lady and oatmeal.”
“Alright. They find a house. If you’re so smart, tell me what the house was made out of?”
Jack looks around the kitchen, eyes fastening on a tin of cookies high up on one of the shelves. “Gingerbread!”
“Don’t be silly, Jack. You can’t make a house out of gingerbread.” She wipes her dirty hands off on her apron before ruffling his hair to take the sting out of her words.
“You told me I could say.”
She smiles. “The boy and the girl, after wandering for a long time in the dark forest come across a house made out of gingerbread, with windows made of-“ this time Claire looks up at the shelf, “maple candy, and the roof is covered in strawberry preserves.”
“What about the door?”
“The door is a giant oatmeal cookie and the knob is made out of a raisin.”
“Is the nice lady a baker?”
“Yes, and she lets the boy and girl stay with her all winter and help her bake. She has barrels full of sugar and others full of flour, jars and jars of preserves, and shelves full of maple syrup bottles.”
“Where does she keep it all?” asks Jack, eyes round and wide.
“In the cellar,” says Claire, glancing over at the door. “But, the boy and his sister weren’t allowed down there, so they wouldn’t make a mess of things. And they were good children and very obedient and never made any trouble and so the nice old lady let them stay.”
“What about their parents?”
Claire’s eyes look dark and far too old. Tears sparkle in them, but do not fall; as if she is so cold inside that she has frozen them there in her eyes. I could see her for a moment, near, but somehow impossible to touch - suspended beneath ice that slowly clouds with frost and obscures her from view. I shake my head to clear it, my own eyes stinging, but unable to cry. I turn away and begin to walk up the stairs before I can hear her answer.
That night I dream again of the white wolves and their red, red mouths and I feel my teeth - even through my sleep - grow sharp and cut the inside of my lips. There are two children in this dream and they are lost in a forest of white, snow-covered trees. The wolves are so white against the snow and the trees that the watchful girl does not see them. The boy is not looking; every few steps he drops behind him a stone that sinks into the snow and is gone. They vanish and I dream of the field of broken granite teeth and the dark, blue heart of the flame.
When I wake, the snow has fallen so thickly against the windows that it is night-dark inside the house. I light a candle and stare for a moment into its blue center before walking down the stairs to bring light to the children I hear beginning to stir below. Along the way, I light the candles in the wall sconces and watch the little flames dance in the snowy whiteness of the mirrors that do not reflect my face.
I open the door of the children’s room and the glow of my candle catches Claire awake and standing over the shadow of her brother’s bed. Her face is a pale circle, her eyes wide and dark with fear.
“What is it?”
She gestures to the bed and I look again. The bulge beneath the covers is too still. I lift the blankets and see, in place of Jack, a pair of goose down pillows.
“I don’t know where he is,” she says, but her eyes are wide and I know that she does. I see in her eyes very clearly the gingerbread house of her story with its cellar full of sugar and maple syrup. She is afraid I will think that she was planning to steal from me. But I know better. I know why she sent him down into the cellar, knowing that I might cast him out into the cold. I know that there is only so long you can protect someone, even someone you love, before you have to hate them a little bit too. I remember a pair of eyes in the mortar of the house and the boy they used to belong to - a boy with red hair, like mine was when I was a girl.
I close my eyes and let my mind float away from my body, where the dark presence twines around it and purrs like a cat. My mind dives down through the stone floor and into the cellar. It flies to the brick room where Jack is standing with the stub of lit candle dripping white wax in streaks across his hand.
He is looking at the children in the wall. Their eyes glow yellow in the light of his candle. Their mouths form silent warnings as they struggle and writhe against the bricks. The places where flesh becomes stone stretch and distend, pulling their skin across their faces, closing their eyes and working their jaws. Pain rolls off of them in waves, smelling sick-sweet, like too much sugar.
