As with Beagle, the surprise and delight that Ford discovers in the process is amply communicated to the reader. The writer, like any artist, must always struggle against the gravity of skill, against doing again what he or she knows how to do—must accept (as Ford says here) “the wonderful burden of words."
If all that sounds a bit heady, it's not meant to. Beagle's and Ford's alike, these are first and foremost, and most emphatically, stories, good stories, some of them great stories, stories that open windows onto other minds, doors into other worlds.
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The Christmas Witch by M. Rickert
Earlier this year, we published M. Rickert's breathtaking ghost story, “Journey into the Kingdom.” Now Ms. Rickert takes us to New England with a dark and bewitching tale of modern sorcery ... of a sort.
Those of you who have enjoyed Ms. Rickert's stories over the past decade will be pleased to know that many of them will appear soon, accompanied by a new novella, in a collection entitled Map of Dreams. There's even a peek inside the F&SF files in the afterword by some bloke named Van Gelder.
The children of Stone collect bones, following cats through twisted narrow streets, chasing them away from tiny birds, dead gray mice (with sweet round ears, pink inside like seashells), and fish washed on rocky shore. The children show each other their bone collections, tiny white femurs, infinitesimal wings, jawbones with small teeth intact. Occasionally, parents find these things; they scold the little hoarder, or encourage the practice by setting up a science table. It's a stage children go through, they assume, this fascination with structure, this cold approach to death. The parents do not discuss it with each other, except in passing. ("Oh yes, the skeleton stage.") The parents do not know, they do not guess that once the found bones are tossed out or put on display, the children begin to collect again. They collect in earnest.
Rachel Boyle has begun collecting bones, though her father doesn't know about it, of course. Her mother, being dead, might know. Rachel can't figure that part out. Her mother is not a ghost, the Grandma told her, but a spirit. The Grandma lives far away, in Milwaukee. Rachel didn't even remember her when she came for the funeral. “You remember me, honey, don't you?” she asked and Rachel's father said, “Of course she remembers you.” Rachel went in the backyard where she tore flowers while her father and the Grandma sat at the kitchen table and cried. After the Grandma left, Rachel and her father moved to Stone.
Rachel doesn't get off the school bus at her house, because her father is still at work. She gets off at Peter Williamson's house. The first time she found Peter with his bone collection spread out before him on the bedroom floor she thought it was gross. But the second time she sat across from him and asked him what they were for.
Peter shrugged. “You know,” he said.
Rachel shook her head.
"Didn't they teach you anything in Boston? They're for Wilmot Redd, the witch. You know. A long time ago. An old lady. She lived right here in Stone. They hung her. There's a sign about her on Old Burial Hill but she's not buried there. No one knows where she ended up."
That's when Rachel began collecting bones. She stored them in her sock drawer, she stored them under her bed, she had several in her jewelry box, and two chicken legs buried in the flowerpot from her mother's funeral. The flowers were dead, but it didn't matter, she wouldn't let her father throw them out.
For Halloween, Rachel wants to be dead but her father says she can't be. “How about a witch?” he says, “Or a princess?"
"Peter's going to be dead,” she says. “He'll have a knife going right through the top of his head, and blood dripping down his face."
"How about a cat? You can have a long tail and whiskers."
"Mariel is going to be a pilgrim."
"You can be a pilgrim."
"Pilgrims are dead! Jeez, Dad, didn't they teach you anything in Boston?"
"Don't talk to me like that."
Rachel sighs, “Okay, I'll be a witch."
"Fine, we'll paint your face green and you can wear a wig."
"Not that kind of witch."
Her father turns out the light and kisses her on the forehead before he leaves her alone in the dark. All of a sudden Rachel is scared. She thinks of calling her father. Instead, she counts to fifty before she pulls back the covers and sneaks around in the dark of her room, gathering the bones, which she pieces together into a sort of puzzle shape of a funny little creature, right on top of her bed. She uses a skull, and a long bone that might be from a fish, the small shape of a mouse paw, and a couple of chicken legs. She sucks her thumb while she waits for it to do the silly dance again.
