©2023 Mel Reynes do not re-publish without permission
Flames on the side of my face as I slide in more firewood.
If I wiped my eyes they’d only sting with soot. Instead I drag my chain to the back door and opened it to the frozen night air. My sweat freezes before it can dry.
The wind is howling tonight, needles of ice pierce the grime on my hot face. I breathe deeply and inhale thick, sweet frost.
“Girl! Shut that door, it’s freezing!” She bellows from across the house, a thousand feet away, too far to feel any hint of cold. I sigh and shut the door. I engage the heavy bolt and rest my head against the oiled wood. I can feel my bones sliding in my loose skin.
“Where’s my coffee?!?” she shrieks. This will have been her fifth pot. I thought I had more time. It’s no use replying, she’ll shriek and moan no matter what I say.
I wrap a thick old blanket around the handle of the kettle, lift it off the mantle, and carefully pour it over the prepared grounds. The coffee is filtered three times, there must be no sediment. I pour the black liquid into an ornate silver coffee pot bigger than my torso. To the tray I add a sugar bowl and a plate of pink frosted cookies—all equally as large.
I heave my chain over one arm, the metal is warmed by the fire and nearly burns. Then I hoist up the tray with both arms. The coffee pot blocks my view, but I know where I’m going.
First, through the kitchen. The butcher block has a fat, smoked hog waiting on it. The wood is shellacked with blood and knives as long as my legs hang on the side.
Through the door is the pantry. Every spice and preserve is available. The colored glass gleam like jewels in the soft fire light from the kitchen. Scores of eyes follow me from assorted jars.
Next, the cleaning room. The smell of old steam hang in the air. The only way to get everything truly clean was to agitate the scalding lye water with my body. My skin itches in anticipation. The week moonlit glows off the white tile. Along the wall the canisters of cleaners and caustics brood.
After the laundry is the wardrobe. No magic here. A forest of moth eaten cashmere, silks, and rotting velvet. Gigantic shoes lined up like leather soldiers. The display of jewelry is unlit, the gems are dark insects waiting. In the center of the display is a golden egg bigger than myself.
The goose had long been slaughtered. The last of its eggs melted down and its flesh rendered. Only the one in the case remained, harboring the last in its line behind a fine gold shell.
I stopped to look at the egg. I’d broken the lock, but there was no reason to take it. Where could I go, chained to her?
Back home to share the wealth? The fireplace was cold, all the family gone.
To town, where they’d have suspicions about a woman–no family–suddenly rich?
Or maybe to the city to be anonymous? But how? With no horse or train the egg would be impossible to transport. To say nothing of how they’d treat a suddenly wealthy stranger covered in filth and rags. They’d snap me like kindling and pick my teeth for ivory.
No. Here was the best choice, though it felt like my bones might crack. The long days, and longer nights, of cooking and cleaning were safe.
I continued on through the foire. The front door was framed by a wall of colored glass. My silver tray became blue as a summer’s day, then green as a deep pond, yellow as a newborn’s hair, and then red as heart’s blood.
The glass foire led to the great hall lined in portraits. The family had lasted ages. Each was bigger than the last. Magnificent kings, queens, princesses, dukes, and every level of the family stared down at me. Their fat faces quivered from the reflected light off my silver tray.
I paused again and heaved up the heavy tray. My chains were now cold and bit into my arm. These giants were all dead. The last male heir had been slain. The lady of the house was without child.
Instead of making a child with her husband, she spent her honeymoon on foolish games. Her husband had brought home a wild pet boy. She doted on her knew pet and let her family fall. Young idiots always thought there was time.
It hadn’t been easy finding this place. The boy hadn’t wanted to give it up.
When the boy came in with those seeds, I beat him blue. The cow had at least been meat. The promise of a full belly if even for a night. Better than having to fill my bed with a stranger.
The bean stalk hadn’t even been edible. Stringy like celery and burned like horseradish. Cooking it made a poisonous fog.
It wasn’t so bad when he came back with a golden egg. The chick inside died instantly, but it rendered down to small gold pieces. Easy to exchange without arousing too much suspicion. We ate well then. My bed was warm and blissfully empty.
Then the terrible harp. Stupider than a child, her songs were sweet but empty. Even buried in the farthest field I could still hear her. Once the boy was dead I sold her to a man with a mean gleam in his eye. Men had looked at me that way once.
