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Dear Dairy, Chapter 7

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“How did you get free?” Georgia’s mother asked. Siobhan, dripping wet from walking through the rain, took a long time to answer because she had a mouthful of cheese she was trying to swallow.

“I got tired,” she explained. She took a bite of bread. “I couldn’t sit down because my hair was too short, so I kind of crouched down. My legs were mighty sore.” She took a sip of milk and looked at Mrs. Gibbs’s bosoms. “Did you make this?”

“Get to the point.”

“I crouched down to rest and I slipped. I thought I was going to tear my hair out but the branch snapped. It clunked me on the head something fierce. I cried almost an hour, but then I ran after Georgia.”

Mrs. Gibbs dug her nails into her armchair. Their length and color reminded Siobhan of the shiny black beetles she played with in the forest. “Where is she?”

“She’s in the town jail, just ten miles down the road.”

“I know where the jail is, child.”

“She said you can get her out. You’ve got to hurry before the dairy people come and get her.”

Mrs. Gibbs sighed and grabbed her staff. She walked upstairs and by the time Siobhan finished her bread and cheese, Mrs. Gibbs returned with a packed bag and a quilt. She wrapped the quilt around Siobhan. “Stay here.”

“But I want to go with you!”

“I said stay here,” she snapped. “I’m expecting callers and you need to take care of them.” She walked into the kitchen and reached for a high shelf. Mrs. Gibbs grabbed several pop bottles off the shelves. They were clean and empty, and Mrs. Gibbs filled them with powder from a cracker tin that she pulled out of the cabinet. She stopped up each bottle with a plug of wood, then wrapped them in rags. “Each one is the same. When someone comes to the door just tell them I’m out and give them the bottle.”


Siobhan threw off the quilt. “I want to see Georgia!”

“There are potatoes in the cellar,” Mrs. Gibbs replied. “Eat all you want until I get back.”

Siobhan blinked. “All I want?”

Mrs. Gibbs shut the door and hobbled through the still-falling rain. She moved so fast that Siobhan thought her staff was a third leg. She tore past the potato field filled with mud puddles and into the forest. She didn’t return that night, and when Siobhan woke in the morning she was still gone.

“I hope she got through the storm.”

She stayed next to the stove, trying to keep warm. Rain spattered the dirty window panes, and when the wind hit the house the windows rattled and the walls creaked. Siobhan’s light dress did little to keep out the cold. The weather had turned raw and wet, and Siobhan’s heavy clothes were at home. Siobhan put a stick of oak in the stove and watched the orange flames consume it. The dry wood blazed with heat, but it would run out quickly.

Something hit the door. Siobhan thought a tree limb had fallen, or that the wind had picked up a corn stalk and hurled it against the porch. Then she heard pounding at the door. “Mrs. Gibbs, I didn’t know you were back!” She threw open the door and got showered in cold rain.

A girl in a flannel jacket tumbled into the house like a snowbank piled against the door. She squished and squelched and her clothes dripped more than a thundercloud. She threw her heavy scarf at Siobhan’s feet like a snake. “I got your frogs for you.”

“Frogs?” Siobhan frowned.

“Where’s old lady Gibbs?

“She went to town.”

“Town?” said the girl. “She’s got to be here.”

“For what?”

“All Hallows Eve, your dope!”

Siobhan gasped. “It’s All Hallows Eve already? I lost track of the days! We were on the road three days after we left the house,” she muttered to herself, “…or what it four days? How long did we stay with those bandits?”

The girl wrung out her scarf until there was a puddle the size of a swimming hole on the floor. “It’s October 28th. You still got three more days to go.”

“I have to get home!”

“What’s the rush? You ain’t even offered me any food yet.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I just—“

“And you ain’t offered me a spot by the fire.”

“I’m sorry—“

“Eh, I don’t need it. I have to get. Just take care of those frogs.” She pointed to the tin pail by the door. It was big enough to hold soup for a dozen, and it was loaded to the brim in peeping, leather-skinned frogs. “They’re already busting out!” Five frogs hoped into the house. “No you don’t!” The girl scooped up four of the frogs.

Siobhan pointed. “By the couch!”