* * * *
On Tuesday, Mrs. Williamson has a doctor's appointment. Rachel still gets off the bus with Peter. They still go to his house. There, the baby-sitter waits for them. Her name is Melinda. She has long blonde hair, a pierced navel, pierced tongue, ears pierced all the way around the edge, and rings on every finger. She wraps her arms around Peter and wrestles him to the floor. He screams but he is smiling. After a while she lets go and turns to Rachel.
Rachel wishes Melinda would wrap her arms around her, but she doesn't. “My name's Melinda,” she says. Rachel nods. Her father already told her. He wouldn't let her be watched by a stranger. “Who wants popcorn?” Melinda says and races Peter into the kitchen. Rachel follows even though she doesn't really like popcorn.
Peter tells Melinda about his plans for Halloween. He tells her about the knife through his head while the oil heats up in the pan. Melinda tosses in a kernel. Peter runs out of the room.
"What are you going to be?” Melinda asks but before Rachel can answer, Peter is back in the kitchen, the knife in his head, blood dripping around the eyes. Melinda says, “Oh gross, that's so great, it looks really gross.” The kernel pops. Melinda pours more kernels into the pan and then slaps the lid on. “Hey, dead man,” she says, “How about getting the butter?"
Peter gets a stick of butter out of the refrigerator. He places it on the cutting board. He takes a sharp knife out of the silverware drawer. Popcorn steam fills the kitchen. Rachel feels sleepy, sitting at the island. She leans her head into her hand; her eyes droop. Peter makes a weird sound and drops the knife on the counter. Blood trickles from his finger and over the butter. Melinda sets the pan on a cold burner, turns off the stove, and wraps Peter's finger in paper towel. Rachel isn't positive but she thinks Peter is crying beneath his mask.
"It's okay,” Melinda says. “It's just a little cut.” She steers Peter through the kitchen toward the bathroom. Rachel looks at the blood on the butter; one long red drop drips down the side. She stares at the kitchen window, foggy with steam. For a second she thinks someone is standing out there, watching, but no one is. Peter and Melinda come back into the kitchen. Peter no longer has the knife through his head. His hair is stuck up funny, his face, pink, and he has a band-aid on his finger. He sits at the island beside Rachel but doesn't look at her. Melinda slices the bloody end of butter and tosses it into the trash. She cuts a chunk off, places it in a glass bowl and sticks it in the microwave. “So, what are you going to be for Halloween?"
"Wilmot Redd,” Rachel says.
"You can't,” says Melinda.
"Don't you know anything?” Peter asks.
"Be nice, Peter.” Melinda pours the popcorn into a big purple bowl and drips melted butter over it. “You can't be Wilmot Redd."
"Why not?"
Melinda puts ice in three glasses and fills them with Dr. Pepper. She sits down at the island, across from Peter and Rachel. “If I tell you, you can't tell your dad."
Rachel has heard about secrets like this. When a grownup tells you not to tell your parents something, it is a bad secret. Rachel is thrilled to be told one. “I won't,” she says.
"Okay, I know you think witches wear pointy black hats and act like the bad witch in The Wizard of Oz but they don't. Witches are just regular people and they look and dress like everyone else. Stone is fu
ll of witches. I can't tell you who all is a witch, but you would be surprised. Who knows? Maybe you'll grow up to be a witch yourself. All that stuff about witches is a lie. People have been lying about witches for a very long time. And that's what happened to Wilmot Redd. Maybe she wasn't even a witch at all, but one thing for sure she wasn't an evil witch. That's the part that's made up about witches and that's what they made up about her, and that's how come she wound up dead. You can't dress up as Wilmot Redd. We just don't make fun of her in Stone. Even though it happened a long time ago, most people here still feel really bad about it. Most people think she was just an old woman who was into herbs and shit, don't tell your dad I said ‘shit’ either, all right? Making fun of Wilmot Redd is like saying you think witches should be hung. You don't think that do you? All right then, so don't dress up as Wilmot Redd. You can go as a made-up witch, but leave poor Wilmot Redd out of it. No one even knows what happened to her, I mean after she died. That's how much she didn't matter. They threw her body off a cliff somewhere. No one even knows where her bones ended up. They could be anywhere."
