by Anne Mazer
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A Sliver of Glass
and Other Uncommon Tales
Anne Mazer
For Marcia Menter—
“Meet me at the old bell church …”
CONTENTS
1. Glass Heart
2. Hello, Darling
3. Sleeping Beau
4. Secrets
5. The Golden Touch
6. Call Me Sometime
7. Stuck
8. Thin
9. The Perfect Bed
10. Through the Mirror
11. Swan Sister
About the Author
1
GLASS HEART
Listen. This is a true story. When I was ten years old a mirror shattered and a sliver of glass flew in my eye. The doctors removed it, but a fragment remained, no bigger than a grain of sand.
At first I felt it as a point of cold that spread from my eye across my face, down my neck, and into my chest. For a while it seemed as though ice water flowed in my veins, and I couldn’t get warm no matter how many sweaters, blankets, or furs I piled on top of myself. My family laughed.… They didn’t understand how piercing a cold that little sliver created in me.
All day long I begged for warmth. The more layers that were piled on me, the more the icy shocks penetrated to the marrow of my bones, till I could hardly bear it and cried out to be cast whole into a fire.
But even if I had thrown myself on a pyre, the cold in me would have only burned more fiercely. The sun brought on chills, as did fires and stoves and the heat of another person. If my mother tried to hold me in her arms, I shivered uncontrollably and jerked away from her.
I cried at night, my hands and feet were so cold. My mother heated bricks in the fireplace and put them in my bed, but nothing could warm me; not the blankets and furs, not the hottest August day, not boiling tea—which seemed to turn to ice as soon as it touched my tongue.
Only when I put my hand into the icy current of the ocean did my shaking and trembling subside. There, like met like. I plunged into the frigid water and stayed until it turned dark and my brother pulled me ashore.
When the first frosts came, I no longer begged for blankets, furs, and fires. The coldness that had penetrated to my marrow, that had seeped into my hands, my blood, my bones, seemed to harden and solidify. Ice formed in my veins.… I could imagine myself skating up and down them like they were rivers frozen solid in the dark winter afternoons. I pricked my finger once and watched the blood drip slowly onto the floor, where it congealed in little frozen puddles.
“She has ice water in her veins,” my family said.
My eyes faded to pale blue and my hair turned white. My skin became cold and marblelike. I lost the sense of smell and touch and color, as though every texture had been bleached out of me. The sensation of cold permeated everything. My hearing—and my thoughts—were clear and sharpened. The shrill voices of insects rang in my ears. I heard footsteps crunching over snow from miles away.
I wore thin shirts in driving winds, went barefoot over frozen fields, and slept outside under boughs laden with heavy white snow. Boys and girls threw stones at me, but the ones that hit me never left a mark. I barely felt them. Nothing could touch me anymore.
Imagine yourself slowly freezing. First the eyes, then the hands, the blood, the muscles, and bone. The coldness, the color leaking out of eyes and heart.
That sliver of glass, which radiated intense cold like a sun, pierced my heart one day. Then I could hear and see even more clearly than before, and my mind became like a knife.
2
HELLO, DARLING
“Hello, darling, it’s me.”
I looked up from my book and saw a tall girl dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a ripped T-shirt. A big gray cap was pulled down over her face—all I could see was a firm chin and a bit of straight red hair.
She pulled out a chair. “Haven’t seen you in ages, have I? So, tell me, what’s new? Anything happening?”
“Not much,” I said, wondering who she was and where I had met her. At school? The mall? Baseball practice? Or had I seen her in this library last week?
“Well!” she exclaimed. “I wish I could say the same.”
Her friendly voice was irresistible. “You’ve been busy?”
“All day and all night. Not a moment’s rest. It’s work, work, work all the time. I can’t catch my breath, darling.”
I shut my book and sat up in my chair. “Isn’t there a law against that?”
“Well, there may be laws, but who pays any attention to them?”
She pushed back the gray cap. She had large blue eyes and a snub nose. Now that I could see her face clearly, she didn’t look any more familiar than before.
“Do you go to school?” I asked.
“Do I ever!”
“Whose class?”
“Miss Kink, Mr. Bonk, Mrs. Blink, Ms. Funk …”
“Kink, Bonk, Blink, and Funk? Never heard of them!”
She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. “You ought to be glad you haven’t. The worst teachers in the school. They pile on the work—and no excuses allowed. You have to do it every day—or else. And then, when I get home—more, more, more!”
“Oh no,” I said. “Shouldn’t you report that to the school guidance counselor?”
“Look at my hands!” She held them in front of my face. They were large, capable-looking hands marked with stars, triangles, half-moons. On her left thumb was a lizard drawn in green ink.
“What’s that?”
