by Jeff Vrolyks
She plucked the petals from her flowers one by one. “He loves me, he loves me not.” She didn’t let a little thing like who loved her interfere with the game, but felt the outcome was nonetheless important.
After two he-loves-me-not and one he-loves-me, she became aware of a nasty odor. Not like the kind her dad often created in the bathroom, but the kind that comes from long-forgotten food in one of her many bedroom hiding-places (usually found after being sent to bed without supper). Maeve regretted that she had plucked away half of her flowers as she buried her nose in the remaining three. She hastened her pace to sooner put this all behind her, not sure what ‘this’ was, exactly.
It was an oak tree. She knew that much. The neighbors had one in their front yard, though it was tiny compared to this behemoth. It had to have been as old as Moses himself. Low hanging branches were as thick as her mother’s waist and longer than her classroom. It was a grand old giant, furrowed and hardened with age, but also possessed the youth of a springtime bounty of lush green leaves. Standing beside the enormous trunk and staring straight up, she could see none of the sky’s blue, nor the top of the tree, and didn’t doubt that if she was at the top she’d be able to see God in person. At the very least an angel playing a harp.
“Okay I’m here. Now what?” No response. “Hello?!” A breath of wind stirred the leaves. “Are you kidding me? You make me walk all this way and then decide to stop talking? That’s so mean!” She stuffed the daisies in her jeans pocket and pulled her shirt up over her nose. “Fine, I’m going back.”
She then spied a dark spot near the base of the tree. She squinted at it, then moved to investigate.
It was a muddy blotch the size of a ketchup cap, utterly out of place in this arid nothingness. She knelt down, touched it. “Is this what stinks?” She wondered. A wet finger to her nose answered with an emphatic No way, Jose. Quite the contrary, it was unexpectedly pleasant. It was a familiar odor, but darned if she could recall what it was. It was a much appreciated scent after choking on that putrid stench.
She dabbed some muck water under both nostrils and took in a deep breath through her nose. “Mmm, yummy.” She swiped her finger across the wetness a few more times and smeared it just below the neck-line of her shirt, then under her sleeves. Satisfied, she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her and work that little bakery-fresh mud hole for enlightenment. “It’s elementary, my dear Watson,” she intoned. “What we have here is a Constantinople Flux Capacitor, or CFC, breaking the mud surface for a breath of fresh air.” She got on all fours and adjusted her imaginary magnifying glass to better see the CFC. “Watson, if you don’t start pulling your weight around here, I’m going to have to give you a right good firing. Me being infantly smarter than you is no excuse for your silence.” She scrabbled at the dirt around the hole. It was rock hard and would’ve laughed at her if had the opposable thumbs required to laugh. She giggled at the thought.
“Something to dig with…” She scanned her environment. “Survey says!—Ding!—dirt, dirt, and more dirt. Watson, you’re fired. Scram. Go drink some tea.”
The branches were just beyond her reach. She hadn’t a notion what she’d do if they weren’t. It would take Paul Bunyan two pints of elbow grease to steal a branch away from this burly sucker. “Could use a little help, Mr. Voice! Am I supposed to dig? Just because I turned ten last month doesn’t mean I know everything. Yet.”
She sat on her haunches and lit the tobacco in her imaginary pipe, stroked her chin contemplatively. With her pinky she raked back the brown sludge from the hole. A single air bubble surfaced from the hole. “What in the good Lord’s name?” She stuck the tip of her finger inside and wriggled it around; then plunged down to the hilt, where she was dealt a nasty sting at her fingertip. She withdrew from the hole uttering a curse-word she had made up, assessed the damage.
Initially it was nothing but a mucky finger. A pinpoint of blood broke through the muck. “No, no, no, don’t do that. Nuh-uh, don’t do that.” Her finger didn’t mind her: a pinpoint became a drop of blood. Then, like a storm cloud hovering idly by until you finish washing the car, it poured. Blood spiraled down her finger like a candy cane.
