A Cup of Normal

  The bucket between them swirled, water lapping to the edge, but never quite lifting beyond. Thousands of fish now swam in the water, impossibly tiny, but perfect, souls.

  The children on the beach laughed and the waves slapped and turned, teasing, gently pushing, like a mother to a child.

  Sadie squeezed George’s bone-cold hand, tucked her legs, and pushed up onto her feet. She brushed sand off the back of her pants and walked three steps, her boots thucking at her knees. She stood next to Troy.

  She placed her hand on his shoulder. He was trembling.

  “I don’t know if you understand this, Troy,” she said.

  His eyes were red-rimmed, salt-sore, and his white t-shirt was damp with the spray off the waves that hung in the air even though the sun poured down. She watched as his face became pale, his lips the blue-white of a broken mussel shell.

  “Please.” He swallowed. “I just can’t watch her anymore. Please let me go.”

  Sadie held her arms out to him, to her almost-son who was taller than she, but came into her embrace like a lost child seeking shelter. Her arms surrounded him, and she heard George’s coat swish as he stood.

  George placed his long-fingered hand, the skin of it so thin Sadie could see the bones beneath, on top of Troy’s head.

  “Close your eyes, Sadie,” George said from over her shoulder.

  Sadie closed her eyes. “Be gentle with him, George.”

  “Sadie.” A soft reprimand. “You know better.”

  Sadie breathed in, and waited for the feeling, the hollowness within her heart that would tell her another child, another soul had been taken by death’s cool hands. It was all part of the dance, she knew, all part of the world living and dying. All part of their job.

  But this child, this man, had been their son, had learned how to laugh with them, how to accept his own fate. In a way, how to live.

  Perhaps they had taught him too well.

  George drew his fingers lightly through the close-crop of Troy’s hair. He was being gentle, Sadie knew he was, but Troy stiffened against her, his arms clamping at her waist like hard pincers. It was hard to die. And harder to have your death taken away.

  One more second, she thought to herself, and tried to convey to Troy. One more second and it will be done.

  “I love you, Troy,” she whispered.

  A beach ball thumped into her leg.

  Sadie jerked and dislodged George’s hand.

  Troy relaxed in her arms as a spark of life deep within him woke and bloomed.

  Sadie did not let go of him, even as his bones broke and folded against her, even as his muscles bled again from injuries he had long avoided.

  Troy whimpered, a dying puppy sound.

  “Okay, now, Troy,” she said. “I’m going to help you walk out to the ocean. The pain won’t be so bad there.”

  She helped him walk, he still backward in her arms.

  George, she knew, would not follow. The temptation to snatch away his soul, an impulse only avoided once, and by her interference, would soon come over him. For now, the bucket would satisfy his hunger. Soon that would not be enough.

  But Sadie had promised Troy a moment with his daughter.

  The water swirled cold around her boots. Out in the rolling stack of waves, she saw a sea-lion’s head poke up, then dip under again. Sunlight glinted emerald-sharp off the waves.

  Sadie stopped and kissed Troy on his bloody temple. “I love you. So much, that I will give you this.”

  Sadie stepped back, turned her back, walked up the beach to where George stood. His hand was clenched, the knuckles white around the bucket’s handle. His expression was cunning and hungry on a face she had seen hold great kindness.

  “He’s still standing, Sadie,” George said, low, and loving, but unable to hide the pleasure.

  Sadie stopped next to George, and put her right hand on the bucket, over his bony knuckles. She faced the living, the land, the Douglas fir, telephone lines and blank-windowed hotels that framed reflections of sky and cloud. She stared at the road, a black smooth stretch that led away from the beach, away from the ocean, away from herself. She understood why Troy had wanted to leave, to walk among the living, even if only once.

  She also understood why he could not.

  “I can’t watch, George. Just tell me if he smiles.”

  “She hasn’t seen him yet,” George said. Tight words. Hungry.

  “She will.”

  “Ah. Yes. Soon.”

  “Tell me,” Sadie whispered.