“My homework assignments for just one night! And I haven’t even shown you my feet!”
She kicked off her sneakers. Her big toe had a winged snake winding around it. Her other toes were marked with suns and heads of queens, which nodded slowly as I stared at them.
Little tongues of fire licked at her heels.
“This is why I’m up all night,” she announced. “Now do you understand, darling?”
“What kind of assignments are these?” I asked.
“Bonk says they’re elementary. Funk says they’re primary. Blink doesn’t say much—she just piles on the work. Kink is a kidder and cracks a joke when I tell her I haven’t slept for eighteen days.”
“No one can go without sleep for eighteen days!”
“It’s tough,” she agreed. “Especially when we’re not allowed to go home until we finish our assignment.”
“You’re not allowed to go home?”
“Rules, darling. You know them as well as I.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Well, you will. Everyone does, sooner or later.”
I cleared my throat. “You go to this school?”
“Of course, darling. You see me all the time—don’t you?”
“Well, actually … no.”
Her eyes lit up. “Perhaps I conjured you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ensorcelled you?”
I shook my head.
“Wished you? Dreamt you? Redeemed you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, then I must have found you,” she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. “There’s no other explanation possible.”
“I’m not lost,” I said.
“Have you ever been?” she asked.
“No!” I said.
“You’ve never been found?”
“You don’t just find people—unless you know them already. These things don’t happen here.”
She looked thoughtful. “They don’t, do they?�
�
“No.”
“Never ever?”
“Absolutely not.”
She pushed back a strand of lank red hair. Then suddenly she flung out her arms and began to dance.
“I’ve done it! I’ve done it!” she cried. “Hooray for me! Just wait till I tell Blink, Funk, Bonk, and Kink! No more homework! I’ve finally done it!”
“What have you done?” I asked.
“Why, I’ve created your world,” she answered.
I laughed loudly. “Created my world? That’s ridiculous.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. It’s done all the time.”
She closed her eyes. Another set of eyes were drawn on the lids, and the pupils moved from right to left, from left to right.
“Open your eyes!” I said.
She opened them. There were small spinning globes inside her eye sockets.
She blinked and they disappeared.
I stared at her, speechless.
“This is what I’ve been working on in class all year. You were my homework assignment. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was, darling. But now I can graduate!”
She twirled around the room again. “I’m deliriously happy. I’ve finally done it.”
“So,” I said, trying to understand, “you’re saying you created me … and my teachers?”
“Of course. Since preschool.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Remember Miss Adams, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Fulmer, Mr. May …”
“Anyone could find out their names,” I protested.
“What about your parents?” she said. “Your father is an architect who likes ice-cream bars for breakfast. Your mother works in a bank and has a twitch at the corner of her mouth when she gets angry. And you have a sister, too. I thought of everything. She carries mice on her shoulder when your mother isn’t around. Wasn’t that a clever touch? It’s these little details that earn the best grades.”
“Our house. You didn’t create our house.”
“Oh yes, I did,” she said. “From the blue velvet couch to the dust under the refrigerator. And the china dishes and the bunk beds and the blackberry bushes in the backyard.”
“What about the shopping mall, the movie theater? What about the library? The highway? The bowling alley? The banks, the factory, the airport?”
“I created them all. Didn’t I do a good job? I’ll probably graduate with honors.”
“My books, my friends, my games!” I was yelling now. “My stories! The pictures I draw! My dreams!”
“All mine, darling. All mine.”
I wanted to reason with her, tell her how wrong she was. I wanted to name every person I had ever met. But somehow the names, even my own name, would not come to my lips.
“I don’t believe you,” I said again. I was trembling with anger and fear. “It can’t be!”
“Darling, I really have to go now. It’s been so good having this chat with you … Perhaps we’ll do it again soon.”
I jumped up. My hands and feet began to tingle. I looked down at them. Was it my imagination, or were they fading at the edges?
She picked up her sneakers and slung them over her shoulder, then yanked the gray cap over her face.
“Wait!” I shouted.
“Good-bye, darling!”
3
SLEEPING BEAU
He woke up late in the night and heard the muffled laughter from the other room. Silverware clattered, plates clinked. Then the shuffling sound of leather slippers on the floor.
“Will we wake the boy?” he heard someone ask.
The man laughed harshly. “He doesn’t wake up. Ever!”
The light that crept through the door made patterns on the ceiling of his room. Through his closed eyelids, which were like a transparent skin, he saw everything. He heard the creak of the closet door opening downstairs. Then the door slammed and cars pulled out of the driveway.
They came up the stairs. He knew their heavy tread, the groan of the wood as it gave under their weight.
The door opened.
His breathing came slow and deep, in long, even waves. His eyes were closed. Beneath the sheet, his body lay still, motionless.
