Please, Little Girl, Don't!

“Please, little girl, don’t!” rose a low gravelly voice from behind a woman who was restlessly digging through children’s dresses.

The mother’s long slender fingers wrapped around Harper’s arm. Fierce disapproval washed over her face and her teeth were gritted together having heard the fellow shopper warning them about her naughty behavior. With a cautious but firm grip, she tore her daughter free of the circular clothing rack and began her lecture.

“Harper, you’re almost ten. Your birthday is in two days. Act like it, please. You know better than to hide in clothing racks. You could poke your eye out or there could be broken metal or worse, someone could pull you out the other side and I would never see you again. Is that what you want?” The mother glanced around the store, trying to gauge how much of a scene they were causing. Harper, shamefaced, stood before the mighty woman and wiped dust-covered fingers at her cheeks, turning the start of her discomfort into sooty streaks. Her mother had given up trying to keep Harper’s face clean long ago, as any amount of water or rubbing only ever seemed to make it worse. In a huff, her mother returned to browsing the shopping racks leaving the child to self-soothe from the scolding.

Harper stood off to the side sniffling and still for a time while her mother continued to look around and tried her best to behave. Her mind began to wander and imagine the possibilities of the veritable urban jungle before her. She stepped backward and slipped back into the circular rack and deep into the dense jungle brush. The men and women bustling about the overcrowded store became monkeys swinging from the trees high above her head. The insolent employee who barely listened to the customer in front of them grew thick and stone-like while the native priest danced before it, jumping and hollering to appease the carved avatars.

She was now Harper, the greatest explorer in the world! Only she was able to enter and learn the secrets of the lost Colocca people. She shoved a dense group of green-leaf pattern Bahamas shirts aside to gain deeper access to the heart of the jungle. Consumed in her play, she didn’t notice as the sounds of her world drifted away. A sweater arm fell from the overhang above, the fabric fighting to wrap about her wrist. ‘Snake’ she thought but this snake grew thorns with tips of blood red. She slipped her hand free, somehow missing the thorns with ease.

“Oh no, quicksand! And it’s not just quick, it’s like lightning! One toe in that and you’re dead.” She explained to the imaginary cameramen in an excited tone. Measuring her jump, she flew over the large group of black tiles. Having made a death-defying leap and landed safely on the other side of the innocuous-looking ‘lightning’ sand she gave herself a loud cheer. She turned, expecting to see her mother’s scowl but it was not her mother she saw. There was nothing but trees with a dense canopy that could blot out the sun and underbrush so thick she could not move back through it. Her eyes went wide and brimmed with tears. “Mommy?” Her trembling voice called out over and over, returned only by the sound of hollering monkeys. Stricken with panic she attempted to sprint, but the undergrowth became gnarled and arduous. Vines ceaselessly snared at her hair or entangled her limbs with their deep crimson thorns biting into her flesh.

Parting the bracken, Harper thrust herself into a small glade edged with several thick rough-hewn stone pillars. The air was thick with the popping cedar pitch and roasting meat from the unattended campfire in the center of the clearing. Her stomach whined at the promise of hot food and her blanched cheeks flushed with color once more as she stepped cautiously closer into the circle of much-needed warmth. With a rush of sheer joy, she passed the ring of stones intending to ease her suffering at this random camp. As she crossed to the meat she froze with fear, for across the flames which she was sure had only been rock a moment before, sat a man as old as time itself. His wrinkles were deep like canyon crevasses on his beardless face.

“Fear not, child. What are you doing out here all alone?” He paused, but she didn’t talk or move. “You seem like a good child. I’m sure your mother or father wouldn’t mind if you talked to me. I just want to help you. Why, just look at you. You’re all cut up from the woods. If we don’t get you cleaned up, you will get infected. Won’t your mother and father be cross then?” His voice was soft like the breeze through the summer leaves. Harper could not deny he spoke the truth. When her mother found her, she would rightly be mad at how hurt she had gotten.

“Besides, I have some nice meat here. I would be willing to share some with you. When was the last time you ate?” He pulled the meat from the fire and yanked a piece off. She watched apprehensively as he put it into his mouth, chewed, and finally swallowed. Her tongue lashed across her dry lips. Her eyes studied his every movement as she watched him take a drink from the canteen. “Just water dear, no need to worry. What I provide will be shared.” He held it out for her. “But so shall you, too, provide.”

