Black Apples: 18 new fairytales by Molly Pinto Madigan

Author:Molly Pinto Madigan [Madigan, Molly Pinto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthology Fairytales
Publisher: Belladonna Publishing
Published: 2014-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

Everyone Else has Two Eyes by Nicki Vardon

Mama Louhi carved the meat on the dinner table, but the knife could have scraped against my bones and it would have felt the same. My sisters laughed while I sat in ash and stared into the hearth, hoping to burn my last tears into my skin as they dried up. My only friend was dead, and they laughed while feasting on his flesh.

“It tastes delicious, Mama.” Yksi licked her fingers, and I could not be sure who she was winking towards. Her one eye sat in the middle of her forehead and her gestures could have been aimed at anyone around the table.

“It’s your own fault, Sister,” huffed Kolme. “You with your secrets.” All three of her eyes looked down at me with disdain. She had two where most people have them and one in the middle of her forehead, like Yksi.

Not like me. I am Kaksi: born with two eyes. I look like everyone else. Or so Mama Louhi told me.

I’ve never known how many eyes Mama Louhi had. People would say she had two, but she called them liars, cut out their tongues, and fed them to her snake. Then no one said it anymore.

Mama had one blue eye, like me. A second eye so white, like milk, it almost slipped in with her skin. She had a third, in the middle of her forehead, carved into her skin in crimson lines. She could have one or three. Not two. Never two. Never like those girls behind castle walls, at village markets, in towers, harbors and gardens, all looking the same. Those were the girls men left her for after they’d sired another daughter on her.

That was why Mama Louhi hated me. I knew my sisters did, too. And it was fine. I had a friend who kept me company in the meadows: our little goat. When I was hungry, he brought me food. When I was sleepy, his pelt was my pillow. And when he told stories, I listened and laughed.

Then Kolme spotted us together.

“Why don’t you sing again, Sister? Sing that wonderful lullaby of yours.” Kolme dropped back into her chair, drooped her mouth as if asleep, closed two eyes and kept her third peeled open with her fingers. Yksi laughed again, sauce from her lips spurting over her napkin like blood.

Mama Louhi kissed her snake, let it curl around her shoulders and murmured. When she slammed the table, Yksi stopped giggling and Kolme sat up straight. Like perfect little girls, though scared, they had nothing to fear from her. Mama stumbled over to me, but I’d stopped feeling fear. She had taken my friend and slaughtered him. His bleating screams still echoed in my ears. There was nothing worse she could do to me.

Mama Louhi pulled me to my feet. “Lazy child. Should we wait until you feel good enough to clean the table?”

Mama never used the word ‘child’. I replaced the word in my mind every time she said it, because what she did say was the ugliest of words.

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