Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Page 36
“You must have very good eyesight,” I told her. I was impressed. She gave me back the coin.
“Not as good as it once was, but then, when you get to be my age, your eyesight won’t be as sharp as it once was, neither.” And she let out a guffaw as if she had said something very funny.
“How old is that?”
Lettie looked at me, and I was worried that I’d said something rude. Sometimes adults didn’t like to be asked their ages, and sometimes they did. In my experience, old people did. They were proud of their ages. Mrs. Wollery was seventy-seven, and Mr. Wollery was eighty-nine, and they liked telling us how old they were.
Old Mrs. Hempstock went over to a cupboard, and took out several colorful vases. “Old enough,” she said. “I remember when the moon was made.”
“Hasn’t there always been a moon?”
“Bless you. Not in the slightest. I remember the day the moon came. We looked up in the sky—it was all dirty brown and sooty gray here then, not green and blue . . .” She half-filled each of the vases at the sink. Then she took a pair of blackened kitchen scissors, and snipped off the bottom half-inch of stem from each of the daffodils.
I said, “Are you sure it’s not that man’s ghost doing this? Are you sure we aren’t being haunted?”
They both laughed then, the girl and the old woman, and I felt stupid. I said, “Sorry.”
“Ghosts can’t make things,” said Lettie. “They aren’t even good at moving things.”
Old Mrs. Hempstock said, “Go and get your mother. She’s doing laundry.” Then, to me, “You shall help me with the daffs.”
I helped her put the flowers into the vases, and she asked my opinion on where to put the vases in the kitchen. We placed the vases where I suggested, and I felt wonderfully important.
The daffodils sat like patches of sunlight, making that dark wooden kitchen even more cheerful. The floor was made of red and gray flagstones. The walls were whitewashed.
The old woman gave me a lump of honeycomb, from the Hemp-stocks’ own beehive, on a chipped saucer, and poured a little cream over it from a jug. I ate it with a spoon, chewing the wax like gum, letting the honey flow into my mouth, sweet and sticky with an aftertaste of wildflowers.
I was scraping the last of the cream and honey from the saucer when Lettie and her mother came into the kitchen. Mrs. Hempstock still had big Wellington boots on, and she strode in as if she were in an enormous hurry. “Mother!” she said. “Giving the boy honey. You’ll rot his teeth.”
Old Mrs. Hempstock shrugged. “I’ll have a word with the wigglers in his mouth,” she said. “Get them to leave his teeth alone.”
“You can’t just boss bacteria around like that,” said the younger Mrs. Hempstock. “They don’t like it.”
“Stuff and silliness,” said the old lady. “You leave wigglers alone and they’ll be carrying on like anything. Show them who’s boss and they can’t do enough for you. You’ve tasted my cheese.” She turned to me. “I’ve won medals for my cheese. Medals. Back in the old king’s day there were those who’d ride for a week to buy a round of my cheese. They said that the king himself had it with his bread and his boys, Prince Dickon and Prince Geoffrey and even little Prince John, they swore it was the finest cheese they had ever tasted—”
“Gran,” said Lettie, and the old lady stopped, mid-flow.
Lettie’s mother said, “You’ll be needing a hazel wand. And,” she added, somewhat doubtfully, “I suppose you could take the lad. It’s his coin, and it’ll be easier to carry if he’s with you. Something she made.”
“She?” said Lettie.
She was holding her horn-handled penknife, with the blade closed.
“Tastes like a she,” said Lettie’s mother. “I might be wrong, mind.”
“Don’t take the boy,” said Old Mrs. Hempstock. “Asking for trouble, that is.”
I was disappointed.
“We’ll be fine,” said Lettie. “I’ll take care of him. Him and me. It’ll be an adventure. And he’ll be company. Please, Gran?”
I looked up at Old Mrs. Hempstock with hope on my face, and waited.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, if it all goes wobbly,” said Old Mrs. Hempstock.
“Thank you, Gran. I won’t. And I’ll be careful.”
Old Mrs. Hempstock sniffed. “Now, don’t do anything stupid. Approach it with care. Bind it, close its ways, send it back to sleep.”
“I know,” said Lettie. “I know all that. Honestly. We’ll be fine.”
That’s what she said. But we weren’t.
