The Green Man Page 19

  I could have made this man soup from your supplies because, once your campers get started, you don’t realize how heavy your packs are and how tired you’ll be, and how you’ll lose your appetite because of altitude. You hide things along the trail that you think to pick up on the way home. We watch from our watching spots, thinking: Ha, ha, you’ll search and search and wonder how you could have forgotten so soon and only a couple of days later. You even wrote where you hid it in your little book on flowers or the little one on birds or the little book where you write about this trip you’re taking right now, and you still can’t find that food.

  (Why do you leave your food so as to cut down on the weight and not your books? More often we find glasses and cameras than we find those little nature books or your notebooks.)

  By now this man will be wondering, where are those furry ones? You’re always getting us mixed up with them.

  I say, “I can take you where you want to go.”

  But he has to rest up a bit first so I can still sit here in my shade listening to the ravens. It’s the stone that doesn’t roll, that sits as I do, that gathers moss. That accounts for my greenish tinge.

  I say, “You can catch a glimpse of them.”

  Now look at this. Already he’s clumping around, snooping, peering but seeing nothing, standing right on our vegetables. Of course our gardens don’t look like gardens to you, they just look like the normal forest floor. (Our walls look like just more greenery or random piles of sticks. You walk right through them. This man already has done it several times.)

  But our rattlesnake is waiting there, in the garden.

  I should have listened when that man said his name. I hadn’t thought there’d be any need to call him.

  I say, “I’ll go with you and lead the way.”

  (I’ll go with him even though the gang thinks he’s theirs.)

  This year those young ones won’t wear hats. Even in the rain. (They chew your used-up gum. Smoke your cigarette butts. They want to try everything.)

  I do love that gang. I love the overgrown, the clumsy and wild and insecure and smelly. Or, on the other hand, I love the stunted, the dry, the half dead. This old man has eyes as gray as shadowy water.

  What attracted me right away were his stringy muscles, the hair on his arm, that wispy mustache, mostly white. What attracted me was how he laughed when he tried on our hats.

  There has to be a reason why he came. What if he’s tired of being one of you all the time and would rather be us?

  Helicopters come, flying low. They keep searching back and forth. They’re noisy. Even the noisy gang doesn’t like it. Even this man doesn’t like it. If he wanted to, he could show himself and get himself rescued. I couldn’t stop him.

  The gang goes out and cavorts around in plain sight. We’re as pale as the slatelike fragments of limestone we sit on. We wear cobwebs. They make us wispy and dim. We can disappear right before your eyes.

  Since the man isn’t showing himself, he might as well look out over those fuzzy others in their habitat.

  “In situ,” I say. “Just look over, don’t go down. You have to promise not to.”

  I give him a lesson for the journey as I’ve already done, and many times, to the gang. “Some mosses you can eat, and some pine needles. You can eat the roots of Solomon seal if you don’t mind a little—quite a bit, that is—of grit. You can eat ants. You can roll in dust as a sunscreen, or plaster on mud.”

  He’s taking more notes. (I do love the way all of you cling to your notes and your bird books.)

  When I was young I once showed myself right in the middle of the trail. I just stood there, all greenish and gray. It was to one of you about my own age, climbing up, geologist’s hammer hanging on his belt. I liked his looks though I couldn’t see much under his hat. Well, I liked his legs, strong and brown and covered with curly golden hairs.

  I stood in a spot where the sun streamed, one of those shiny golden streaks, down, just on me. I wanted to be his vision of a forest nymph of some sort, and that he’d never forget me, but he looked at me, staring so, that I got scared and skipped away, not as gracefully as I’d hoped. It turns out I’m the one has the memory forever. That man might have been this man right here.

  There was an episode in a cabin, I the succubus. It was dark but not completely. There was a moon, gibbous of course. I’m not sure who the man was but it might have been this one. (I caught a glimpse of legs with curly hair.) I was no more than a shadow in a shadow, but I was hoping there was a glistening around my edges.

