The Clearing, an Adult Fairy Tale by Jennifer Weigel
In response to the United States Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade and to consider the pending Haunted MTL Bodies womens’ anthology, here is another adult fairy tale…
Aileen was weary. The long journey through the dense forest had taken a toll. She leaned on a tree near the edge of the woods and rubbed her groin. She looked back at the path behind her. The breadcrumbs she had scattered had been eaten away by birds and small rodents. A few stray chipmunks remained, eyeing her from a distance. The narrow trail had filled in as she had moved along; vines, twigs and leaves consuming her footsteps and erasing them almost as soon as her feet had left the earth. No turning back now, Aileen turned to face the cottage.
The cottage loomed ominously in the small clearing before her. It was just a simple structure, and not nearly as terrifying as Aileen had pictured it. It seemed rather⊠cozy. The hag who lived within this isolated hovel hated outsiders and was distrustful of any who came near. Labeled a witch by the villagers, she kept to herself. She was outside gathering plants in a basket carried over her arm when Aileen spotted her. Their eyes met for a brief second. The old womanâs icy stare bore holes in time and space. Aileen gulped and sighed. She gently heaved herself up from her brief respite at the woodâs edge and approached cautiously, still clutching her heavy abdomen. This is why Iâm here she reminded herself.
âHello,â Aileen hailed.
As she trudged into the clearing, the old woman continued to stare at her, unmoving and unspeaking, like a wild animal startled from its reverie. Her white hair danced every which way around her and her throat flashed with every breath. Her eyes followed Aileenâs every shift in movement.
âI am Aileen,â she continued. âI came here to seek your help.â She held her empty hands aloft. âI mean you no harm.â
âI know why youâre here,â the crone interjected. âThis isnât the first time, nor will it be the last.â
Aileen quieted a moment before continuing. âI am very sick.â She chose her words carefully, rubbing her belly. âThe child that grows inside of me is making me ill. Something is dreadfully wrong. The Village Elders will do nothing.â
âThe Elders are why I am here,â the old woman spat, glaring at Aileen. âI used to live in the village like you. I was forced here when they ransacked my home and set fire to my house and garden. They destroyed everything I had.â
âI am dreadfully sorry,â Aileen said. She had known of the witchâs treason, of how she had gone directly against the Eldersâ orders to help others like herself. She knew of the banishment by the torchbearers and pitchfork wielders who had shown up on the womanâs doorstep, although it had happened when Aileen was far too young to remember. The Elders spoke of it often and had kept the defaced property as a warning to be heeded.
âWe⊠we still need you.â Aileenâs voice grew heavy with her words. âI need you.â
Aileen drew nearer. She was close enough now to see the tiredness in the old womanâs eyes, the pain that haunted her every movement. They studied one another for a long while. The woods, the clearing, and the cottage lay in quietude as if sleeping all around them. They were both enveloped in silence.
The old woman was robust and hardy. She had endured much and it was written in every fold of her skin; every crease, every wrinkle bore signs of her past. Aileen was downtrodden, spent and weak. She could barely hold herself up. Her skin was pale and ghostly, her ashen complexion ill-fitted for a woman of her young age. She was with child, but her body bore the gift all wrong and off-kilter. She leaned to the side and gasped slightly as she drew each breath, her hand still clenched over her stomach region. The air only barely entered her lungs before trickling out again.
Finally, the old woman spoke. âYou are very sick,â she said.
Aileen spoke again. âI desperately need your help. I cannot bear this child. Doing so will kill me. The Elders do not understand – they say it is all part of Godâs Plan.â
The old woman spoke again. âI was young once, and carrying a child I did not consider my own, that was conceived not of my choosing. I ran away.â Her eyes softened. âI tried to resolve my situation on my own with some herbs I had acquired from a Medicine Man on the down low, way back before I knew what I was doing, and I almost died when I used them wrong.â The old woman studied Aileen and continued, âThere was a woman not unlike me now in the village at that time. Her name was Bella. She helped me to recover from all that had happened to me. I stayed with her and studied her craft, so that I might safely help others like myself. Like yourself.â
âThe Elders found our aid to be threatening. They claimed it went against Godâs Will. Bella disappeared mysteriously without a word. I stayed to upkeep our house and garden and to continue her practice, and because it was important that we remain steadfast in our service. That was the very same home I was later forced to flee in order to keep my life,â the witch went on.
