A Tendency to Be Gone by Pamela Ryder

Author:Pamela Ryder [Ryder, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9781936873258
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2011-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

The water there is clear. It is a cure.

It is a cure for voices to pound the blooms of swallow-wort into a powder, to stir the powder into the coldest water from the narrows with a blade-sharp stick of willow, to pour the water back and forth between two white-glass cups and drink it through a cloth.

Try not to lose the stick of willow.

It is a cure for losing to cut hair from a boy who does not know his mother, to tie the locks in bunches up with blades of blue-eyed grass. Use the grass instead of thread. Use a knife to cut, not scissors.

Try not to use a knife with a rusted blade.

Try not to lose a boy.

It is a cure for losing to take the needle used to sew a gown for someone you had to bury. Put the needle in the footprints of someone you want to find. Try not to lose the needle.

This is a charm for finding: look in ruts for a pushed-up stone that favors what it is you want to find, and rub the stone against your lips while counting forward the numbers of your hairs you can pull out with one hand.

Try not to count such stones.

Try not to kiss such stones when you push them cold against your lips.

It is a cure for losing to crush a leaf of milkweed with your foot when you are walking. Providing milkweed is not what you are looking for. Providing you have not been walking far.

It is a cure for being lost to save the dirt and hair you sweep from inside a kennel. Keep this tucked inside your pocket; sprinkle this into your footprint on the path and pick which way you want to wander. Providing that you want to wander.

It is a cure for wandering to scrape a knife on four corners of a table and cut in half a wren egg boiled hard. This charm will keep a dog beside you if you feed it to the dog. This charm will keep a boy. But do this without talking of a boy. Without thinking of a boy.

This is a cure for thinking.

This is a charm for catching a boy.

It might be a charm for catching spiders.

It is bad luck to chase away spiders or to put your foot on spiders should you see them in the doorway.

Come in, come in.

When you leave, leave by that door.

Come in. Please do.

Please come away from the window. The glass is broken in the frame. Please do not touch the shards, the upstuck blades, the stone that flew in and stays on the sill. I will set a pane of skim-ice in that window when the weather is colder. Come in.

I will not keep you. I will not keep you in.

This is the box I keep water in a bottle in. This is the cork I use for a stopper.

This is the lock. This is how I stop the keyhole up and carry the key in my pocket the number of days there are eggs I count in the nest blown down.

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