Unable to bear it anymore, Harper got close enough to take the canteen. The water spilled into her mouth; it was as refreshing as cold rain on a hot summer day. Soon she found herself sharing his meat and receiving care for her wounds, talking for hours on end about what had happened that brought her to this strange place. In fact, they were soon talking at length about everything. Her favorite part of the story was in the small details: the scent of her mother’s perfume, the excitement of feeling the height of a high swing, and the beauty of the shimmering wrapping paper she imagined her presents would have in a couple of days. The moon climbed higher in the sky and Harper yawned every few words.

“Child, take my sleeping bag. The night air does not bother these old bones. The fire is warm, and I prefer this seat.” He tossed a couple more logs on the fire and slumped against the stone pillar behind him. He lowered his hat and crossed his arms. He either slept with no worries or pretended to be fast asleep so that she could not argue the point with him. She was pleased to take it for it had been a very long day and the storytelling had left her deeply tired. That night she dreamt of the old man returning her to her mother. She could already hear her mother’s lecture, but she was going to be happy to have it.

Harper was unceremoniously removed from the sleeping bag by her hair. Neither her mother nor the kindly old man was anywhere to be seen. Before her with thick bouldered fingers snarled in her hair was a man that could only be described as troll-ish. The man who resembled a granite-carved monstrosity tossed her down at his feet. All around them were figures digging at the high stone walls and moving buckets and carts of materials. There was something about the people she could see, they looked wrong somehow. A man who looked to have the lower half of a goat rolled his cart up behind her. He pulled out a bucket from the loose stone which he carried to the mouth of a dark cave on the far end of the quarry.

“So shall you, too, provide.” the inhuman lithic creature mumbled over and over in his oddly high-pitched squeaky voice. “STAND!”

Harper was quick to follow the order despite the tears streaming down her face. His pudgy fingers overlapped her cheeks as his beady eyes bore down at her. A few moments of awkward silence passed between them.

“TO THE WALL!” The Troll barked at her. She stood frozen with fear, endless tears streaming down her dirt-covered face. As the Troll raised his thorny whip the half-goat man grabbed Harper’s hand and pulled her towards his empty cart. The Troll lowered his weapon, satisfied that she would be working as was told now.

“Shhh. There, there, child.” the goat-man spoke and loaded her into the cart. His steps to drag the cart up the quarry walls were skilled. “You can call me Liam. Things will be okay. You just have to pull the manna stones from the wall for the Master and the Overseer will leave you alone. What’s your name?”

“Harper….” she sniffled piteously.

“That’s a pretty name.” Liam pulled an iridescent crystal about the size of a grape from his vest pocket and held it out to her. “Here Harper, eat this. It will help with you.” Harper held the pretty stone in her hand and looked at the man questioningly. How was she supposed to eat a stone? She popped the item into her mouth and while it was a little tough the skin of the crystal shattered between her teeth and released a sweet flavor as she chewed. Liam took her to a place on the wall and left her with a bucket.

“But what am I supposed to do?” she whined, staring at the hard stone wall confused.

“Dig.” Liam parked his cart on the path and started lifting discarded stones from a woman who was working nearby. The woman chiseled into the stone with her bare hands and cut out pieces, breaking them apart to fish out the pretty gems. Harper attempted to do the same but only hurt her fingers, the stone the canyon walls were made of was far too hard.

The day passed in the blink of an eye, the only saving grace Harper had. She had done very little work and was anxious about being punished. As the sun set the people of the walls came together in the center to share the warmth of several campfires that had been lit. Trolls moved around the groups with a bucket, giving each a small handful of candied crystals. No one scolded Harper for her lack of work. She was just given less food than those around her. Liam took pity on the child and shared his rations with her while he listened to her tell stories about her life in the other world.

“Never forget these things, child. These are precious memories.” Liam stroked her hair as he lay beside her so that she could rest at ease.

With each passing day, mining became less painful for her. Soon she was filling her bucket with crystals. At some point, Liam had disappeared though she scarcely recalled him now. There was a new goat man who pulled the cart up to her and collected her discarded stones. It was then she learned that it was actually her job to bring the manna stones to the cave, which she had to do at least twice a day now. Each time she stepped into the cave she was reminded what it smelled like before it rained. The air was cool and damp in the dull light that penetrated the entrance. She stood still enjoying the feeling, her mind drifting to a babbling brook. She could almost hear the water burble as it tripped over stones while it rushed downstream.

