On the windswept coast of a gray land there was a tall and terrible scissor factory. It was made of steel, and it had doors that could withstand an army. Every day hundreds of workers filed in and out, walking in unison because the steady snip, snip of the scissor-making machines was drummed into their hearts.
The scissor factory was run by the Tailor. While the scissor-making machines ran, he sat in his tower designing the newest pair of blades. He created scissors that were huge and silver, small and gold, stone and shell, scissors you could eat, and scissors with curved blades that looked like a parrot’s beak.
* * *
“I like scissors,” interrupted Gail, and everyone looked at him. It felt like someone had punched a hole in the glass between them and Sophie. She blinked, confused.
“Shut up,” said Ralf.
“Yes, shut up,” said Cartwright. “Both of you.”
“The Tailor liked scissors, too,” said Sophie, and their heads swiveled back. She grasped blindly for the tail end of the story. “That’s why nobody liked him.”
* * *
He loved the way their long blades went snip, snip. Each pair he made was beautiful and satisfying in a way nobody could put their finger on (and wouldn’t want to put their finger in between, because each pair was sharp as a razor clam). When a new design was brought out, people would line up in front of their local scissor shop to get their hands on the first pair.
But one night one of the workers, a blade inspector, crept into the factory to steal the Tailor’s latest designs. He was caught by the pearl polisher, who was still working, and a fight ensued. In the morning the pearl polisher was found dead with a pair of Silver Snips in his heart. The murderer had fled, and it was the Tailor who discovered the body. The factory workers saw the Tailor standing over the pearl polisher, and each, seizing a pair of scissors, chased the Tailor from the factory and into the sea.
As was his habit, the Tailor had his favorite pair of scissors up his sleeve. They were long and keen, and as he entered the water, the chopping of a hundred pairs of scissors behind him, he drew them out and opened the blades.
The workers thought he was trapped. There were sea creatures in the water, huge and hungry ones that ate whoever went near them. But the Tailor slipped and slid across the tidal path, toward an island so full of holes it was like a peach stone, and every time a creature came near him—snip! snip!—he cut off their tentacles.
He lived on the island for the rest of his life, with nothing to eat but the roaming tentacles he chopped off for his dinner, and nothing to drink but the salt water which eventually made him mad. He could never return to the mainland, because day and night there was someone waiting on the beach with a pair of his scissors. Eventually, after eating a poison-tipped squid, he died.
* * *
“Right,” said Ralf. “I knew that was going to happen.”
Sophie’s head jerked up and the vision cleared again. Both the twins were trailing their fingers through the slime on the table, although Cartwright and the Battleship were staring at her like they’d seen her have a fit.
“You didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Sophie. “Anyway, that’s cheating.”
“We did a play like it once,” said Gail. “I was the pair of scissors.”
“I like it,” interrupted the Battleship, shifting forward on her throne. “I feel sorry for the Tailor. He must have felt very alone.”
“Oh, stop making it about you,” said Ralf. “We know you feel alone. You married father for his oysters. It’s your own fault you don’t have anything left.”
“This house,” she said, “is mine.”
“This house is ours. We just let you stay here because you’re too heavy to move.”
The Battleship looked at them with barely suppressed rage. Cartwright put his hand over his aunt’s and said, “Don’t listen to them.”
Sophie had assumed that Cartwright hated his aunt, but even she felt some pity for the woman, who looked sad and deflated.
“Oh, listen to Cartwright sucking up,” Ralf said with a sneer. “She does it for attention. Next she’ll start whining about how bad she feels about driving our father insane.”
“I rather think you drove him insane,” said Cartwright.
“Besides, Mother,” said Ralf, “you must remember that we’re on the same side. We’re both trying to protect the same thing, aren’t we?”
From the corner of her eye Sophie saw Cartwright’s free hand tighten around his spoon. The Battleship pulled her hand away from his and pushed the table aside so she could get out. She swooped over to the door, and Ralf cackled, long and loud.
“I’m going to get you one day,” Cartwright warned Ralf. “It’s your fault my uncle went mad. I’m going to grab you by your scrawny little neck and—”
“He returned!” shouted Sophie. Everyone stopped and looked at her. Ralf’s mouth began to open, so she plowed on before he could make any more noise. “The Tailor. He came back.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Gail.
“Yeah. He rose from the dead.”
Cartwright looked at her murderously, but he let go of the spoon. Sophie thought again about the scissors, and a plan began to form. She didn’t know how or when she would use it. But it was there, uncurling like a streamer, along with the wicked urge to teach them all a lesson.
“The Tailor rose from the dead,” she said calmly.
* * *
His death should have been the end of him, but he was full of hate for his factory workers, and hate is one of the only things strong enough to drag a dead man back to his own body. He rose from his resting place looking for revenge.
The island he haunted became Catacomb Hill, and his ghost is still here. At night he wanders the house with his scissors, and every time he turns a corner they go snip, snip. If you hear that sound you’d better run. When he sees someone he doesn’t like the look of, he leaps on to their back and stabs them with his pair of scissors.
Legend has it that if you catch the ghost, you will be granted three and a half wishes by the Tailor. Power, fame, immortality—you could have anything.
The chance comes once in a lifetime, but what a lifetime it would be. You would rule the world.