Terribly Twisted Tales

by RABE, JEAN

  The worst part was that Pinocchia couldn’t cry. She wanted to cry, to let all of her fears and pain drain out though her tears and lighten the load on her clockwork heart. She had asked Master Geppeto once to give her the ability to shed tears. The only thing Pinocchia wanted more than to be able to cry was to be a real human girl.

  The first faint rays of dawn came early, hours too early. This light was blue instead of the customary red of first light. As the light strengthened, Pinocchia could see that the illumination was coming from within the closet, not under the door. At the heart of the cool glow was a beautiful fair-skinned woman who was only three inch tall. Her long blonde hair cascaded down between the iridescent butterfly wings flapping slowly on her back. She was wearing a lightweight blue toga, with her bare feet dangling in the air beneath her. She carried a golden wand crowned with a pentangle star.

  “Who are you?” Pinocchia whispered.

  “I’m the Blue Fairy, Pinocchia.” Her voice was like the high-pitched tinkling of a bell. “And I’m here to grant your heart’s desire.”

  Pinocchia lunged forward, almost ramming the Blue Fairy with her nose. She stared cross-eyed at the delicate figure in front of her. “You can make me a real human girl?”

  “Yes, dear. If you are sure that is what you really want.”

  “Yes, it’s what I want!” Pinocchia shouted, and then she clasped her hand down over her own mouth. She listened, scared that she might hear Master Gepetto lumbering toward the closet, but instead heard only his continued snoring.

  “Well, then, close your eyes, and I’ll grant you this one wish.”

  Pinocchia did as she was told. There was a soft tap on the bridge of her nose and a tingling, like a spark of electricity. That was it. She didn’t feel any different.

  “Open your eyes. You’re a real human girl.”

  Pinocchia opened her eyes. It was true! Where before there had been gaps between the wooden segments of her fingers, now in the pale blue light, she could see skin covering her joints! She jumped up and looked at her feet. She had real toes, not those blocky, cloglike puppet feet. She wiggled her toes in delight.

  “Thank you, Blue Fairy! Thank you.” Then a groan arose from Pinocchia’s stomach. A sharp pain in her belly caused her to double over. She looked at the glowing blue figure through cloudy eyes.

  “When was the last time you ate something?”

  “I don’t eat.” Pinocchia replied.

  “You mean puppets don’t eat. Honestly, now that you’re human, you must learn to take better care of yourself.” Then, laughing, the Blue Fairy faded from view, taking her light with her and leaving Pinocchia in the darkness.

  Pinocchia’s stomach growled like a tormenting demon. She remembered there was food on a counter by the stove. She could almost taste the bread and the cheese, but it only intensified her hunger. She reached up and tried the door knob, knowing full well that it would not turn.

  At least now she could cry. Tears streamed down her face. Wasn’t crying supposed to make you feel better?

  It wasn’t working. But that didn’t matter, Pinocchia just had to get through the rest of the night. In the morning, when Master Gepetto saw that she was a real girl, they could eat their fill in celebration together. Now that she was a real girl, she wouldn’t have to do the drudgery all day long. She could help Master Gepetto with his inventions. He wouldn’t beat her any more, and they could live happily ever after. Her stomach groaned again. If she could just get through this night.

  She awoke to the sounds of the lock on the door clanking open. Her eyes stung. She rubbed them in the darkness. Her hands were warm and soft, not cold and wooden.

  The door burst open. “So this is where you’re hiding!”

  Pinocchia stepped out. “Look, Gepetto!” It wouldn’t feel right to call him “Master” since she wasn’t a clockwork doll anymore. “I’m a real human girl.”

  Gepetto’s jaw worked up and down, but no sound came out. His face flushed bright red. “You ungrateful piece of scrap! After-market modifications by an unlicensed third-party vendor? Are you insane?”

  He unbuckled his belt and pulled it off in one smooth, well practiced motion, “I’ll teach you not to sneak around behind my back!”

  Gepetto brought the leather strap slashing down on her. Pinocchia raised her arms instinctively. The belt bit into them. Even as a puppet she had felt the pain, but it wasn’t half of what burned in her forearms now. Gepetto took the opportunity while her hands were raised to whip the belt back and forth across her stomach.

