(Perhaps you’ve clicked on this from the newness of oh my yes, but you don’t know where to begin? Click here, friend. Below is only what the French call, le spoiler.)
Mama says it’s time for me to tell the truth.
I don’t like that, but I also don’t like spinach and Mama says eating spinach is part of growing up. And I’m too dead to grow up. I wish I’d eaten more spinach, then maybe I’d know more what it feels like to be a grown-up.
Okay, Mama. I’m telling truth now, and the truth is I didn’t know who that old white man was. But I see him sometimes, around the theater. If I’m up to mischief, he’s there. But there’s more truth, other truth I need to tell. Like what happened when that storm came up and the night cracked open.
The top of the tower was too windy, so I dropped inside of it.
I saw when the fancy clothes man and the Chop-Chop Lady got smacked away, which was funny but also scary because that will make them mad. And I know what happens when he gets mad.
I saw the old white man leave.
I saw those two fools follow the footprints in the snow.
I called out from inside the tower, but on the other side of that crack in the air they didn’t look like they heard me. I followed them through the crack. Damn fool white boys think they’re safe.
Sorry, Mama.
Mama says I just need to say what happened, and this is what happened. Without swearing. Even though those boys swear more than they breathe.
That fool with the beard who thinks he’s funny said—
Sorry, Mama.
Edward said, Why the golly is it snowing?
He didn’t really say golly. He said something much, much worse. Something I’m never supposed to say, even though I have to follow this damn fool around listening to his swears—
Sorry, Mama!
Other White Boy said, We must dreaming or imagining this.
Edward said, What’s that way over there?
He pointed, and the moon broke through the clouds like in a movie, and it lit up a castle. A honest-to-goodness castle. Like in a fairy tale. And it was way, way too far away to be in this park.
I was inside of a tree, so I felt down through the roots and looked down the hillside.
This was not the same hillside. This was a mountainside.
Edward saw it right then, and said so (by swearing lots of swears that you can probably guess) followed by, That canyon is thousands of feet deeper than it was before we walked into the snow.
Other White Boy said, We should go back. We might get stuck here.
Edward said, But what if there are Redheaded Elf Girls who want to …
Mama, I don’t want to say that.
But I’m not supposed to!
Well okay then, he said he wanted to marry and raise a family with each and every Redheaded Elf Girl he could find. Do you understand that I am not saying that’s what he said? I think you probably understand.
Other White Boy said, What if they have Elf Civil … iss …
Okay, Mama.
Mama says I can skip this part of the conversation.
These white boys started to get cold because they walked into a blizzard, surprise surprise some white boys didn’t expect a blizzard to freeze them, and they turned around to go back.
Here’s what they saw happening to them: they walked for a long time in the snow. It got colder and colder. No matter how many steps they took, the crack in the air just got farther away.
What I saw happening to them was that they were walking backwards. I thought it was because they’re white-boy stupid, but then that girl who keeps running around the park steps out from inside a tall hollow tree and jabs at the ground with her staff next to Edward and says,
Walk forward!
The white boys walked forward. Because a woman told them to. But they couldn’t see her which is maybe why they listened right away. Boys don’t like to listen if they know it’s advice from a girl. And also, they couldn’t see the roots out of the ground wrapped around their ankles.
Telling the truth: I didn’t see the roots, either. And those roots were what were pulling the boys backwards. Only now the roots looked like skeleton hands, grasping clack-clack-clack when they got forced to let go. The girl with the staff broke the roots and the boys ran toward the crack in the air and it didn’t get farther away.
I started to go too, but there were hands holding my feet now.
I didn’t say any swears, though. Not even when those hands grabbed up my legs and all I could think about was the night I lost my eyes and never saw Mama again.
Yes, Mama.
Okay, I said some swears. But I was so scared. Because things can’t touch me most of the time. And now they were grabbing my arms and they were actual skeleton hands.
There was whispering I couldn’t hear, more like I felt it on my skin. I could feel what they wanted, to pull me down into the ground with them and make me be like them. Even though I’m a Ghost Child, they wanted to put their fingers in my eyes and make me so cold, not cold like the fog that follows me everywhere but cold like rock and stone deep underground where old hatred pools and flows, where the horns, hoofs and claws of an ancient, evil god wait for men to dig them up and use them.
I saw where the shards of that broken god were lodged in the earth, all over the earth. Under deserts, under the ocean, under forests. Skeleton hands know the way.
I saw that in most places, they’re just shards. Bad for the world, but no power.
Except on the northeast side of a mountain near here. That’s the one place where there’s a whole entire horn from his evil head. The whole mountain is growing around it, like an infected pimple. And if that horn is unearthed, these skeleton hands can come get you in your bed at night, and the pimple wants to pop.
It’s popped before.
That’s how the mountain got its name.
But the old white man, and he looks like a wizard cowboy in those clothes and I want to say yipee-ki-yabracadabra but I don’t because that would be disrespectful.
I know, Mama, that’s why I didn’t say it.
Okay, Mama. I’m sorry I was disrespectful to him. He did save me. You’re right.
Well the way he saves me is: he walks up next to my tree and takes me by the hand and walks me through the snow and pushes me through the crack in the night; and I hear whispers turn to screams behind me from the owners of the skeleton roots.
I’m through the crack before the boys, and before they get through Adventure Girl breaks a rock in half with her staff and puts one half in Edward’s pocket. She dropped the other half on the snowy side of the crack.
Old white man looks at her and says, I’ve opened the door for you. Is that wise? Anything could slip in or out.
She says to him, I have to break the pattern.
The boys walk through the crack and it seals right up. Warm night air flows through me. I didn’t realize how much that place was making me cold even from just being there.
Edward falls to the ground, sits on his butt and cries like a little girl.
It was embarrassing.
Other White Boy says, Why are you crying, grown-ass man?
Sorry Mama, but who cries like that?
Anyway Edward said, I just always wanted to find a portal to a magical land. And now I’ve been through one. And I don’t think I’ll ever get back.
And I popped out of the tower and said, Just you wait! Mama says look in your pocket!
Because Mama said to. Right, Mama?
Mama says yes.
And Other White Boy freaks out, because nobody told him about the little black girl with no eyes, but Edward he looks in his pocket. The rock has a hole in it. When he looks through the hole, he can see the other rock in the snow, half of this rock. There’s a seam in the air from that rock.
Edward swore a lot of happy swears and wanted to open the seam, but Other White Boy dragged him away with words like, coffee, whiskey and reality.
That’s what happened.
I told it as best I remember. Did I do okay, Mama?
Oh yeah: the Adventure Girl was standing there watching Edward.
I think she was crying. It made me sad.
I think she knows him.
Okay, Mama. I’ll keep watching after him.
Mama says that’s all for now. I’m waving bye-bye, you just can’t see it.
Because you can’t see me. I’m Ghost Child Mary.
I don’t have eyes.
But I see too much.
e. w. hightower 