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Proverbs 16:31 – Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

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When I Was Young, I Did Not Need Magic

by Kat Day

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I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear.

I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse on the kitchen table. Grab some jewellery – probably just lying around. Perhaps the Hummel figurines if you’ve any sort of an eye. My shopping bag, to put it all in. Leave the television – it’s too bulky, and who watches television these days anyway, hm?

It’s gone rather differently, hasn’t it? The best laid plans, and all that. Not that, I suspect, you planned very much.

Do you know what’s funny – for me, obviously, not you? If you’d tried this when I was younger, it would’ve been less risky. Oh, I was stronger then, yes. Legs that didn’t tire, sharp eyes, keen ears, muscles that obeyed my commands almost before I had to make them. There was a man in the house once, too. Mind you, he’d probably want me to let you go. He never did like a disagreement.

But he’s not here, and I am not him.

See, that’s the thing.

When I was young, I did not need magic.

Let me just get my tea, dear. It feels terribly impolite not to offer you one, but you can’t drink it, so…

Taste is where it began, you know. It faded. I’m not even sure that was age. Do people lose their taste as they get older? There was that virus, wasn’t there? They said that affected taste. Maybe I had that.

Anyway, goodness, listen to me rambling. It doesn’t matter what caused it, the point is that I couldn’t bear it. I’d always enjoyed food and drink. The sweetness of honey, the warmth of spices, umami from a good broth. Sour cherries. Oh, I loved it all. And when I found I couldn’t distinguish all those flavours I decided to… find a way to enhance it.

That was the first spell, you see.

This tea really is very good. It’s Assam. Malty, astringent. Absolutely delicious with a splash of milk.

Let me enjoy it for a moment, won’t you, my dear? Not that you have much choice in the matter, of course.

Where was I? Ah, yes. The trouble is, you see, the magic leaks.

Anyone around me feels the same effect. It wasn’t much, to begin with – most folk just thought they’d tasted something particularly intense – but as time went on, you know, I ramped it up a bit.

Thing is, if you have a youthful sense of taste – everything so fresh and intense, well, it can be a bit much. So people have told me.

I daresay the copper taste in your mouth is quite overpowering.

Nauseating, probably.

This really is good tea.

My husband, well, I call him that, he wasn’t, really. Albert, his name was. We never actually married. Just never got round to it. He wasn’t good at expressing his feelings. Men aren’t, always, are they? Anyway, like I say, he never did like a disagreement. Would do anything to avoid it, actually. So much so that one day he just got up and left. Can you believe that? Got up, opened the door, and walked away. Not so much as a word of goodbye. Not a sausage. Never spoke to me again.

Speaking of hearing. That was next. Very annoying, not being able to understand words, or pick out the notes of my favourite songs. Bass and treble increasingly hard to make out. Goodness me, does anything age you faster than having to ask people to repeat themselves all the time? Or fiddling with hearing aids?

I really couldn’t be doing with it. So, I thought, well, same principle. I’ll just turn everything up a bit.

It worked very well.

I’m told, though, that all the little sounds can become quite unpleasant, amplified. A dripping tap becomes a deluge. Breathing becomes a gale. And after a while a repetitive ticking sound really starts to penetrate.

I don’t really understand it how it works, you know. But I think it’s all about energy. Take a little from here, concentrate it there. Something like that. I’ve learned since that it helps to have someone to take from. Experiments. It’s a long time since I was at school but every day’s a school day, isn’t that what they say? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oh, there goes the cuckoo clock! Lovely, isn’t it?

Well, I think so.

I expect you’d put your hands over your ears, if you could.

Albert used to do that sometimes. If I shouted. I did have a bit of a temper. Do, if I’m honest. Did I mention that he just walked out one day? He promised he’d never do that, you know. Promised he’d always be there for me. And then he just left. Goodness, I was angry. I cursed and cursed him.

Was that the door? Did you hear that? Oh, of course you did. Let me see…

… just the postman, dear. And look, it’s just leaflets. No one sends letters anymore, do they? Were you hoping someone might come looking for you? You were, I can see it in your eyes. The first time in your life you’d actually be glad to see the police, I expect? I can assure you no one’s going to walk in here and save you.

Ah, yes, walking.

I realised I was getting slower. And I thought, well, I could speed myself up. But, the thing is, little tweaks to hearing and taste, that doesn’t take much. But this, well, I’m not sure it’s entirely logical, but magic isn’t, is it? That’s why it’s magic. Anyway, it was awfully tiring. Which was all a bit backwards, really.

