For Want of a Meal

• Eliza Farley

The cold hand of famine gripped the village. It first stole the grain from the fields, then from the storehouses, until the only things to eat were the crusts of rotten, molded bread. Then, not even that. Terrible, lingering hunger that never relented — it felt the ribs of the townspeople through their skin. But one woman, who passed through the square on occasion, never became painfully thin like the rest. She would pay a curt greeting to the young girls sitting on the fountain’s edge, nod to the men fixing their hats in a window’s reflection, and wrap herself tighter in her many shawls before continuing on. As the crows in the trees cried out, it was almost if she had never been there at all. If you were to follow the woman out of town, you would reach a worn path that led into the dark forest. As the pines and the junipers towered over you, blocking out the remains of the watery winter sun, you would become frightened. You would turn back. Eventually, all who tried to follow the woman into the woods did the same. The loose earth of the path contained many sets of footprints, and then, with a short incantation spoken under the woman’s breath, only one. She continued on alone. The trees thinned out as the snake-like path wound deeper into the forest, and finally revealed a clearing about a mile in. The woman’s mouth broke into a smile at the sight of her house, sitting in the middle of the clearing; she never liked to leave for long. The smell of it, of course, had reached her long before she could see it, wafts of butterscotch and molasses mingling with the crisp breeze. She almost laughed to herself, thinking of the starving villagers as she lived in luxury. Why else have a gingerbread house, if not to taunt those stupid enough not to find it?

She crossed the lawn and walked inside, closed the peanut brittle door behind her, and hung her shawls on the peppermint hooks. Now, a different smell: the comforting scent of meat in the oven. The woman took in a deep breath. Savored it. Then, realizing it must be almost cooked through, she hurried into the kitchen and opened the oven door. Ahh. Nothing like the delicate aroma of a young child, fattened on the very confectionery her house was made of. Her smile never faltered as she placed the poor thing on her candy-glass table and began to cut into its flesh; in that moment, it felt to her as though there was nothing more to life than pure indulgence.

A few months later into the famine, the witch-woman was returning home from the village one day when she noticed something most unusual. Although she muttered her spell as always, there were footprints that seemed to remain on the path — someone, or many someones, had crossed into her dominion against her will. Fearing the worst, she sprinted to her cottage as quickly as her legs would take her.

Although she was not old for a witch, she could no longer keep up with the blackbirds flitting through the boughs of the trees as she could in her youth. She broke into the clearing with adrenaline still fiercely coursing in her veins, and she scanned the field with a sick kind of determination. Prey is prey, even if it’s crafty, she thought, but her hair stood on end nonetheless. Approaching the house, she peeked around the corner with wide, wide eyes, and had to look twice to make sure she wasn’t dreaming: not one, but two children, a boy and a girl, sitting and gorging themselves on her licorice siding.

“Hello,” said the witch.

The two children promptly screamed. Spotting the woman, they tried to scramble away, but their laps were too full of candy for them to escape quickly enough. The witch simply laughed at their performance with a smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes. “Don’t worry, you two. Why, my house is practically falling apart already! Why should I care if a few hungry kids have some for themselves?” And they were hungry, visibly so — just like most everyone in town, their arms had grown skinny and their eyes were sunken in. Still, her words brought some relief to their emaciated faces.

“...We’re really, really, sorry, miss,” the boy began. “We’ve been out in these woods for a while, and… well, I’m sure you know. My sister and I didn’t mean anything by it,

Cupcake

Saffy

Rindelaub

I swear.” He smiled weakly, showing off the chocolate stains on his lip.

“Oh, I understand completely, you poor mites. Why don’t you come in, and I’ll fix you a proper meal?” The witch grinned again.

And so the three of them entered the house. The two children settled in the kitchen, tracing the swirls in the candy-glass with their fingers and whispering to each other. The girl laughed every so often, and the boy looked so pleased to see her happy that they seemed the most content pair of siblings there had ever been. Soon enough, the woman returned with a chicken that she placed in front of the two.

“Here.”

The two cautiously stuck their forks in and began to eat, slowly at first, but then more and more ravenously, until all that was left was a skeleton. Just as soon as they finished, the witch brought out a turkey and quietly took away the first plate. After exchanging glances, the siblings began to eat again and finished the turkey, too. The witch kept bringing out more and more fowl, and the children kept eating whatever they were given. The plates were filthy with grease and fat pieces. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the girl raised her hands as if defeated.

