LITMIR.BIZ

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cry.

      “What did you do?” the mother screamed with a sudden outburst—screaming and pointing a shaking finger at the girl’s riding hood, now a dirty crimson.

      “What did you do?”

      Later, after time had passed and the story became myth, the village children would dance in a circle and sing a rhyme.

      “Poor Blood Red Riding Hood has gone and turned insane,

       Poor Blood Red Riding Hood has lost something in her brain,

       Poor Blood Red Riding Hood, her grandma skinned and gone,

       Poor Blood Red Riding Hood, to the asylum.”

The Thread Bear

      From the moment the midwife pulled Eleanor into the world, the little brown bear had been there. When Eleanor arrived, the bear could not contain his excitement, so much so that as baby took her first breaths bear drew the first gasps of thought. They lived in a home, with a father and a mother, although the bear rarely paid attention to what or where; he belonged to Eleanor and that was all. Her first word was “burr”, her first steps encouraged by the bear being held temptingly out of reach. There was a day and there was every day, where the bear knew nothing but happiness. It radiated from Eleanor and the bear felt the warmth of all the love given to him.

      They would watch the grey and fog world from Eleanor’s window; carts and sacks were pulled across the cobbled streets with a clack, clack, and clack of hooves.

      Eleanor gave the bear the gift of a voice.

      “What are they?” gasped the bear from Eleanor’s mouth.

      “They are horses; we use them to go places.”

      “They are big; they will not hurt me, will they?”

      “Oh, silly bear, I would not let anything ever hurt you.” She poured the bear another cup of invisible tea and they watched the world some more.

      The kitchen was Eleanor’s favorite place to be. From the center table, little girl and brown bear watched the maids busily do their work. Eleanor was always given smiles, milk, jam and bread

      “He’s such a handsome bear, and you such a pretty young lady” Mrs. Brown the cook remarked between stirs.

      “Thank you “, said the bear in the little girl’s voice. Eleanor smiled and gulped milk.

      The bear worried; there was boiling and sharp chopping and fires sizzling. Enough to turn a bear into black leather tatter. Luckily before long the Mother arrived. She would make her way to the kitchen, calling and pretending to be cross

      “Is Eleanor being bothersome?” The Mother would ask,

      “Terrible”, replied Mrs. Brown

      Eleanor rolled her eyes and the mother couldn’t help but laugh covering the child in love.

      As life passed by, time moving through the house found itself trapped by the Old Grandfather. The bear had observed it now and again. The Grandfather had a wooden body as tall as the ceiling. A face blank and white except for twelve eyes and two spindly, pointed arms. The bear could only watch as the Grandfather devoured seconds, fed on minutes, gorged on hours, days, weeks, months and years. It took them all with a tick, tick, tick. Then Eleanor, taller than she had ever been, placed the bear on the high shelf next to the pot-doll sisters (Milly, Maisy) and the tatty giraffe. Eleanor gave him a little grin, straightened his faded red bow, and then left him there. The bear had been prepared for this—that Eleanor would no longer need him; however the bear was not prepared for how cruel this would be. The Grandfather went tick tick tick.

      On occasion Eleanor would pass by, of course—the shelf was above her bed—but they no longer took trips around the house for play and invisible tea. They never watched the world. Eleanor took her schooling; the bear remained trapped on the high shelf. The Grandfather went tick tick tick. How long had the bear been on the shelf? His brown fur speckled white with dust. Strange sounds filled his ears. Whispering, terrible whispering, speaking Eleanor’s name; it floated, sailing the air, fading when Eleanor was near. Had she heard it? Was there anything to hear? The bear presumed that a bear without a human was not bear at all and doomed to madness. No, not madness, there was more.

      Eleanor’s smile grew infrequent and faded. She carried a weight and she walked with an invisible heavy burden. There were echoes that travelled along the walls in the day, and nights were a wet cough and the source of Eleanor’s misery. Through the windows from the world of cobbles and fog came the shouts of “cholera” and worry. It was this that brought Eleanor back to the bear.

      She pulled the bear from his shelf prison and squeezed him into her so hard, the bear thought his sides sure to split. Tears soaked his fur, so happy Eleanor was to be with the bear—had she missed him as much as he had her?

      “Oh, bear,” Eleanor cried, “Mother has been taken from me. The cholera has sent her to heaven.”

      The bear did not know what heaven was or for whatever reason the mother had gone there. All the bear knew was Eleanor needed to hold him again and that was all.

      The bear watched from the window sill to the street below. There was his Eleanor surrounded by others but very much alone. She was garbed in black—it was as if his Eleanor were among a flock of ravens. She held onto the father. He did not seem to notice, only looking up as a wooden box was removed from the house and placed on a horse cart of flowers. There was a crack in the air and the sky wept; it poured down the window pane. The bear pushed his face to the cold window; however, something else caught the bear’s curiosity. Across the way on the rooftops, hidden behind the rain and perched directly above Eleanor, was an amiss, an ominous, a creature made of nothing but menace. It turned and caught the bear in its twisted gaze, and somewhere amongst what was almost a face there was a smile. The rain made it impossible to see more and then the procession moved on and Eleanor was lost to the bear, as was the creature.

      The absent mother was replaced by a melancholy. Eleanor moved as a half-child, pale skin and, within her once-happy face, sunken red eyes. The father was rarely to be seen, except when he came stumbling into the home with the stench of foul liquid about him. The bear watched Eleanor when she slept; she was fretful. She would whimper as nightmares plagued her. The bear had never felt so helpless. There had been several occasions where he heard noises coming from where there should be none, making Eleanor shudder and take refuge in her bed. Then there was Maisy, one of the pot-doll sisters—with a creeping screech the doll had turned her head to stare directly at the bear. The bear, knowing that he was the only one with life thread, could not understand how the doll managed to move. So he pushed her from the high shelf where she shattered on the wood below. Eleanor, who woke up with a start, for a moment was frightful at the noise of the shattering doll. But it was the bear she took from the shelf to hug. Maisy had lain in shatters ever since.

      Night and nights Eleanor slept with shallow breath; she murmured worried words. The bear felt it also; his fur stood on end at some tangible discomfort. Here it was: the miasma that had entered Eleanor’s fears. The bear could not see it, but was aware of the presence. It was a tingle of spine, a creak on the stair, a curtain that moved without breeze and danced like a ballerina ghost.

      The bear stood on the shelf. “I know you are there.”

      A voice like a scurrying of spiders. “I have come for the child—her sadness called me.”

      Eleanor stirred; the bear whispered, “Are you cholera? I will not let you have her.”

      The air thought thoughts, then suddenly the shadows lurched horribly, the bear was lifted and sent spinning across the room with a sickening growl. Eleanor sat upright; she screamed a silence, and the sound had been stolen.

      Morning brought the sun but no comfort. The bear sat where he had landed the night before, and waited and waited until the sunlight seeped high through the break in the window shutters. Eleanor

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