The Bird

A wish come true.

The Bird

Few have heard tell of the tale of the bird, and fewer still can recall it, but once a very long time ago, there was a lively young girl, about eight years of age. Her hair was as dark as a secret, her eyes as bright as glowing coals. Her skin was tanned from exploring the woods, which, more often than not, is what she tended to do, running barefoot and free among the soft moss and peaty soil. She explored the nooks of hidden caves and peered in at the young fox pups, nestled in their sandy dens. She would spend the whole day amongst the trees, nourishing herself with ripe, bursting fruit, washed down with water from the many a clear, cold stream. All this she did, however, under the reproach of her parents.

“What a barbaric girl. Really, not like a lady at all”, scoffed her mother.

“Will you spend all your days running wild? Expect not to be courted in the unsightly state you are in”, grumbled her father.

She reasoned, “I am yet young and wish to explore. Surely there is no harm in that.” Her little hands knotted at her sides as she stood her ground, but alas, her willfulness only begot her punishment. Her parents sent her to the cellar to spin in the dim light, rats scuttering about, the odor of damp mildew permeating. She mourned for the clear, clean forest air, the dappled light dancing on her face. She sighed unhappily.

“How I wish I were as free as a bird.”

Her mother, listening at the door, felt fury ignite in her breast.

“Free, is it? Free of a roof over her head and hot meals? Impudent child, I’ll teach her, so I will.” She later related her listenings to the father, who responded in kind.

“Day and night we slave for our daughter, and she repays us with ingratitude.” He paused, and there was a crafty look in his eye.

“I’ve heard tell of a sorceress, deep in the woods our daughter so adores. I'm sure she can create for us a powerful potion, just the sort to right our wildling of a daughter.”

The mother was uncertain. “But a witch? A witch is a creature of The Devil himself, my husband. There must be another way...”

The father waved her plaints away. “Fret not, my wife. Her spells will not fool us. Come, are we to submit to a mere witch?”

At last she was persuaded, and, locking their daughter into the filthy cellar, they journeyed together deep into the night, cricketsong ringing all around. They carried nothing, letting the full moon be their torch. Had they known that this impundence would be their downfall, they might have thought twice, but alas.

The forest was lively, and everywhere, night-creatures flitted in and out of view. The two walked on, twigs snapping underfoot, their hands sticky where they brushed warm tree sap.

The nightsong began to die. The summer warmth cooled. They continued on, perplexed and a bit fearful now. They’d gone on for some time now, but neither were sure of how many hours had passed.

“My husband, do we near the sorceress?”

“Fret not, my wife. We are travelling accordingly.” But now, he did not sound as assured.

They journeyed on and on, and now they were unsure of how many hours had passed; nay, if any amount of time had passed at all, for time began to feel strange as the air grew cooler and cooler still, until their hands brushed not warm sap, but the crystals of frost glittering on trees. They shivered in the inexplicable summer chill, their breath misting before them. Fear crept like ice into their hearts, but wordlessly, they pressed on. There was no sound now save for the beating of their hearts. Even the ground seemed to muffle their footsteps. Now they dared not speak to each other, to chance glimpsing the other’s misgivings that their faces unknowingly mirrored, for then it might be confirmed that there was indeed something to fear.

At last, though none know how long exactly, there was an unearthly light ahead of them in the forest. It creeped through the pale white moonlight with its pulsing green glow, beating like a living creature. As they neared, they saw that everywhere that glow touched, it cast shadows against the trees and brambles. Everywhere in the corners of their eyes, those shadows writhed like snakes or worms, and they quickened their steps, perspiration pooling betwixt their now clasped hands, shadows clawing in their wake.

Up ahead, they could hear laughter, and a singsong chanting. Now the couple began to have second thoughts, pride at last faltering before their wordless terror, but there was no going back now. Shadows pulled at their garments, drawing them near, and behind, they heard the snapping jaws of that which they dared not identify. Their thoughts of punishment had fled them, turning to thoughts of their own survival, the outcome of which at the moment seemed uncertain. The chanting as they approached rose to a terrifying crescendo, and the vision that greeted them caused their blood to freeze in their veins,  both crying out, the bottled utterance at last admitting from their chest.

There, in a large clearing, danced a young sorceress.

With every word she uttered, sparks and smoke sprang from her tongue, birthing their own licking tongues of flame and magic. Shadows bent and moved to her will, and she laughed gaily, twirling and springing about in a pentagram surrounded by enormous crystals, the full moon blazing above. She was at once unearthly and terrifying, lithe and transfixing in this terrible ritual. She was a fallow deer, a raven, a boar. With each movement, her nude form undulated, becoming dainty, then rough, then prancing, for her limbs transformed, sprouting feathers and scales, her eyes flashing wild colors. The very air seemed to move as she moved, the limber branches of trees seeming as though made of flesh and blood, grasping finger-like, bark folding and wrinkling in the likeness of human skin. The couple was frozen to the spot, flesh turned to water, shadows snaking around their ankles. All at once, the sorceress stopped, and that was the most terrible of all.