Jack screams and drops the candle. The only light comes from the faint glow of the dying children’s bodies as they sink deeper and deeper into the brick and mortar. Jack turns and runs, stumbling against walls and the edges of doorframes, tripping over tree roots and the stones spilling from his ripped pocket. His mouth is a perfect O of fear and rage.
Claire follows me down stairs and I feel the dark presence hovering between us. I gesture to reassure her, but do not trust myself to speak with the darkness floating so close to my mouth. My teeth are long and sharp and they struggle to free themselves from behind my lips. I keep my mouth closed and walk to the kitchen. I light the fire beneath the stove. There is a tray of cookies on the table, gooey-white uncooked dough in the shapes of boys and girls - two arms, two legs, and a round circle for a head. I try to slow my breathing, but I see it clouding before me even near the heat of the oven.
I open the oven and put the cookie sheet inside. I have forgotten to wrap my hands in my apron, but my hands are like ice and the fire cannot touch them. I lean in as far as I can go. The heat is not unbearable. My tears thaw inside of my eyes and begin to flow down my cheeks.
I hear Jack ascending the stairs, his footfalls heavy. He pushes past Claire and comes straight for me. I lean further in. I search for the blue part of the flame, only it will be hot enough to melt away the ice. The dark presence does not wrap its arms around me and drag me from the oven. It does not coil in my throat and force me to explain, to make the children love and trust me again. I wait for the darkness and I pray with whatever small part of me it has not conquered that it will be fooled.
I hear the door burst open. Jack stands in the kitchen behind me. I can hear his heart pounding. I can feel the tickle of the flames against my frozen face.
“You were going to hurt my sister.” I hear Jack say. His breath too labored to let him scream. “You were going to hurt me.”
I hold my breath, waiting for what, I pray, must come next. Claire gasps and I hear her footsteps coming closer.
“Da said I was the man of the house when he wasn’t around and I had to protect my sister, even if she is bigger than me. So, I can’t let you hurt her.”
I feel his hands on my back, pushing. I fall into the fire. The fire is yellow and bright, hiding its cold blue heart. I hear the oven door slam shut and look up, finally allowing my mouth to open in a smile of triumph. Jack is screaming. I don’t know how he got into the oven, but he is here, with me, and his hair is wreathed in flames. His eyes glow with yellow reflected light. He flails against me, pushing at the door, trying to open it. But the fire has swallowed us and we cannot return.
Past Jack, I see Claire standing perfectly still. She does not move to open the door and free her brother. The window in the oven door begins to fog with steam and for a second it is ice frosting over and Claire hangs suspended at the bottom of a frozen lake. Then I see the dark presence coil itself around her. Its arms enfold her, its darkness fills her mouth and her eyes. Her lips are violet and her skin glistens as though touched with ice.
For an instant, I remember another woman burning, holding a child with red hair. I remember the way the window in the oven door clouded with steam, hiding them from view and leaving only an empty mirror, white as snow.
I look at my hands and see blackened claws. I feel no pain, but I am burning, burning to death. My prayers have been answered, I think, and then I understand. This is my reward, this painless death in the blue heart of the fire. This is my reward for giving the house a new guardian. The darkness whispers to Claire, and though I cannot hear it, I know what it says, for it said the same thing to me once long ago - “This is your home. You will never again have to wander hungry and cold through the woods. I will never turn you away.” Claire looks away from her brother’s screaming face and walks deeper into her house. I hold her brother to my breast as we burn.
There is a presence in completely dark rooms - even rooms in ordinary houses - a sense of certainty that someone else is there. It fills all the space where you are not. It wraps long arms around you and whispers in your ear. It lets you know without a doubt that this house in the dark is not yours. I know this house is not mine. This story is not mine. Winter has come, and three days ago all the mirrors in the house stopped reflecting my face. The snow is falling. Frost draws illusory cracks on the windows and reflects the glow of candles. I can feel the house’s hunger growing in my belly, sharp as the corners of the sickle moon.