  “She’s running. Chasing her ball. She’s in the waves. Splashing. The ball is rolling away from her fingers. She is looking up, out.”

  “Yes,” she said in exhale.

  “He’s there for her, Sadie. She can see him.”

  “And?”

  “She’s running again.”

  Sadie nodded, and watched a flight of crows lift and caw, strangled and strident, into the sky. “She ran away?”

  “No, Sadie. She’s running to him. Watch him, Sadie. Watch our son.”

  Sadie kept her hand on the bucket handle and turned in toward George so that she stood half behind his right arm, and twisted to look at the ocean. She did not want to let George hold the bucket alone.

  Katie had indeed run out into the water. Her yellow ball bobbed farther out than she could reach, was almost as far gone as the sea lion had been.

  Troy stood — still stood — though every brush of the wind, every shift of the sand caused him to sway, to totter.

  He was bloody. Broken. One arm hung uselessly at his side. But his eyes burned with a determined light. He held his good arm out for her. She ran to him. Ran deeper into the surf, the water sucking at her short legs.

  Nothing in the world mattered but the man before her. Children her age often forget the world is a dangerous place.

  “Quickly, George,” Sadie said, though she knew she didn’t have to.

  At the moment Katie reached Troy’s side, when her fingers pressed and caught at his wet denim pants leg, when Troy looked down at her, Sadie said, “Good-bye.”

  George lifted his fingers, and the ocean pulled out, faster and farther, as if low tide had come too soon.

  Troy and Katie embraced on the damp sand, the clicking popping sound of tiny creatures beneath the sand louder than the wave pulling away.

  Troy smiled.

  George’s fingers dipped down.

  The wave powered in like a clap of thunder, crashing against black stones, faster than a shark, churning with the rotted green stink of kelp and sea grass, jelly fish, crab and stones.

  Troy teetered as the wave hit him on the back of the thighs, then he was down, broken arm flailing a loose circle behind his head, body swallowed in the surf.

  A yellow beach ball rode the wave merrily up to shore. But there was no child left to chase it.

  The wave licked up to where Sadie and George stood, foam fizzing atop the water that had gone brown and heavy with sand. As one, they lifted the bucket a bit higher, and watched the water run up the beach past them.

  When the wave withdrew, taking with it sandals, plastic shovels and a lawn chair, George cleared his throat.

  “Good day for fishing.”

  Sadie nodded, her gaze on the sky, the horizon, and the deep, cold sea. “They all are. For you.”

  She patted his arm to take the sting out of her words. “I think I want to walk awhile.”

  “Want me to take the bucket?” George asked.

  “No.” Sadie shifted her hold on the handle, and George slipped his fingers out from beneath hers. The bucket was even heavier than this morning, heavier than the world. Within it, tiny fish swam.

  “Then I’ll see you tonight, Sadie.”

  “At the stream’s edge,” Sadie agreed.

  She turned north, and trudged along the beach, the water from her fish bucket slopping at first, and then steady with the sway of her steps.

  Night feathered across the sky, damping the last
fire — orange and pink from the sun. Stars pricked like chips of broken agates thrown up to the heavens.

  Sadie stood on the edge of the little river, the warm, living sounds of cars and laughter, of people coming and going, reaching out from the small coastal town.

  The honey and hickory smell of barbeque chicken lingered in the rare, windless night, and beneath that, the charcoal snap of smokey bonfires.

  Someone was burning marshmallows and melting chocolate.

  George stepped beside her, looking as she did past the pools of light from the hotel lamps at the houses, the windows and living beyond.

  “Did you think it would last?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “He was a good son,” George said, “I think you did well for him, Sadie.”

  Sadie said nothing. A rowdy high school fighting song rose from a nearby bonfire and behind her, the ocean breathed in and out, lending a damp cool blanket to the night. She didn’t think she had done much good for anyone today.

  “Have you emptied the bucket?”

  The bucket. Sadie glanced at George. He was tall, and gray-haired, his smile warm and kind. The man she had loved, had always loved, from the day they both stepped hand-in-hand off the cliff to fall to the sands below.

