Goldie
She wakes sharply at 3.33 a.m. She’s not groggy, not murky with being wrenched from sleep too soon, but as bright and awake as if she’s just enjoyed a delicious ten hours of deep, dark slumber. Sitting up, pulling aside her duvet, Goldie sees Liyana’s picture on the coffee table and, beside it, a notebook and pencil.
For a long while she does not move, nor does she look away. And then, at last, she picks up the notebook and presses the pencil to the blank leaf. She cannot feel a story demanding to be told, cannot hear the shouting of its sentences in her mind, the insistent pull of the pencil across the page. Even so, Goldie gazes at the picture and begins to write. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or where she’s going and yet, rather to her surprise, she does not find that scary, but exciting.
The Boy Frozen in Ice
Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived happily with his mother and father until, one fearful winter when he was eight years old, his father caught a sickness and died. His mother, consumed by grief, no longer spoke and only wandered the house at night like a ghost. The little boy tried to talk to his mother but she could not hear him. He tried to hug her but she could not hold him. At his father’s funeral the boy started to cry and, when he could not stop, the priest sat beside him.
‘No more of that,’ he said. ‘You must be brave, you’re the man of the house now; your mother needs you to be strong.’
Sniffing, the little boy wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. He didn’t entirely understand what the priest meant but he knew it was important and he must do it if he was to save his mother.
That night, though he tried to be strong, the boy couldn’t stop his tears. Fearful of disturbing his mother, the boy left his bed and his house and went to hide in the woods. There he knelt and wept. The air was so cold that his tears became ice and fell to the ground like frozen rain. The boy cried so loud and long that he woke the witch of the woods, who had been sleeping in the crook of a nearby tree. At first the witch was angry, but when she heard the boy’s story she took pity on him.
‘I cannot bring your father back,’ the witch said. ‘For no magic can do that. But I can take away your pain.’
‘Yes, please,’ the boy begged.
‘It will come with a price,’ she warned.
‘Please,’ the boy said. ‘I will pay it.’ He did not ask what it was, nor did he care. He would pay any price not to feel this pain.
‘Very well,’ the witch said. And she cast her spell.
All at once, the boy felt his tears dry up and his heart, which had been raw and breaking, stop beating, becoming as frozen as the ground beneath his feet. His mind grew shrouded in a fog like the mists of the early morning, and he started to forget.
‘Tonight your despair will be buried deep,’ the witch said. ‘And when you wake you’ll be as strong and sturdy as an ancient oak tree.’
‘Thank you,’ the boy whispered. ‘You have saved my life.’
‘I have suspended your life,’ the witch said. ‘For while you will no longer feel sorrow, you’ll also no longer feel joy – for they cannot exist alone. And no person, not even yourself, will be able anymore to touch your heart, or know your mind.’
The boy nodded, though in truth he barely heard the witch’s warning, for already the merciful ice had spread and he was now as cold as the winter air.
Years passed and the boy grew. He took care of his mother and worked hard and became a wealthy man respected by all who knew him. He met many women but loved none. He lived alone with no companion except the dull ache of loneliness he carried with him everywhere he went. When at last his mother died he did not cry.
One day, quite by accident, the boy – grey-haired now and older than his father had ever been – was walking through the woods behind his house. He stumbled upon the witch sitting in the crook of her favourite tree, but, though she was unmarked by the years, he did not recognize her.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, walking on.
‘Are you certain?’
He was silent.
‘I thought not,’ the witch said. ‘So, would you like to know happiness again, if it means you will also know sorrow?’
She watched while he, who had never really known happiness and could not remember sorrow, considered this question. He was strong, he thought, and clever. He could stand anything an old woman threw at him. Finally, he nodded.
‘Very well then,’ the witch said. ‘I shall undo my spell.’
He waited.
‘First I must warn you,’ she said. ‘The pain will be very great, but you can bear it. You might fear it will destroy you, but it will not.’
Starting to sweat, though it was a cool spring day, he feigned a shrug.
And so the witch thawed the ice from the boy’s heart and cleared the fog from his mind. The pain came like a crack of lightning, felling the boy as an axe fells a tree. He dropped to his knees and howled like a maimed wolf. The boy shrieked with the despair that flooded his heart and the memories that swept into his mind; he wept and wept, begging the witch to take away the pain.
The witch did not answer but took him in her arms – though he was far bigger than she – and held him tight. ‘Remember,’ she said. ‘It will not destroy you. It’s only if you feel it that it will pass and you will finally be at peace. That is what will save you.’
And so the boy stayed. For hours, days, weeks, he lay curled in the witch’s lap and wept. He wept so loud and long that spring flowers grew at his feet. Until, finally, one day he stopped. He lifted his head, wiped his eyes and gave a tentative smile. It was the first true smile since his father had died. When he found his feet and stood, he took his first faltering steps as a man, a man whose heart, having felt its sorrow, could now be filled with joy.
After a great deal of scribbling, much crossing out and a lot of rewriting, Goldie is done. And when she’s read it once more she’s in no doubt who this story is for.