Click here to buy The Ocean at the End of the Lane
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NEIL GAIMAN is the critically acclaimed and award winning creator of the Sandman series of graphic novels, author of the novels Anansi Boys, American Gods, Coraline, Stardust, and Neverwhere, the short-fiction collection Smoke and Mirrors, and the bestselling children's books The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish and The Wolves in the Walls (both illustrated by Dave McKean). Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.
www.neilgaiman.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ALSO BY NEIL GAIMAN
For Adults
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains (illustrated by Ed Campbell)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Stories (edited with Al Sarrantonio)
Fragile Things
Anansi Boys
American Gods
Stardust
Smoke and Mirrors
Neverwhere
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
For All Ages
The Graveyard Book (illustrated by Dave McKean)
M Is for Magic
Coraline (illustrated by Dave McKean)
Odd and the Frost Giants (illustrated by Brett Helquist)
Crazy Hair (illustrated by Dave McKean)
Blueberry Girl (illustrated by Charles Vess)
The Dangerous Alphabet (illustrated by Chris Grimly)
The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (illustrated by Dave McKean)
The Wolves in the Walls (illustrated by Dave McKean)
CREDITS
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover images: butterfly by Jan Cobb; eggshell © by Paul
Lindamarie Ambrose/Getty Images; snowflake by Floyd Dean/Getty Images;
COPYRIGHT
Cover illustration © by Houston Trueblood
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Ocean at the End of the Lane copyright © 2013 by Neil Gaiman
Some of the pieces appearing in this collection were first published elsewhere; permissions and copyright information as follows:
“Introduction” © 2006 by Neil Gaiman.
“A Study in Emerald” © 2003 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Shadows Over Baker Street.
“The Fairy Reel” © 2004 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Faery Reel.
“October in the Chair” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Conjunctions no. 39.
“The Hidden Chamber” © 2005 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Outsiders.
“Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” © 2004 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Gothic!
“The Flints of Memory Lane” © 1997 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Dancing with the Dark.
“Closing Time” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Issue 10.
“Going Wodwo” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Green Man.
“Bitter Grounds” © 2003 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Mojo: Conjure Stories.
“Other People” © 2001 by Nei
l Gaiman. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 101, nos. 4 and 5.
“Keepsakes and Treasures” © 1999 by Neil Gaiman. First published in 999.
“Good Boys Deserve Favors” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s Fan Magazine 1, no. 5.
“The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated #3.
“Strange Little Girls” © 2001 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tori Amos’s Strange Little Girls tour book.
“Harlequin Valentine” © 1999 by Neil Gaiman. First published in the World Horror Convention Book, 1999.
“Locks” © 1999 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Silver Birch, Blood Moon.
“The Problem of Susan” © 2004 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Flights.
“Instructions” © 2000 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Wolf at the Door.
“How Do You Think It Feels?” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in In the Shadow of the Gargoyle.
“My Life” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Sock Monkeys: 200 out of 1,863.
“Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Art of the Vampire.
“Feeders and Eaters” © 1990 by Neil Gaiman. First published as a comic book in Revolver Horror Special. First published in this form in Keep Out the Night (2002).
“Diseasemaker’s Croup” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases.
“In the End” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Strange Kaddish.
“Goliath” by Neil Gaiman. Copyright © 1999 by Warner Bros. Studios, a division of Time Warner. First published online at www.whatisthematrix.com. Based on concepts by Larry and Andy Wachowski. Inspired by the motion picture The Matrix, written by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski.
“Pages Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky” © 2002 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tori Amos’s Scarlet’s Walk tour book.
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” © 2006. First publication.
“The Day the Saucers Came” © 2006. First published in the eZine SpiderWords 1, no. 2 (www.spiderwords.com).
“Sunbird” © 2005 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren’t as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cell-phones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn’t Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.
“Inventing Aladdin” © by Neil Gaiman. First published in Swan Sister.
“The Monarch of the Glen” © 2004 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Legends II.
Frontispiece illustration: A panel from the comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland” by Winsor McCay, the New York Herald, September 29, 1907.
FRAGILE THINGS. Copyright © 2006 by Neil Gaiman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition © OCTOBER 2006 ISBN 9780061804168
Version 11212012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gaiman, Neil.
Fragile things : short fictions and wonders / Neil Gaiman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-051522-5
ISBN-10: 0-06-051522-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com