The blood seemed to all be coming from her head: she felt dizzy. Mindlessly she wiped her finger on her pants. An ominous red streak blazed across her right thigh. She hissed at the red streak. There would be a little talk about that on the drive home—the check was in the mail, so to speak. But that worry was short lived and replaced with a different kind of fear: the fear of blood. A curse word in its own right. It was borderline gushing and even Watson knew she wasn’t good with bleeding. She’d take a dozen beltings over a needle prick.
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the giant’s wrinkled arms, feeling the dizziness pervade her like sleeping-venom from the bite of a mystical snake. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she chanted. “It’s only a little finger-prick, not much different from the shots you get at CVS every flu season. Stop being a stupid baby and be okay with blood. You’d better get use to bleeding, missy, because… if Mom’s right… you’re… going...”
Maeve dreamt that she was in her bedroom and was elated to find her carpet had grown little itty-bitty daisies that didn’t smell like daisies, but instead smelled bakery fresh and superior to any carpet flower she’d ever known. But they tasted… well, they tasted like blood.
Chapter 4
“Rise and shine, li’l Miss Minnow.”
Maeve opened her eyes, took a moment to remember where she was. East Jesus, as Joey from class would say. She sat up and squinted at the noticeably yellower sunlight, ripening sunlight. Behind her the oak tree threw down a mile long shadow over the hardpan that might have been pointing to where she’d be getting her beating later. In the shadow stood the owner of the voice. He who had spoken to her.
“Who are you?” she asked in awe.
“I’m your newest and bestest friend!” he replied beamingly. “That’s who I am!” He leaned a shoulder against the enormous tree trunk, crossed his goat-like legs.
I’m dreaming. Got to be. Nothing on God’s green earth looks like that. He was a cute little thing, though. Six inches or so shorter than her, putting him at about four feet tall, with a chubby baby face, dark eyes, pert nose, and a tall fluff of charcoal hair with long sideburns clearing his jaw. Shirtless. Naked, actually. Hair that reminded Maeve of the neighbor’s German Shepherd coated his lower half, from inny to ankle. His chest was that of a young boy’s, hairless and flat. And those feet!
“What’s wrong with you?” There was no attempt to sound anything other than repulsed.
“Like them?” He turned a leg, showed her the underside of his foot. Her jaw dropped, eyes gaped. “It’s a real chore going shoe shopping, as you could imagine.”
“They’re hooves! Why do you have hooves? And all that hair! Where are your clothes? Who are you? What are you? Where’d you come from? What are you doing here?”
“My God, woman! Take a breath!” He thumbed his chest. “Who I am is me. What I am I already explained to you: your friend!”
“This has to be a dream. I’m going to wake up, I just know it.”
“Fortunately for me, you’re not dreaming. Thank you for your aid. You can—”
“I didn’t help you! I didn’t do anything!”
“Oh but you did! And I feel just horrible not telling you that you would be bleeding a little, but I know that you wouldn’t have done it if you’d have known. Now, enough with the boring and trivial past. Let’s talk about the future, Maeve Minnow. For starters, what would you like to name me? Anything you’d like.”
“My name is Maeve Marlowe, not Minnow. You don’t already have a name?”
“I do. But I am forever in your debt, and to show my gratitude I’ll start by giving you the pleasure of naming me.”
“Are you a genie or something? Do I get wishes?”
It amused him. His was a genuine and affable laughter, maybe an octave or
two higher than most boys her age. “That’s insulting, sweetie. Not because I’m better than the mystical genie, but because I’d never limit you to a mere three wishes. But that doesn’t matter because I can’t grant wishes: I’m not a magician. Magic isn’t real, you know? I suspect you already knew that. So how about a name?”
“Okay. I know! Brewer!”
“Brewer,” he repeated undecidedly.
“That was the name of my dog. He got hit by a car.”
“I’d be honored. But let’s spell it differently. Instead of B-R-E-W-E-R, how about B-R-E-U-E-R?”
“That’s fine. How’d you know the way we spelled it?”
“I figured. Shall we get back to the adults now?”
“Yes. I’d better hurry, too. How long have I been asleep?” She checked her watch.
“Oh, I’d guess about five hours,” he said coolly.
“Oh, man… I’m going to get it.”