  “I was waiting for you,” she said.

  George nodded. “It’s time to let them go, Sadie.”

  She bent and lifted the bucket, heavy, and so thick with the tiny flickering fish, that she knew if she waited any longer, they would have jumped out of the water themselves. It was hard, but she was used to this part of the job too, and wrestled the bucket over to the edge of the glassy stream without George’s help.

  She tipped the bucket on its side and the water whooshed into the river, filling with the wild, undulation of a hundred thousand fish, swimming to the embrace of the deep, cold sea. But two fish, one larger, one smaller, struggled against the stream, fighting upriver, to the land, to the living. They held their ground for a moment, and then were swept away, side-by-side to the sea.

  An editor was looking for an ogre and pixie story with the theme of “Fantasy Gone Wrong.” Having never written about an ogre or pixie, I immediately volunteered. This story is a light take on cultural expectations, rules, and how we define our happiness. Did I mention there are ogres and pixies in it?

  MOONLIGHTING

  Thimble Jack crept out of the broom closet and surveyed the tidy stone kitchen. Watery beams of moonlight flowed through the windows and pooled in the sink, giving Thimble plenty of light to work by. Pixies were creatures of the night, and did their best work when the sun had gone to the soft side of dreaming. He put his hands on his naked hips and strolled around the kitchen looking for dirt. Floors nicely swept, stove turned off for the night, and a small bowl of water left out for him. Everything perfectly in place, everything perfectly clean. Thimble frowned. The mistress of the house was a compulsive housekeeper. He hadn’t had any real work to do for months.

  Thimble stretched his dragonfly wings and flitted into the tidy living room, dining room and small den. All clean. Thimble scowled. He’d been replaced by vacuum cleaners, spray bottles and scrubbing bubbles! With nothing to clean and no one to punish for being lazy, he was doomed to a life of tedium, with nothing but a bowl of water for his trouble. He was going to go crazy as an ogre.

  Wait! The child slept upstairs in the nursery. Surely there would be a misplaced toy, an unstacked book. Thimble felt the heat of wicked hope warm his pixie bones. If he were lucky, he might even have time to tie the child’s hair in knots for not picking up her toys. Joy!

  Fast as snow melt beneath a unicorn hoof, Thimble danced up the stairs, his bare feet making the sound of distant bells.

  He didn’t bother looking in the parent’s bedroom — the woman didn’t even allow a wrinkle in a raisin. But the little girl’s room would be gold.

  He shoved at the door and walked into the nursery. A single open window at the far side of the room poured silver moonlight across the floor, bookcase, toy chest and bed.

  Thimble pulled at his ears in frustration. Nothing was out of place. Not good. Not good. He flitted to the girl’s bed, his wings clicking softly. Maybe she had smuggled a cookie under the covers, forgotten to brush her hair, wash her face — something naughty, anything at all.

  He landed on the freshly laundered linens and strode up to inspect her face.

  “Dolly!” she screeched.

  Thimble jumped and quick-footed it backward. He tripped over her pile of extra pillows.

  “Go to sleep,” he whispered. It had been decades since he’d been spotted by a human and even longer than that since any creature had spoken to him. He was getting slow, losing his edge. This too-clean house was dulling his pixie reflexes. He pushed up to his feet and gathered a fist full of magic, ready to send her sleeping if he had to.

  The little girl frowned and pulled her dolly out from beneath her covers. She looked at the doll, looked at him and held the doll out for him. “Dolly,” she said again.

  Thimble shuddered. It was one of those stiff, plastic, yellow-haired, painted-faced things. They gave him the creeps.

  “Yes, yes. Lovely. Go to sleep now.”

  “All gone.” The girl tugged the pink ruffled dress and shoes off the doll, wadded them up in her sweaty fist and shoved them at him. “You.”

  Clothes! The one thing pixies longed for above all others. But these weren’t the clothes he’d spent three hundred years dreaming about: a nice set of trousers, soft jacket and maybe a jaunty hat. This was a cheap, sparkly dress and strappy purple heels. He refused to take them. He would not wear them. He wouldn’t be caught dead looking like a fairy tarted up on a twenty year bender.