She spun, her eyes snapping to turn on them. Delight making her gruesome, she grinned with a tiger's fangs and fish gills breathing on her cheeks. Double eyelids scrolled across her blood red eyes as she blinked, and the couple blinked, and she was before them, nose to nose with the husband. He would have jumped and cried out, but he was immobile. As long as she gazed at him, he was paralyzed; the prey that freezes in the face of a predator far stronger and cleverer than they. The witch, though smiling, continued on chanting, gleaming eyes taking in the two outsiders with great interest. After the initial shock, the husband made as if to speak. The witch took notice and, though motionless save for her chanting, released them, and the husband spoke.

“I-If you’d please, great sorceress, we, we’d like to return home...”

A fanged mouth emerged on the witch's body, teeth growing like lacework upon her breast. It spoke,

“Then why journey thusly? We would find it desirous to know.”

The husband swallowed, fear making his heart beat so he could feel it in his fingertips.

The wife trembled, and then, voice quavering, offered, “P-please, we want for naught, we have only lost our way.”

Abruptly, the witch cackled in laughter, dozens of mouths, fish, beast, and fowl, springing forth upon her skin to bark in a violence of mirth.

“Thou wouldst have me for a fool.”

An eye scrolled back into her head and reemerged to peer at them scrutinizingly, now cobalt blue. She grinned, the many mouths on her bodice spreading wide.

“But I am a kind enchantress. Fear not, for I see in thine hearts what ye so desire. A naughty little girl ye do possess.”

Stark relief overcame them at the witch’s understanding. In a rush, the two professed,

“Then, you understand? We have come for a remedy. Turn our child to obedience.”

The sorceress did not hesitate.

“Why, of course. There is only one thing to do. Thine daughter doth wishest to be free as a bird? Then a bird she shall be.”

She spat into her palm an inky black, bubbling liquid. It melted away, slipping through her fingers, until a long feather was revealed.

“Tonight, burn this in the fire. That will be the purification. Sweep the ashes into your left hand and sprinkle them into her bathwater with your right. That will be the changing. Bid her to bathe at sunrise, for that will be the permanence, and you shall have what you sought. A most repentant young girl.”

    The witch smiled, grasped the husband’s arm, and placed the gleaming feather in his palm. He shuddered under the sorceress’s touch, her claws digging into his skin.

“Now, my pets, it is time for ye to take your leave.”

Suddenly, her eyes split, chameleon-like, as she looked at both husband and wife.

“K a e v l o k h e t.”

She snapped her fingers.    

~ ~ ~

The wife gasped. Before her now was not an enchantress, but her own front door. Her husband was beside her, equally bemused. They looked all around. The summer heat had returned, the sky lightening to dawn. Had they absconded for a fortnight? They felt like travelers, plucked out and put back into reality. They might have doubted the whole experience entirely, if not for the black feather that the man carried, or for the warmth that had not yet returned to their bodies. The woman clasped her husband’s hand. It was stiff and cold, but, with the feather clutched tightly in the other, he looked at her with a menacing grin.

Once indoors, they set to action, all in a flurry. Both appeared monstrous in their zeal. For not a single farthing, they could have what they had always hoped for. By what miracles of terror would it teach their daughter lasting obedience? The wife rushed to burn the feather, and the husband drew great buckets of water to fill the tub. While the man threw open the cellar door and dragged his daughter out to the bath, hurriedly the wife scooped up the ashes into her left and threw them into the bathwater with her right. When her daughter arrived, bedraggled and dazed, the woman stripped her of her garments, drawing small, shocked cries of protest. It would only be minutes before sunrise, and although there had only been a small pile of the feather’s remains, the water swirled with currents of dissolving ash, clouding the once-clear bathwater. Seeing the water blackened so, the daughter did not wish to enter, but the woman pushed her roughly inside. Now she grew afraid, her head spinning with misgivings and hunger, for she had not been provided supper the night before.

“Mother, why are you doing this? Why is the water befouled thus?”

“Silence, child. Think nothing of it and bathe, lest I rend the flesh from your back”, snarled the woman fiercely. The girl at once grew silent, and fearfully she scrubbed herself down, for she knew her mother and father to make good on their words.

