Emile took off her shoes and hopped from stone to stone landing on the other side with a soft thud. She was actually staring at the slanted ceiling of her grandmother’s attic but her thoughts carried her to the river. Before they built the bridge the only way to cross it was to step across its glassy green surface on flat moss-covered rocks. The smell of sunshine was overpowered by her grandmother’s blueberry muffins. Emile cast her mother’s trunk one last look as she headed down to the kitchen.

“Were you still sleeping?”

Emile spotted her grandmother’s spiky hair poking over the top of the opened refrigerator door. An old woman wearing thick glasses and blue dotted pajama bottoms placed a carton of orange juice on the counter and produced a short colorful glass from the over-crowded cupboard.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” She frowned at Emile’s choice of hand-me-down blue jeans and her dead son in law’s favorite flannel shirt.

“Sit down, have some breakfast.”

The pig clock on top of the refrigerator grunted. She was in the attic longer than she thought.

Emile waited for her to return to her eggs before sneaking out the back. She carefully crossed the partially sunken in porch, but the old woman must have heard her foot leave the creaking bottom stair because she limped after her.

“Be careful Emile, there’s a storm comin’…”

She trailed off as Emile darted across their un-mowed lawn and disappeared on the path to the woods. Shaking her head she tightened her frayed apron. It was only September but with all the rain they had that summer, soggy blood red leaves collected in messy piles around the necks of knotted tree trunks. The old woman noticed many of her flowers had turned their faces under, their stems shriveling in spite of surrounding mud.

Finger-length twigs disintegrated under Emile’s shoes, although the tree tops seemed unnaturally green. Emile tore her stolen muffin into tiny pieces that she threw for black birds to swallow whole. She saved a few pieces of blueberry for herself. She pulled a small wooden box from her shirt pocket. It was small and ordinary except for an assortment of tiny seashells someone haphazardly glued to its top.

The remnants of a charred skeleton frame surrounded her. She thought a house must have stood on the empty lot decades ago. Its foundation was covered with small sprouting plants.

“What’s that?”

Emile opened the lid and little clinks and clunks began pounding out a melody. She closed the lid leaving the familiar but unnameable tune half finished.

“My mother made this when she was my age. Grandpa found an old music box in the woods and put it inside this box and let her decorate it.”

Jack eyed the pearly pink shells in disgust but nodded.

They took the long way to Clementine’s and argued most of the way. They finally agreed on trying to avoid Clem’s mother who was always hanging her crisp white laundry at 9:30 am. Clem spent most mornings in her room or digging for bugs and worms in the backyard safely out of her mother’s sight but today she was nowhere to be found. After looking for nearly an hour they gave up and went in search of Clem’s mother.

Mrs. Evila wasn’t hanging her crisp laundry on the clothesline but sitting at her spotless kitchen table. She jerked upright when Jack rapped on the pristine white paint of the screen door but slumped immediately when she recognized Emile’s red hair and freckles.

Mrs. Evila finished her cup of coffee, walked to the sink, poured the rest of the half-full pot down the drain, muttered it’s cold under her breath and began making a fresh pot. Jack cleared his throat. She jumped, scattering coffee grounds across the counter.

“Have you seen Clem? We looked outside…”

“Clementine was chasing fireflies last night but she never came back inside. Her father has been looking.”

The house seemed more untidy than usual with dirty dishes from last night’s supper piled next to the sink. The worn blue slippers on Mrs. Evila’s feet made Emile want to turn around and run into the woods.

Mrs. Evila was collecting black specks in her hand and throwing them under running water in the sink. She pulled the dishes into the soapy water and started talking to herself again.

Thoughts pounded in Emile’s head. Thud, thud, thud. Maybe it was just Jack’s shoes pounding the trail in front of her.

“Thought you said you were fast.” Emile’s legs were tired but she lengthened her stride and steadied her mind. She barely passed him as they whooshed by a recently fallen tree branch, their designated marker.

“Oh you stopped too soon, I meant the next branch.” Jack grabbed her around the waist and wrestled her to the ground. They landed with a thud. She laid back on a bed of soggy leaves.

“Get up.” Jack demanded.

“I can’t.” Emile freed her wrists. He grabbed her leg as she wriggled loose and tried to get away. She fell forward hard, her face meeting the dirt with full force.

The music box dislodged from her father’s shirt pocket, landed face down and started playing. Her forehead wet with blood, she stared at the ground in front of her. She noticed little scratches on the bottom of the box. Her grandfather had engraved the box with her mother’s name. Elizabeth. The tiny cursive letters looked burned in the wood.

