a sample short story for your reading pleasure
"The Black Pond" -- by E.L. Setterby
inspired by John Bauer's beautiful painting, Princess Tuvstarr at the Deep Pool
rated PG-13 or so for mild language & some adult concepts
rated PG-13 or so for mild language & some adult concepts
I don’t know why it has to be in the freaking buff. That’s one of my main problems with witches: the constant nudity. I tried to cover myself with my hair—long hair is one of the benefits to being Appointed as a female—but it wasn’t working.
“Tuvstarr,” intoned my aunt, Dagny. “Tomorrow is your day of the Poj. It is the day you become a woman. Are you ready, child?”
I muttered the standard reply: “I’m ready, Wise Earth Mother,” blah blah blah. I shifted in the stone chair, my naked butt starting to go numb. I could have ignored that—I could have ignored all of it—if I were telling the truth to old Dagny. Most people, as far as I could tell, were happy about their poj.
Aunt Dagny raised the ceremonial knife. “Tuvstarr, tonight you must cleanse yourself, in preparation for your sacred journey.” I watched her warily as she advanced on me with the knife. Another one of my aunts, Agneta, stepped out of the circle of women, swinging incense. Dagny picked up my right hand and pressed the knife into my palm. I flinched, but didn’t pull away, and when she set my right hand down, I held up my left obediently. It stung, but not that much. The knife was very sharp. When she was done, I put my hands on my knees and watched the blood seep into my golden hair.
Tonight, Dagny proclaimed, I would do no chores, because I was supposed to be thinking about the spirits, and I would wear no clothes, to symbolize my last night of childhood innocence.
I thought about the time Linnéa and I found her uncle’s stash of happy mushrooms and went skipping through a forest made suddenly of thigh bones. Innocence. Whatever.
After several more speeches from Dagny, while blood dripped into my hair and down my knees, the ceremony ended. The women circling my stone throne relaxed, and a few of the people watching from the comfort of their tents cheered half-heartedly. The real excitement came tomorrow, during my poj.
I slid off the throne and peered past the gaggle of women, looking for Linnéa, despite my better judgment.
“Here’s a bandage for your hands, dear.” My aunt Agneta bustled over, the beads around her neck clanking.
“Thanks,” I muttered, as Agneta bandaged my hands. I wanted to ask her where Linnéa was, but I knew I should let it go. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Well, you’re supposed to find somewhere nice and quiet to think about your future. But, between you and me, the spirits will be none the wiser if you decide to think about your future in bed.” Agneta tapped the side of her nose. “Go on, quick, before your mother spots you.”
I glanced at my mother where she stood talking to Dagny. With a grateful nod at Agneta, I slipped through the crowd. My family’s tent perched on the outskirts of the village clearing, next to a line of solemn pines and, beyond those, a black bog.
I hovered in the entrance to the tent, holding the flap to one side and gazing at the uneven square of moonlight on my little brother’s cheekbone. He was seven years old—seven years younger than I was—and fast asleep.
My little brother was Appointed male just last year. My parents were thrilled to have a future male in the family. They were not thrilled with me, but then again, I was the only one in the history of our village to be Appointed before the age of six, the traditional year for the witches to decide on the child’s sex. “Look at your lovely golden hair and your pretty blue eyes,” everyone always said. “We all knew you’d be a female, even when you were a baby! You’re so sensitive.”
Sensitive.
I realized I was crushing the tent flap in my bandaged palm, making the blood leak out onto the tent hide, and forced myself to open my hand. I would not be able to sleep tonight. I let the tent flap fall and stalked into the bog.
***
The witches say we are born genderless because of a curse cast upon us by our rivals, the havhäxa, the sea witches to the south. No one ever explained why they would have cursed us in such a stupid way. Why not blindness, or no feet or something? That’s why I always said we don’t need to be Appointed or to go through the poj. If we let ourselves grow up naturally, we would turn out perfectly normal.
No one believes me. I don’t seem very normal to them, I guess.
***
I picked my way through the bog until I came to the black pond—where I stopped, up to my knees in slime, and stared at the shore of the pond in surprise. I recognized that faint, silvery glow. All of us fjalla —mountain people—are slightly luminescent. Something about living in a goddamned bog half the year will do that to you. Or maybe it’s part of the curse.
I waded through the bog, blades of swamp grass stabbing me in the legs, until I stood directly behind the rocks and clumps of grass that formed the shore of our black pond.
“Linnéa.”
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “Hey, Star.”
I climbed onto the rocks and sat down next to her, pulling my hair over my shoulders in another vain attempt to hide my nakedness and the streaks of mud and blood on my pale skin. felt bad about catching her crying, but intensely curious. She couldn’t be crying about my poj....