Her skin glinted in the rising sun’s glow through the bath-room window, water and ash mixing to form black streaks on her arms. She sat in her small wooden tub, washing with frigid water straight from the river. The woman looked on, waiting with bated breath to see what workings the magic would produce. The man peered in from the doorway. They did not have long to wait, for soon, all was revealed. The water darkened until it was quite opaque, and thickened to an oily soup. The girl did not at first take notice, for she gazed outside with such longing. When she looked down, however, her countenance morphed into one of petrification. Directly after, she began to scream. She stopped washing, water dropping from her cupped hands, and her arms grew rigid. Her eyes widened, tears suddenly streaming from her face, running down her neck and stomach to disappear into the water silently. The woman straightened and leaned forward, ravenous intrigue plain on her face. The man leaned forward on the door frame, his countenance likewise. The girl shook violently, vomiting before herself, and then it began.

    Her skin suddenly rose in bumps, then spikes erupted from the surface, black pin feathers covering her hands, her shoulders, her face. Oily water sloshed against her thighs as she shook, retching in pain, her empty stomach squeezing out bile. Her fingernails all fell off, plopping bloodily into the water, and her fingers themselves began to fuse together. They stretched longer and longer, skin joining at the web and knuckles, and the spikes grew long and thick, opening to mature into coverts and secondary feathers. Downy fluff covered her body now, and her dark hair fell fluttering to the water, resting on the surface tension, then submerging, to be replaced by spikes that protruded on her swiftly balding head. She at last could bear it no longer, and, though her vision was darkening, tried to escape. But, on the instant that she rose, the woman did as well, forcing her down into the water. She heard coarse laughter from the direction of the door.

    “Mother”, the girl screamed, “Why?”

    The woman now had a devilish grin, and cackled long and loud, her eyes dark with delight glowing red in the light of the rising sun.

    “Why? What else could it be than to punish you, my daughter?”

    And with that, she grabbed hold of the girl’s thin shoulders sprouting feathers, and pushed her entirely beneath the gelatinous black surface of the water.

    Bubbles burst stickily at the surface where her face was, and her legs thrashed about in her attempts to resist. All that happened, however, was a slow, gentle lapping of the black, thick liquid against the edge of the tub, as her struggles were not even enough to cause the water to spill over. Her feet, one could see, were sprouting talons as her toenails, too, were pushed out from underneath, some popping loose, others ripping free and hanging by the cuticle. Her struggles, with every passing second, grew weaker and weaker, until eventually, they stopped altogether. With the light of day now clearly illuminating the bath-room, her legs slid silently into the inky black, coming to rest at the bottom. Wings jutted stiffly out of the water’s surface… If, indeed, that foul liquid could remain to be called that at all. Amidst the iridescent oil were fingernails and toenails, hanging half-suspended. Hair feathered across the surface, and swirling clots of blood and bile drifted slowly around the still girl’s protruding kneecaps.

For a long while, nothing could be heard but the woman’s breath, quick with excitement, while she dried her hands on her shift. Had it been done? What monster would rise from the birth-womb of the dark arts?

    Eventually, such a time had passed that the man and woman became perplexed, looking at each other in askance. It did not occur to either of them that the woman may have actually drowned the girl. Why does she not rise? They wondered. The woman peered into the water, her hands pressing against the sides of the tub. The water was pitch black, but… was that a stirring she saw deep within? She drew closer. Suddenly, four black spikes sprouted from the surface, shooting forward until they impaled the woman’s eyes, mouth, and forehead. She uttered a single gargled cry, and then was flung across the room, to slam against the wall beside the man. Blood gushed from the newly opened orifices, and she was still. She slid to a bloody halt at her husband’s feet. He opened his mouth in shock, uncomprehending...but shock quickly morphed into a murderous glare.

   

                                                                                                ~ ~ ~

    When it was early, the girl’s father unlocked the cellar door. She braced herself, half-asleep and shivering from the damp, and he dragged her out to bathe. She questioned it not, but when she arrived to her mother, she began to feel apprehensive. The dark was lifting; the hazy grey that hails the approaching sun sucked the color from her mother’s face, turning her skin as dull as wax, painting her face into a mask of grim determination. She sprinkled ash into the cold bathwater and reached out with her blackened hands to rip the girl free of her clothes, the handling of which was only to be expected. But the water, the water… Why had her mother sprinkled ash into the water? No doubt a punishment, perhaps to blight her with darkened skin. But, as she set to bathing, she was suddenly aware of a change. Subtle at first, and then a pinching irritation, she looked down to see her bathwater as dark as pitch, and her insides were suddenly set ablaze. The pain was like the hand of death, reaching at her throat, twisting her lungs, snapping her spine, breaking her limbs. Her skin erupted in a scattering of long black rods, spikes, they were. She felt as though she were being torn apart and put back together at the same time. She vomited, she shook, but then, before the pain drove her mad… She tried to escape the water. But, when that woman pushed her down with a sickening grin, before the pain drove her entirely mad… she wished upon her mother and father every conceivable violence that could come to her. The instigators of her sorrows, the origins of her unhappiness. And then, below the surface of the water, is when the final stage was reached. Of all the pains that she had suffered before, the torture she felt now was inconceivable. Her head was being crushed by a mill wheel, exploding, bursting, were her brains falling out, her face must surely be splitting apart, she was going blind and drowning and set on fire… It was such that for a long time, she was unable to draw a single breath… yet unable to die, which by then, was what she dearly wished for.