  At first he didn’t want to but I don’t think he was frightened. He resisted. Just in case, I had feathers in my hairdo and a bag of wild strawberries. I whispered things. I sucked.

  Then after twisting about a bit, one position and another, I lay under, as a succubus should.

  Once he got started, I lost count of how many times. After all, he was a mountain climber and in perfect shape as all those who come here usually are. I felt he loved me. Too bad I hadn’t seen his face, neither then nor on the trail in the shadow of his hat.

  Misty or Dandy, I forget which, could be his own son.

  We begin the journey to the looking-over site.

  I flit and flutter, slither and slide. My old man used to say I was like a hummingbird or a butterfly. I wonder if this old man can see that? We always think of you as not noticing much.

  He takes my picture.

  He says, “I’ve always believed in you creatures. When I looked out the windows of my cabin, I saw shapes dancing. I locked my doors. Even so I saw, in the corners, shadows that seemed on top of shadows. Now and then I missed a package of frozen green beans.” (Maybe I took those beans.)

  Flit and flutter, skip and slide and so forth.… I wanted to be, “shrouded in mystery,” as you always say we are, but I was thinking too much about how I looked flitting. I’m the one who stumbles. I had not thought such a thing would ever happen. You’re usually the ones who fall. I scrape myself, top to bottom. I hurt my good leg. I tear my grays.

  That man picks me up. His arm, my leg.… We’ll have to help each other. At least it’s my forest.

  So, and with many hardships along the way, including the aforementioned, having climbed up and over from one valley to the next, having slept in a hollow with leaves over us, having chewed on wintergreen, having eaten whole meals of nothing but chanterelles, we arrive at the looking over point.

  I dress him in a stick hat and a few vines. He’ll look like that candelabra of mine (or perhaps it’s his), leaves all up and down him. He gets his camera ready and we enter the blind. I push a peephole for him and one for myself, and we look down on the fuzzy ones’ habitat.

  Cottages of stone and wood, gardens with little flags to label the vegetables, birdbaths, goldfish ponds, here and there a ceramic rabbit. There’s an iron deer.

  I say, “There’s a deer,” and,“Here they are, the furry ones. Don’t they look nice, all glittery in their golden coats?”

  Except they’re not there. He’ll think I made this all up.

  I say, “Their little ones are so cute.”

  He’s got his field glasses out now. He says, “Where? Where?”

  “You can’t see it from here, but their eyes are green.”

  Why am I saying all this, I’m the romantic notion. I’m the hope. I’m the story. He’s been writing me down every day. We’re the wish-you-existed-after-all people.

  I think he’s going to go on down even though he promised not to. I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep him from it.

  I say, “We’re as important to the forest as these fuzzy ones. If we weren’t here some other creature would have to take our place. Put that in your notebook.”

  But he’s going on down.

  Of course the gang has followed us. There’s not a place they don’t roam (or anybody they don’t follow), outskirts of towns, back yards, mountain tops.… Those young ones not only won’t wear hats. This year they expose their navels. They cut c
ute little three-inch holes in their shirts. Where did that idea come from? As if it has to come from anywhere. Those young ones think all sorts of things. But it could be worse.

  We try to keep them out of danger, but they don’t listen. I used to be that way myself. They’re at an age when they’re easily mortified. Just as I used to be, and they never apologize.

  However it’s when your little kids get lost in the woods that our young ones show their best side. First they take them by the hand and lead them to a place full of flowers. Then they feed them berries. After that they take them to where you can find them and they sit with them until you do. Or, if you don’t come, they bring them home to us.

  He says, “Well, where are they?”

  I say, “But it’s you, the mysterious ones and you don’t even realize it. Perhaps it’s even you, the ones important to the trees. You hug them and kiss them. You sit in the tops to protect them. Sit sometimes for months. What could be more like us than what you do?”