Linnéa wiped her eyes on her arm, leaving a streak of mud on her cheek. Without thinking, I wiped the mud away with my thumb—and then my hand lingered there, brushing against her soft skin. Stop it, stop it! I gathered the willpower to drop my hand, but before I could, Linnéa grabbed my fingers.
Her silvery glow illuminated the tears in her pale green eyes, as well as her freckles, the smooth curve of her lips. I wanted to kiss her, so much I could forget how to breathe.
Linnéa dropped my hand and turned sharply away. “This is wrong. You’re a female.”
I sat back on my heels, dizzy and sick. “I don’t want....”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” she snapped. “The witches decided, so that’s how it is. We can’t keep fooling around.”
I hugged my knees to my chest and suddenly realized how cold and quiet the night was: no sounds or lights from the sleeping village, hardly any birds, just the insects and the occasional frog. I could see stars overhead, but even as I counted off the constellations I realized the stars made a terrible distraction. They reminded me only of lying next to Linnéa on this same shore, back before everything started to suck.
She didn’t think it was just fooling around. She couldn’t. We had shared too much.
“We could run away. I don’t know. Leave the bog, see the world.”
“Star...” She sounded exasperated. “Be serious. You can’t keep your child-body. You have to pojkor....”
“Or what, I turn into a big scary monster? How can people believe that crap? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s not crap. It’s the truth.”
“You don’t know that,” I insisted. “There’s no proof.”
Linnéa stood up, towering over me and casting her silvery light across the pond. “Why can’t you just accept it? Why do you have to fight everything all the time? I hate you sometimes—I really do!”
Tears seeped out of her eyes and she wiped them away angrily. Without another word, she stomped into the bog.
“Linn, don’t....” Don’t what? Don’t hurt me? Don’t leave me? Don’t make me turn into someone I’m not?
Linnéa paused. The bog swirled sluggishly around her knees. “I’m engaged, you know. My parents worked out the rest of the deal this afternoon.”
I didn’t need to ask who she was engaged to. Since her bloody and horrible poj last year, her parents had been talking to Henrik’s parents, working out the number of hides that Linnéa’s love was worth.
I felt like I was going to throw up. I blinked a few times and, even though I knew she didn’t want to hear it, I tried again. “You could break it off. You haven’t made the vows yet, it’s not really official. If we left the village, we could have a life together.”
“If we leave the village before you pojkor, you’ll turn into a freak,” Linnéa said, without looking at me. “If we don’t leave, then tomorrow you become a woman.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her again, about the curse and how stupid it was, but she turned to face me, her pretty lips pressed together.
“What you want,” she said, “is impossible. You need to suck it up. Pojkor tomorrow, and marry, I don’t know, Peder or someone. He likes you. You just have to do it, Star. Just like everyone else.”
I knew she thought that. Everyone did. My body shook regardless; the feeling of being about to throw up got worse. “I can’t. That’s not who I am.”
“Then you’re a freak already.”
Her eyes were dry now. This time it wasn’t an emotional I hate you. It was a statement of fact.
I had nothing to say. I stared at my feet and watched my glow—gold, of course, like my hair—try to shimmer out through the muddy streaks on my skin. I didn’t look up when I heard Linnéa splash into the distance. Instead, I stood on the shore, perfectly still except for my shivers, while all of the judgments people had made about me over my lifetime rolled through my thoughts. I came back to Linnéa’s over and over, but it didn’t get any better.
When my knees began to shake from my shivering, I sat down on the shore. Holding my hair out of the way with my hands, I leaned forward to stare into the dark water. My gold glow turned even the black pond into a clear mirror, showing me my blue eyes, my rosy cheeks, my delicate, genderless body.
What are you? I asked my reflection. Why is this harder for you than it is for other people?
I could pojkor tomorrow, marry Peder someday, and watch Linnéa marry that idiot, Henrik. I could refuse to pojkor tomorrow and be forced to do so at knifepoint by the witches, or be exiled, or both.
Or I could exile myself. Maybe turn into a monster, maybe not. Maybe it didn’t make much difference.
I couldn’t join the sea witches, but I could go north, where, legends had it, trolls roamed over frozen tundra; or I could go east. I had no idea what lay in that direction.
I frowned at my reflection and watched my mirror-image forehead crinkle. I realized at that moment that I had already made up my mind. I would go east.
***
As it turned out, I did meet a group of trolls in my travels. They were not very monstrous, but tall and gentle, with noses like mushroom caps. One of the troll children screamed when she saw me, though. Later she told me that trolls who didn’t obey their mothers turned into hideous, gangly-limbed creatures. Creatures that glowed.
