JUNIPER & THORN | AVA REID
I checked under my bed, but the monster was gone.
When I was younger, their mean words made me cry.
Dear [name], no one will believe we're anything but witches if you don't put a comb through your hair.
But that doesn't make as lurid of a story. And it doesn't sell as many papers.
You really don't know anything of the world, do you, [name]?
What do you do when you're young and have already achieved everything that most people can only dream of? You have the rest of your life in front of you, but nowhere else to go.
In an hour he'll vomit up another half liter of vodka and then fall asleep, and his body will punish him in the morning.
Tell me, what sort of witchery do you practice? Are you a soothsayer? A hedge-witch? A phrenoligist?
Oh, I've always wanted to watch a real witch do her work.
Perhaps you can come back to the theater. It would make me very happy to see your face in the crowd, [name].
Shall i cast a spell that will give you cat's eyes and chicken feet? Perhaps I shall. Perhaps I shall turn you all into hags.
Wipe away the dewiness in your eyes and scrub the flush from your cheeks.
Do you think I would ever let his serpent's jaws close around you?
One night. One night to indulge this foolish desire, and then no more.
There's hardly anything in life worth doing that doesn't make somebody angry.
Why should I care what happens with my body when I die? Cook up my heart and liver if you have a particular craving, though I think I'd be a bit gamy.
I really am glad to see your face again, [name]. I wasn't sure I would.
Please tell me you haven't chosen a girl whose father can sharpshoot.
It's rude to let a lady sit empty-handed at the tavern. All the other patrons would think so poorly of me my reputation would never recover from it.
Drinking vodka gets easier with every swallow. Like anything, really. If you do it for long enough it stops hurting. Then other things stop hurting.
I've never been so truly eviscerated by a man I only once met.
I don't have any secrets. At least none that I would mind you knowing.
This is the first time in a long while I've gotten to dance at a place I chose, with a partner to my liking.
Well, you're my first lie, my first secret. Does that please you?
You don't need to drag around your family history like an old dead dog.
I try to live every night like death is riding for me at the very first hour of dawn, so I'll have very few regrets when he finally stands in the door.
Almost all stories begin with a happy couple. If they have daughters, its generally a sign that things will go wrong.
Why have you been so kind to me?
The curse has it's teeth in my mind.
It would be another curse, to confess such things so baldly in the morning light.
Surely you do not wish to curse me so. You are not that kind of witch.
You are not a fool, [name], but sometimes you persevere in behaving like one.
Tell me, will you rejoice when you find me dead? Will you make merry over my pile of bones and skin, will you laugh as you tip my body into its early grave?
And is it a family heirloom? A talisman of ancestral sorcery?
Incidentally, I'm very sorry for your loss. Perhaps earning a pretty sum will ease a bit of your grief.
I can cook a monster for you.
If he doesn't leave soon, I'll have to cast a spell.
Don't think I have forgotten your treachery.
It was a terribly selfish thing of you to do, and don't you try to tell me otherwise.
I think you're so stupid you don't even know why I'm calling you stupid. Do you?
You would just blush and bat your lashes if someone tied a tourniquet around your thigh and and prepared to saw your leg off.
It's no fun stamping through old dirty snow. People want to ruin things that are clean and new.
Even baby birds know how to shriek, even kittens know how to mewl, even puppies know how to whine. But no one ever told me I'm allowed to scream.
Why are you speaking to me in riddles? Speak plainly, or do not speak at all.
Why do you always make things worse for yourself, [name]? You can never manage to just keep your head down and your mouth shut.
I can't protect you from your own foolishness.
I'll be cross with you now, later, and whenever I damn well please.
I can't bear to watch a woman cry on my account. Unless I've moved her to new heights of ecstasy.
I might as well die when my face is still pretty and my smiles are still coy.
I want, most of all, for someone to steal the wretched, awful burden of it away from me, and to explain precisely how wretched and awful it was.
Magic is the first sip of a good wine that makes the edges of your vision blur. Magic is the cool breeze of the boardwalk at night and organ music in the air. Magic is the low flicker of tavern lights and the one you're courting leaning close so you can kiss.
It's good magic, you know. Maybe the best.
I feel different. Maybe its good magic after all.
It's the oldest story there is, men wanting things that could kill them.
If I kiss you again, will you turn into someone who believes me?
Do you plan to kiss your way out of every predicament?
Any predator can choose to smile without teeth.
I wish that I could give you a softer place to fall.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll never leave you again.
I don't think I like this story.
You would not be ugly, not to me.
What spell did you cast over the door?
A parent knows their child the way a tree knows all its branches, the way a snake knows all the scales on its belly.
What right do you have to be rescued?
You told me once you have to beat your body until it obeys you. Perhaps you should treat it kindly instead.
I hope this has extinguished the charm of your little rebellion.
I want to hear what's inside your mind.
What happens when you hold up a mirror to a monster? In my experience, nothing enrages them more than the truth.
If you say you must go, I cannot stop you. But please, [name]âcome back to me.
I don't want it to be true. Please, make it not true. Take it all back.
Say you take it all back. Say that none of it was you.
You wanted a story, didn't you? I am simply telling it. I do not think you would prefer the truthâit is ugly and mundane, and stories are sweet and safe.
What sort of man cares so little for the blood of innocents spilled?
What sort of man weds a woman with such sharp teeth?
I won't let you take their deaths from me. Your love cannot make me less of a monster.
Don't you see? You can take my heart and liver; slit up my belly and eat what's inside. I would sooner bear it than lose you.
If you ever loved me, it was only because I was a soft thing you threw down into the bottom of a pit to break your fall.
I couldn't bear to wage war with this awful world alone.