Even as the giant husband stomped around destroying our land, the boy had held his tongue. He knew he didn’t have long on this earth. Finally, with one eye left, he drew a map of the castle. A map for the jewels and the gold, the stables and the hen house. He cried and cried.
I’d cried more. My soul was washed in tears and my intentions were smooth and bright. He got a mercy not growing old.
The door at the end of the hall was practically ablaze with light. I stomped down the hall of dead colossi towards it. She was crying, again.
I entered the great dining room. One side was lined with fireplaces. The other side had cascades of candles that never went out. Even still, there was some magic.
A thousand dinners could have sat at this table. The lace runner was obscured beneath a mountain of gold. I’d piled every gold coin, chalice, and ornament I could find on the table. I think I’d found it all. When I left I’d take it all with me.
There were almost no chairs. The big seats made excellent firewood.
Her giant sobs made the candles shake like jelly. Instead of a chair at the end of the table there was a bed bigger than our old house. It was so tall it disappeared into the darkness above. The finery had all been pulled down from her fits.
She was food stained, but the bed was still neat and mostly clean. Dessert was a moonberry pie with whipped goat’s cream. The massive pie pan was wiped clean but the cream had been emptied carelessly onto the floor. It must have been turned. My nose was too burned by the cooking and laundry to tell anymore. The peddler had sworn it was fresh, he’d pay for his lies. I couldn’t have her wasting good food. She mustn’t lose weight.
She liked the little pink cookies, I had no doubt. Maybe I could hide the fatty goat cream in her over sweetened coffee.
The bed sagged and crushed the skulls that rested under it. Though she was big, her trunk was even more monstrous. Legs and arms stuck out from a bulbous torso. Her delicate hands flapped and dragged barrel-like arms across her body as she cried.
“My cookies!!!” she screamed and grabbed the plate off the tray. I used the distraction to scoop up the cream into the cup. I poured the whole pot of sugar on top, then the coffee.
Finished with the cookies, she grabbed the cup out of my hands and drank it in one gulp. Her eyes were red but no longer wet. These fugues didn’t last long. Her blue eyes rivalled the sky on my most perfect day..
They say what she cannot: I know something is wrong, I remember everything in here. They burned at me, I looked away. I had no use for guilt. If the boy hadn’t made me ashamed, then I could survive her contempt.
She smacked her lips and sighed. The nightshade I’d put in the pie and coffee were working. I just needed her to sleep to the next meal. Awake, she’d find the key to the chain. Asleep, she’d dream her away her troubles. The fat and sugar she’d eaten would pile on her bones and engorge her big heart.
I took the coffee service and the pie tray back to the kitchen to prepare her next meal. I was working on breakfast of stale toast soaked in duck eggs and lard. The spiced bread custard would hide a good amount of white poppy.
I checked at the pile of gold again. It was even too much for the giant in the bed to carry. It had been accrued over the ages by her more rapacious ancestors. But I wouldn’t need to move it all at once.
The lady giant had been a sweet young thing when I’d come to her. So eager to believe that the boy and the man had mutually destroyed each other. Together, we barren wives could forge a new life. She was excited to make something whole out of our broken lives.
I could see how her giant had fallen in love. She was like an elegant shining bird. Her dark tresses lovingly danced around her face when she laughed. She’d been so eager for a friend. I think she really had loved my boy in her own way. I think she would have taken care of him.
It was a simple trick to tell a tale of woe and get access to the vault. The light from all the rubies burned my eyes. She clapped her hands when I tried to swim in it. That night I had cramps from the coins I’d hid in my stomach. Each night after I writhed in silent agony while passing a coin that would carry me to a better life.
Despite my hopes, none of the other livestock were magical. The same pigs, goats, and chickens I loathed back home. Only bigger and stupider. Even here magic was thin. The goose had been a treasured and exotic pet. The livestock all now rested in the smokehouse. Fresh meat was easy to buy with the piles of gold I had.
I started by plying her with a spicy and sweet wine. Clearly the goose was her most valuable asset, and she easily revealed the chain and final egg. She cried over the story of how she’d lost the goose. It was a wedding present. Her man had found some of the last pieces of true magic to win her heart. The goose with chain for company. The magic harp had been to charm her when he was away. The promise of a child for her faith.
