The book is lying open by the river when she first finds it. Half of the pages are wet, the ink running together into a black smudge. Merope doesn’t care that the words are gone because she’s never learned how to read. The illustrations are still intact and undamaged, so she sits on the damp ground with her legs crossed and the book in her lap as she flips through the pages. It’s a storybook, she decides, with colorful drawings of men on horses and bears with silly hats. The pictures are etched into the yellowed paper with some sort of ink that is slightly rough against her thumb, but she can’t ask Father what type because she knows he’ll take the book from her.
She takes it home with her, hiding it in the deep pocket of her robe and then carefully concealing it beneath her pillow. Father and Brother never touch her private things, so her secret is safe. When they are away, she sits on the itchy blanket and stares at the pictures, making up stories in her mind. The woman in the bright red dress is a beautiful witch who is smarter and more powerful than anyone else, she thinks, and the handsome man on the black horse is the wizard meant to take her away from the huddled crone with the missing teeth on the previous page. The bears in the hats help free the witch, and there are wolves and pigs that follow the witch because they know she’s special. The story changes with every viewing, but it always ends the same: with the witch finally united with her wizard.
One day she’s sitting beneath the tree viewing her book when she hears a horse neighing from the road. She quickly closes it and hides it in her pocket, fearing that her father has returned from town early. When she looks up, though, she just sees a handsome man on a black horse. He doesn’t notice her as he rides by, but she can’t look away from him until he disappears from sight. Merope withdraws the book and opens it to the image of the witch’s savior. She looks back to the road and slowly smiles.
She knows how this story ends.
End
Endings
Story Notes:
10/30/06