Emile lifted it expecting a million pieces to fall. She turned it over in her hands and opened it.

“You gave me seven years of bad luck!” There was a single crack in the mirror that was glued all along the inside of the box.

A deep voice interjected from behind a tree, “That’s just an old wives tail my dear, don’t be upset.”

Emile jumped and the music box slipped from her fingers. Jack tried to catch it but one of its corners hit a sharp rock, knocking several shells off. This time Emile knew the mirror was shattered.

The strange woman bent down to examine it. She ran her index finger along Emile’s mother’s name and picked up the broken shells.

“Scars make you interesting.” The woman placed the shells in Emile’s hand, “but you can fix the outside if it’s that important to you. It’s what’s inside that truly counts however, remember that!” She shook the box seven times with a bony hand. When she opened the lid iridescent dust lifted from its corners leaving a perfect mirror.

“Wh-wha, who are you?”

The woman smiled. “My dear children, I am Madame the Magnificent!”

“My name’s Emile.”

“Don’t tell her who we are—” Jack’s sentence ended in a howl, Emile had stood on his foot. “Maybe she can help us, Jack.”

“What can I assist you with, my dear, what was it… Emile? Odd, it’s usually a boy’s name, several attributes come to mind… rivalry… emulation… eagerness. Yes! Of course, you were named for your grandfather, am I right?” Emile contained the bubbles she felt popping near the back of her throat and nodded.

“We don’t got all day, have you seen Clementine or what?” Jack blurted.

“Oh my, I think I may have seen a young girl wandering near my place, looking for wild mushrooms no doubt.” She looked as if she were remembering a particularly pleasant afternoon. “Never took any amount that was missed, but I haven’t seen her in nearly three weeks. I may not be able to help you find Clementine but I have always found stories to be most helpful when I am looking for something I’ve lost. Are either of you fond of fairytales?”

Madame the Magnificent pulled the branches of a willow tree aside revealing a tent adorned with tiny lights. The bee sized bulbs flickered on illuminating the darkening woods around them.

“Would either of you like any tea?” Emile declined and Madame led them into a smoky sitting room. It smelled strongly but not unpleasantly of exotic incense. Emile noticed candles had turned to molten puddles of wax. Tiny flames cast shadows across Madame’s circular coffee table and around the tent. She admired the jeweled bracelets on Madame’s arms and the translucent beaded shawl that was tied in elegant knots along with strands of her crow black hair.
Jack plunked down loudly on a small sofa next to Emile.

Madame produced an ornate wooden box from underneath the table. Its surface was inset with green gems and decorated with intricate patterns. She lifted the hinged lid to reveal a stack of strange looking cards. They were larger than the deck Emile’s grandmother used to teach her solitaire.

Jack noticed too because he started to make a remark before Emile jabbed him in the ribs with a pointy elbow. He gasped slightly then pressed his lips together and started staring at a particularly interesting spot on the bandy-legged table. Madame sat in a large overstuffed oval chair and shuffled the deck with well manicured nails before pressing them into the gauzy material that covered the small round tabletop.

“Pick your card, young man.” Jack hastily pulled the first card off the deck and flinged it across the table, it landed face up. Madame’s eyes gleamed slightly as she gave an airy overdramatic laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just affirming my suspicions.”

Emile looked at the card. The man was right side up and looking at her. He waved as he hung by one foot.

“The hanging is merely symbolic, I assure you. Anyway your card is inverted so it changes the meaning a bit.” She looked from Jack to Emile and smiled.

“It means you are somewhat of an outcast and you often put up a wall when threatened but rarely act on negative impulses.”

Madame focused her attention on Emile. She shuffled the cards and set them down.

“Any card child! Pick up the deck, hold them in your hands and feel which one is calling to you.” Emile felt a little silly and tried to ignore Jack who looked as though he would burst with laughter. She felt a strange sensation in her fingertips. She stopped shuffling and placed her card on the table.

“Now, turn the card over. Doesn’t matter which way. I can read it.”

Emile flipped the card over. Facing her was a girl that slightly resembled herself. She had wavy red hair only she wasn’t just a girl; she was a fish as well. The Mermaiden was suspended in a melting background of ominous black seaweed. Her fins were translucent; blue waves crashed behind her. She held a large shell to her ear and smiled a dreamy sort of smile as if she were a million miles away.

“You must watch out for souls on your journey tonight. The music of the entire ocean is locked inside the Mermaiden’s shell. If a Mermaiden is not careful she can be so entranced by the power of the music that her long hair tangles around her wrists and her fins become tangled in seaweed. Finally, she dies from her own paralysis.” Emile’s feet tingled; she moved them and found her whole left leg had fallen asleep.

