Tag Archives: eerie

Schrodinger’s Apple

Poisoned or not poisoned. You decide.

It was on the doorstep when Cinderella and Snow White got home from lectures, no card, no note. Cinderella took it inside, despite Snow White’s misgivings, and set it on the table in the kitchen diner.

An apple. Perfectly formed, with deep red skin that glistened like a ruby. It rested on a small wooden platter beneath a glass dome.

Cinderella’s fingers danced on top of the glass. It was so tempting.

“Don’t.” Snow White had deliberately stayed on the other side of the kitchen. “You don’t know where it’s come from. It’s just weird, leaving it like that. We should throw it away.”

Snow White hated apples. They made her choke.

Rapunzel looked up from the sofa. A book, as usual, lay open on her lap. She watched Cinderella’s long fingers curl round the handle of the dome.

“Don’t be daft Snow,” Cinderella said as she lifted the glass. A heady scent swirled through the room. “It smells gorgeous. What do you think Rapunzel? Schrodinger’s apple? Poisoned AND not poisoned?”

“There lies the conundrum.” Rapunzel pretended to be nonchalant. She tried to ignore the strange gift. It stirred melancholy within her; it reminded her of…

Cinderella plucked the apple from its platter, holding it up to the light just as Alice wandered in from the back garden. She’d been trying yet again to fix a hole under the fence where next door’s rabbit kept getting through.

“What’s that?” she asked as she added her mug to the line.

“A gift,” said Cinderella.

“A curse,” said Snow White. “But she won’t listen to me.”

Alice examined the apple in Cinderella’s hand. She was wary of food with no provenance. She had been caught out before. Badly.

“I wouldn’t eat it if I were you,” she said. “Don’t know if I’d even have touched it. You need to be careful with these things.”

“THANK you.” Snow White distributed the mugs, then sat by Rapunzel.

Cinderella turned it this way and that. It shone. It was the most wondrous apple any of them had ever seen, rounded and luscious, full of promise.

Rapunzel sipped her coffee, kept sipping even though it burned her tongue. Anything to block that pervading scent, the bitter sadness it awakened.

“Really. What harm could it do?” The apple drifted closer to Cinderella’s lips.

“I’m sure Eve said the same thing,” Snow White said. “It could kill you, is what.”

“Don’t Ella, really,” Alice added. “Who leaves apples on doorsteps anyway? It’s beyond curious.”

“But it smells soooo good.”

Alice took the apple gingerly by the stalk and put it back on its wooden plate. She clapped the glass dome over it and placed it up on the windowsill. The tantalising fragrance disappeared immediately.

But not for Rapunzel. It was in her bones now, her blood, in the tears that burned behind her eyes. He’d always brought her apples. He knew how she loved them.

“We need to get moving,” Alice continued. “We’re supposed to be at Dorothy’s in an hour. Don’t want to be late.”

“You coming out tonight, Rapunzel?” Snow White asked. Rapunzel shook her head.

“Essay due on Monday,” she said. “No time.”

“You work too hard,” said Cinderella. “Live a little. It’s just one night.”

“Might do you good,” Snow White added. “It’s been a while.”

They didn’t understand. How could they, with all those happy endings.

Later, as the front door closed, Rapunzel stood in front of the mirror, curling a strand of hair round her finger. It was short now, chin length. She’d had it cut when he’d left her. The scent of the apple reached up from the kitchen, curling and twisting through her memories.

How he had been a prince amongst frogs.

How perfect they had been together.

How he had led her out of her turret into the light.

How she had taught him to love books.

How his eyesight had begun to fail.

How the headaches had got worse.

How he had changed, become harsh and unkind.

How the doctors had found the tumour.

How he had left her, refused her support, discarded her love.

He was still out there. She’d heard that treatment had been successful. But he wouldn’t take her calls, reply to her messages.

She still loved him. He didn’t love her.

She had climbed back into her tower and she was the one who had fallen to break, spectacularly, on the ground.

Bitterness tainted her tongue. She was tired of feeling stuck. Change was possible, she knew that. The strange gift proved it.

Rapunzel left her room and went down to the kitchen. The apple beckoned from the windowsill and without hesitation she freed it from its prison. Then, standing by the window, watching next door’s rabbit hopping through the daisies on their lawn, she opened her mouth and took a great big bite.

Wolf

The other side of the story…

Are you frightened? You do not need to fear me – I will not harm you. Well… not unless you give me reason to. Threaten my family, my pack and I will not be held responsible for my actions. Otherwise you go about your business and I go about mine. Mutual respect.

