A Leech a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

When the girl opened her eyes again she was in a cell, the walls cushioned to save an occupant from caving their mind in. Crumpled in the corner like a broken Jack Horner, she found a strait-jacket holding her tight around her. From a single barred window the full moon shone its light into the room. There was now only a shadow in the corner untouched by the moonlight and something shuffled inside. The girl, whose thoughts were confused of late, only watched by the flicker of her eyes.

“Hello, child,” said the voice that the girl instantly recognised as her beloved grandma.

“How are you here?” the girl whispered through dry lips.

“Child—” she laughed a warm laugh “—are you not pleased to hear from me?”

The girl did not move except to shed tears that ran away into the moonlight.

“I saw you; I saw what the wolf did.”

“That it did, that it did.” Again she chuckled. “But did not I always teach you to see things that were not there? Did you think something as trivial as death would stop me from seeing you?”

“I’m losing myself,” the girl replied and there was a sigh from the dark corner.

“Do you not remember the forest with the sunlight and the smells of wet wood and the greens and the fairies’ folk hiding amongst the undergrowth? Even now in this horrible place they will try to take that away from you. Do not let them.”

“How can I stop them?”

“By remembering who you are. You remember who you are, don’t you, girl?”

“Yes,” the girl replied. “I am Red Riding Hood.”

And Grandma laughed and laughed and laughed. But as the full moon observed, it appeared as if the grandma was laughing from the girl’s dry lips.

The moon went, replaced by sunlight, and then the moon came back and went again. It was when the moon visited once again that Red Riding Hood was woken by screams. She hadn’t been fed or watered for some time and her mind had wandered off into memory more and more. She kept finding herself barefoot walking through the forest, happy to be lost in the past. Then the screams brought her back. Madness carried on the air around the corridors. They were the sounds of lunacy uncontained and it was everywhere. Weak, Red could only listen; her strength had abandoned her and she was sure she would die. She thought it would not be entirely unwelcome. The door to her cell creaked open to the jangle of keys. Two figures entered and immediately found the girl. She tried to protest as they held her, sitting her upright.

“Drink this—it is nice,” said Thumbeana chirpily.

The girl’s eyes widened at the sight; she was relieved, happy and confused at the same time. She gulped at the water that Thumbeana poured from a pigskin pouch. She hadn’t noticed at first but the Thread Bear had untied her strait-jacket. She was able to take the pouch and drain it.

“How are you here?” she gasped.

Thumbeana smiled that mismatched grimace that to Red was the most welcome in the world.

“We escaped,” she explained.

“We all escaped. Dr Grimm is dead,” added Thread Bear.

“How?” Red Riding Hood could barely believe it.

The Thumbeana at the bear, and the bear bowed its head, afraid to tell

“It was the wolf. It has come for you,” she said cheerily, thinking back on what had happened

Thumbeana, the most beautiful girl in the whole fairy tale kingdom who was made from a thousand princesses, went to her lovely new home with Thread Bear, her best friend ever ever, ever. They were taken to part of the asylum where all the false children lived or unlived. The pair made lots of new friends. There was a boy made of wood, who had told a big lie so bad that his nose had grown. It pierced his father’s heart like a spear. There were children whose behaviour had been so terrible that they had transformed into beasts and creatures of the field. They met triplets who had the faces of swine. The pig children were abandoned by their parents. They were forced to make homes of their own. They made one from straw, but it blew down. So they made another from sticks and that blew down also. In the end the only material strong enough to stay solid was the very bones of their own parents. Thumbeana’s favourite was the boy made of hair. She heard a poem about him from a cruel set of rag dolls:

Mr and Mrs Barber cut the hair of many a child in the shop under their home.

After a while of doing this,

They longed for a child of their own.

Quickly it became apparent they were not going to be so blessed:

Mrs Barber was seventy-two and Mr Barber, well, he did his best.

Mrs Barber cried out loud, “I want a baby, I don’t care if it has a pig’s face.

I want to hear the patter of tiny feet, or trotters, running round the place.”

Mr Barber had an idea, because he loved his wife and was kind.

He decided to make a boy from bits of hair in the barber shop he’d find.

After a week of collecting hair, Mr Barber had bagged enough.

With locks, tresses and manes, a boy shape he lovingly stuffed.

That night Mr and Mrs Barber, from an old tome in Latin, aloud they read,

Sacrificed a goat, had a cocoa, put their teeth in a jar and went upstairs to bed.

It was shortly after midnight when the child of hair was born.

Husband and wife were sleeping,

When woken by a terrible groan.

Something pulled upon the quilt,

Something climbed upon the bed,

The most wonderful gift they had ever received:

A living boy made of hair,

Completely;

Foot to head.

Their hearts filled with delight,

With the future they would share,

They hugged him,

They kissed him,

They loved him forever,

This boy made of hair.

Two weeks later the barber shop remained closed.

The customers were not worried, a well-earned holiday they supposed.