“He’s going to escape.” The girl put her foot down and—squish!

“Ugh!”

“Damned cuss! I was trying to stop him.” The girl scraped the guts off her boot and dropped them in the bucket. “Just stick it in the cold cellar ‘til the old lady gets back. They don’t mind the cold none.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“They’re for midnight,” the girl grinned.

“What’s at midnight?”

She grabbed her scarf and changed the subject. “I’m getting going.”

“Wait!” Siobhan remembered the bottles. “You get one of these, right?”

The girl took one look and bristled like a wooly porcupine. “What are you trying to do to me, shrink me down to nothing?” She batted it away. “That’s not for me. Give it to the other girls.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m going,” she huffed.

“But the storm—“

“No sense in getting dry if you got to get wet again.” She jumped out and slammed the door. Siobhan watched her run across the naked field. She tripped over a tangle of corn stalks and flopped into the mud, but the girl jumped to her feet and disappeared into the woods, no slower for the tumble.

Meanwhile, more frogs had escaped from the pail, and while Siobhan liked frogs, seeing so many in one place gave Siobhan the shivers. She captured the escapees and placed a skillet over the top of the bucket to keep them in. After some thought she moved the skillet aside a crack. “That’ll let them breathe,” she said, but their peeping only grew louder and louder and their wet, rubbery bodies kept slipping through until Siobhan had to run out into the storm and throw them into the cold cellar. “What the cripes are they going to do with those frogs?”



Later that morning another girl knocked on the door. Her name was Eileen, and she was Aideen’s age, but her chest was padded like an old sofa. “Did old lady Gibbs leave me a potion?”

Siobhan shrugged. “What the heck are potions?”

“I didn’t walk here in no rain to teach pipsqueaks about no potions.” She twirled her parasol in her bony fingers while Siobhan searched the kitchen.

Siobhan returned with one of the cloth-wrapped bottles. “Do you mean this?”

“Damned right!”

Siobhan gasped. “It isn’t right to swear.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Eileen. “…tell on me? Why don’t you grow up?” She snatched the bottle out of Siobhan’s hand.

“At least I don’t have to pad my chest,” Siobhan grumbled.

“It would be an improvement for you.”

Siobhan’s face blazed like a cherry.

“Besides,” Eileen added, “I won’t need this padding much longer. Would you like my padding when I’m finished?”

Siobhan slammed the door.

“Happy All Hallows Eve!” Eileen twirled her parasol and sashayed down the road.

“All Hallows Eve,” Siobhan groaned. “I forgot All Hallows Eve! Aideen’s going to go to all the neighbor’s houses without me, and mom won’t have anyone to help make pie! I’ll miss the Hallows party and…and…oh, I’m going to miss it all!”

Missing the Hallows party was practically unthinkable. Every year she and Aideen would canvas the other farms for cakes and cordials. Everyone was having their own party, and when the two girls showed up, the moms would smile and give them a few slices of cake wrapped in paper, or maybe a little jar filled with their specially made nut brittle. Sometimes Aideen led Siobhan to a party that was full of men, drinking whiskey and elderberry wine, but they were just as generous because once any girls showed up they usually gave them anything just to make them go away. One time the Chisholm boys offered Aideen a cup of gin for some of her milk. Siobhan told her they had to get going. Aideen didn’t seem very happy.

It was dark when they walked to the Jillium’s farm. Mom brought a hot apple pie, and Daddy brought two jugs of cider, corn on the cob, and cranberries. When Mom was out of earshot, Aideen told spooky stories just to get under Siobhan’s skin. “You see that tree?” she said, pointing to a gnarly old oak. “They used that tree during the war, for hanging.”

“No, they didn’t,” said Siobhan.

“Yes they did. They stopped using it because sometimes people would walk down the road and they’d find bodies swinging in the trees.”

“Mom!”

“She’s just trying to scare you,” Mom said. “It’s not real.”

“But Mommy—“

“Every morning a farmer would walk down the road,” Aideen continued, “There’d be another body in the branches. The sheriff thought it was people taking the law into their own hands, but the people knew that the tree had gotten so old and seen so many hangings, that he could smell when someone had done something wrong.”