Winter is the hungry season. Nothing grows in the village on the far side of the forest. All the animals have already been slaughtered. I know the village, though I do not remember why. I know the mothers with their large red hands and the embroidery around the edges of their aprons. I know the fathers with dirt beneath their fingernails and teeth ground down to powder.
I can see two of their children reflected in the mirrors outside the room where I sleep. They repeat endlessly, passed back and forth between facing mirrors - two small dark lines walking across a field of snow, beneath a blinding white sky. Sometimes I imagine that they are two tally marks on a perfectly white sheet of paper and I know I have been here too long.
The children will be cold and scared. They will not have eaten in days. They will not know why their parents have taken them into the woods and left them alone. The dark presence wraps its arms around my shoulders and guides me down the long spiral of stairs. Every winter the house rearranges itself. But always the kitchen is right beside the main room. It will be warm and welcoming with a fire for the children to warm their hands over and thick stew simmering on the hearth stones.
I flinch and the dark presence wraps me tighter. It places my hand on the door at the base of the stairs. I open the door and there are the children, hands frozen to the bone, skin hanging on them where they should be plump. The presence knows I cannot leave them in the cold. So, I take them into the kitchen and let them sit in front of the fire and watch the hearthstones drink greedily the ice crystals that melt out of the weave of their sweaters. I ladle stew into earthenware bowls - chunks of lamb, whole onions and carrots, and bones at the bottom.
They eat crouched together without leaving the sheltering warmth of the fireplace. When they are finished, the girl stands and her brother follows, his hand pulling on the sleeve of her sweater. He is small and pale, blonde hair lifting from his scalp to float around his head as it dries. Glints of red catch in his hair from the firelight and reflect in his eyes. For a moment, I see him burning, his head wreathed in flames, his shy smile transforming into a scream. I shake my head and the boy as he is now returns to me, hiding in the shadow of his tall, dark sister. She turns to him, pulling smooth, flat rocks from inside the pockets of her apron, and hands them to him. The boy plays with the rocks in the corner of the fireplace, stacking them and laughing when they fall loudly on the hearthstones.
His sister looks once back at him before walking up to me.
I open my mouth to speak, to say, “Run while you still can. It’s better to die outside in the snow than to stay in here where it’s warm.”
But I feel the darkness coiling in my throat and instead I hear my own voice say, “My name is Anna. What’s yours?”
“I’m Claire,” says the girl, “My brother’s name is Jack.” She pauses, considering her words.
“People don’t just take children in and feed them stew. Not in the winter.” She holds up her hand as if expecting protest. “I understand. You want something. That’s okay. Whatever it is you want, ask me. I’ll do it. Just let my brother be. He’s small and not strong like me. But he’s smart and sometimes he sees things no one else does. So, you see, I have to protect him.”
“I understand. I had a brother once too, a long time ago.” As I say it, I realize it is true, though I remember nothing about him. “I don’t want you to do anything too hard. I’m all alone out here and I’m not as young as I was, so I could use a bit of help around the house.”
“I
can do that. I took care of everything after Mama died.”
I nod, wanting to put my hands around her and hold her, but fearing that the dark presence would put its arms around her too.
“Anna?” she says after a moment of silence.
“Yes, dear?”
“Jack doesn’t know why Da and Step-Ma left us in the woods. I told him we just got lost. Please…don’t say anything.”
“Jack is lucky to have a sister like you watching out for him.”
I smile, closing my lips over teeth growing gradually sharper. My hands shake and I clench them together behind me, fingernails digging in, creating crescent moons of whitened skin all along the edge of my palm.
“Claire, let’s start doing the dishes,” I say, “You wash and I’ll dry.”
The wash basin is full, as it has always been since I came to the house, and the water is warm against Claire’s skin, pulling some of the deep chill out of her bones. Her shoulders begin to relax, but her eyes remain hard and unreadable.
