8 May 2012
I remember that day well. I was playing at the bottom of the garden, just nine and full of wonderment. A time when the world was still new and exciting and not as small as it is now. When stars shone, when the sun warmed my skin, when food had a taste and I drank and didn't thirst. Back when I played in the garden near the woods, but didn't go in like the good girl I was. Back when I made a friend.
I played with nails and acorns I had scavenged, a league of handsome gentlemen birthed from the two. An acorn army, sworn to protect me. I was quite absorbed in my work, piercing, etching, building ranks....
A rustle came from no-man's land.
I carried on as children often do...
Another rustle.
Orders for the Colonel...
Rustle.
This time it could not be ignored. I looked up through pollen-laden summer air, dust motes floating in a glittering minuet. There she stood, a girl, about my age, poker straight. Watching.
'Hello.' I said, wiping childhood stickiness down my dungarees. Every 90's kid had dungarees.
'Hello.' she whispered back, a squirrel tail, duck down, Mummy's hair. Soft, warm, inviting.
'I never seen you here before. Do you live here?' I asked her, advancing. I was so starved of company I'd I've talked to anyone. After all, acorns don't talk back.
'Sort of. Papa and I live anywhere, but we've taken to wandering the wood looking for people who are lost. We check everywhere between here and the Baptist's crossroads. We don't go past the crossroads.'
Peculiar, but I thought nothing of it. Children swallow anything. 'Why?' 'Papa says its our charge, to save lost souls and offer them happiness. We record them in our books.' she produced a black moleskin from a leather satchel and flicked through it, hundreds of names fluttering by in red. 'Papa and I are having something of a competition with names. I'm winning. I've collected more.' A faint smile played on her rose red lips. 'I'm good with names. What's yours?' she asked, producing a pen seemingly out of air.
'Eve. You?'
'Lucy.' she replied. 'Tell me Eve, are you lost?'
'Well, no this is my house. I'm not lost. If anything I'd say you were the one who's lost around here.'
'Well that's not the lost Papa and I mean,' she chuckled 'And why would you say that?'
'Well I haven't seen you in school...'
'I'm home-schooled.'
'And I've never seen you around...'
'I prefer the woods.'
'And you say Papa instead of Daddy.'
'Papa is somewhat old-fashioned.You would think he's from another age.'
'Oh. Don't you have a mummy?'
'Papa says I don't need a mother.'
'But everyone needs a mummy.'
'No they don't. I don't.'
'Yes they do. Even Jesus needed a mummy.'
She flinched. 'Well I don't. He was weak. I don't need a mother to exist.' She looked down at her red patent shoes, colour building in her cheeks, gripping the moleskin with both hands. 'Like I said, Eve, are you lost?'
'I told you no.'
'And I told you that's not the type of lost we're concerned with. Let me ask the question differently. Are you happy, Eve?'
I pondered, looking over to my army, motionless and useless. A grass snake whipped through the tall grasses in the flower bed and a heron balanced in the garden pond, stalking its prey. My tyre swing swayed in the arms of the old apple tree.
'Suppose.' I mumbled.
'Why don't you think harder.' She pressed, smiling warmly, welcoming.
'I guess not,' I replied after a pause. 'I don't have many friends.' I scuffed the soil with my shoe and some reddish flies fled their demolished earthen home, flying off into the forest.
'I can give you friends. All I need is your consent.' Lucy ventured.
'Consent?'
'Yes, permission, agreement. Your name in my book. And some payment.'
'Payment?'
'Yes, payment. After all, nothing's free.'
'What sort of payment?'
'Something called your soul.'
I stopped, forlorn. 'But Jesus already has my soul. Mummy says so.'
'But we don't need mothers. We're strong Eve and mothers aren't often right. They lie Eve. They tell us to do things for 'our own good' but really it's to make their lives easier, to keep them on top, to keep us as mindless pawns. Your soul is yours to give, not your mother's.' She stopped as I pondered some more. 'Well?'
'O.K.' I whispered.
'Perfect.' she scribbled my name into her register.
'So are you my friend then?'
She grinned, pearly teeth set in rubies. 'The first of many.' She turned at some unheard call. 'Oh, it's Papa. I must be off. Goodbye, Eve. Until next time.' Then with a rustle she was gone as quickly as she came.
I never saw Lucy again. And after that day I never quite felt whole, despite all the friends and fortune in the world. Yes, I remember that day well. The day I sold my soul to the Devil.
©SThompson-Delilah 2012
Lucy • Opuss № I