“Go on,” Siobhan laughed, her legs quivering. “I’m not scared of a dumb story.”

“That’s what Susy Kinnock said. If she hadn’t…well…”

“Hadn’t what?”

“I’d rather not scare you,” Aideen said.

“You don’t scare me!”

Aideen grinned in the dark. “Suzy was a big, fat girl with bosoms the size of liquor jugs. Those were lean times during the wars, but Suzy needed a lot of food to keep her boobs flowing with milk. One night she snuck over to the neighbor’s farm and stole food from the corn crib. When she walked back to her house, no one was the wiser, so she came back every night, stealing a little and eating a little. She stole so much that the neighbors nearly starved to death and had to move to the city, working in the dark, dingy mills just for a measly bowl of gruel.”

“Does gruel taste good?” Siobhan asked.

“No!” Aideen howled. “It tastes like oatmeal watered down with pond scum.” Siobhan’s legs trembled even harder. Aideen continued, “So, since the neighbors were gone, Suzy had to steal food from her next-door-neighbors. Every night their root cellar and garden patch got a little barer, until they had to up and live in the city too.

“Now, this made Suzy so fat her cheeks were as big and round as cabbages, and her bosoms were the size of bushels. She had a belly bigger than a pig sty and every night it rumbled louder than ever. Suzy had to steal more food, but her next-next-door-neighbors had two dogs that watched the food. Suzy saw them laying outside, just as quiet as an owl in an outhouse, but they’d jump on her and bite her in half if she put a foot in their field. Then Suzy got a great idea.”

Siobhan frowned. “What?”

“‘If I can’t sneak past the dogs,’ Suzy said, ‘I’ll eat the dogs!’ She walked into the field, and as soon as the hounds jumped on her she grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and gobbled them up. The last part of them she ate was their little tales, wagging in panic while Suzy slurped them up. As big and tasty as they were, Suzy was still hungry, but when she snooped around the barn and the cellar were empty. The garden was withered, and the kids were lying in bed, moaning because their stomachs were empty.

“Then, you know what Suzy did then?” asked Aideen. Siobhan shook her head. Aideen’s face was solemn and grim. “Suzy was so hungry that she crept into the farm house. She worked so slowly that no one heard her, and when she was finished, she snuck out through the children’s bedroom window. All the farmer and his wife found when they woke up was the children’s clothes, and one drop of blood on the bedpost. Suzy had licked the bed clean.

“Suzy was so big that she had to walk home on the road. It was the middle of the night, with no moon in the sky. Even the stars were hidden behind a blanket of thick clouds. No one would catch her so late in the night. She walked underneath the old gallows tree. It creaked in the howling wind, but Suzy just rubbed her belly and burped. She reached the bend, then a creaking, rough, wooden hand squeezed her shoulder.” Aideen’s voice shrank to a whisper. “A voice moaned, ‘I’ve never seen a thief this big before. I’ve got a strong, thick branch, just for you…”

“A farmer rode by the next morning to deliver some milk to market. When he turned the bend he thought he saw a boulder in the middle of the road, but it was just this mountain of flesh, with flies buzzing around it. There was a rope hanging in the tree, covered in blood, but no one was hanging in the branches. Do you know what happened?”

Siobhan plugged her ears and shook her head.

“Suzy was so big and so heavy,” Aideen declared, “…that when the tree hanged her, her head ripped clean off!”

“There!” shouted Mom. “I can see the jack-o-lantern on the front porch. We’re almost at the farm, girls.”

Siobhan sighed. “That was a nice story, Aideen. Too bad there are no little kids around.”

“Thanks,” she grinned.

Siobhan added, “You should tell it to the little kids when we get to the house.” Suddenly long, bark-covered finger touch Siobhan’s shoulder. She screamed so loud the Jilliums ran out to see what the ruckus was.

“I got you,” Dad chuckled, waving a tree branch in his hand. “You woke up near half the county with that screech, honey!”

“Got you,” Aideen laughed. “You big baby!”