  A new human sensation welled up in Pinocchia: panic. She bolted past Gepetto and out the open door. She ran as hard as she could. Tears blinded her, but it didn’t matter. Once she was past the garden wall, she didn’t know where she was going or what to look for.

  “Come back here and take what’s coming to you!” Gepetto screamed from the doorway.

  Pinocchia ran until the cobblestones under her feet turned into a packed dirt road and until the dirt road turned into a foot trail. Then the trail turned into soft, fallen leaves. She collapsed, panting and rolled onto her back. Strands of her long, black hair draped across her face. She had never seen so many trees. Is this where Gepetto had gotten the wood to make her? She tried to sit up, but everything went black.

  She was guided back to consciousness by an unfamiliar voice. It was deep and strong, like the arms cradling her. “I found her in the woods. I think she’s sick.”

  A bony thumb pressed against Pinocchia’s upper eyelid and forced the eye open. A wrinkled old crone with a gold earring and a red bandana stared her in the face. The same knobby hands pulled open Pinocchia’s lips, squeezed her arms, and then finally poked her in the stomach. The last caused Pinocchia to whimper.

  “Food is the medicine this child needs.” The old woman said. “Come and set her by the fire, Big Rob. Young Bert, go and fetch a blanket to keep the chill off her.”

  Big Rob gently lowered her onto a log. Pinocchia looked around groggily. Master Gepetto had had visitors sometimes, but she didn’t recognize any of these people. They were dressed in bright clothing and wore lots of jewelry.

  “Here, eat up.” The woman thrust a steaming bowl of gray, gritty gruel into Pinocchia’s hands. At first Pinocchia thought that she was too weak to eat. Her trembling hand raised half a spoonful up to her mouth, and of its own accord her mouth wrapped around the spoon. She shoveled the gruel into her mouth as fast as her hand would move. She swallowed without chewing, but she relished the taste of each new mouthful. After she had scrapped the bottom of the bowl with the spoon, she licked both of them clean.

  Pinocchia looked up just in time to get her head out of the way of the old woman’s ladle as she filled the bowl back up to the brim with more piping hot gruel. “Eat lots. You’ve had a tough day.”

  A young boy with black hair came up. He wore a silver ring on a string around his neck. “Here’s that blanket, Granny.”

  “Why don’t you put it around her?”

  The boy stepped behind Pinocchia and draped the blanket over her shoulders. “My name’s Robert. Everyone calls me Bert.”

  “We call him Young Bert,” Big Rob said.

  “I won’t always be the young one,” Bert shot back. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Pinocchia.”

  When she had finished her fifth serving, Pinocchia held out the wooden bowl to Granny.

  “I’m sorry, that’s all there is.” She showed Pinocchia the empty cooking pot to prove the point.

  Pinocchia looked up pensively. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eat it all.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Missing one meal isn’t going to hurt a couple of strong young men like those two,” Granny laughed.

  Bert opened his mouth, but Granny cut him off with a glare. “Young Bert, go string up a hammock for Pinocchia in my wagon.”

  Pinocchia was feeling groggy. She hadn’t realized just how much humans eat and sleep. As she drifted off, she heard voices out
side the wagon.

  “What are we going to do with her, Granny? The townspeople say that we gypsies steal children. We should oblige them by taking one now and then.”

  Pinocchia didn’t think being stolen by these people would be such a bad thing, and so she stayed with them for days and months and a handful of years.

  On day, when she saw Bert twisting his silver ring around his finger, she asked: “Bert, why don’t you get that resized?”

  “I could still grow into to it,” Bert insisted, as he threaded the ring back onto its string and tied it around his neck. He changed the subject. “You’re a whirling dervish with that tambourine. My fiddle could barely keep up with you, Pinocchia.”

  “The more frenzied the dance, the more the crowds like it, I guess.”

  “What the crowds like is that the faster you twirl, the higher your skirt rises.”

  Pinocchia blushed. It was their normal banter, but tonight her heart wasn’t in it. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn’t figure out what.