“Please, miss, we’re full. Please stop bringing us food. We would hate to waste it.”

Now, the witch determined, was time. She was growing hungry herself, and so she smirked, a cruelty entering her eyes that she had carefully cloaked thus far. “Oh, are you? Really? Because I don’t think you’re done unless I say you are.” The girl’s eyes widened and a new kind of terror sunk into the room. The boy slammed his hands down on the table.

“You’ve been very kind to us, but I think we have to go! Come on,” he said, tugging at his sister’s sleeve. “I don’t like it here.” But the witch moved with the agility of one half her age and blocked the door.

“You can’t leave. I don’t know what’s so unclear about that.” So close, my next meal. So tantalizingly close. The witch bared her teeth, eyes wide. Never had the children seen such a monster. “I’m going to fatten you up, you insolent starving brats. You won’t But an oddity occurred. No matter how many days passed, the boy never seemed to gain weight, and yet the bird was always gone. The witch was growing impatient. Her temper was thinner than ribbon-candy, and her hunger threatening to overtake that of the famished villagers. Finally, after days of waiting, she thought of an idea. He won’t eat. I’ll just have his sister instead — she must be quite delectable by now, if she’s been the one helping him. So she called her out of the basement. On unsteady legs she surfaced, her eyes squinted against the filtered afternoon sun. Sure enough, her face had filled out and become a healthy shade again, far from the sickly pallor of before. Her eyes bored into the witch’s face.

46.

“You thought you’d be safe as long as you protected him, right?” The witch barked out a laugh. “Well, the jig’s up. And to punish you, I think I know just the thing. Get over here.” She clasped her hand around the girl’s forearm and yanked her in front of the oven. “Go ahead. Turn it on and get in.”

The girl stood there for a second, then simply said: “I don’t know how.”

The witch paused. “Really, you say? Really. Hmm. How do you not know how to work an oven? It’s quite simple, you know. Even an idiot like you could figure it out.”

“I really don’t know, miss. I’ll…” Her voice shook. “I’ll get in, but I need you to show me how.”

A sigh rang out. “I guess. I guess I can humor a girl’s last request. If I can prove how stupid you really are, I suppose this will be quite amusing indeed.” And so the witch stepped in front of the girl and opened the door. “You see, you just—”

Oops.

From her back, the witch felt a forceful shove, far more hard-hitting than any other blow she’d ever felt, and tumbled into the giant oven. The iron burned her, and she scrambled to find purchase and escape, but every rod on the rack was red-hot. With a deafening clang, the door swung shut, and she could hear the latch falling into place. No. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. She swiveled around, skin nearly melting on the tortuous rods, and banged on the door until her fist, too, was branded with burns and scalds. She screamed. First curses, then pleas, then unintelligible rage. She could hear the children taking their sweet time escaping her house and stealing her every possession on their way out, until they would finally take her life. She sobbed. She had been beaten at her own game, she could admit that much. Maybe they’ll eat me, too. With the last of her strength, she could hear the familiar peanut-brittle door swing open. Take me with you, she wanted to say.

And with the children’s first steps towards freedom, the chapter of the witch’s cruelty had been firmly closed by the cold hand of death. V my pigmented love, wishful green wisp for you has gone. it slipped between my fingers, like honey from a jar and disappeared under the kitchen rug. i believed that after nights of hazardous fairies and braiding locks of sandy pink paper hair, we would be one. no more do i call you or you call me in the evening, and share stories from a blissful perch in the brown attic. forget happiness, this was a dedication that we both failed. to be one. i think about it all during the winter, because the destinations to which i walk are silenced by snow packed tightly around my cold ankles. i don’t have to think about what i missed and what you missed. i can just listen to nothing. that bittersweet nothing.

This past year has switched the lenses on our understanding of the world. Forced to linger on the small things, forced to distill the catastrophic, the world becomes distorted as it reaches our vantage point. And because perspective is central to any creative expression, that contortion of the truth shapes the words, images, and brushstrokes on these pages.

The points you see are not periods, rather pins in the map - a step on your journey. They are keyholes opening you to new experiences. The point is something to make, a physical space, a place of focus, a pause, a detail, an ending. How does point of view change when you can see the full picture? You won’t know for certain unless you turn the page.

• Ellie Murphy