“Ye with so little faith. Remember what I said?”
“Yeah,” she said doubtfully. “I won’t be spanked ever again.”
“Bingo.” He dug his black clawish nails into the bark of the old oak and managed to extract a narrow strip, which he fashioned into a toothpick and rolled it around in his mouth.
“Why doesn’t it smell anymore? It was horrible.”
He shrugged. “Maybe from the water you put under your nose?”
“I guess. I don’t smell that either, though. Oh well.”
She walked in long strides. Beside her, Breuer took seemingly twice as many steps to equal her pace. She glanced down at her pants and saw the scarlet letter I lengthwise across her right thigh. She had hoped that was a dream. “Man-oh-man, I can’t believe how stupid I am. Why’d I have to wipe it on my pants?” She checked her finger: dried blood.
“Maeve,” he began, now skipping beside her and grinning most charmingly, “you need to start trusting me. Stop worrying about… well, stop worrying. Period. I have a funny feeling things are going to turn out just fine.” He capered ahead of her.
“I trust that you believe that, Breuer, but you don’t know my parents. You should stay here. They’d freak if they saw you.”
“They probably would!” He chuckled. “If they saw me. But they won’t.”
“Are you going to hide?”
“No ma’am! It’s just that nobody can see me. Besides you, of course.”
“Why not? You aren’t invisible.”
“To you I’m most certainly visible.”
“Bull crap! You mean to tell me that you’re invisible to everyone but me?”
“That’s what I mean to tell you, yes.”
“Great,” she sighed, “an imaginary friend. I got in trouble for having one of those a while back.”
“What’s wrong with your parents?” He faced Maeve, skipping backwards effortlessly. “Punishing a tender little girl for having fun with an imaginary friend? That’s simply unthinkable!” He shook his head disapprovingly. “Poor Maeve Minnow. You really got the raw end of the stick when they handed out parents.”
“That’s funny.” She giggled. “They’re not all that bad. They can be nice, too.”
“Is that right? Give me an example of their kindness, I’m dying to hear.”
“Mom let me stay home from school last Monday when I asked if I could. She even let me stay home on Tuesday.”
“What a saint!” As if to show off, Breuer side-skipped a loop around Maeve as he said, “So selfless of her, too. She had nothing to gain from it, did she?”
“No.”
“I see. And you say that she let you stay home when you asked? You sure that it wasn’t more like she made you stay home?” Maeve didn’t respond. “You know, Minnow, society looks down on child abuse.” He fell in step beside her once again, looked up at her with earnest eyes. “It seems to me that if you went to school with bruises all over your body, teachers might start asking questions. Then those questions might make their way to Child Protective Services. And your saint of a mother would then have company knocking at your door. And not for the first time, either; she can’t talk her way out of it every time.”
“What’s Child Prospective Services?”
He grinned at her words. “Something your folks would be just fine keeping you ignorant of. Never mind that, though. I know what you mean and you don’t know any better. Think of me as your newest teacher. But unlike the others, with me learning is fun!” He clapped his hands together and pointed heavenward like he was some John Travolta-thing in Saturday Night Fever. “I’ll teach you all kinds of neat things.” He leered at her cryptically. “Just wait, you’ll see.”
Chapter 5
Maeve returned to her matted-grass seat relieved that her parents were evidently none-the-wiser. There was no way she’d be able to conceal the blood stain across her pants (not to mention the dirt on her clothes and hands). But at least this problem wasn’t as serious as getting caught running off. Retribution for dirty clothes would be standard issue. She wouldn’t likely bleed from the affair, and that’s what really mattered. Black and blue trump red every time. Purple Trouble is a friendlier shade than Red Trouble.
She opened A Tale of Two Cities, feigned reading.
“That’s a good book, li’l Miss Minnow. Thirty-million Oprah viewers can’t be wrong.” He winked.
“Are you poking fun, Breuer?” She tried acting indignant but it wasn’t her thing.
“I wouldn’t do that to you. Want to see something neat?” He pressed his hands against the broken grass and did a hand-stand. Once fully erected, he clapped his hooves together.
“Cool! How do you do that? Teach me!”