I look back to see the boy, Jack, asleep, his head resting in his hands and stones scattered at his feet. I pick him up and carry him to bed, the dark presence guiding my feet to where the children will sleep this winter. There is a candle by the boy’s bedside, spreading a small pool of golden light across the heaped covers, lumpy with down. The light catches in the eyes of the wood rabbit carved into the headboard and for a moment it looks knowingly at me. As I tuck her brother in, the girl begins to yawn, but stands still at the door.
“Come in,” I say. “Don’t you want to go to bed?”
“You sure you don’t have something else you want me to do?” Her eyes do not waver as she begins to unbutton her dress. She lets the dress fall and walks to me naked. Her nipples look violet in the half-darkness and her skin seems to glisten, as though touched with ice.
She reaches up to touch my cheek. The laughter of the dark presence echoes in my head as I catch her hand and shake my head.
“That’s not what I want, Claire. I just want to keep you and your brother safe and out of the cold.”
Claire stands silent looking up at me and her face is hard and cold as the northern ice that never thaws. Then the harsh planes of her face collapse into themselves and she is a child again, a small girl child, and she is crying. I hold out my hand and she follows me outside to sit in front of the fire. She is still naked and she shivers and crosses her arms over her chest to keep out the cold. Her nipples look hard and blood red in the glow of the fire, like pomegranate seeds, and her eyes are much too dark to be the eyes of a child. I think of my own eyes, back when mirrors still held my reflection, and before I know I mean to speak, my mouth is open.
“You’ll never have to show yourself like that again, for anyone. I’ll make sure of it,” I say, which is true. “I’ll take care of you and your brother from now on,” I say, and I suppose that is true as well.
She looks back at me, her face serious, but softer than it was. The remains of her tears turn her eyelashes to icicles. She takes a deep breath of the warm air.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I shouldn’t have, you know…” Her voice trails off as she gestures to her bare body. I bring her a patchwork quilt and she wraps it around herself gratefully. “I just-“ she stops again, deciding how to begin. “You’re just the first grown-up who’s done anything for us, for Jack and me, without wanting me to do that. At least since Ma died.”
“What about your father?” I ask, but I know the story already.
The mother hardly cold in the ground before the father takes the daughter to bed, his hand over her mouth so she can’t scream and wake her little brother. There is blood running down her thighs and she doesn’t understand. When he is done with her she finds a bruise like a deep purple rose on each thigh. The neighbors know. There isn’t much you can hide in a little village, but they say nothing. Children throw stones and call her names.
Claire looks up at me and her eyes are hard again, “My father? Who do you think taught me to do that?” Her voice is flat, without bitterness. “I had to. He said he’d hurt Jack if I didn’t. I’m his big sister, Ma always told me to look out for him.” Her voice is tired now, no longer flat. Jack’s name sticks on her tongue.
Claire doesn’t have to finish telling the story. I know how it ends. The father crushes the girl, his hot breath through ground-down teeth hot in her ear. There is pain, but she is used to that now. Then the sound of the door opening, a creak of un-oiled hinges, and the tombstone shadow of the new wife falls across them. There is an argument, heard through a closed door, and then the girl and her brother are left in the woods in the winter, cold and hungry, with their heads full of stories about wolves.
For a moment, I remember every shadow, every touch. I remember the hot breath and the bruises. And I remember a little boy and a little girl with red hair shining bright against the snow. He cries and she comforts him. They walk into the woods. It is the same story. It is always the same story. I only wish I could remember who they were.
Claire is looking at me now, expecting something and I don’t know what to do, so I open my arms and she climbs into them. She fits there perfectly, like she was my own child. For a moment I let myself imagine that she is my daughter and Jack my son and the house is just a house with darkness only where some tall thing blocks the light.