    And when the changing was at last over, and it was clear that she would not die, no matter how long since her last breath, she opened her eyes. Peering through the opacity of the magical slurry that so changed her, she saw that woman’s own eyes, peering back.

    And that is where she aimed,

    And that is the creature that man came to see.

    Far away, the enchantress laughs, her plans come to fruition.

    “With every gift, there is a price. Ye who do not offer payment, have for ye payment decided.”

 ~ ~ ~

    So there, the black creature rising from the black liquid, water sloughing off of feathered shoulders, was the young girl. The four spikes had been her four beaks, like a bear trap, attached to her face. They were smeared with gore: his wife’s eyes, bits of brain, and a hanging half of tongue. Eyes red as blood ringed her head, all of them wildly looking this way and that. As she rose, she revealed two long wings where her arms had once been, and a slender bird-tail. Her legs were now feathered and scaly, and dyed a deep, smooth maroon. They wore the bend in the legs that birds had, and curving claws scraped the edge of the tub as she stepped out, dripping.

    Without a word, the man unhesitatingly ran to retrieve his machete. The plan had gone terribly wrong, and he must kill the monster the girl had become, before it killed him.

    The girl stepped slowly out of the bath-room, tracking black sludge with her clawed feet. Click, click, click. Her talons scraped and clicked against the wooden floor. She swayed gently like a tree in the wind. There was no hurry.

    The man returned, wielding his machete, eyes red with rage. Oh, how the witch had tricked them. He yelled a hoarse cry and swung wildly at her neck. A gush of blood sprayed at the man’s face, blinding him. He did not see that the wound he had created close just as quickly as it opened. Nor did he see when his own throat was torn open, like a child tears open wrapping paper for the first time, like the first gift they’ve ever received in their short life of insults and abuse, of watching so many christmases and birthdays come and go without anyone blinking an eye to their existence. And, though the man could no longer see, she made sure that he could still feel, and feel plenty, his last sensations in the world.

    She hadn’t eaten supper, after all, and was quite famished.

  ~ ~ ~

    It had been some time since the neighbors had heard any word from the family nearby with their little girl. Such a time had passed that they, though not very close with the rather unpleasant family, began to grow worried and suspicious. A group of boys and men ventured out into their neighbor’s dwelling, and were quite surprised to find it in the state that it was. It was overgrown with ivy and weeds, the boards crumbling into disrepair. They stepped inside, finding the front door unlocked. The floorboards creaked. Inside, all was as it should have been. The pantry was in order, to be sure, as was the hearth. But, all were covered in layers of dust, and mice droppings were scattered and heaped. The neighbors ventured further, and the same could be told of everywhere else… until they entered the bath-room. Horrified, they cried aloud. Years old blood, huge patches of it, encrusted the floor, and the tub was coated with a rancid mess of strings black and brown, and other more unsavory, unidentifiable materials. All around, they searched the house, fearful now for what they might discover, but they never managed to find a soul. Father, mother and daughter had vanished… but at the hands of a beast or worse, they would never know.

Soon after, each traveled to his respective dwelling, shaken. One young man had to travel through the forest. What he had seen with the others frightened him badly, for, though unutterable, he suspected black magic at play. The work of a witch. He shuddered. His fear made him startle at a passing horsefly, though the morning was mild and fragrant, the sun high in the sky. The forest was lively, streams chattering and the buzzing of cicadas filling the air. It put him slightly at ease, and he began to let out a sigh, until something moved in the trees above him. Something large.

He could see its shadow through the leaves, and it was enormous, perhaps the size of a horse. He froze, petrified, and had visions of the wooden tub and the contents within. Was that to be his end, at the hands of this beast? The creature froze in kind, and for a heartbeat or so, they stayed together, aware and yet hidden from the other.

Then, the creature moved, and moved quicker and quicker, and the branches above trembled with activity, leaves raining down onto the young man’s hair. Then, he heard a giggle. Such a young, female utterance it was, it startled him so, and, with an explosion of noise, the largest bird he had ever seen launched itself out above him and disappeared, soaring into the great sunlit forests beyond.

FIN

                   

Author's Note

I attempted to write with the tone of Grimm's fairy tales. How did I do?