Siobhan clung to Mom’s side, giant tears in her eyes, and bawled while Mom gave Aideen and Dad a stern talking-to. The rest of the evening was much more fun. Everyone spent the night eating, playing games, and thanks to Mom, no one even muttered so much as a word of a scary story.

If the party carried on into the night Siobhan and her family might not leave until the next morning. Daddy might have let her drink some of the hard cider that the big folks and Aideen drank. Back in Mrs. Gibbs’s cabin, Siobhan lamented that she’d get none of it. “I’m old enough this year,” Siobhan sobbed. “I have to get home!”

When the day drew to a close, however, the rain kept pouring down. Siobhan sobbed into her makeshift bed on the floor, trying to keep warm and ignore the lightning strikes.

Siobhan woke up early the next morning to find that the fire had died down. She needed more wood, so she ran outside in the pouring rain, grabbing three logs before rushing back into the house, stepping into the puddle that formed next to the steps.

The ordeal made her think about Hannah: the skinny girl in the patchwork dress who lived with the bandits. She was probably in the woods right now, stuck in the rain and the cold: nothing over her head but some broken branches and no floor but the forest mud. Her tent and her blanket, had gone up in the sheriff’s bonfire. Wherever she was, Hannah was having the worst time of all. Siobhan walked back in the cold house more appreciative that ever.

“I wondered where you were!” The girl with the soaking wet clothes sat on Mrs. Gibbs’s armchair, dripping from head to toe.

“Where did you come from?”

“From the forest. I got something for you.” The girl had at her feet on a crate that leaked red goo.

“What’s in there?”

“Just a few odds and ends. I got them in the woods. They’re for—well, I ain’t telling you.”

“What’s it for? Tell me!”

“I can’t do that. I don’t even know your name!”

“Siobhan,” Siobhan said.

“I’m Blair!” Siobhan shook her hand. Her skin was pale and wrinkled from soaking up all that rain.

“Will you tell me what the crate is for?”

“Nah, I still can’t tell you.”

“That’s not fair! Can I see what’s inside the crate at least?”

Blair pulled the crate away. “I’d better put this away. Do you have any food?

“Only potatoes in the cellar,” Siobhan said. She was getting awfully tired of potatoes.

“I’ll grab some. Why don’t you get more firewood so we can cook them?”

“But I just got firewood.” Siobhan didn’t want to run out into the rain again, but Blair insisted.

“I you’re not going to get wood then you put the crate in the cellar.” Siobhan thought this was a great idea until Blair handed her the crate itself. It made a squishy, moaning sound and red slime oozed onto Siobhan’s hand.

“I’ll get the wood,” said Siobhan.

“Fine by me.” Blair took the crate and ran outside. Siobhan walked to the woodpile and let the rain wash the smear of red goo off her hand. She grabbed as much as she could so she wouldn’t have to make a second trip, and dodged the mud puddles on her way back. Siobhan struggled to open up the door thanks to her armful of wood. She wheedled her muddy foot in between the door and the jamb, opening it by inches until she could stick her shoulder in the gap.

“What took you so long?” asked Blair.

“Why didn’t you open the door for me?”

“I thought you had it alright.”

“Just take some wood.” Siobhan handed Blair a log and came face to face with her apple-sized breasts. “You’re naked!”

“My clothes are all wet. We’re both girls, right? Wait a minute: you’re not in disguise right now, are you?”

“No, I’m not wearing a disguise! Where’d you get a dumb idea like that?”

“It’s like Prince Brian. He dressed up like a lady to get into his girlfriend’s chamber.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I thought you might be in disguise anyway. Your chest sure didn’t do you any favors.”

Siobhan turned red and thrust the logs into Blair’s arms. Blair staggered towards the fire, naked as the day she was born. Her dark, filthy hair stuck to her back like a clump of pond weeds. When Blair finished stoking the fires Siobhan threw the quilt over her shoulders.

“Thanks a bunch,” Blair said. “I was mighty cold from that rain out there.”

“I just did it to cover you up.”

“Well, I reckon it’s still nice.” Blair shook her hair out and splashed Siobhan in the face. “Sorry about that.”

Siobhan giggled. “You did that like a dog.”

Blair grinned like a retriever and she shook her head again.

“Stop,” Siobhan squealed.