I would cook for them. We wouldn’t have lamb and onions like the house provides, but I know how to make traps to catch small animals and where to look to dig up the nuts squirrels bury for the winter. Claire and I would do the dishes together every night; I would wash and she would dry. When spring came we’d teach Jack how to plant a garden. I’d trade vegetables for wool and sew him a better toy than those rocks he plays with.
I smile slightly and feel my teeth, teeth grown sharp enough to cut. My stomach clenches with a hunger not my own and my arms stiffen against Claire’s small body. I can see the dark presence now, sliding like oil over the windows and whispering around the edges of the fire place. Its cold fingers crawl along the nape of my neck and disappear into my skull. It knows my dream and its hunger is knives in my belly.
I push Claire out of my arms. I can’t make her feel safe here. I can’t let her feel like she belongs. If I do, she won’t take her brother and leave. It would be better for them to wander in the woods, to die in the snow if they must, than to stay here with the darkness and what comes after.
Claire turns her head up to look at me, confused. I try to put into my face my disgust at myself, at the house, and every terrible thing I’ve done here and I turn to face her and she sees. Hate me, I beg her with my eyes, afraid to open my mouth with my teeth grown so long and sharp. Hate me and run. Save your brother and yourself.
Claire recoils from me and dashes a few steps away. Then she turns back to look over her shoulder. “You can think whatever you want about me, about what I did. Just don’t throw us out. I can work. I’m a good worker. I’ll take care of the house for you. I just have to protect Jack.”
The dark presence wraps around my neck and makes me nod and smile to her, like the mother I cannot let myself become. She turns and walks away back to the room I’d given her and to her waiting brother. Her hands shake only a little as she opens the door. She is far enough away now that she won’t see my teeth, so I try one last time to save her.
“There is only one rule here,” I call after her, “Only one thing I really need from you. Promise me you won’t go down into the cellar under the house. It’s full of old rusting things and isn’t safe. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to keep your brother out of there too.”
She nods, but the animal wariness is still in her eyes. Perhaps she would hate me enough to disobey. Perhaps she would find the room. Perhaps she would take her brother and run before it is too late. If the house had not stolen the words to all my prayers, I would get down on my knees and pray God make it so. But, even still, I can feel the hunger and the cold twisting in my belly, and my teeth growing long and sharp enough to cut the inside of my lips.
The house is different every winter. Its rooms find new arrangements, its stairs new twists and turns. But, always there is a thin door in the kitchen, almost hidden between the stove and the washbasin. Behind it there are always stairs, leading down into the cellar. Every winter, when I walk this way - as I do now - the cellar is different. But, I do not need a candle to find my way. The house guides my feet, softly across the cold stone floor, until my hands find the door to the brick room.
I open the door, but do not enter. The toes of my stockings just reach across the divide between stone and brick to touch the barest edge of the room beyond the open door. The floor is warm, like a child sick with fever, and the mortar feels soft as flesh. I raise my eyes to the far side of the room and, though it is dark, the house forces me to see them. The children are bloodless shadows against the wall, glowing faintly where their skin merges with the brick. Some are almost whole; hands and feet still free, and they flutter like trapped moths - others are nothing but eyes pressed into the mortar between two bricks.
Their pain comes to me in the air of the room, an animal scent of wet fur and piss, and for a moment I hate them. I bare my teeth. They have grown long and sharp even behind my straining-closed lips, but now I feel them, thin and prickly as needles, meeting above and below my lips like perfect white sutures. They cut my skin, but draw no blood.
I do not hate the children that have come to me winter after winter. I do not hate them when the dark presence wraps its arms around me and I take them by the hand and lead them down the stairs and into the cellar. I do not hate them when I take them to this room and hold them against the wall, feeling the brick slide under their skin, pulling them into the house. But, I feel hunger sharp as the teeth of the winter wind. My belly is empty and soon it will be full. And I do hate. I hate myself for my weakness, for bringing the children here. I sing to my trapped, dying children. I sing them a lullaby that I do not remember learning. I tell them of a mother who so loved her son that she pulled the moon down from the sky for her baby boy to play with. I sing of love and feel the hooks of the house burn cold under my skin.