âI am truly very sorry for your loss,â Aileen spoke pensively, realizing that all of this was much larger than her self, much larger than the stories she had been told. âI do not mean to endanger you. I come alone, seeking your help. Beyond the stories that the Elders tell, I have only heard of you through hushed whispers under the table where prying ears cannot linger. That is how I learned that you had come here. In all of my searching for answers and desperately trying to find someone who could assist me, no one would even utter your name. They just told me that I needed to see the Witch of the Wood. It became a sort of unspoken understanding among those of us who could bear children as my condition grew worse.â
Aileen was in armâs reach of the witch now, her gaze at her feet studying the soft ground between them.
âYou neednât know my name. My name is the babble on the brook, the cry of the lark, the dance of the wind through the willows,â the old woman whispered. She put her arm around Aileen, her grasp gentle but strong. The girl sobbed as the witch held her closer. âI can help you, but you will not be able to go back to the village. You are too far along and too many will notice the change. Others who have undergone such noticeable changes have been hung, or stoned, even burned at the stake. You will be in grave danger if you return, as will I for assisting you.â
Aileen looked up at her and nodded. The fear in her eyes gave way to a sense of solace, to an understanding that in order to save her own life she would have to leave everything she knew and all that she loved and held dear. It wasnât fair but it was necessary. The witch was right; she had seen what had become of others who had lost their babies early. She should have come sooner, but she had been so afraid, both of what was happening to her and of the unknown outcome. Perhaps there was another way.
âCan I stay then, with you? Like you did with Bella. To learn all that I can, so that I may one day help others like you have?â
The witch smiled. âIf it pleases you to do so, you may stay afterwards as long as you wish and learn what you can. Many have come and gone before, and have left for distant lands unknown to us to help those who have needed it. We are not alone.â
âI would appreciate that very much,â Aileen said, resigned to her fate. A smile crept across her face, offering hope. âThank you.â
The witch answered, âNo need to thank me. Not now and not later. I do this because I donât want any to have to suffer as I have, as too many of us have. I do this because these circumstances are more complicated and varied than the Elders will acknowledge.â She smiled back at Aileen. âI will gladly help you, as I have those before and those yet to come. You are welcome to join us in this⊠And you can call me Abuela.â
For another terrifying adult themed fairy tale, read The Fur Coat as posted on Haunted MTL back in the day. And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
What if ours weren’t the only reality? What if the past paths converged, if those moments that led to our current circumstances got tangled together with their alternates and we found ourselves caught up in the threads?
Marla returned home after the funeral and wake. She drew the key in the lock and opened the door slowly, the looming dread of coming back to an empty house finally sinking in. Everyone else had gone home with their loved ones. They had all said, “goodbye,” and moved along.
Her daughter Misty and son-in-law Joel had caught a flight to Springfield so he could be at work the next day for the big meeting. Her brother Darcy was on his way back to Montreal. Emmett and Ruth were at home next door, probably washing dishes from the big meal they had helped to provide afterward, seeing as their kitchen light was on. Marla remembered there being food but couldn’t recall what exactly as she hadn’t felt like eating. Sandwiches probably… she’d have to thank them later.
Marla had felt supported up until she turned the key in the lock after the services, but then the realization sank deep in her throat like acid reflux, hanging heavy on her heart – everyone else had other lives to return to except for her. She sighed and stepped through the threshold onto the outdated beige linoleum tile and the braided rag rug that stretched across it. She closed the door behind herself and sighed again. She wiped her shoes reflexively on the mat before just kicking them off to land in a haphazard heap in the entryway.
The still silence of the house enveloped her, its oppressive emptiness palpable – she could feel it on her skin, taste it on her tongue. It was bitter. She sighed and walked purposefully to the living room, the large rust-orange sofa waiting to greet her. She flopped into its empty embrace, dropping her purse at her side as she did so.
A familiar, husky voice greeted her from deeper within the large, empty house. “Where have you been?”
Marla looked up and glanced around. Her husband Frank was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a bowl. Marla gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her clutched appendage took on a life of its own, slowly relinquishing itself of her gaping jaw and extending a first finger to point at the specter.