So in the end I thought, fuck it – do excuse my language – I’m not going to exhaust myself speeding up for everyone else. Why should I?

The magic was affecting other people anyway. I mean, accidentally, at that point. Mostly. Side-effects, you might say. But still. Why not do it on purpose? It’s all the same, in the end.

So I just started slowing people down a bit.

I got really good at it, actually. Subtle. Because if it’s too much people start to notice. They start to ask questions, like, ‘is it stuffy in here?’ and ‘have you got a carbon monoxide detector?’ and ‘did you put something in this tea?’

So I worked out how to persuade people they wanted to go slower. That they were a little tired. Muscles a touch heavy. Perhaps, they’d think, they’d been overdoing it a bit. Then it’d just take a tiny nudge, and they’d decide it was nice to take things easy, actually. Smell the roses, sort of thing.

On the other hand, if I want I can bring them to a complete stop.

I left your diaphragm obviously, and your heart, and some other essentials. It’d be no fun, otherwise. Can’t have you leaving me.

Like he did.

And, you see, it turns out that all that wanting in you is quite useful. You want to scream. You want to put your hands over your ears. Move all those lovely big muscles in your legs and run out of the door as fast as you can. But. You. Can’t. Like an elastic band, all stretched, ready to fly across the room. Potential. I can feel it, and I can use it. It’s delightful. I feel so much stronger.

And you can’t even move your eyelids to blink.

I expect that stings a bit.

I do know what it’s like to have bad eyes.

Mine aren’t bad for my age, not really. But they’re not as good as they were, and I do appreciate nice, bright light. Like this one. They call it a “daylight bulb”. It’s all energy efficient these days, but apparently it’s like the old one hundred and fifty Watt bulbs. “What” would I know, haha! That’s a good pun, isn’t it? Watt/What? I know you’d laugh if you could.

Anyway, it’s bright. I do know that.

I’ll bet you’re just wishing for cataracts, eh?

And I imagine you’re wondering what I’m going to do.

See, the thing is, I reckon you’ve done this before. My good friend Margot, someone broke into her place last week, took her ruby engagement ring. She was terribly upset. So really, I’m doing everyone a favour, keeping you here. Out of action, you might say.

I could end it. I can do that, you know. Then I could just call the police and tell them you broke in and, oh my goodness, I have no idea what happened, they just collapsed, officer. The coppers’d put it down to a heart defect, or something. After all, what could an old lady possibly have done?

But, then they’d finish doing… whatever it is they do. And who would I have to talk to, then? No one.

Besides, all that… potential… is nice. My eyes are better, my hearing is sharper. No, I think I’ll keep you around. I don’t feel guilty. After all. I didn’t invite you in.

But.

I can’t leave you sitting in that armchair. Margot will be around for tea later and… she wouldn’t understand. No, I need to put you somewhere. Somewhere close. It works better that way. There’s a cupboard, there, under the stairs. You see? You’ll fit.

There you go. Stand up. Funny sensation, I imagine. Desperately wanting to move but, at the same time, not wanting to move. I expect you’ve got awful pins and needles too, my dear. Good job you can’t scream, eh?

Let me just open the door for you.

Oh, don’t mind him. That’s just Albert. Well, it was.

I tracked him down, eventually. It was lovely to have him back.

Will you look at that? My last bit of tea’s gone cold, and it is such good tea. And so much nicer with you around, my love. I’ll just make myself a fresh one.

Did I mention that Albert never was much of a listener?

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Yes, Mother

by H.B. Diaz

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The children were hungry.

As the shovel sparked against stone, a single flash in the velvet dark, Mary heard their cries. She saw them in her mind, wide eyes pleading and swollen from crying, and the weight of what she meant to do became easier to bear.

Blood crawled between her blistered fingers and down the wooden handle of the shovel. The bell that hung over her mother’s grave rang and rang, as it had from the post of the sickbed.

“Coming, Mother,” Mary answered, as always. She gathered the filthy hem of her dress and began again, each strike of the spade bringing her closer to what ought to have been the corpse of her lunatic mother.

The strychnine hadn’t worked.

Mary examined each detail of what she had done; how carefully she had measured, how cleverly she had masked the bitterness in Mother’s tea with a spoonful of sweet cream and honey. She performed this ritual for weeks on end, drop by drop, until eventually Death caught her mother’s scent. Instead of sending her across the Lethe however, he’d merely closed her eyes in slumber, like a maiden from a fairytale.

And so the bell tolled. Still her mother lived.