“I ain’t dry yet!” She jumped out of the quilt and chased Siobhan around the house.

“Don’t get me wet!” Siobhan jumped up on the counter and knocked over the bottles. Blair caught them before they smashed on the floor.

“Careful!” Blair put them back on the counter. “You know what would have happened if this junk got on you?”

“What?” Siobhan asked, wide-eyed.

“Well…I can’t tell you,” Blair sniffed. “Just don’t smash them.”

“Aw, why not?”

Blair reached for her clothes. “I’ve got to get going: too much stuff to do before Hallows.” The squished into her soaking flannel jacket and ducked through the door before Siobhan could object. Once again Siobhan was alone, with nothing but the stove and the patter of raindrops.



The next morning the rain stopped, but the dark clouds still rumbled. Siobhan trudged through to mud to get more firewood. Her shoes had burst a seam and when she stepped mud oozed through a hole in her toe. The sole of her left shoe flapped whenever she stepped out of the mud. She sank in whenever she stopped, but with a squish and a squash she trudged to the wood pile and filled her arms with logs. She had tried to carry as many as she could so that she wouldn’t have to walk out and do it again.

“Don’t rain,” she whispered, pulling another log out from the middle of the pile. The clouds over the mountain looked darker than moonless midnight. They moved with the speed of a black stallion. Siobhan had to carry the logs in front of her, her arms wrapped around them like a pair of ice tongs. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Aideen would have been able to help her with the firewood at home, or Daddy would have run outside in the middle of the rainstorm. He’d have thrown on his horsehair coat and stepped into his rubber boots. He wouldn’t even run, but he’d walk outside like a giant, not bothered by the biggest rainstorm. Siobhan could look at him out the window, and in the lightning flashes she’d see him grab a log logs by the fistful. Then he’d trudge back in with enough firewood to warm the house for five days.

“What if you get hit by lightning?” Siobhan asked him once.

“I won’t get lightning struck,” he answered. “Because God’s got really good aim, and he’s got better things to hit than a man trying to warm his house.”

“Because God’s got really good aim,” Siobhan told herself pulling her foot out of the muck. She the door wasn’t far away but she couldn’t see in front of her. Thunder rumbled louder. Siobhan lifted her feet more quickly. Cold rain drops hit her head. A lightning flash lit up the sky. Siobhan froze until a thunderclap split the air. She ran for the door and tripped over a stone.

Siobhan hit the muddy water like it was glass. Her muscles tensed and she gasped for air. Her dress turned brown like gravy and her logs were soaked. Behind her was a stone, the kind used to prop the door open in the summer months when the heat was unbearable. Now Siobhan was steeped in unrelenting cold.

The icy, muddy water seeped into her joints. Siobhan didn’t move, even when a peal of thunder exploded around her. The rain fell in drops the size of acorns. It was even chillier than the mud puddle she sank into. Siobhan rose from the mire, shivering and furious, and slowly her shivering turned into sobs.

Dripping with mud, she dropped a few logs by the stove and slowly, miserably, peeled off her grimy dress. It turned brown like Christmas gravy. It stuck to her shivering flesh like a giant, slimy slug. It hit the floor like it weighed a hundred pounds  

Wearing nothing, she felt tiny. Her skin broke out into goose pimples. Siobhan picked up one of the wet logs and threw it inside. She hunched down and warmed her hands, but the stove gave off as much heat as a star. The sopping wood popped and hissed. There was no one to hear her cry. “I want to go home!”

She thought of what Mom would say when she found out about her dress. “First you run off without a coat, and then you ruin your dress! It’s going to take me weeks to make another one.”

“But mommy,” Siobhan replied, “I didn’t know I’d be gone for so long.”

You expect me to believe that? You don’t get any pie, you don’t get any cider, and you don’t get to go to the dairy to visit your friend!”

“I don’t care!” she would say, throwing her arms around mom. “I’m just glad to be back!”

It was the day before All Hallows Eve. Mom would bake her pie for the party. Siobhan would never get a chance to eat it. Who knew what else she had missed? The last of the corn on the cob, canning apple sauce, Mommy’s milk, Lady Scout trips into the woods, and Judith’s growing breasts. Maybe Judith had grown larger. Who was she going to tell about it if Siobhan wasn’t around?