My mouth is dry as I walk up the stairs and close the door. I find my bed and lie, eyes open. I dream of wolves, fur white against white snow, almost invisible except for the jeweled red of their bloody mouths. I dream of bats, wheeling cold and sharp against the night sky - so black against the darkness that they cannot be seen except for when a flapping wing hides, for a moment, the stars. I dream of a field in winter, the snow half-hiding broken granite teeth. There were names here on the stones, but time and winter’s ice have washed them clean.
I wake to sunlight glittering in the snow that covers the windows. It is morning, but my room is full of twilight. I close my eyes and let my mind slip out through the cracks of my skull. I see the boy, Jack, still wrapped in covers in his bed. He sucks his thumb, eyelashes casting long shadows across his face. Claire’s bed is made. She is in the kitchen, stirring a pot of oatmeal over the stove. The candles in their wall sconces have dripped wax on the floor and dust gathers in the corners of the room, new-grown cobwebs span the corners of dark hallways. The house has changed again while I slept.
Claire will work and she will feel that she earns her keep. She will stay. I know that now. I cannot hope for her to take her brother and run out into the snow, away from a house where no dust gathers, where plates clean themselves while your eyes are turned, and fresh candles grow from the stumps of those that burn themselves to ash.
Claire curtsies when she sees me in the doorway to the kitchen. I smile, my teeth no longer quite so sharp, and wish her good morning. I move to take a turn stirring the pot of oatmeal, but Claire is reluctant to let go of the wooden spoon. Her hands are dry and chapped from her time out in the snow. We do not talk of last night and the things she said beside the fire. We will never speak of that again.
The smell of oatmeal wakes her brother and we both hear the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. He comes into the room and Claire abandons the oatmeal to my stirring. Jack attaches a hand to the ties of her apron and says nothing. I serve them oatmeal and pretend to eat my own. Claire waits until she has finished her bowl before she speaks.
“Anna?”
I nod. The dark presence hangs in the room, but I do not feel its tightness in my throat.
“I’ve done some cleaning up around the house already, but there is a lot more I can do. I can sweep and wash the floors and polish the silverware and heat up some water to wash clothes and-“
“You’re a smart girl,” I say, “I know you’ll take care of my poor old house. It’s just nice to have children in the house again. I get lonely out here in the forest.”
Almost without my noticing, the darkness has crept into my mouth and speaks through me to the children. Claire nods, pleased, but Jack just piles his stones on the table in front of him and does not look at me. His knuckles are white where they clutch at his sister’s dress.
Claire and I clean the dishes as we did the night before and I do not tell her that the house will clean them whatever we do. Afterward she trails close behind me as I find this winter’s location for the broom closet and hand her one of the brooms. She is eager to be useful, her eyes finding every dirty footprint and dusty corner the house has made for her. Jack walks behind her with his pocketful of stones, thumb back in his mouth. His eyes glow yellow with the reflected flame of a candle, but there are none lit. I think again of my visions, the brother burning and the sister under ice.
I call after them as they walk to the kitchen - Claire to sweep and Jack to watch - “Remember. Clean any part of the house on this level and upstairs, but don’t go down into the cellar. It’s not safe down there - and Claire?”
She turns to look at me.
“The door to the cellar is through the kitchen. Try to keep Jack out of there.”
She nods and takes Jack’s hand. “I’ll keep him close to me.” I do not see a flicker of curiosity in her dark eyes, only relief at having found a safe place for her brother. The dark presence laughs at me out of the door frames and the corners of rooms. It does not matter what I say. Claire will not go into the cellar and find my secret until I take her there myself. I cannot save her.
