The Ribbon Girl

They called her the ribbon girl.

Though she rarely walked through the cobbled, gray streets of her small town, the villagers spoke often of her. They spread unkind and foolish rumors of the once unnoticed inhabitant of their hamlet. They whispered words of deceit and watched carefully whenever the young girl came into their view, searching for a crack or a flaw.

Because of the black hood that covered her head and spilled red and white ribbons from its depths, they murmured that she perhaps had no hair and wore a ridiculous wig made of string. Considering they never saw her face, they simply assumed she was hiding the fact that she was ugly, old, or, (though the villagers were too afraid to say so) a leper. 

They called her a witch.

They called her simple.

They called her everything except for what she really was.

And what she was, was a girl.

A sad, lonely young girl, maybe at the age of 13. A girl with no mother, father, sisters, or brothers. In fact, she had no family to speak of except for a tiny, mewling, yellow kitten that sat by the door of the girl’s hut, day and night, like a watchdog, hissing at whoever came too close for the little cat’s liking.

Decked with intricately braided ribbons of all colors and shades, the walls of her humble abode were thin and feeble. They let in the whispering wind, who the girl found to be a companion of thoughtful mind and gentle words. But entering with it was its forever counterpart, the harsh cold of winter, spring, and fall. It hissed at the crackling fire but lurked in the corners of the shack, shadowing the girl’s day as her numb fingers braided and unbraided the ribbons that formed her short life.

But those treasured months of May, June, July, and August were truly wonderful, as flowers grew from the cracks in the floor and the girl modeled her braids after the orchids and the daffodils. Precious cords of joyful yellow and humble violet cloaked the girl’s walls then, and they brought her joy. Silver and white strings with hints of the palest blue represented her dear friend the breeze. She curled those around her slender fingers on the mournful days when the wind traveled far away and did not visit her.

The fragilest of greens intertwined with the most boastful pink when the girl’s art and imagination was at its finest. The most anxious red combined with the saddest blue when the girl’s heart was heavy with worry or grief.

The braids stopped coming when the girl heard the spiteful mocking of her neighbors.

She curled in her bed and let the zephyr comfort her. Dreams were kept away by the wall forming around the girl’s heart. A structure without cracks or flaws. The cracks and flaws the townspeople claimed she had.

Twisted vines curled over the child's walls and fastened the fissures. They sealed the crevices behind her eyes and let her cry no more.

Only then did she braid again. 

Gray and navy blue meant a hurt pride. Olive green and sapphire grew into an unspoken chorus of loss. 

The hues of gratefulness and jubilation were not seen again.

The little kitten left its post at the door and went to search for a villager to shame for the way they made its owner behave. 

Instead it encountered a traveler.

The frail man scooped the spitting creature in his bony arms and rubbed its head. The little feline’s hiss turned to a purr and its eyes glowed. 

All at once, it jumped from the man’s arms and ran for the girl's shanty. It scratched at the door and whined pitifully. The old gadabout scrambled behind with interest but also concern. The men and women of the town gathered and chattered in undertones as the man approached the home of the ribbon girl. The leper. The witch.

In her hut the girl’s fingers trembled as they braided the most alluring shades of sickly peridot and mournful periwinkle. The ribbons fell slack and her braiding turned clumsy. She covered her ears to keep away the malicious remarks. She hummed the tune that her mother once sang to her when she was only a child. When braids adorning her walls were made not by one pair of fragile hands but ones belonging also to a laughing woman.

One cautious step after another, the man followed the kitten to the wooden door.

He knocked.

Inside, the strange sound penetrated the tune in the girl’s head and she lifted it to listen, like a dog catching onto a scent. The noise was more beautiful than anything she had heard in a long time.

To any other individual, a knock on the door could be taken lightly or for granted. It meant a visitor. A person arriving at the door, and for any normal man or woman, this means nothing much.

But to the ribbon girl, a knock at the door meant an attempt at compassion. And, for her, compassion was as rare as a dandelion in the dead of winter.

But miracles happen.

That’s what her father had told her all those years ago. They don’t favor us much, those miracles, but they do enjoy helping, even if it seems like they don’t do it at the right time.

So she opened the door.

The first to enter was a bedraggled kitten, who darted across the room, jumped onto the bed, ricocheted off the wall and landed, panting, to the floor. 

The girl laughed. Another first.

The man was entranced by the braids on the wall and the string strewn on the ground. He neither saw the girl nor noticed the way she stared at him with curiosity, as if he were a novelty of great interest.

Though the man seemed to have no regard for the girl, she continued to ogle at him. And, as he reached out to touch the nearby braid, its color being the purest, most dejected glaucous, she reached out and took hold of his hand. 

Then he saw her.

Outside, the villagers jeered.

“Monster!” they cried.

“Witch!” they bellowed.

“Leper!” One hissed.

A strenuous silence. Then: “Hag!” “Bat!” “Freak!”

But to the girl, those words were painless and pointless. The townspeople wasted their breath shouting such insanities. Nothing mattered, because someone had knocked.

Knocked at her door.

They could call her disgusting, ugly, a witch or a hag. A leper was nothing, because she knew she wasn’t one. The other things, well, she decided, it wouldn’t matter if she was because someone had knocked.

The man took her hand and looked into her eyes. They were not the eyes of a witch, a hag, or a monster. They were the eyes of a girl. Gray and sorrowful, perhaps, but that didn’t matter.

She slipped her hood back, something she had never done before, never when another was watching.

She had no foolish ribbon wig. She had hair. Gold hair, ringletted and long, with a droopy black bow clumsily tied at the top.

No crooked nose of a hag. No face of a leper.

A girl. Simply a girl.

The traveler stayed in the town. The girl no longer obscured herself in the shadows or hid herself in the ribbons. The simplest, though perhaps unknowing, touch of kindness crumbled the wall around her heart. 

Peaceful lavenders. Contented ambers. Confident oranges.

Spring came to the village. Flowers sprung high in the cracks in the floors, for even when the traveler offered to fix it, the girl refused. They reminded her of the unkind words that the villagers once spoke, but that was alright.

We don’t have to forget, little one, her mother had once said. But we must always forgive. 

The girl didn’t want to forget. But she did forgive, even when the people of her hovel continued to lie and mock. 

Loving rose. 

Satisfied violet.

Forgiving red. 

(The moral is forgiveness, by the way. Is that too simple?)