It all might have been worth it if Georgia wasn’t in jail.

Siobhan inched closer to the stove; searching for warmth. Her stomach rumbled like thunder. She was out of potatoes. The icy downpour couldn’t have made her feel any more miserable. She walked into the rain and stood in it, letting it pour over her goose bumps and wash away the mud. She came back with dozens of potatoes. “And I’m never going back out again!”

“I got the mugwort!” shouted Blair. She was sitting in the chair. Siobhan dropped the potatoes and tried to cover herself, but Blair was naked too.

“Took me a while to find enough of it. This is going to be a great Hallows.” She hung her flannel jacket over the stove. “You found more potatoes! I’m starving!”

Siobhan placed the potatoes in the stove. Blair used the hand axe to split open the soggy firewood. “It’s still dry in the middle.” Sure enough, when she threw the split logs onto the fire they hissed and sat to life. The house filled with warmth, and Siobhan was glad Blair had come back, even if she was naked.

Blair continued, “It was trouble finding this much mugwort. The rain knocked the petals off the flowers so I had to look at the leaves. Not that that was a big problem for me. I can tell a poison berry a hundred feet away, I reckon. I just can’t see that far in the rain.”

“How can you take being in the rain so long?” Siobhan asked.

“Shoot, I’ve been running around in these woods since I could stand. I could run before I could walk. You get hot and sweaty, so you just have to not mind running so much.”

“But what are you doing out there?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is?”

“Nope!” Blair rubbed her hands together. “You’ve got to be part of the thing, you know.”

“That’s fine,” Siobhan sighed. She sat back in front of the stove, shivering like never before. Her muddy dress dried above the stove, and the rain plinked against the windows like a shower of stones. She crossed her arms and realized how hard her nipples were. They poked her arms, tough like pegs.

Something was off when Siobhan scratched them. It took a moment for her to realize what since the cold had dulled her senses, but she realized that her chest was soft. Her pink nipples stood up like carrot tops in the garden, but both nipples stood atop a bulge the size of an egg yolk.

“I grew! Finally!” Siobhan’s teeth stopped chattering. She touched her little nubs and her fingers sank in. “I have little boobs!”

“What did?” Blair asked.

“My boobs grew. I’ve been waiting for so long: my sister rubbed them, and I ate as much as I could. I can finally make my own milk!”

Blair’s eyes narrowed. “Let me look.” She got on her knees and stared at Siobhan’s nipples. “Hmm…”

“What do you think?” Siobhan asked. “Did they grow?”

“How should I know?”

They stared, then laughed in each other’s faces. Siobhan grabbed Blair and danced around the cabin until she fell down laughing. “I can’t believe it,” said Siobhan.

“They’re still mighty small.”

“Who cares? It’s way better than I had before. I bet yours didn’t even grow when you were my age.”

Blair frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I bet you didn’t even have boobs when you were twelve.”

“I never was twelve,” Blair laughed.

“That’s silly. You can’t skip from 11 to thirteen.”

“You can’t skip from 11 to nine either.”

“Wait…” Siobhan’s head swirled. “You’re nine?”

“Sure as heck am.”

Siobhan grasped at the air, trying to stead herself, but she fell straight on her bottom. “But…but…” Siobhan gaped at Blair’s giggling bosoms. “You’re so big.”

“Yeah, but Mrs. Gibbs…well…“

“What?” Siobhan crawled to heron her hands and knees. “What did she do?”

“I can’t tell you—“

“Come on! I walked for four days, got captured by bandits, and fell in the mud, and I have nothing to show for it. You have to tell me, please!”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, you’ve already got big boobs. It’s not a big secret where you got them, is it? I mean, you already said that Mrs. Gibbs did it.”

“I don’t think—“

“I’m going to miss All Hallows Eve. Please…”

“Okay,” Blair said, “But you can’t tell anyone I said so.”

Siobhan nodded. Lightning flashed. Blair closed the curtains. The house was dark and Blair’s voice was low. “Last year at All Hallows Eve, Mrs. Gibbs pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted big boobs, and I said no.”