“Now that doesn’t sound very likely, does it?” I said, smiling. She frowned thoughtfully at me, her thumb still in her mouth. I went on my way, whistling to myself.
“Tuvstarr,” intoned my aunt, Dagny. “Tomorrow is your day of the Poj. It is the day you become a woman. Are you ready, child?”
I muttered the standard reply: “I’m ready, Wise Earth Mother,” blah blah blah. I shifted in the stone chair, my naked butt starting to go numb. I could have ignored that—I could have ignored all of it—if I were telling the truth to old Dagny. Most people, as far as I could tell, were happy about their poj.
Aunt Dagny raised the ceremonial knife. “Tuvstarr, tonight you must cleanse yourself, in preparation for your sacred journey.” I watched her warily as she advanced on me with the knife. Another one of my aunts, Agneta, stepped out of the circle of women, swinging incense. Dagny picked up my right hand and pressed the knife into my palm. I flinched, but didn’t pull away, and when she set my right hand down, I held up my left obediently. It stung, but not that much. The knife was very sharp. When she was done, I put my hands on my knees and watched the blood seep into my golden hair.
Tonight, Dagny proclaimed, I would do no chores, because I was supposed to be thinking about the spirits, and I would wear no clothes, to symbolize my last night of childhood innocence.
I thought about the time Linnéa and I found her uncle’s stash of happy mushrooms and went skipping through a forest made suddenly of thigh bones. Innocence. Whatever.
After several more speeches from Dagny, while blood dripped into my hair and down my knees, the ceremony ended. The women circling my stone throne relaxed, and a few of the people watching from the comfort of their tents cheered half-heartedly. The real excitement came tomorrow, during my poj.
I slid off the throne and peered past the gaggle of women, looking for Linnéa, despite my better judgment.
“Here’s a bandage for your hands, dear.” My aunt Agneta bustled over, the beads around her neck clanking.
“Thanks,” I muttered, as Agneta bandaged my hands. I wanted to ask her where Linnéa was, but I knew I should let it go. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Well, you’re supposed to find somewhere nice and quiet to think about your future. But, between you and me, the spirits will be none the wiser if you decide to think about your future in bed.” Agneta tapped the side of her nose. “Go on, quick, before your mother spots you.”
I glanced at my mother where she stood talking to Dagny. With a grateful nod at Agneta, I slipped through the crowd. My family’s tent perched on the outskirts of the village clearing, next to a line of solemn pines and, beyond those, a black bog.
I hovered in the entrance to the tent, holding the flap to one side and gazing at the uneven square of moonlight on my little brother’s cheekbone. He was seven years old—seven years younger than I was—and fast asleep.
My little brother was Appointed male just last year. My parents were thrilled to have a future male in the family. They were not thrilled with me, but then again, I was the only one in the history of our village to be Appointed before the age of six, the traditional year for the witches to decide on the child’s sex. “Look at your lovely golden hair and your pretty blue eyes,” everyone always said. “We all knew you’d be a female, even when you were a baby! You’re so sensitive.”
Sensitive.
I realized I was crushing the tent flap in my bandaged palm, making the blood leak out onto the tent hide, and forced myself to open my hand. I would not be able to sleep tonight. I let the tent flap fall and stalked into the bog.
***
The witches say we are born genderless because of a curse cast upon us by our rivals, the havhäxa, the sea witches to the south. No one ever explained why they would have cursed us in such a stupid way. Why not blindness, or no feet or something? That’s why I always said we don’t need to be Appointed or to go through the poj. If we let ourselves grow up naturally, we would turn out perfectly normal.
No one believes me. I don’t seem very normal to them, I guess.
***
I picked my way through the bog until I came to the black pond—where I stopped, up to my knees in slime, and stared at the shore of the pond in surprise. I recognized that faint, silvery glow. All of us fjalla —mountain people—are slightly luminescent. Something about living in a goddamned bog half the year will do that to you. Or maybe it’s part of the curse.
I waded through the bog, blades of swamp grass stabbing me in the legs, until I stood directly behind the rocks and clumps of grass that formed the shore of our black pond.
“Linnéa.”
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “Hey, Star.”
I climbed onto the rocks and sat down next to her, pulling my hair over my shoulders in another vain attempt to hide my nakedness and the streaks of mud and blood on my pale skin. felt bad about catching her crying, but intensely curious. She couldn’t be crying about my poj....
Linnéa wiped her eyes on her arm, leaving a streak of mud on her cheek. Without thinking, I wiped the mud away with my thumb—and then my hand lingered there, brushing against her soft skin. Stop it, stop it! I gathered the willpower to drop my hand, but before I could, Linnéa grabbed my fingers.
