A Sliver of Glass
and Other Uncommon Tales
For Marcia Menter—
“Meet me at the old bell church …”
CONTENTS
1. Glass Heart
2. Hello, Darling
3. Sleeping Beau
4. Secrets
5. The Golden Touch
6. Call Me Sometime
7. Stuck
8. Thin
9. The Perfect Bed
10. Through the Mirror
11. Swan Sister
About the Author
1
GLASS HEART
Listen. This is a true story. When I was ten years old a mirror shattered and a sliver of glass flew in my eye. The doctors removed it, but a fragment remained, no bigger than a grain of sand.
At first I felt it as a point of cold that spread from my eye across my face, down my neck, and into my chest. For a while it seemed as though ice water flowed in my veins, and I couldn’t get warm no matter how many sweaters, blankets, or furs I piled on top of myself. My family laughed.… They didn’t understand how piercing a cold that little sliver created in me.
All day long I begged for warmth. The more layers that were piled on me, the more the icy shocks penetrated to the marrow of my bones, till I could hardly bear it and cried out to be cast whole into a fire.
But even if I had thrown myself on a pyre, the cold in me would have only burned more fiercely. The sun brought on chills, as did fires and stoves and the heat of another person. If my mother tried to hold me in her arms, I shivered uncontrollably and jerked away from her.
I cried at night, my hands and feet were so cold. My mother heated bricks in the fireplace and put them in my bed, but nothing could warm me; not the blankets and furs, not the hottest August day, not boiling tea—which seemed to turn to ice as soon as it touched my tongue.
Only when I put my hand into the icy current of the ocean did my shaking and trembling subside. There, like met like. I plunged into the frigid water and stayed until it turned dark and my brother pulled me ashore.
When the first frosts came, I no longer begged for blankets, furs, and fires. The coldness that had penetrated to my marrow, that had seeped into my hands, my blood, my bones, seemed to harden and solidify. Ice formed in my veins.… I could imagine myself skating up and down them like they were rivers frozen solid in the dark winter afternoons. I pricked my finger once and watched the blood drip slowly onto the floor, where it congealed in little frozen puddles.
“She has ice water in her veins,” my family said.
My eyes faded to pale blue and my hair turned white. My skin became cold and marblelike. I lost the sense of smell and touch and color, as though every texture had been bleached out of me. The sensation of cold permeated everything. My hearing—and my thoughts—were clear and sharpened. The shrill voices of insects rang in my ears. I heard footsteps crunching over snow from miles away.
I wore thin shirts in driving winds, went barefoot over frozen fields, and slept outside under boughs laden with heavy white snow. Boys and girls threw stones at me, but the ones that hit me never left a mark. I barely felt them. Nothing could touch me anymore.
Imagine yourself slowly freezing. First the eyes, then the hands, the blood, the muscles, and bone. The coldness, the color leaking out of eyes and heart.
That sliver of glass, which radiated intense cold like a sun, pierced my heart one day. Then I could hear and see even more clearly than before, and my mind became like a knife.
2
HELLO, DARLING
“Hello, darling, it’s me.”
I looked up from my book and saw a tall girl dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a ripped T-shirt. A big gray cap was pulled down over her face—all I could see was a firm chin and a bit of straight red hair.
She pulled out a chair. “Haven’t seen you in ages, have I? So, tell me, what’s new? Anything happening?”
“Not much,” I said, wondering who she was and where I had met her. At school? The mall? Baseball practice? Or had I seen her in this library last week?
“Well!” she exclaimed. “I wish I could say the same.”
Her friendly voice was irresistible. “You’ve been busy?”
“All day and all night. Not a moment’s rest. It’s work, work, work all the time. I can’t catch my breath, darling.”
I shut my book and sat up in my chair. “Isn’t there a law against that?”
“Well, there may be laws, but who pays any attention to them?”
She pushed back the gray cap. She had large blue eyes and a snub nose. Now that I could see her face clearly, she didn’t look any more familiar than before.
“Do you go to school?” I asked.
“Do I ever!”
“Whose class?”
“Miss Kink, Mr. Bonk, Mrs. Blink, Ms. Funk …”
“Kink, Bonk, Blink, and Funk? Never heard of them!”
She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. “You ought to be glad you haven’t. The worst teachers in the school. They pile on the work—and no excuses allowed. You have to do it every day—or else. And then, when I get home—more, more, more!”
“Oh no,” I said. “Shouldn’t you report that to the school guidance counselor?”
“Look at my hands!” She held them in front of my face. They were large, capable-looking hands marked with stars, triangles, half-moons. On her left thumb was a lizard drawn in green ink.
“What’s that?”
“My homework assignments for just one night! And I haven’t even shown you my feet!”
She kicked off her sneakers. Her big toe had a winged snake winding around it. Her other toes were marked with suns and heads of queens, which nodded slowly as I stared at them.
Little tongues of fire licked at her heels.
“This is why I’m up all night,” she announced. “Now do you understand, darling?”
“What kind of assignments are these?” I asked.
“Bonk says they’re elementary. Funk says they’re primary. Blink doesn’t say much—she just piles on the work. Kink is a kidder and cracks a joke when I tell her I haven’t slept for eighteen days.”
“No one can go without sleep for eighteen days!”
“It’s tough,” she agreed. “Especially when we’re not allowed to go home until we finish our assignment.”
“You’re not allowed to go home?”
“Rules, darling. You know them as well as I.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Well, you will. Everyone does, sooner or later.”
I cleared my throat. “You go to this school?”
“Of course, darling. You see me all the time—don’t you?”
“Well, actually … no.”
Her eyes lit up. “Perhaps I conjured you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ensorcelled you?”
I shook my head.
“Wished you? Dreamt you? Redeemed you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, then I must have found you,” she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. “There’s no other explanation possible.”
“I’m not lost,” I said.
“Have you ever been?” she asked.
“No!” I said.
“You’ve never been found?”
“You don’t just find people—unless you know them already. These things don’t happen here.”
She looked thoughtful. “They don’t, do they?”
“No.”
“Never ever?”
“Absolutely not.”
She pushed back a strand of lank red hair. Then suddenly she flung out her arms and began to dance.
“I’ve done it! I’ve done it!” she cried. “Hooray for me! Just wait till I tell Blink, Funk, Bonk, and Kink! No more homework! I’ve finally done it!”
“What have you done?” I asked.
“Why, I’ve created your world,” she answered.
I laughed loudly. “Created my world? That’s ridiculous.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. It’s done all the time.”
She closed her eyes. Another set of eyes were drawn on the lids, and the pupils moved from right to left, from left to right.
“Open your eyes!” I said.
She opened them. There were small spinning globes inside her eye sockets.
She blinked and they disappeared.
I stared at her, speechless.