“Why?” Siobhan said.

“Because I didn’t want to go to the dairy. Everyone was talking about it like it was some great place—“

“But it is! They have machines that make it cold all year round so that the dairy girls can stay cool, even in the summer! They get three big meals a day and they live in a great big house where they get all the beans they want!”

“Eh, I don’t like beans. Anyway, Mrs. Gibbs said that I gave her the right answer; it was a test. She said if I said I wanted bigger boobs she would have given me the shrinking potion.”

Siobhan blanched. “What’s that?”

Blair inched closer. “It’s what she gives to the other girls: the ones who come to her house begging her for boob potions. They beg her over and over again for something that’ll make their boobs grow, and some of them are even younger than me. Even the moms and dads come by when their kid is bad and ask if they can have a potion so they can get rid of them sooner.”

“No they don’t!”

“They sure do! I was sweeping up the house when this man and woman walked up and asked for a potion. They didn’t say it, but I know they were just trying to get rid of their kid.”

“That’s crazy!”

“So Mrs. Gibbs gave them a bottle to make them go away, but she closed the door and waited until they were gone so she could tell me something. She said, ‘I’ll teach them a lesson. That girl’s boobs aren’t going to grow for another ten years when they finish with that bottle.’ She gave them the shrinking potion, and when I watched her over the next couple of days I saw her giving it to the other girls too. They all asked for potions to make their boobs grow, but the potion just makes them smaller!”

Siobhan had tears in her eyes. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, well you shouldn’t ask for stuff like that. Mrs. Gibbs told me that they didn’t deserve it because they asked for it, like in that fairy tale about the talking eggs, I reckon.”

“Talking eggs?”

“But,” Blair continued, her voice so low that the crackling fire nearly drowned it out. “She’s got the real potion hidden somewhere in this house, and because I was so good she gave me some. That’s why I’m so big.”

Siobhan was so excited her teeth chattered. “Can I have some?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not a witch.”

Siobhan’s eyes widened. She suddenly realized what the bottles, the plants, and the frogs were for.

The door flew open. Mrs. Gibbs stood on the doormat, gripping her staff. She looked like the rain hadn’t even touched her. She turned to Blair. “Did you get all the dainties I asked for?”

“Yes, ma’am! We put them down in the cold cellar for you! Do you want them up here so you can mix them?”

“Shut up,” she snapped. She turned to Siobhan. “I trust you didn’t eat all my food.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then put on some clothes before you freeze to death.”

“But…my dress is still soaked.”

“This floor is filthy,” Mrs. Gibbs snarled. “Get a broom. You’ll get nothing to eat until this floor is exactly the way I left it.”

“What about Georgia?” asked Siobhan. “Did she come with you?”

“Why don’t you open your eyes? Do you see her with me?”

“But…she said you’d get her out.”

“They took her back to the dairy where she belongs,” Mrs. Gibbs said. “…and I’m glad to see the back of her. Clean up this mess.”

Georgia was gone. Siobhan’s trip had been for nothing, and now she was trapped in a witch’s house. Siobhan swept the floor, using the broom to wipe away her tears.

“We’ve lost some time,” Mrs. Gibbs told Blair, “But we can still finish the potion before All Hallows Eve. Did you talk to the others?”

“Yes,” Blair whispered. “What about Siobhan?”

Mrs. Gibbs pulled Blair into the other room and Siobhan couldn’t hear anything. She thought to run out the door, but it was still raining, and the trip back home was a long one. “Either I run, or I stay with the witch.” Siobhan put her filthy dress back on, shuddering at the frigid sliminess of it, and flew out the door. No one called after her before she reached the woods.



She was covered in mud when she reached town. The innkeeper had no scraps to give her, but he let her sleep on the hearth. Siobhan asked if she had seen Georgia.

“Sure, I saw that dairy lady,” he answered.

“When did she leave?”

“This morning. The sheriff brought her over here last night, though: told me to give her all the leftovers from the kitchen. At first she didn’t eat, like she had something to prove, you know. Then I put out an old ham bone and she tore off the meat with her bare teeth. You’d think she was part wolf.