  But he’s crawled out of the blind. He’s standing up in plain sight, field glasses at his eyes, camera dangling.

  “Why don’t you sit and contemplate for a few minutes. Give them time to manifest themselves. There’s one now. Over to the right, halfway behind the rosebush.” (There isn’t.)

  I could have sneaked away and gone down there myself in one of our fur suits, but I forgot to bring one.

  I have my crossbow and a dozen darts. I told him the dangers are few, but one never knows. I said, “No harm in being ready.”

  We always aim for the lower leg.

  Then, there they are at last, the fuzzies! A dozen. Of course it’s our young ones. I can practically see who’s which by the way they cavort. Dandy, the thinnest and oldest, doing his usual leaps over hedges. They’re doing everything right, climbing fruit trees, digging in the marigolds.…

  Except my finger’s on the release already. There’ll be just a little swishing sound. I let go right where I aimed, into the big muscle of the lower leg. Those darts are small and sharp. At first he doesn’t know what happened and then he’s on the ground. Not so much because of pain. Yet. But because his leg gave way. He thinks it collapsed by itself.

  It’s too bad, but I don’t think he even had a chance to take one single picture of the furry ones. (Nobody would have believed the pictures anyway.)

  Does he realize I’m the one who shot him?

  I throw the bow into the brush. Best to pretend I don’t know he’s shot.

  There’s no blood. There never is.

  He’s examining his calf. He’s going to pull the dart out.

  “Don’t do that!… till I get my bandages ready.”

  He won’t be able to go much of anywhere, especially not in a hurry.

  Those young ones finally realize what’s happened. They come up to us, still wearing their fur suits. Dandy is the first to get up here. He’s more or less the leader. I suppose exposed belly buttons was his idea.

  Oh, for Heaven’s sake, they’ve even done that to their fur suits—cut little holes. They love to take chances.

  I say, “He got shot.”

  “We didn’t do that.” They all say it, practically in unison.

  “Well.… I suppose not.”

  It’s so easy to put the blame on them. They expect it, too. All I have to do is keep my mouth shut.

  “Make one of those little stick stools. Four of you to carry him and two can help me. Then, when we get to the edge, you know what to do.”

  And they do it. Showing their navels and all. And with clicks and clucks and lots of giggling. They don’t even realize, but when have young ones ever?

  There’s this longing in you. All of you. Even if you were sure we didn’t exist you’d still hope. We intend to live so as to fullfull your dreams and expectations—be of some worth to those of your ilk. Who would there be to sneak and follow? Come upon you suddenly. Who would live at the corners of your lives? Who would there be to be us if not us?

  You stop and listen. All of you do. Every snap and rustle has a meaning. You look. You turn around fast to see what’s behind you.

  You want to believe in us and we—I especially—want to be believed in. It’s always been my main goal.

  That man went over with his field glasses and camera and notes and birding book and tree book, even one leftover can of apricots.

  I wish I knew which cabin used to be his.

  I wish I knew his name. I should have listened when he said it.

  I wanted to keep him but of course that was never possible.

  Well, at least we didn’t break any of our own rules. At least I don’t have to know what happened. I mean, not exactly.

  Carol Emshwiller won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for her collection The Start of the End of It All. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and two New York State grants. Her short fiction has appeared in many literary and science fiction magazines. Her story “Yukon” was chosen for a Pushcart Prize and then was in the Best of the Pushcart Prize collection entitled Love Stories. Her most recent novel, The Mount, received the Philip K. Dick Award and was named Best of the Year by Locus, Book, and The Village Voice. “Creature,” a story from her collection Report to the Men’s Club and Other Stories, won the Nebula Award. Her other novels include Carmen Dog and Ledoyt.

  Carol Emshwiller teaches fiction writing at New York University’s School of Continuing Education. She grew up in Michigan and in France.

  Her Web site address is www.sfwa.org/members/emshwiller.