  They had reached their campfire in the wagon train. Big Rob thrust a bowl at each of them as they sat down. “I had a rabbit in my snares today. We have meat in the pot tonight!”

  Meat usually made the stew taste better. But tonight it seemed bland to Pinocchia. She held the bowl and let her elbows rest on her bare thighs sticking out through the slits in her dancing skirt.

  “Not a bad catch, that rabbit.” Big Rob beamed. “Meat for dinner, a soft white pelt that will make a nice purse, and a good pocket watch to boot. I forgot to tell you the rabbit had a watch and kept looking at it, claiming he was late for something.”

  Big Rob passed Bert an ornate watch about an inch and a half in diameter.

  “At least he wasn’t late for dinner,” Bert chuckled.

  Pinocchia wasn’t in the mood for cheer. “I don’t think the rabbit would think that was very funny.”

  “That’s okay. A rabbit’s point in life is to get eaten,” Big Rob replied.

  That’s what was bothering her, “And what is our point in life?”

  “Tonight, it is to eat rabbit.”

  “I’m being serious. We perform and beg and poach and steal all day, for what?” Pinocchia muttered. “To eat and sleep so we can get up tomorrow and do it all over again?”

  “It’s better than not eating.”

  “I know.” Pinocchia grimaced at the memory. She looked downcast, her sweaty black locks spilling over her shoulders. “But we work to survive and we survive to work. It’s like we don’t have any purpose beyond that.”

  The words echoed in her head “A machine without a useful purpose has no reason to exist.”

  “We only have to go on living like this until we hit the big score,” Bert said as he passed the watch to Pinocchia. She took it without looking. Bert reached down into his knee-high leather boots. “Speaking of such, I lifted a fat bag of gold off a foreign woman at the market today.”

  He pulled out a cloth bag the size of two fists. Even in her distracted state Pinocchia noticed that it didn’t jiggle like a coin purse. He raised and lowered his hand, weighing the purse, and then tentatively opened the draw stings. A sickening odor was released: dung.

  Bert threw his prize to the ground, and Big Rob burst into hearty laughter.

  “I swear that was heavy with gold when I stole it.”

  “Just admit it, Young Bert, that woman must have gotten one step ahead of you.” Big Rob roced side to side with amusement.

  “Why would a woman carry a bag of animal manure just to teach pickpockets a lesson?” Pinocchia asked.

  Big Rob stopped laughing. “That’s fox droppings. Boy, you crossed a fox spirit. We’ll be lucky if you don’t get us all cursed.” He rose and pulled Bert up by the collar. “You are going to go tell Granny right now what you’ve done and find out how to apologize to the fox.”

  Burt groaned, “Last time Granny cured a curse, I had to dance around with antlers on my head for two hours.”

  Pinocchia was last in line as they marched to Granny’s wagon. No one noticed that she fell farther and farther behind, then turned to exit the camp. No one noticed either that she was still carrying the pocket watch. There was a lake near the camp that seemed as good a place as any to be alone with her thoughts.

  When Pinocchia arrived at the lake, she wasn’t alone. Sitting on a boulder was a woman with a long braid of black hair. She had a tan completion, like the people from east of the mountains, and she wore a simple white robe with blue trim, belted at the waist. When she stood, Pinocchia could see that the robe only reached mid calf level, and below the hem a mass of bushy white tails flicked and twitched. The light of the full moon turned the robe and tail silver.

  “There are nine of them,” the woman said of her tails.

  Pinocchia made eye contact.

  “You were staring.” The woman smiled.

  Pinocchia looked back to the tails and started to back away. “You’re a fox. I’ve been told not to trust foxes.”

  “Who told you that? Humans?” The fox lady laughed. “Are you any better off with them?”

  She sat back down and patted the rock beside her. “Why don’t you sit with me for a while?”

  When Pinocchia was seated, the fox continued, “Actually, I was rather looking forward to the antler dance of the gypsies, but I thought that you might need someone to talk to. My name is Inari. What is yours?”

  “Pinocchia.”

  “That is a nice watch you have, Pinocchia.”

