Upon a Time
It’s worse, at night.
During the day it’s bright and there’s always so much to do. There are the animals to take care of and the garden to tend and always something that needs fixing or mending or chopping.
But at night…
At night the children come out.
Always the damaged ones, the unloved ones. The ones who have been abandoned or chased away or just those who weighed the options of wandering through a dark forest along at night versus staying at home and decided to go with the unknown.
They come carefully, and quietly, and softly. They knock as if they really, really hope no one answers. I don’t know what they expect to find, in my home. Fully stocked larder, soft bed, warm fire, and no one around?
No, they find me. Just old me. And I feed them and give them hot water and a soft place to sleep, and I always, always regret it.
When you look like I do, when every single one of your years and mistakes are displayed on your face and your hands and in your eyes, you can be scary to the young. I know that. I’m their future, you see, and it’s horrifying.
But what it means in practical terms is that three or four times a year I get accused of practicing the Dark Arts, casting spells over the innocent, or even trying to eat a couple of the little brats. Do you have any idea how old that gets?
Had to get a restraining order on one little girl, in a red jumper. She told the sheriff my “wolf” tried to kill her! My Betsy’s a shivering 14-year-old labradoodle, for God’s sake, and she runs away from falling leaves. I had to take her to mandatory obedience training for four weeks, the poor thing.
Then these two kids last month told their parents — and where were they, when their kids were wandering lost, I ask you — that I was the cruelest hag they’d ever seen and I kept them imprisoned and enslaved. Yes, if by “enslaved” you mean I actually asked them to wash dishes after serving them half the food I had left in the house. Oh, the horror! Pretty sure their parents had never swept a floor, either.
And they had the bald-faced nerve to say I lured them with a cottage made of candy? Ha! Have you seen my house? Have a lick of my walls and see what happens.
Oh, I’ve heard the rumors they spread, that my house can walk around on giant chicken legs, or that I can make bears do my bidding. I can’t even keep the deer out of my beans! I can barely make myself do my bidding, most days. I just wanted to live my life and keep to myself.
I tell you, next time one of these little terrors comes by, I’m half tempted to chuck him in my oven just for the hell of it. I won’t, though.
Probably.