Claire is down on her knees in the kitchen with a wet rag, scrubbing the stone floor. Jack sits next to her, building a tower out of his stones, carefully placing the biggest stone on a level part of the floor, then putting the next largest on top of it until he has the smallest stone balanced precariously on the top. Laughing, he knocks the tower over, scattering stones across the floor. Claire looks at him sharply and he gathers them up and brings them to her.
“Tell me a story,” says Jack.
Claire smiles and dips the rag into the bucket by her side. “Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy-“
“Is that us?” asks Jack.
“Who’s telling the story here?”
“You.”
“The boy and the girl got lost in a dark forest in wintertime and they were very scared-“
“You are talking about us. I bet they find a house next, with a nice old lady and oatmeal.”
“Alright. They find a house. If you’re so smart, tell me what the house was made out of?”
Jack looks around the kitchen, eyes fastening on a tin of cookies high up on one of the shelves. “Gingerbread!”
“Don’t be silly, Jack. You can’t make a house out of gingerbread.” She wipes her dirty hands off on her apron before ruffling his hair to take the sting out of her words.
“You told me I could say.”
She smiles. “The boy and the girl, after wandering for a long time in the dark forest come across a house made out of gingerbread, with windows made of-“ this time Claire looks up at the shelf, “maple candy, and the roof is covered in strawberry preserves.”
“What about the door?”
“The door is a giant oatmeal cookie and the knob is made out of a raisin.”
“Is the nice lady a baker?”
“Yes, and she lets the boy and girl stay with her all winter and help her bake. She has barrels full of sugar and others full of flour, jars and jars of preserves, and shelves full of maple syrup bottles.”
“Where does she keep it all?” asks Jack, eyes round and wide.
“In the cellar,” says Claire, glancing over at the door. “But, the boy and his sister weren’t allowed down there, so they wouldn’t make a mess of things. And they were good children and very obedient and never made any trouble and so the nice old lady let them stay.”
“What about their parents?”
Claire’s eyes look dark and far too old. Tears sparkle in them, but do not fall; as if she is so cold inside that she has frozen them there in her eyes. I could see her for a moment, near, but somehow impossible to touch - suspended beneath ice that slowly clouds with frost and obscures her from view. I shake my head to clear it, my own eyes stinging, but unable to cry. I turn away and begin to walk up the stairs before I can hear her answer.
That night I dream again of the white wolves and their red, red mouths and I feel my teeth - even through my sleep - grow sharp and cut the inside of my lips. There are two children in this dream and they are lost in a forest of white, snow-covered trees. The wolves are so white against the snow and the trees that the watchful girl does not see them. The boy is not looking; every few steps he drops behind him a stone that sinks into the snow and is gone. They vanish and I dream of the field of broken granite teeth and the dark, blue heart of the flame.
When I wake, the snow has fallen so thickly against the windows that it is night-dark inside the house. I light a candle and stare for a moment into its blue center before walking down the stairs to bring light to the children I hear beginning to stir below. Along the way, I light the candles in the wall sconces and watch the little flames dance in the snowy whiteness of the mirrors that do not reflect my face.
I open the door of the children’s room and the glow of my candle catches Claire awake and standing over the shadow of her brother’s bed. Her face is a pale circle, her eyes wide and dark with fear.
“What is it?”
She gestures to the bed and I look again. The bulge beneath the covers is too still. I lift the blankets and see, in place of Jack, a pair of goose down pillows.
“I don’t know where he is,” she says, but her eyes are wide and I know that she does. I see in her eyes very clearly the gingerbread house of her story with its cellar full of sugar and maple syrup. She is afraid I will think that she was planning to steal from me. But I know better. I know why she sent him down into the cellar, knowing that I might cast him out into the cold. I know that there is only so long you can protect someone, even someone you love, before you have to hate them a little bit too. I remember a pair of eyes in the mortar of the house and the boy they used to belong to - a boy with red hair, like mine was when I was a girl.
I close my eyes and let my mind float away from my body, where the dark presence twines around it and purrs like a cat. My mind dives down through the stone floor and into the cellar. It flies to the brick room where Jack is standing with the stub of lit candle dripping white wax in streaks across his hand.