For a moment they were silent.
“How sweet and innocent he is,” the man whispered.
“A perfect angel,” she murmured. “I wish …”
She was wearing cologne. It smelled like lilacs, like the breezes that came into his room on spring nights.
“He’s safe here, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” said the man, a little impatiently. Then he added, “It might change.”
She sighed.
“Come,” he said. “It’s late now.”
They tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door behind them. The boy drifted into unconsciousness again …
How long he had slept in this bed, this room—how many days, weeks, months, years—he didn’t know. At first he hadn’t realized that he was sleeping. There was only a peace, a darkness, a comfort, as though he were being rocked in a vast ocean.
Then there came moments of light that pierced him and hurt his head. He screamed from the pain, and the woman came running. “What is it?” she said over and over again.
She said to the man, “He’s having nightmares.”
They stood over him, watching him. Sometimes they touched him. His body felt like wood. He wondered if they were really squirrels that were scampering over his branches.
He fell into a deep sleep again.
The woman came in sometimes during the day. He saw her in her violet dress, sitting on the polished wooden chair, twisting her wedding ring around and around. She was never able to sit for very long. After a moment she rose and adjusted a picture over his bureau. Then she stood by his bed, staring down at him with a frown on her face.
One day the pain was gone. And the smell of rotting leaves, of mud and flowers came through an open window.
He breathed it deeply and felt it carrying strength into his body.
The wind bore faraway voices into the room. It was as though the air was singing to him.
Something brushed lightly against his face—a petal, or a curtain, or the wing of a bird.
His eyes flickered open, shut, then open again.
Long ago, in another life it seemed—when he slept and played and ran like others—he had awoken in the middle of the night and crept down the long, silent hall to his mother and father’s room.
He was frightened of the dark. There were shadows everywhere—behind the clock, under the chairs. And the floor creaked; some machinery far away hummed. Even his breathing sounded very loud and almost strangled.
Their door was closed. He knocked against it with his hand. No one answered.
He knocked again. Still no answer. He imagined them lying on their bed lifeless, like two dolls. Or had they disappeared, slipped out of the house when they thought he was sleeping?
He banged frantically on the door. Suddenly it flew open. His father loomed over him.
“What do you want?”
He couldn’t speak.
His father took him by the elbow. Behind him, his mother half rose from the bed.
“What is it?” Her voice sounded low and hoarse, as if she were someone else.
“Go back to your room,” his father commanded.
Down the long, dark corridor he ran without stopping until he reached his door. He flew into his room and dove into the bed.
His father’s footsteps sounded heavily down the hallway.
The door was slammed shut. The boy heard the sound of a key in the lock.
And then came his father’s parting words: “Once we put you to bed, you stay there.”
4
SECRETS
Secrets go through the room like the wind over a field of dry grass. Girls whisper in the ears of other girls, the boys huddle together. Their words make trails between the wooden desks, then fly out the window, and past the school, mak
ing their way into the world.
There are secrets everywhere—behind cupboard doors, in shadows of coats, in pull-out maps that hang over blackboards. Secrets between pages, where pencil meets paper, in the chalk dust that falls to the floor.
Only the girl with the long brown braids has no secrets to tell.
The other children do not believe her when she tells them she has no secrets. They tease her, plead with her, mock her.
“Impossible,” they say. “Everyone has secrets.”
“Tell us,” they say. “We have to know.”
“Little no-secret,” they laugh.
When she shakes her head so insistently that the long brown braids fly around her head, they get angry. They push her, they take her pencils, they steal her lunch.
But still she will not tell them any secrets.
Then they become afraid of her and shun her.
The girl with the long brown braids is studying a piece of paper on the desk in front of her. It is an ordinary ruled sheet with some writing on it, and it seems as though she is studying for a test or trying to memorize a problem. One of her braids is wrapped around her hand, and from time to time she uncoils it and strikes the paper with it, as though it were a whip.
Occasionally, a girl or boy glances uneasily in her direction, wondering if the words on her paper are secrets. They want her to tell them, but she won’t. And why is she hitting the paper with her braid? Over and over she strikes the words as if she would banish them from the paper. Are the words that powerful—or is she thinking of something else altogether? Another, unwritten secret?
She says she has no secrets, but everything she does is a secret. That’s what the children think; that’s what they know.
Then, once more, they turn their backs on her. They lean forward and begin to whisper. “Did you hear?…”
“They said it happened at his house last night…”
“… she ran away …”
“His brother …”
“Tell me again …”
Words drift across the room to the girl with the long brown braids: “snakes,” “box,” “mother.” She feels the words bumping up against her, and she shrugs as if to shake them off. Then she looks at her paper and erases several words, writing over them carefully with a sharp black pencil.