  Author’s Note:

  I’d like to dedicate this story to Molly Gloss. I wrote it after reading her novel Wild Life, though my story came out entirely different. Everything Molly Gloss writes turns me on. I think we have the same love of wild places and of people enduring hardships. I loved her Jump-Off Creek. I only found out about it when I was almost finished with my Ledoyt. After I found it, I read it three times and yet I didn’t read the last twenty or so pages for a long time because I didn’t want to ever be finished with it. The only other book I did that with was Jung’s autobiography. I wonder if I ever did finish that. I did finish Molly’s.

  Fee, Fie, Foe, Et Cetera

  Gregory Maguire

  Jack the lesser. As a name it had originally meant smaller, younger, quieter. But he had grown into his name, or rather, he had failed to grown in conformance with it. When his older brother, the first Jack, had begun his expeditions in social climbing, as you might call it, Jack the Lesser was still squatting among the lettuces, trying to marshal ladybugs to walk in single file, to strut, to polka. The ladybugs remained magnificently oblivious to Jack the Lesser’s improving lectures, and flew about the unweeded garden with their usual abandon. Perhaps they were conducting missionary work so secret that not even they could divine its final aims.

  Their mother had an ax to grind, figuratively as well as literally. In all of Kingland scarcely could be found a peasant less resigned to her station. Born three-score years earlier, she’d been nicknamed Filthy Tilda due to the state of her binding rags. As she’d grown though, with a drive unusual in a peasant, she’d mastered the vocabularies of the educated palate. So she could discourse about, and languish in need of, say, a saucily disposed Chateau Chillinger Haut ’47, meaning the vintage of that favorable year that had been derived from the vines planted upslope of the pearlstone streambed. But Filthy Tilda had to settle for swill, and swill it was. Potato peelings steeped in briny water, treated with a few raw carrion berries to make it potable.

  Jack the Lesser, arguably moronic, took little notice of his mother’s airs, deprivations, and grievances. He had a slack grasp of the monarchical system, and could not see in the mutterings of Filthy Tilda anything approaching conspiracy to overthrow the King. But when Jack the Greater—as he was called only in contrast to his younger brother—when Jack the Greater disappeared up the trunk of that mighty muscled column, the authorities suspected treason, opaque in its strategic cunning, and rounded up Filth
y Tilda and Jack the Lesser before daybreak.

  “Name.”

  “The name of what?” said Filthy Tilda.

  “Your name, mudwife, For the constabulary’s records.”

  “Donnatilda, of Damp Meadows.”

  “Filthy Tilda,” muttered the scribe as he wrote.

  “If you knew what I was called, you need hardly have asked. My given name is Donnatilda, anyway.”

  “Your son’s name?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  The scribe did so, sighing. “Name?”

  “This ladybug is Beryl, and this one is is Pockle,” said Jack the Lesser, “and this one is Clive Staples.”

  “Put those back in your pocket. I need your name.”

  “Oh, Jack. Jack the Lesser.”

  “Lesser than filthy? I doubt it.”

  “Lesser than more. I ain’t much. Don’t complain though.”

  “The less said, the better,” said Filthy Tilda sharply. “‘The Lesser’ is a pet name. Leave it be.”

  “And the rest of the family.”

  “Gone to the Great Beyond,” said Filthy Tilda, not as disingenuously as all that.

  The scribe said, “Any statements to make?”

  Filthy Tilda tilted her chin and pursed her lips. Her eyes were agate. “Any statements?” said the scribe to Jack the Lesser wearily. “Have to ask. It’s the job.”

  Jack spoke into his vest pocket. “Any statements?” and concluded, at the sound of silence, “They’re shocked speechless.”

  Emerging from the gloom when the scribe had closed his volume and trundled off, the Captain of the Guards said, “Do you know why you’re under arrest?”

  “Excessive charm?” said Filthy Tilda, venomously.