“But…”

You don’t say it but I see the question in your eyes. The things you’ve heard about wolves. The stories that are told about us following people, misleading people, carrying them off and tearing them limb from limb. Tricksy, nefarious, dangerous wolves.

You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. I did not eat the grandmother or destroy the houses of the little pigs. As for the girl in the red cloak… I did not lure her from the path. She sought me out. She wanted things she could not have.  She is dangerous, that one, a wild, dark spirit that should never have been contained in human form. But she wanted what she wanted and when I could not give it she wreaked vengeance not just on me but on my whole bloodline. Words have power you know. A rumour here, a story there, a pretty young girl with a sad face and a knife covered in her grandmother’s blood well hidden in her basket… no wonder the woodcutter was taken in. And the huntsman and the villagers and so many people since. Including you, it would seem.

What did she want, you ask? My skin. Not just to wear it, but to inhabit it. She wanted to oust me from my own body, to use it at will, become a shape shifter. She thought I had the power to make it so, that I would capitulate for one so young and pure and beautiful. But I cannot perform sorcery. I am just a wolf. A talking wolf, you make a fair point, but a wolf nonetheless. There are far stranger things than me in this forest. And even if I could, I am too fond of my own skin to give it up. So I snapped and snarled and eventually ran, her promise ringing in my ears. That I would regret my choice. That my skin would be difficult to live in for ever more. And her lies have made it so. I am maligned, hated and hunted along with the rest of my kin.

You have heard of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The irony! The girl, the innocent, who wanted to wear a wolf, just because she desired more power, more control than her looks and her wiles gave her. What big eyes she has. All the better to see you with. What a lovely smile she has. All the better to lure you with. What a sweet voice she has. All the better to fool you with. What a black heart she has. All the better to break you with. It’s her you should run from, not me. She still roams these woods so be sure not to stray from the path…

Corvidae

Late spring and the crows are stark against the pale sky. They skim the church and oak, chasing each other with harsh throated cries and stealing morsels from the ground. I am glad to see them. I thought they had forsaken us, the bell tower and me.

 

crows flying

 

Every year they build their nests up there above the bells and compose a discordant summer symphony as their hatchlings grow. Calls, old to young, young to old, a different peal, corvid campanology. The cycle completes as the fledglings fly, still babies but with ancient knowing in their eyes.

 

 

 

 

Gothic Nightmare

It’s National Poetry Day, so here’s a little offering from me. Sweet dreams!

 

The castle scowled on the hill,

Towers and turrets silhouetted by

Shards of lightning and a clouded moon.

Storm thickened darkness hung heavy,

Dragging on each fearful breath.

I followed the twisting path,

On and on, up and up,

Feet drawn by some other force.

Around me, the forest sighed, shifting,

Creeping closer,

Tired of waiting,

Hungry.

castle door

Photo by Judhi Prasetyo

 The castle waited, baited, dared,

Rain poured in torrents from rips in the sky,

Smoothed the stones but could not wash them clean.

Faint ghost glimmer in the windows

A sorry echo of light.

Fear choked, I tried to turn and run

But my feet betrayed me.

The arched door, old wood, rusting hinges,

One side open, as though I was expected.

I could feel it,

In the shadows,

Starving.

The apple tree and the fairy ring

Apple tree with daisies

The Apple Tree

At the end of the garden is an old apple tree, sacred as all apple trees are. Trunk straight and weather worn, branches reaching in one of nature’s perfect imperfect circles, lichen gilding the bark like silver moss. Now she has her green skirts on but soon they will become a rich array of pinks as the blossom opens. The bees will be happy when that happens. They will rest gently and drink from the tiny cups, loading up with gold before they move on, slow and drunken with sunshine.

Beneath the tree and in the grassy space beyond, the faeries have been dancing secretly, late at night with only the moon to watch them. I know this because everywhere their feet have touched they have left their own tiny stars behind, like glitter in the grass. Except… we humans don’t see those stars in their true form. They look like daisies to us.

Bluebells

Bluebells among trees

Photo by Derek Harper

It’s that time of year when a purple mist appears in the woods and the banks, low over the grass and eerie in the twilight. The bluebells are ringing to call a faerie convention. Listen hard for it’s not easy to hear them. Still, they might raise goose bumps as you pass and somewhere inside, you may feel an echo of the chimes. The colour glows, broken by little luminous white stars and pink shocks of campion. Sit and watch the bells dance in the breeze but if they grow around oak trees be wary of the Oak Men, the protectors and inhabitants of the oak, who are none to fond of humans and their propensity to cut down trees with no justifiable reasons.