“Come to me, child.” an echoing voice called to her from deep in the back of the cave beckoning her to it. Her feet moved on their own, but she did not fight the feeling of rolling, tumbling, and sliding pulled by the power of the ocean currents. She walked deep into the root-bound cavern to where the old man sat. Though he hardly seemed the same man, his body had become far more akin to that of an unmovable pillar supporting the back wall of the hollow. All around him were others, some goat-like but mostly people made partly of stone. They were lazing about eating the manna crystals while laughing.

She held out her bucket for the old man to take but he simply motioned her to sit. So, sit she did.

“Entertain us for a while. Tell us a story and I shall provide.” the pillar spoke. The people who lounged around him took turns telling their tales. Across from her, a goat man spoke, and it wasn’t until he was nearly done with his story that she recognized both him and the tale he told. Liam had stolen her stories and made them his own. And after the telling, he was rewarded with more manna crystals. Her stomach dropped and there was a wave of nausea that washed over her forcing her to swallow down the rise of a familiar burning sting as she stared at the man, she thought had been her friend. All this time while she had been driving her hands into the bedrock he had been here being lavished on with HER stories. Still, the tale she wove was enough to earn her a place among the storytellers and her days began to pass in a much more blissful fashion.

One day while entertaining the old man and his party with stories, she began a story of an explorer in a deep jungle. This tale filled her with a deep sense of longing. Soon she was thinking of a sweet perfume that smelled like nectar from heaven, orbs with a shiny iridescence that could dance on the wind, bits of paper covering beautiful boxes, tiny bits of crinkled string falling from the sky, and the laughter of many children. How she wanted these things so badly. She thought, too, of the old man’s words from the campfire which now seemed like they were from an ancient time. He offered her a crystal grape for her tale, and she took it with a smile. Promptly she placed it in her mouth until his eyes were upon the next storyteller. With haste, she removed it from her lips and buried it beneath her leg.

Each day she would tell her stories and would be rewarded with crystallized foods. Each day she pretended to partake but hid the food instead. Her hunger was enormous by the third day. She desired to indulge in the treats he gave her, but she did not. She was tired of this life. She wished for either her old life or for death. Anything was better than this endless existence.

The mood of the Master had grown increasingly sour as the days passed. When a story irked him terribly, he would throw the storyteller back out to the quarry to work for their keep once more. She stood before the old man alone. His fury was like that of a bubbling volcano and did not want to hear her tell tales.

“Speak not your tales to me, child! You have paid what you owed and have taken no more from me! I have no use for you! Leave my cave!”

She awoke with a start inside a circle of stones. The camp was gone as if it had never existed at all. Her movements were stiff and her memory hazy. Stumbling, she walked. The forest opened to her. Where was she to go? The sweet scent of perfume, like the nectar of heaven, that was where she wanted to be. With laughing children, pretty bits of paper-covered boxes, iridescent orbs playing on the wind, and bits of crinkling paper raining from above. Running swiftly through the fading jungle; the sights, the sounds, the smells, became crisper with each step. Never did she falter, even as the thorns again tried to grab at her but seemed to slide off her hardened body. Laughing and crying, tearing open papers, and clothing! CLOTHING! Several pairs of jeans hit her in the face. Tears ran down her cheek, she was so happy to see them. She pushed her way through into the outside world.

To her left was a mirror and she found she wasn’t who she thought she was anymore. Her body was rough and made of stone, much as the many people she had seen working the quarry walls in the dream had been only even less of her was flesh than they had been. She was much taller than she remembered, her face standing above the full-length mirror. Her hair was scragglier and filled with clumps of soil. A glimmer of light reflected off the mirror and caught her eye as the chime of the bell toned while someone entered the store. Turning to look around at the man who entered she saw someone familiar digging through clothing racks. Mother! There was no doubt, as she moved closer and smelled a hint of that perfume. The scent she had held in her mind for so long floated in the air before her. She wanted to reach out, to call the woman to her, and to hold her in her arms. She would do anything she wanted. But was Mother always so small?

She suddenly stopped. It was her. The younger and smaller version of herself. She was heading into a clothing rack! If only she could remember her name, but it wouldn’t come out. She had to act quickly; perhaps this could all be prevented. If she could avert this fate she had to try.

“Please, little girl, don’t!” The urgency in her plea was lost from her cold flinty voice.

“Harper, you’re almost ten.” She heard her mother scold.

“That’s right.” she thought to herself. “My name was Harper. Harper. I still am Harper… aren’t I?”