He turned right-side up. “I’m afraid it’s not so much teaching as it is balance and strength. Let’s see what you got under those sleeves. You got some muscles?”
“Yes I got some muscles. Don’t you worry about that.” She pulled up her sleeves to show Breuer. “Not as big as yours, but they work just fine.”
“Hmm, I’m sure they do. But they’d need to do more than simply work. They’d need to support your weight. What are you, about two-hundred? Two-fifty?”
She giggled, threw a clump of freshly-torn grass at him. “No! I’m fifty-three pounds, if you must know.”
“I was close! Okay, let’s try it. Get up.”
Breuer had her double over and place her head and hands on the ground. Then her knees on cocked elbows. She wobbled about. Her shirt fell down to her armpits. Breuer steadied her slightly, but made her do the bulk of the balancing. Once she was firmly in place, he instructed her to slowly extend her legs. He steadied her as she did, and once her legs were directly overhead he let go and took a step back. He was proud of her, and his expression reflected that proudness.
“I’m doing it!” she wailed, a little too loudly.
He shushed her. “Not so loud.”
The door opened. Maeve’s mother observed the antics of her daughter. “What on God’s green earth are you doing?”
“I see where you pick up your phrases,” Breuer said thickly without regard for being heard or seen.
Maeve fell over, grass carpet dampening the impact. “Sorry, Mom. I’ll behave.”
Her lips tightened, brow lowered. “You’re filthy! On the way home your father and I are going to have a little talk with you.” She fixed on the blood stain streaking across Maeve’s pants, tightened her lips even more. Her expression told Maeve all she needed to know. It probably wasn’t going to be the purple kind after all.
“We’re wrapping this up now. You better behave these last few minutes or so help me God you’re going to be in a world of hurt. Got me?”
Maeve hung her head defeatedly, nodded. “Sorry,” she uttered in her tiniest voice. The door closed.
“I guess I was wrong,” Breuer said facetiously. “She’s a lovely woman, your mother.”
“Yeah. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve behaved. What was I thinking?”
“Hey-hey! There’ll be none of tha
t! All your worries are gone, chipmunk. As an old friend once said, don’t worry about the day, let the day worry about itself.”
“I don’t get it. Is that from the bible or something?”
Breuer sidled up to Maeve, embraced her with an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t you worry about a thing. After what you did for me, you deserve the very best and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”
“I deserve what I’m about to get. The belt. Probably old blacky, too. I hate the black one more than you can imagine, Breuer. I’m so stupid.”
“Minnow, if you had one wish, and I were the type who could grant it—but I already said that I can’t because magic isn’t real—what would it be?”
“I don’t know. To never get in trouble again, I guess.”
“Ah! Now we’re talking! To rephrase what you said, you wish you’d never be punished again. Right?”
With the familiar weight of the world resting squarely on her shoulders, a prickling in her eyes, she nodded.
He wiped away a tear forming in her eye, lifted her chin, and said, “Crying? Crying is for people who aren’t about to have their wish come true. So why are you crying?”
“Yeah right. You’d better learn magic right quick, then.”
“Magic isn’t the answer to our problems, you know. Sometimes you just have to think really hard and the solutions just POP! come from way out in left field, and you know what to do.”
“Well that never happens to me.”
“Not yet it doesn’t. But it will some day. You can’t expect to receive a full education in a day, can you? Greatness takes time.” He took a step back and with a mischievous grin said, “But if it’s magic you want, magic you’ll get. Check this out.” He opened his palm, displaying a black wand-like object five inches long, quarter inch wide, squared edges. Six evenly-spaced inlaid rubies twinkled under the sun. It looked like a tiny black piano leg with six drops of blood dotting down it. The sight made her fingertip throb a dull pain that was entirely in her head.
“Where’d you get that? What is it?”
“Less talking, more watching.” He angled the wand down to afford her a careful assessment of the wand’s surface, the six crimson gems. She nodded. Moving only his wrist he arced the wand upright to display the underside of the wand: six red rubies. Both sides identical. She nodded. He lowered it back down. “Rubies on top, rubies on bottom. Right?”