"Do you collect bones?” Rachel asks and Peter kicks her.
"Why would I do that?” Melinda says. “You have some weird ideas, kid."
* * * *
Witches everywhere. Teacher witches, mommy and daddy witches, policeman witches too, boy witches and girl witches, smiling witches, laughing witches, bus driver witches. Who is not a witch in Stone? Rachel isn't, she knows that for sure.
Rachel makes special requests for chicken “with the bones,” she says, and she eats too much, giving herself a stomachache.
"How many bones do you need?” her father asks, because Rachel has told him she needs them for a school project.
"I don't know,” she says. “Jack just keeps saying I need more."
"Jack sounds kind of bossy,” her father says.
Rachel nods. “Yeah, but he's funny too."
* * * *
Finally, Halloween arrives. Rachel goes to school dressed as a made-up witch. She notices that there are several of them on the bus and the playground. They start the morning with doughnuts and apple cider and then they do math with questions like two pumpkins plus one pumpkin equals how many pumpkins.
Rachel raises her hand and the lady at the front of the room who says she is Miss Engstrom, their teacher, but who doesn't look anything like her, says, “Yes, Rachel?"
"How many bones does it take to make a body?"
"That's a very good question,” the lady says. She's wearing a long purple robe and she has black hair that keeps sliding around funny on her head. “I'll look that up for you, Rachel, but in the meantime, can you answer my question? You have two pumpkins and then your mother goes to the store and comes home with one more pumpkin, how many pumpkins do you have?"
"Her mother is dead,” a skeleton in the back of the room says.
"I don't care,” says Rachel.
"I mean your father,” the lady says. “I meant to say your father goes to the store."
But Rachel just sits there and the lady calls on someone else.
They get an extra long recess. Cindi Becker tears her princess dress on the swing and cries way louder than Peter cried when he cut his finger. Somebody dressed all in black, with a black hood, won't speak to anyone but walks slowly through the playground, stopping occasionally to point a black-gloved finger at one of the children. When one of the kindergartners gets pointed at, he runs, screaming, back to his teacher, who is dressed up as a pirate.
Rachel finds Peter with the knife in his head and says, “Don't tell, but I'm still going to be Wilmot Redd tonight.” The boy turns to her, but doesn't say anything at all, just walks away. After a while, Rachel realizes that there are three boys on the playground with knives in their heads, and she isn't sure if the one she spoke to was Peter.
They don't have the party until late in the afternoon. The lady who says she is Miss Engstrom turns off the lights and closes the drapes.
Rachel raises her hand. The lady nods at her.
"When my mom went to the store a bad man shot her—"
The lady waves her arms, as if trying to put out a fire, the purple sleeves dangling from her wrists. “Rachel, Rachel,” she says. “I'm so sorry about your mother. I should have said your father went to the store. I'm really sorry. Maybe I should tell a story about witches."
"My mother is not a witch,” Rachel says.
"No, no of course she's not a witch. Let's play charades!"
Rachel sits at her desk. She is a good girl for the most part. But she has learned that even without her face painted, she can pretend to be listening when she isn't. Nobody notices that she isn't playing their stupid game. Later, when she is going to the bus, the figure all dressed in black points at her. She feels the way the kindergartner must have felt. She feels like crying. But she doesn't cry.
She gets off the bus at Peter Williamson's house with Peter who acts crazy, screaming for no reason, letting the door slam right in her face. I hate you, Peter, she thinks, and is surprised to discover that nothing bad happens to her for having this thought. But when she opens the door, Melinda is standing there, next to Peter who still has the knife in his head. “Don't you understand? You can't dress up as Wilmot Redd."
"Where's Mrs. Williamson?” Rachel asks.
"She had to go to the doctor's. Did you hear me?"
"I'm not,” Rachel says, walking past Melinda. “Can't you see I'm just a made-up witch?"