He is looking at the children in the wall. Their eyes glow yellow in the light of his candle. Their mouths form silent warnings as they struggle and writhe against the bricks. The places where flesh becomes stone stretch and distend, pulling their skin across their faces, closing their eyes and working their jaws. Pain rolls off of them in waves, smelling sick-sweet, like too much sugar.
Jack screams and drops the candle. The only light comes from the faint glow of the dying children’s bodies as they sink deeper and deeper into the brick and mortar. Jack turns and runs, stumbling against walls and the edges of doorframes, tripping over tree roots and the stones spilling from his ripped pocket. His mouth is a perfect O of fear and rage.
Claire follows me down stairs and I feel the dark presence hovering between us. I gesture to reassure her, but do not trust myself to speak with the darkness floating so close to my mouth. My teeth are long and sharp and they struggle to free themselves from behind my lips. I keep my mouth closed and walk to the kitchen. I light the fire beneath the stove. There is a tray of cookies on the table, gooey-white uncooked dough in the shapes of boys and girls - two arms, two legs, and a round circle for a head. I try to slow my breathing, but I see it clouding before me even near the heat of the oven.
I open the oven and put the cookie sheet inside. I have forgotten to wrap my hands in my apron, but my hands are like ice and the fire cannot touch them. I lean in as far as I can go. The heat is not unbearable. My tears thaw inside of my eyes and begin to flow down my cheeks.
I hear Jack ascending the stairs, his footfalls heavy. He pushes past Claire and comes straight for me. I lean further in. I search for the blue part of the flame, only it will be hot enough to melt away the ice. The dark presence does not wrap its arms around me and drag me from the oven. It does not coil in my throat and force me to explain, to make the children love and trust me again. I wait for the darkness and I pray with whatever small part of me it has not conquered that it will be fooled.
I hear the door burst open. Jack stands in the kitchen behind me. I can hear his heart pounding. I can feel the tickle of the flames against my frozen face.
“You were going to hurt my sister.” I hear Jack say. His breath too labored to let him scream. “You were going to hurt me.”
I hold my breath, waiting for what, I pray, must come next. Claire gasps and I hear her footsteps coming closer.
“Da said I was the man of the house when he wasn’t around and I had to protect my sister, even if she is bigger than me. So, I can’t let you hurt her.”
I feel his hands on my back, pushing. I fall into the fire. The fire is yellow and bright, hiding its cold blue heart. I hear the oven door slam shut and look up, finally allowing my mouth to open in a smile of triumph. Jack is screaming. I don’t know how he got into the oven, but he is here, with me, and his hair is wreathed in flames. His eyes glow with yellow reflected light. He flails against me, pushing at the door, trying to open it. But the fire has swallowed us and we cannot return.
Past Jack, I see Claire standing perfectly still. She does not move to open the door and free her brother. The window in the oven door begins to fog with steam and for a second it is ice frosting over and Claire hangs suspended at the bottom of a frozen lake. Then I see the dark presence coil itself around her. Its arms enfold her, its darkness fills her mouth and her eyes. Her lips are violet and her skin glistens as though touched with ice.
For an instant, I remember another woman burning, holding a child with red hair. I remember the way the window in the oven door clouded with steam, hiding them from view and leaving only an empty mirror, white as snow.
I look at my hands and see blackened claws. I feel no pain, but I am burning, burning to death. My prayers have been answered, I think, and then I understand. This is my reward, this painless death in the blue heart of the fire. This is my reward for giving the house a new guardian. The darkness whispers to Claire, and though I cannot hear it, I know what it says, for it said the same thing to me once long ago - “This is your home. You will never again have to wander hungry and cold through the woods. I will never turn you away.” Claire looks away from her brother’s screaming face and walks deeper into her house. I hold her brother to my breast as we burn.