  But there were rules about clothes. Pixie rules. Rules Thimble could not break. One: take the clothes. Two: put them on. Three: dance and taunt. Four: leave the house forever.

  The girl made a grab for him, which he lithely side stepped. She stuck out her lower lip and glared. “You!” She dumped the clothes at his feet.

  By the wands, she was not going to back down. Maybe it was time to knock the little whelp out. Thimble drew back a palm full of magic.

  “Mommy, Mommy!” the girl yelled.

  Thimble heard a deep click as the light turned on in the parent’s bedroom. This would be bad — very bad. If he used his magic to put her to sleep, he wouldn’t have time to turn invisible before her parents arrived. But if he went invisible instead, he would be breaking rule number one: take the clothes.

  “Hush, now, hush,” Thimble said. “See? I have the dress.” He picked it up and reluctantly wiggled into it. The dress was a sleeveless number and had a stiff, scratchy skirt that itched his nether regions. The shoes were no better — they pinched and rubbed and made his ankles feel like they were made out of marbles. He took a couple steps and had to throw out his arms and wings to keep from falling flat.

  The little girl clapped her hands and smiled.

  Having clothes was horrible. But they were clothes, and they were his clothes. He laughed and pointed at the girl — as good a taunt as he could manage without falling off the high heels and breaking his neck.

  He hated these clothes! He loved these clothes! He wanted to hide under a hill so no one could see him! He wanted to dance with joy! The clash of emotions that filled him was staggering. But no matter what he wanted, the only thing he could do was follow rule number four: leave the house. Forever. No more cleaning. No more teasing. No more of anything that Thimble loved. He definitely hated these clothes.

  Thimble took to the air. The dress had an opening in the back that his wings fit through, which was good. He didn’t think he’d make it very far on heels alone.

  “Wait,” the little girl said.

  But Thimble could not wait. Just as the girl’s mother opened the door, he dove into moonlight and flew out the window. The little girl cried, but he did not look back.

  A knot of sorrow settled in Thimble’s chest as he flew
over the land. Being out of the house seemed as strange to him as going to work in the cottage had three hundred years ago. He felt uprooted, alone, and the dress was riding up his rear.

  He took a deep breath. He had made a new life for himself three hundred years ago, he could do so again. All he needed was a new house to clean. That thought brought a smile to his lips. Surely, not all humans were as fastidious as his last mistress. There had to be humans who still left acorns on their window sills and bowls of milk by the door, inviting pixies into the house. And he knew how to find out: check the pixie stick.

  Thimble flew to the magic lands of his childhood and straight into the forest where the pixie stick stood. He angled down and landed neatly next to the stick. The magic stick rang with a sweet constant bell tone, and a shaft of moonlight always found a way through the tree branches to illuminate the oldest pixie artifact. Here, every wish in the world could be heard, sorted, and distributed to the creature who could best grant them. Magical notes would cling to the stick until a pixie pulled it off. But there was not a single note on the stick. That couldn’t be right. Thimble put his hands behind his back and took a couple steps. His heels sunk in the moss. He lurched and fell.

  He hated shoes! He pulled the shoes off and rubbed at his blistered feet, trying to think of a rule that didn’t include shoes. Ah, yes. Shoes weren’t clothing, they were accessories. He was sure of it. And the rules did not state that pixies must accessorize their new clothes. Thimble threw both shoes into the surrounding brush, and grinned when the plastic hit mud.

  Now he could find that new house. He stood, brushed off his dress, and walked around the pixie stick again. Empty. Not a wish or a hope or a request visible. No wonder it was so quiet here. There were no wishes left. With nothing to clean, and no one to tease, he would be crazy as an ogre.

  Thimble scowled and kicked the stick. The stick rang like a gong and a single scrap of paper fluttered down and landed in front of Thimble’s feet.

  Thimble laughed. Thimble danced a quick jig, which wasn’t easy in a skirt. Thimble picked up the paper and read the address. He had a wish, a house, a home!