"Is that what you're wearing tonight?"
Rachel nods.
"Who wants popcorn?” Melinda says. Rachel sticks her tongue out at Peter. He just stands there, with the knife in his head.
"Hey, aren't you guys hungry?” Melinda calls from the kitchen.
Peter runs, screaming, past Rachel. She walks in the other direction, to Peter's room. She knows where he keeps his collection, in his bottom drawer. Peter hasn't said anything about it, maybe he hasn't noticed, but Rachel has been stealing bones from him for some time now. Today she takes a handful. She doesn't have any pockets so she drops the bones into her Halloween treat bag from school. She is careful not to set the bag down. She is still carrying it when her father comes to get her.
They walk home together, through the crooked streets of Stone. The sky is turning gray. Ghosts and witches dangle from porches and crooked trees behind picket fences. Pumpkins grin blackly at her.
Rachel's father says that after dinner Melinda is coming over.
"She just wants to see what kind of witch I am,” Rachel says.
Her father smiles, “Yes, I'm sure you're right. Also, I asked her if she could stay and pass out treats while I go with you. That way no one will play a trick on us."
"Melinda might,” Rachel says, but her father just laughs, as if she were being funny.
When they get home, Rachel goes into her bedroom while her father makes dinner. He's making macaroni and cheese, her favorite, though tonight, the thought of it makes her strangely queasy. Rachel begins to gather the bones from all the various hiding places, the box under her bed, the sock drawer. She puts them in a pillowcase. When her father calls her for dinner, she shoves the pillowcase under her bed.
In the kitchen, a man stands next to the stove with a knife in his head. Rachel screams, and her father tears off the mask. He tells her he's sorry. “See,” he lifts the mask up by the knife. “It's just something I bought at the drugstore. I thought it would be funny."
Rachel tries to eat but she doesn't have much of an appetite. She picks at the yellow noodles until the doorbell rings. Her father answers it and comes back with Melinda who smiles and says, “How's the little witch?"
"Not dead,” Rachel answers.
Rachel's father looks at her as if she has a knife in her head.
They go from house to house begging for candy. The witches of Stone drop M&M's, peanut butter cups, and popcorn balls into Rachel's plastic pumpkin. Once, a ghost answers the door, and once, when she reaches into a
bowl for a small Hershey's bar, a green hand pops up through the candy and tries to grab her. Little monsters, giant spiders, made-up witches, and bats weave gaily around Rachel and her father. The pumpkins, lit from within, grin at her. Rachel thinks of Wilmot Redd standing on Old Burial Hill watching all of them, waiting for her to bring the bones.
But when Rachel gets home, the bones are gone. The pillowcase, filled with most of her collection and shoved under her bed, is missing. Rachel runs into the living room, just in time to see Melinda leaving with a white bundle under her arm. Rachel stands there, in her fake witch costume and thinks, I wish you were dead. She has a lot of trouble getting to sleep that night. She cries and cries and her father asks her over and over again if it's because of her mother. Rachel doesn't tell him about the bones. She doesn't know why. She just doesn't.
Two days later, Melinda is killed in a car accident. Rachel's father wipes tears from his eyes when he tells her. Mrs. Williamson cries when she thinks Peter and Rachel aren't watching. But Peter and Rachel don't cry.
"She stole my bones,” Rachel says.
"Mine too,” says Peter. “She stole a bunch of them."
Melinda's school picture is on the front page of the newspaper, beside a photograph of the fiery wreck.
"That's what she gets,” Rachel says, “for stealing."
Peter frowns at Rachel.
"Wanna trade?” she asks.
He nods. Rachel trades a marshmallow pumpkin for a small bone shaped like a toe.
That night, after her father kisses her on the forehead and turns off the light, she takes her small collection of bones and tries to make them dance, but the shape is all wrong. It just lies there and doesn't do anything at all.
The day of Melinda's funeral, Rachel's father doesn't go to work. He's a lawyer in Boston and it isn't easy, the way it is for some parents, to stay home on a workday, but he does. He picks Rachel up at school just after lunch.
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