“What does that have to do with souls?” Jack demanded.

“The souls of the dead, however good in life have only one purpose in death. That purpose is to reunite with what they were seeking.”

“This is crazy. You don’t believe in all this do you, Em?”

Madame’s face suddenly became very grim. She rounded on Jack.

“You can laugh at ghosts, say they don’t exist!” She hit the table hard with her fist causing the cards to spread out in one fluid motion.

“They say some souls are allowed to stay back. They stay asleep mostly, they’re only allowed to wake up on Sundays, the day of rest according to most myths. On this day, ghosts rise from their graves and monsters wake up from their fairytales.”

Emile noticed a shadow move across Madame’s eye.

“If by chance you happen to hear screams inside this fairytale, if you hear your heart pounding loudly, or if you see a fairy or a dark elf, don’t be alarmed. They cannot hurt you. If you get lost in the woods close your eyes and ears. If you have the time, lose yourself in dreams for a little while. Old and young all grow up with fairytales.”

Madame’s eyes returned to their bright color as she laughed and led them outside.

The moon was rising steadily in the sky. As they left the tent Emile turned to thank Madame but the woman and the tent seemed to vanish into thin air. She shivered a little and worried that Jack might not be able to put them back on the path to Clementine’s house.

Emile noticed a clearing that Jack didn’t even recognize. At first she heard faint scraping but soon they were motionless, peering through thickset trees. She could see a shack surrounded by torn apart cars and machines.

Jack covered her mouth with a sweaty hand when she gasped. An old man came out of the shack carrying a large burlap sack. She watched the him hoist the bag over his shoulder and disappear into the woods. Emile was frozen to the spot but Jack pulled her along the path. The man stopped near an area that was filled with an odd collection of crumbling cement staircases.

The steps weren’t connected to any houses and didn’t lead anywhere but some of their iron railings were still attached. The old man walked behind a tall set of stairs and stared at the ground. He tossed the sack into a hole. Jack stepped on a tree root trying to get a better look.

“Elma?”

For a moment the old man seemed very confused. He looked like he might start crying. Emile could see the individual specs of dirt sticking to his sweaty skin. He wiped his face with the back of a wrinkled hand. He looked around for a few moments before slowly walking back toward his house.

Emile waited for his footsteps to fade before moving closer. A chain attached to a collar rested on the bottom stair, the silver tag said Oscar in slanted black letters. She collected a bunch of wild flowers and placed them, root and all, on the freshly packed earth. As she turned to leave a tree root twisted her ankle. Bent down in pain Emile’s thoughts flashed between visions of Clem shivering alone in the chilly night air and her grandmother snoozing in her easy-chair with a fuzzy black halo curled around her head, television snow making nightmarish patterns in her oversized glasses.

Jack broke a stick off a dead branch and led the way down the dim path. The moon was nearly overhead. Emile looked at its twin in the river as they walked to Clem’s house. She could see the house in the distance. It looked like it was glowing. Light beamed from every window nearly blinding the children as their feet sunk slightly in the gritty sand of the river bank. The moon seemed paler somehow. Jack stopped suddenly. She nearly walked into him but wavered putting her sneaker down momentarily in the foamy lip of the water. She could feel it seeping through her shoe and deeper, making her sock cold from the distant wetness.

It seemed suddenly colder outside and though the hairs on her arm and neck had risen she felt warmth in the breeze. She let Jack’s footsteps lead the way. The wind blew her blunt bangs in her eyes, obscuring the stinging porch light that hummed behind a slender figure.

Mrs. Evila stood under it and still looked as though she hadn’t slept. Her eyes wandered around the yard and fell on the two of them. Emile shook her head and let her gaze drop to her partially soaked sneaker. Jack touched her shoulder lightly as he left.

Emile looked at the porch again but Mrs. Evila was gone. She watched as all the lights in the house popped off one at a time like fireflies burning out one by one. The only light she left on was the porch light which illuminated the figure of a man standing near the river. Mr. Evila was standing at the edge holding a bunch of wild flowers his daughter had collected and gave to him several days before. Clem would have known their scientific names. Emile just thought they were pretty. He laid her flowers in the sand and went inside. Emile crept closer to admire them. Their colors were somewhat muted in the distant light of the porch.

Fireflies had given their last winks hours ago. All heat the day brought was carried away with a gust of wind. Something blue buzzed near her ear. It zoomed out of sight, disappearing in the brightness of the moon. In the semi-darkness Emile listened to the river trickle by.