The Twisted Ones

by T. Kingfisher

Every time I went over there, she was snipping at him—snip, snip, snip, like her tongue was pruning shears and she was slicing off bits for fun.

Books on World War II appear spontaneously in any house that contains a man over a certain age. I believe that’s science.

I’d caught fireflies out here as a kid and let them go again. I’d forgotten that there were a lot of bugs that weren’t nearly so charismatic.

Cotgrave had seen changelings in Wales? Well, I’d never been, but it seemed like the sort of place you’d get them. Perhaps Welsh fairies stole children and confiscated their vowels.

“Maybe the oxygen will help,” I said. “I’m sure it will,” he said, and we both knew he was lying, and we both knew that I knew. But families run on optimistic lies sometimes, so neither of us called the other one out on it and we said goodbye.

I said, “Hi, cows.” I am like that. The cows did not say anything.

Stones with holes are called hagstones, I thought. (That is true, incidentally. It is also possibly the most useless thing I’ve ever thought in a crisis.)

The truck started before I was thinking enough to be afraid that it wouldn’t start. I blessed the engineers at Nissan and peeled out of the driveway at top speed.

I took a drink of tea. It was too hot and burned the roof of my mouth, but it was tea and tea was good and I was in a world where there was tea, not in a world where there were monsters in the woods. Those were two separate worlds. As long as I stayed in this one, I was safe.

Nothing happened. The sun was shining. I heard birds singing. I wanted to scream at them, because how dare there be birds singing when the woods were full of monsters?

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you fell down constantly, and it was just no big deal? Somewhere along the way, that changes and you start to realize how old folks fall down and die as a result.

I never do things like that. I don’t throw things. I don’t scream. I never understood people who lob toasters at their boyfriends. Why would you waste a perfectly good toaster?

Foxy led me across the road as I leaned on her arm. I felt like I was limping with both feet.

The math made my head ache. Also my butt was falling asleep.

Oh Jesus, the monolith. Did this mean I was about to get horrible monster babies? Joke’s on you, holler people. I got an IUD in there. Let’s see your monolith get past that!

“You okay?” she asked. “I am so far from okay that I cannot see okay from here. Other than that, I’m fine.”

We waited for five or ten minutes. Foxy adjusted her bathrobe like she was buckling on armor. In the reflected light, I could see that the robe did in fact have giant flowers on it, not squid. This was vaguely disappointing.

“Yeah, and you’d both get et,” said Foxy. “Last thing we need is you two running out and gettin’ in a dick-waving contest with a deer skeleton.” There was a brief silence while we all tried to recover from Foxy’s metaphor.

“So,” said Foxy. “How about this weather we’re having?” “Foxy…” “Don’t mind me, hon, I get sarcastic when I’m scared to the tits.”

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked after a few minutes of sitting on the grass with my back to the carving. “I know it’s stupid, but I felt—I felt like—” And then I blushed. Which was nuts. The entire situation was completely batshit loony, and here I was blushing because among the batshit loony things was a statue with a big honking dick on it.

Isn’t that interesting? I didn’t know whether to embrace that voice or try to smother it. It was like standing on a cliff and hearing the little voice that tells you to jump. For all I know, once you jump off, that voice says, Isn’t this fascinating? all the way down. Listen to the wind rushing by your ears. Isn’t that interesting? Look at how sharp the rocks are below you. Aren’t you intrigued?

I’d go to … to a mall or a Walmart or something. Surely unholy abominations wouldn’t follow me to Walmart.