Her silvery glow illuminated the tears in her pale green eyes, as well as her freckles, the smooth curve of her lips. I wanted to kiss her, so much I could forget how to breathe.
Linnéa dropped my hand and turned sharply away. “This is wrong. You’re a female.”
I sat back on my heels, dizzy and sick. “I don’t want....”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” she snapped. “The witches decided, so that’s how it is. We can’t keep fooling around.”
I hugged my knees to my chest and suddenly realized how cold and quiet the night was: no sounds or lights from the sleeping village, hardly any birds, just the insects and the occasional frog. I could see stars overhead, but even as I counted off the constellations I realized the stars made a terrible distraction. They reminded me only of lying next to Linnéa on this same shore, back before everything started to suck.
She didn’t think it was just fooling around. She couldn’t. We had shared too much.
“We could run away. I don’t know. Leave the bog, see the world.”
“Star...” She sounded exasperated. “Be serious. You can’t keep your child-body. You have to pojkor....”
“Or what, I turn into a big scary monster? How can people believe that crap? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s not crap. It’s the truth.”
“You don’t know that,” I insisted. “There’s no proof.”
Linnéa stood up, towering over me and casting her silvery light across the pond. “Why can’t you just accept it? Why do you have to fight everything all the time? I hate you sometimes—I really do!”
Tears seeped out of her eyes and she wiped them away angrily. Without another word, she stomped into the bog.
“Linn, don’t....” Don’t what? Don’t hurt me? Don’t leave me? Don’t make me turn into someone I’m not?
Linnéa paused. The bog swirled sluggishly around her knees. “I’m engaged, you know. My parents worked out the rest of the deal this afternoon.”
I didn’t need to ask who she was engaged to. Since her bloody and horrible poj last year, her parents had been talking to Henrik’s parents, working out the number of hides that Linnéa’s love was worth.
I felt like I was going to throw up. I blinked a few times and, even though I knew she didn’t want to hear it, I tried again. “You could break it off. You haven’t made the vows yet, it’s not really official. If we left the village, we could have a life together.”
“If we leave the village before you pojkor, you’ll turn into a freak,” Linnéa said, without looking at me. “If we don’t leave, then tomorrow you become a woman.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her again, about the curse and how stupid it was, but she turned to face me, her pretty lips pressed together.
“What you want,” she said, “is impossible. You need to suck it up. Pojkor tomorrow, and marry, I don’t know, Peder or someone. He likes you. You just have to do it, Star. Just like everyone else.”
I knew she thought that. Everyone did. My body shook regardless; the feeling of being about to throw up got worse. “I can’t. That’s not who I am.”
“Then you’re a freak already.”
Her eyes were dry now. This time it wasn’t an emotional I hate you. It was a statement of fact.
I had nothing to say. I stared at my feet and watched my glow—gold, of course, like my hair—try to shimmer out through the muddy streaks on my skin. I didn’t look up when I heard Linnéa splash into the distance. Instead, I stood on the shore, perfectly still except for my shivers, while all of the judgments people had made about me over my lifetime rolled through my thoughts. I came back to Linnéa’s over and over, but it didn’t get any better.
When my knees began to shake from my shivering, I sat down on the shore. Holding my hair out of the way with my hands, I leaned forward to stare into the dark water. My gold glow turned even the black pond into a clear mirror, showing me my blue eyes, my rosy cheeks, my delicate, genderless body.
What are you? I asked my reflection. Why is this harder for you than it is for other people?
I could pojkor tomorrow, marry Peder someday, and watch Linnéa marry that idiot, Henrik. I could refuse to pojkor tomorrow and be forced to do so at knifepoint by the witches, or be exiled, or both.
Or I could exile myself. Maybe turn into a monster, maybe not. Maybe it didn’t make much difference.
I couldn’t join the sea witches, but I could go north, where, legends had it, trolls roamed over frozen tundra; or I could go east. I had no idea what lay in that direction.
I frowned at my reflection and watched my mirror-image forehead crinkle. I realized at that moment that I had already made up my mind. I would go east.
***
As it turned out, I did meet a group of trolls in my travels. They were not very monstrous, but tall and gentle, with noses like mushroom caps. One of the troll children screamed when she saw me, though. Later she told me that trolls who didn’t obey their mothers turned into hideous, gangly-limbed creatures. Creatures that glowed.
“Now that doesn’t sound very likely, does it?” I said, smiling. She frowned thoughtfully at me, her thumb still in her mouth. I went on my way, whistling to myself.
(c) 2009 E.L. Setterby. No reproduction or redistribution allowed. But please do feel free to link to this page. :)