  “It’s not mine. It’s stolen. But I didn’t steal it. I was just marveling at it. Second after second, minute after minute, it ticks off the time without ever getting tired or asking to be thanked. Just quietly fulfilling its function,” Pinocchia said. “Like a clockwork.”

  “If only humans were as diligent about their purpose as that watch,” Inari mused.

  “That’s just it. What is their purpose?”

  Inari raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Why do you say ‘their’ purpose?”

  “I used to be . . .” Pinocchia swallowed hard, “a mechanical puppet.”

  Inari looked back and forth between Pinocchia and the watch and then nodded. “Purpose? That is something that every human has to find for herself.”

  “So once they find their purpose, humans, everything is all right?”

  Inari sighed. “If that were true, there would be no disenchantment, no crises of faith, no abandoned hope. Saying that humans have to find a purpose for themselves is really the same as saying that they don’t have one, I guess.”

  “How do you deal with the . . .” Pinocchia searched for a word. “Pointlessness?”

  The fox picked up the end of one of her tails and cradled it in her left arm. She stroked it lovingly with her other hand. “When I was granted my eight extra tails, I was given the sacred duty to protect Good and oppose Evil in all of its forms. That never-ending quest gives my existence meaning. I have a purpose. But, then, I’m not exactly human.”

  “Can you give me a meaning?” Pinocchia asked.

  “Even I can’t give humans a purpose,” Inari admitted. “They’re not like machines, which have an innate purpose.”

  It took several heartbeats for the significance of Inari’s words to sink in. The former puppet looked up to see the fox woman’s mischievous grin. “Yes, I can do that. If it is what you really want.”

  Pinocchia thought hard before she opened her mouth again. “I wish you could turn me back into a clockwork puppet. But I want to have toes, not those ugly blocky feet like before. And if it’s not too much trouble, could you make it so I can still cry?”

  The fox lady leaned close, until their noses almost touched. “I can do that.”

  Pinocchia sat paralyzed by the intense gaze. Inari breathed out a soft puff of air that tickled Pinocchia’s upper lip. Pinocchia tumbled off the rock, and Inari rocked back, laughing.

  Pinocchia grabbed her head in an attempt to regain her bearings. Her hand was cold and hard
against her temple. She still had toes, but they were wood and metal. She tried to hold her breath, to see if she could hear her clockwork turning. Not only could she hear the gears, she discovered she wasn’t breathing at all.

  Pinocchia jumped to her feet. “Thank you. Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

  “Would you please give the pocket watch to me?”

  Pinocchia handed it over.

  “I think one of the White Rabbit’s sons should have it,” Inari said. “Deep down, every rabbit knows that it is his final destiny to be eaten. That’s why they have so many children—so that there is always a replacement ready.”

  Pinocchia nodded. When a rabbit had fulfilled its purpose, it was replaced. When a machine could no longer fulfill its function, it was discarded. But without a clear purpose, humans stumbled through life. She pitied them for that.

  Master Geppeto’s wake-up clock screamed like a banshee. The bell wasn’t actually ringing, but the gears and springs, which were failing to ring the bell, shrieked and moaned as if they worked in opposition.

  “Breakfast is ready, Master.”

  Master Gepetto looked up at her with sleep-filled eyes. Then he leaped to his feet and clasped her shoulders.

  “It’s really you!” He beamed. “You’ve come back to me!” Then his mood turned darker. “Do you think that you can just waltz back in here like nothing has happened? I’m going to turn you inside-out for running away.”

  “Let me set your breakfast down so I don’t spill it.”

  Master Gepetto grabbed his belt from the bedside stand and glared at her suspiciously as she put the tray down. “Do you actually want me to beat you?”

  “I’m a puppet. I don’t want anything,” Pinocchia lied. Fortunately, her nose didn’t grow enough for him to notice. She did want some things. She wanted to clean the years’ worth of dirt which had accumulated in this house since she left. She wanted to make sure Master Gepetto had good food to eat, unlike the leftover slop she had found in the kitchen. But right now, what her clockwork heart wanted more than anything was a sound thrashing. Now she understood, Master Gepetto didn’t beat her for failing in her functions. Taking his blows was one of her functions.