“Frank?” she spoke hesitantly.
“Yeah,” the man replied, holding the now-dry bowl nestled in the faded blue-and-white-checkered kitchen towel in both hands. “Who else would you expect?”
“But you’re dead,” Marla spat, the words falling limply from her mouth of their own accord.
The 66-year old man looked around confusedly and turned to face Marla, his silver hair sparkling in the light from the kitchen, illuminated from behind like a halo. “What are you talking about? I’m just here washing up after lunch. You were gone so I made myself some soup. Where have you been?”
“No, I just got home from your funeral,” Marla spoke quietly. “You are dead. After the boating accident… You drowned. I went along to the hospital – they pronounced you dead on arrival.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said. “What boating accident?”
“The sailboat… You were going to take me out,” Marla coughed, her brown eyes glossed over with tears.
“We don’t own a sailboat,” Frank said bluntly. “Sure, I’d thought about it – it seems like a cool retirement hobby – but it’s just too expensive. We’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it.”
Marla glanced out the bay window towards the driveway where the small sailboat sat on its trailer, its orange hull reminiscent of the Florida citrus industry, and also of the life jacket Frank should have been wearing when he’d been pulled under. Marla cringed and turned back toward the kitchen. She sighed and spoke again, “But the boat’s out front. The guys at the marina helped to bring it back… after you… drowned.”
Frank had retreated to the kitchen to put away the bowl. Marla followed. She stood in the doorway and studied the man intently. He was unmistakably her husband, there was no denying it even despite her having just witnessed his waxen lifeless body in the coffin at the wake before the burial, though this Frank was a slight bit more overweight than she remembered.
“Well, that’s not possible. Because I’m still here,” Frank grumbled. He turned to face her, his blue eyes edged with worry. “There now, it was probably just a dream. You knew I wanted a boat and your anxiety just formulated the worst-case scenario…”
“See for yourself,” Marla said, her voice lilting with every syllable.
Frank strode into the living room and stared out the bay window. The driveway was vacant save for some bits of Spanish moss strewn over the concrete from the neighboring live oak tree. He turned towards his wife.
“But there’s no boat,” he sighed. “You must have had a bad dream. Did you fall asleep in the car in the garage again?” Concern was written all over his face, deepening every crease and wrinkle. “Is that where you were? The garage?”
Marla glanced again at the boat, plain as day, and turned to face Frank. Her voice grew stubborn. “It’s right here. How can you miss it?” she said, pointing at the orange behemoth.
“Honey, there’s nothing there,” Frank exclaimed, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Marla huffed and strode to the entryway, gathering her shoes from where they waited in their haphazard heap alongside the braided rag run on the worn linoleum floor. She marched out the door as Frank took vigil in its open frame, still staring at her. She stomped out to the boat and slapped her hand on the fiberglass surface with a resounding smack. The boat was warm to the touch, having baked in the Florida sun. She turned back towards the front door.
“See!” she bellowed.
The door stood open, empty. No one was there, watching. Marla sighed again and walked back inside. The vacant house once again enveloped her in its oppressive emptiness. Frank was nowhere to be found.
So I guess it’s goodbye for now. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrickâs Days⊠though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I donât know how you managed to find me after all this time. We havenât been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, youâve managed to find me every St. Patrickâs Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. Itâs a little disconcerting, like Iâm starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hutâŠ
Anyway as Iâd mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And Iâd already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrickâs Day. Hell, heâd already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Montyâs crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didnât want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew theyâd want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livinâ the dream.  We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick âem. Itâs like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least itâs not high maintenance women who wonât toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldnât know, Iâve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isnât all that itâs cracked up to be, and it doesnât work like in the movies. I wasnât bitten, and I generally donât bite unless provoked. He says technically Iâm a wolfwere, to which I just reply âWhere?â and smile. Whatever. Itâs the little things I guess. I just wish everything didnât come out as a bark most of the time, though Montyâs gotten pretty good at interpretingâŠÂ As long as he doesnât get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livinâ the dream. There arenât all that many rabbits out here but itâs quiet and the locals donât seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like heâs gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantryâs stocked itâs no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that alreadyâŠ
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.