She’d only let it off the chain for just a moment, just to let it stretch. My boy, in a rare moment of cleverness, snatched the bird from this silly girl. I was almost proud of him.
She hid the chain and egg in her jewelry so her man wouldn’t blame her. It was the boy that had done all the wrongs. I couldn’t fault her for that unkindness. At my most desperate I would also have given up a golden goose to be rid of the boy.
After a particularly strong drink, I slipped the shackle around her slender ankle. It resized to match her frame. Then I slipped the other around my own, smaller, ankle. The chain lengthened and followed me as I secreted away the key. She believed me when I said only wanted to link us with friendship. It was a test of our friendship.
She was so lonely.
And then, unable to escape, I had served her. As her small friend I consoled her with cakes, wines, and sweetmeats. I was her sympathetic ear for lost love and stolen days. In between stories I’d spoon another helping onto her plate. I only picked at my own food, I was small after all. Each spoonful she took had enough poison to stop my breath.
I kept my tongue while she talked. She’d never worked a day on her feet or back. What did she know.
Her heart was big. Strong enough to embolden my weathered frame. She was wrong, there was still magic in this world. But it was hard to see the magic from a floating castle in the sky.
The pantry had everything I needed. It was both food and fodder. This giant family had used arsenic along with an army to gain their wealth.
I think it’ll only be one or two more moons.
Just a little longer until she’s full.
Once she’s eaten her fill, once she’s finally burst from the herds of beasts and sweets and drink, I’ll carve her open to seize my prize. I need her heart full of a giant’s strength. A giant’s love for a big man and a tiny boy.
The key is hidden in the lye. It’s now dull but I see my freedom every time I do laundry.
With that magic strength I’ll set the golden egg in a fire made from her corpse. The charcoal bones will incubate the egg.
Next I’ll drag a taurine from the cupboard and use her fire to heat a bath. I’ll take the longest, hottest soak. I’ll steep myself in her oils and perfumes until my skin is fresh. Then I’ll gather my treasures.
Her remaining furs will be wrapped around my body. I’ll fasten it with the long chains of giant jewelry.
Then I’ll pick a few of the seeds. The only thing that I still grow in her kingdom. They are kept in a greenhouse with papered walls. I must constantly prune the stalks and dry the beans. Who knows where another stalk from here might lead. What might come down onto my head.
I used the dried stalks to pepper her wine. It made her skin white as snow and her mind soft like sponge cake. When I’m close to her there’s a faint horseradish smell. My eyes water and she thinks I’m crying for her.
Soon, I tell myself. My fingers are locked around the tray. I can’t feel them but my arms say that they will quit if I don’t give them a break.
When she is done and the golden egg is incubating, I’ll go down the stalk again. I go over my list, incubate the egg, bathe in her finery, bring the furs and jewelry first. Make it seem like that’s the limit of my wealth. The people down there won’t know I’ll spend money that no man has ever had. With her giant heart I’ll have the fuel to live four or five lifetimes at least.
When I come back, the egg will have hatched. I’ll feed it just as well as her. It will not want for sweet grapes or spiced meats. Our chain will never be unlocked.
I was mistaken to sell off the first goose. I’d given it away a pound at a time because I was too desperate to realize what magic lied in the meat. To be fair, the flesh had started to turn to iron almost as soon as I cut into it. In the end I melted it down for scrap.
But a peddler had sold me an interesting book. He claimed they were actually true tales. I felt like my silly boy passing along good gold for a book of fairy tales. The book did have truths though.
And it also had methods for storing magic beans that grew to the sky. It talked about how to eat a giant’s heart for strength.
It even said the best way to eat a golden goose was under the complete darkness of a new moon. They had to be spiced with laced with special mushrooms and lulled to sleep with a melodious harp. Without light, their flesh would stay soft. Eat them raw before the sun came up to gain timeless youth.
It said if ate the whole of a golden goose I’d always live in the perfect sunshine of my girlhood. Before there were wicked men and stupid children.
I’d lost the harp, but I had a fortune to find it.
The book also spoke of other beasts. Who could say if they were gone? With my wealth, strong heart, and endless youth I could hunt them all. There was supposed to be a toad that gave you an enchanted voice. A mouse that gave you the ability to form all shapes. If there were still unicorns I would find them and eat their elementary magic.
Soon I–and no one else–would get to feast.