Neither the pouring rain nor the clatter of horses in the street could drown her mother’s words, sung through teeth clenched in madness, as the layers of earth between them thinned.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells…

Mary shut her eyes, resisting a mounting urge to flee. She thought of the anatomist on Burke Lane, of that day she’d passed his lecture hall and watched as he cut into the corpse of a young man, one hundred students looking on with her.

He would need another.

At long last, Mary’s shovel struck wood. The coffin lid was not so difficult to open as she had expected. It creaked on its hinges as the silt fell away, pebbles dropping onto the pillowed silk inside.

An expression of terrible sanity came over her mother’s gaunt features as Mary knelt down over her.

“You mean to kill me twice, child?” she whispered in a crow’s voice.

“Yes, Mother.”

Mary collected the soaked hem of her dress once more, and held it over her mother’s mouth and nose. Too weak to scream, the old woman simply shut her eyes and waited for Death to revisit her.

Rain fell into the coffin, pooling in the hollow of her mother’s throat and trickling along a streambed of wrinkles. Mary held her breath, waiting, waiting, until at last the bell fell silent.

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That night, when Mary returned home to her children with loaves of bread and lamb chops wrapped in paper, her pockets heavy with money to spare, Mother’s voice echoed still in her ears.

Mary, Mary…

“Children,” she called over the rhyme. “Set the table for supper.”

Tiny feet padded to the kitchen. With cries of delight, they answered.

“Yes, Mother!”

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How to Make Homemade Marshmallows with Grandmother

by Taylor Rae

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1. If you’re the cook, hide your relief. Grandmother hates ungrateful children. Stand obediently as she hobbles your feet together. Ignore the scarlet pain blooming in your half-healed, lacerated left ankle. Say, Thank you, kind Grandmother.

(Even though you’re thirty. Even though she’s not your grandmother.)

2. Gather your ingredients. Whisper, I’m sorry as you unlock the cage. Handcuff them. Bring to the kitchen.

Note: when they scream/fight/beg, forget all those nights holding each other, promising you would escape or die together.

3. Take the grinning handsaw from Grandmother. Keep your face expressionless when she says, The gelatin needs four pounds of bone.
4. Consider running. Listen to Grandmother’s sharpened knife thunk through cold butter, your nerves tingling, as if your very flesh is imagining Grandmother slicing it off, layer by layer.
5. Don’t cry. Goddammit, don’t cry.
6. Harvest the ingredients. Close your eyes, but never forget the screams, the copper-reek so strong you can taste it.
7. Scrub blood from the tile floor while Grandmother simmers the bones. When she says, I thought my sweet child deserved a treat, answer, Thank you, kind Grandmother, earnestly, instantly.
8. Sleep alone in the cage that once held five other captured, wounded hikers. Know the hobble Grandmother left on you is a promise: you’re next, sweet child.
9. Keep Grandmother happy, keep yourself alive. In the morning, cheerily scrape yellow-jeweled fat off the cooled gelatin. Wash the dishes as Grandmother mixes the gelatin with sugar syrup. When she hums a Sinatra tune—that’s life, I can’t deny it—sing until she joins in, her smile a death mask, her laughter chains on stone.
10. That night, in the cage, hold your fever-hot ankle. Remember the last clear image of life before: hiking off-trail, lost, the near-winter twilight stitching frost quilts in the shadows. Remember seeing the cabin beyond the pines just as you stepped into Grandmother’s hidden bear trap. Remember the silent forest carrying your scream. Remember Grandmother standing over you, smiling, saying, Are you lost, sweet child?
11. In the morning, when your opportunity comes, don’t hesitate. Hesitation is choosing to die here.
12. Cut the marshmallows while Grandmother rests in her rocking chair. Slip the knife under a yellow kitchen towel. Pray Grandmother doesn’t notice.
13. Obey when Grandmother says, Taste it. With your mouth full of pennies and bile, tell her it’s perfect. Now, be a good child and bring Grandmother a piece.
14. Show Grandmother your gratitude. Serve her a marshmallow, the yellow towel on your palm, the cold knife pressed to your fingers. When she leans forward, exposing her leathery neck, plunge the knife into the rigid tube of her esophagus. Quick, but not painless. Grandmother trained you well. She will howl and thrash, blood soaking your forearms. Hold her down. Hold no guilt.
15. Find your gear in a hall closet with Grandmother’s trophies: carnival-bright coats, cracked compasses, blood-stained trail maps. Get dressed. Limp out the door.
16. Run. Never look back.