Fiction: In the Saw Briars, A Modern Fairly Tale

A cold story for a cold season…

In the Saw Briars, A Modern Fairly Tale

Now I’ve a story for you… if ugly Nurse S doesn’t stop me.

Once upon a time some years back, an old barn that once served as a black smith shop stood at the far edge of the city limits, in that part of town where the streets are rutted tar. A cruel patch of saw green briars had taken over one end of this barn and some of the vines where thick as thumbs with thorns like fangs.

The closest house was a doublewide trailer and it stood a block away from the barn, with tricycles in the yard that would never again see use.

On one particular rainy night like the mouth of a corpse – wet, cold and with teeth – an ugly young woman in a green dress pushed a stroller down the bumpy street. Preoccupied, she didn’t notice the pretty girl in a red jacket following her from the shadows.

We are going to call the woman in the green dress Miss Schlecht and she worked as a baby sitter. She had started babysitting in high school and still baby sat for money during her second year of college.

The girl in red, who back then went by the name Young Robin, didn’t like Miss Schlecht. You see, the woman had once been her baby sitter. The girl thought Miss Schlecht secretly met her boy friend and wanted to catch the two sinning. She got half of what she asked for and none of what she wanted, that is to say catching Miss Schlecht doing something wrong.

Miss Schlecht stopped with the old-style baby carriage in front of the saw briar patch, as close she could get without the hungry thorns catching her.

That briar patch spread out like a cruel, green tumor. The saw briars had strangled to death the peach, magnolia and persimmon trees that once grew around the barn. By then they stood around the barn like zombie trees, held up right by the hungry vines. The years had turned the boards of the barn gray and twisted its frame.

Miss Schlecht pulled a boy, dark haired and no more than 18-months old, from the stroller and the child called for his mother. Just as someone might toss away a bag of garbage, she tossed the boy into the saw briar patch. Crows watched the scene solemnly from the dead trees.

Now, like most young people, Young Robin was a grab bag of bad habits and could not tell the difference between a good and bad idea. One of her bad habits was impulsiveness. The same impulsiveness that told her to follow Miss Schlecht in the first place now told her to run into the thicket.

Miss Schlecht stood in the dark and wet night, in her green dress next to the saw green briars. Young Robin ran past surprised the college student, a brief flash of red in the poor light.

Young Robin tripped and bloodied her hands on the thorns as she forced her way into the thicket. Then she stood and lurched towards the screaming boy. Even as she stood, she looked back and noticed that Miss Schlecht had started after her. Miss Schlecht moved slower than Young Robin because the hungry thorns bit her dress, shirt and hands.

“You leave them be,” she shouted. “I tossed them babes into the saw briar patch ‘cause… that is where the goblin is.”

Young Robin paused for only a few heartbeats at the mention of “goblin,” wondering what Miss Schlecht meant. She knew the boy lay close to her at the entrance of the barn. Just inside the entrance lay old black smith tools. The vines seemed to reach at her and when she pulled against them, Young Robin fell back into the entrance of the barn. When she hit the ground, the back of her head struck an old iron set of tongs, white bursts appeared before her eyes and her scalp bled redder than her jacket.

The girl blinked and saw the strands of the saw briars sway against the low wind as something unseen moved through the tangle in the same manner than a man might walk through high grasses. Then something stepped from the shadows of the thicket into a patch of light. It looked like a tiny ugly man, less than a foot tall. The hairline of its scalp started at its eyebrows and it had bird claws for hands. Yellowed, crooked teeth filled its mouth and Young Robin saw them when it gave a smile that almost forced her to vomit. It wore only a cap of burlap, twisted, stiff as cardboard and the color of rust.

It looked from Young Robin to Miss Schlecht to the boy. Then it spoke in a voice like a murder of crows calling.

“Someone will be bled,

I’ll bet on that.

I’ll have that deep red,

To dip my hat.”

The girl picked up the tongs and shook them at the thing and it stepped away from her with a sharp cry.

Young Robin read a lot – more so than Miss Schlecht, for all the good it did her – and pealed her jacket off and quickly turned it inside out and put it back on. Miss Schlecht had stopped to watch the girl and the boy but seemed to be ignoring the ugly little man.

The woman came forwards and the girl swung the iron tongs at her, clipping the woman’s hand. With a cry, the woman fell back, dropping into the thicket. Young Robin turned to the boy, but the vines snared her and she also fell into the vines. Only she fell face first.

Thorns tore her face and cost her an eye, but she didn’t drop the tongs and kept moving towards the boy. The ugly little man looked around gleefully and Miss Schlecht struggled to stand. Young Robin stooped to pick up the boy.

Both the girl and the woman managed to stand at the same time and the ugly little man giggled.

Miss Schlecht reached out to snatch the boy from the girl. Young Robin struck the woman in the face with the iron tongs. Flesh tore, bones broke and the woman fell into the saw briars again.

Young Robin forced her way out, carrying the child close to her chest. She looked back only once. The last thing Young Robin saw was Miss Schlecht struggling under the ugly little man. It had taken off its cap to soak it in her blood. It put its cap back on and, having by then swollen to a size larger than that of a man, drug Miss Schlecht into the barn.

Young Robin took the boy to the authorities, following another impulse.

Miss Schlecht believed people could not just do whatever they wanted with their lives. When someone began doing something with their lives she didn’t like, Miss Schlecht distracted them from their bad behavior.

To put it another way, people moving up in the world offended her and their children were targets too tempting for her to resist. So, Miss Schlecht stole and murdered their children, but not until she had won their trust as a baby sitter. The children would simply vanish from the home of hard working parents who became damaged goods.

Miss Schlecht was not a clever woman but she had important people as friends – they were where they where and they didn’t like people creeping up on them. Miss Schlecht’s friends always admired people who solved problems for them, especially if they could avoid the bill for those services. These people wore shoes and suits that had a combined value usually more than the combined salary of the people whose children Miss Schlecht had taken.

The authorities returned the boy to his parents with pity and many stories that didn’t add up to a coherent whole. The grateful parents few questions, took the hint and moved away. Miss Schlecht’s friends also knew how to be grateful to people who did them a service.

Miss Schlecht surived. Her friends found her and gave her a job, as a nurse at a hospital where she can take care of confused people and the wrong kind of people.

You see, Miss Schlecht’s friends locked Young Robin away in a hospital where she may never leave her room. She looks out the single window with her single eye and wonders if anyone will help her.

And Nurse Schlecht hardly ever allows me a visitor.