“Her body didn’t look too good. I never saw a dairy girl before, but I thought she was mighty ‘small’, begging your pardon, little lady. I figure the sheriff thought the same thing and didn’t want to get blamed for it. They don’t feed people much in the jail, even the ladies. They just hire them out to the gents and leave it to them to feed them. I gave her everything because I felt kind of sorry for her. I was just going to throw it to the pigs in the morning. Looks like your friend did you wrong; she’s the reason I don’t have anything for you.

“Then it was like another lady walked out the door,” the innkeeper said. “Her, uh…chest even looked bigger. She wasn’t so bothered about going back to the dairy this morning either. I figured those dairies keep their girls well fed to keep their…bodies pumping out milk. I reckon she thought of that and decided it was a heap better than where she was going.”

“Did you see an old lady with a staff?” Siobhan asked. The innkeeper shuddered.

“I let her in because I didn’t want any trouble, to be honest. You know how some farmers keep those red snakes around to chase off the rats? Well, they don’t let them sleep in their beds none. Besides,” he added, his face twisted up like a wrung-out rag, “She did nothing by cry all night.”

Siobhan laid on the warm hearth stone and stared at the dying embers. Georgia sounded like she was happy, like she was going home. Siobhan was going back too, and perhaps there would be a leftover piece of pie from All Hallows Eve, if Mom didn’t scold her to death first. “I’d rather take my chances with Mom than with Mrs. Gibbs,” she said, drifting off to sleep. “Still, if I had gotten that potion…”



Siobhan stood along rutted and mushy main street, waiting for a cart, or maybe even a truck to pass through. “You going to Gooseberry Forks?” she asked a hay cart driver.

“Sorry, little lady!” The driver lashed the horses and sped down the road.

Siobhan sat on the hitching rail in front of the inn. Maybe a guest would be heading her way. Across the road, the sheriff led some prisoners out of the jail. “Work detail, halt!” She shouldered his shotgun and stood before the shackled prisoners. “Either you go to work, or you go to county jail. Some folks decided to pay your bond. You take up a contract with them, and you get out of jail.”

A boy in a shabby blue jacket lifted his shackled hand. “Do we get paid?”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Of course you do, son.” Wham! He rammed his fist straight into the boy’s gut. The boy coughed, trying not to cry, but he fell to his knees and dragged his shackled neighbors down with him. They dragged down their neighbors until the entire line of prisoners fell down in the mud.

“Come on! At least keep on your feet,” the sheriff muttered. “There’s always one in every crowd. Put them on their feet, deputies. Waste of my time…”

Siobhan watched them lift a girl to her feet. Her short dress had a cloth pinned to the hem of her skirt to hide her legs, but the rest of the dress was filled with patches of every kind: flour sacks, tent cloth, and even old patches of flannel. She had a sour look on her face when their eyes met.

Hannah looked at Siobhan; her face turned flaming crimson. “You stupid slut!” She ran into the street so fast that she pulled all the prisoners with her. The prisoners pulled her back, but the chain snapped and Hannah was like a guard dog off her leash.

“Stop there!” The sheriff leveled his shotgun, but Hannah jumped onto the hitching rail. “I said stop!” Hannah chased Siobhan down the street. He kept her in his sights.

A deputy spoke up. “Can’t shoot her, huh?”

“Shut up and grab her, you idiot!”

“Can’t do that if you’re point a gun at her.”

“Damn it, Hal, get her! The Abneys need a new farm girl.”

Siobhan and Hannah were a few yards down the road, slogging through the mud. The deputy would have caught them if not for the truck that blocked the road, bogged down in the mud. Siobhan ran until she couldn’t run. She looked behind her and Hannah was trudging behind her. Soon they both stopped. Every time Siobhan took another step, Hannah, panting, took a step too.
Siobhan finds Georgia's mother, and discovers that the old lady is much more than she seems. She discovers that life has gone a lot faster since she left home, and she reminisces about what she's about to miss.

Commissioned by :icontarquiniuss: 
© 2015 - 2024 praedatorius
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BlahTheBird's avatar
I only found 5-7 is there a 1-4?