However Mr and Mrs Barber still lay in their bed,

Grinning and happy,

Yet, very, very dead.

You see, it’s quite simple. You have to take care,

Or you may end up choking to death,

When kissing a boy made of hair.

The days were spent in learning. All the children, too many to count, were taken to a vast hall. There were more mirrors placed around the wall. Each with Dr Grimm’s face reflected and reciting over and over again:

ALL GOOD CHILDREN LISTEN,

ALL GOOD CHILDREN OBEY,

All GOOD CHILDREN EAT THEIR LEECHES,

TO KEEP THE MADNESS AWAY.

The room was mainly white and well lit by gaslight; there were no windows at all. In the daytime the un-children would line up and sing over and over again:

ALL GOOD CHILDREN LISTEN,

ALL GOOD CHILDREN OBEY,

All GOOD CHILDREN EAT THEIR LEECHES,

TO KEEP THE MADNESS AWAY.

Thumbeana was surprised to find, not one, but many Mother May I’s. Each as identical as the other.The grinning May Is would join in by waving their hands, trying to keep tune. The guards clapped and groaned and did a sort of shuffle. Thumbeana would look at Thread Bear and Thread Bear at Thumbeana, not sure whether to pretend, or to join the sound of a hundred or so un-children trying to sing with mouths not designed for singing.

ALL GOOD CHILDREN LISTEN,

ALL GOOD CHILDREN OBEY,

All GOOD CHILDREN EAT THEIR LEECHES,

TO KEEP THE MADNESS AWAY.

And so forth and so on again and again and again. The chorus only stopped for the three-times-daily dose of leeches. They all sat in row upon row of dining tables and chairs. There was an atmosphere of fun and anticipation as a Mother May I pushed along a metal cart loaded with the leech tank. Through the glass of the tank they squirmed inside, black and thick and wet with slime full to the brim and spilling over the top. The un-children became excited at the approach and clapped and cheered. Thumbeana and Thread Bear sat as the leeches were scooped out and placed in wooden bowls and placed messily on the table. Some of the creatures managed to slide away and a lucky few attached themselves to Mother May I’s hand and began suckling greedily. The May I did not notice and moved on, serving more un-children. But not before saying,

“A bowl of leeches a day keeps the madness away.”

Thumbeana looked at the bowl; tiny rows of black teeth snapped back at her. She had never had the need to eat and she wondered if this should be her first meal. For guidance she looked at the other un-children on how best to consume leech. The troll sisters sitting to her left had been licking their bowls clean. Bits of the leech dripped on their chins like wet liquorice. The cursed dead boy, who never had truly died but continued to rot, slurped them one by one. Thumbeana could see them passing through holes in his throat. Thread Bear in the meantime was wearing his bowl on his head and was dripping leeches, leaving a trail of slime in his fur. Thumbeana laughed to see such fun and began picking at her meal, one wriggle at a time. Each one she chewed popped black liquid into her mouth; she did not feel less mad so she tried another and another. As she completely forgot to swallow, her mouth simply filled up and when she smiled at Thread Bear, as she often did, the leeches fell down her chin and onto the table in a stream of black slime.

At night, they stayed in a giant dormitory filled with beds as diverse as the un-children who slept in them. For example the troll children slept under bridges, built in the room. The giant children slept upon beanstalks that grew to the ceiling. The puppet children in boxes, the bear children in beds too small, the spider children in spouts and so forth and so on. Again there were no windows; what little light there was cast by dim gas lamps, high upon the stone walls.

Thumbeana lay on her bed and looked up at the impossibly high ceiling. The gas lamps danced yellow shadows on them. They reminded her of people on fire, burning to nothing over and over again in the yellow light.

“I don’t like it here,” Thumbeana said. “I miss the girl. I think we should leave.”

Thread Bear, who lay next to her, pulled on the chain that held Thumbeana’s wrist to the bed. Thumbeana sat up, and looked around. It seemed all the un-children were asleep. They snored and grunted into the dark.

“Don’t worry about this, funny bear.” Thumbeana smiled, indicating the chain and shackle. She pulled at the stich in her wrist with her free hand. It came away with the sound of a boot being unlaced and immediately her trapped hand fell free and dangled on the chain.

“And now,” she said to the bear, “let us rescue the red girl. It will be fun.”

In the night when the un-children slept, there was a squeaking on the cold, hard floor. Thumbeana and Thread Bear, mischief bound, slowly wheeled in the leech cart, sloshing leeches on its way. Pausing in the room amongst the slumbering un-children, they heaved with all their might until the cart tipped and shattered and spilt the screeching creatures, crashing on the floor. Un-children suddenly woke and, to their surprise, saw a thousand leeches crawling before their eyes. They pulled and snapped their chains as they screamed with joy at the midnight feast, braving the shattered glass and greedily gorging at the leeches. Mother May Is and lumbering guards entered the chaos. Thumbeana, carrying Thread Bear and leaving her hand behind, quietly left the room. The pair began to trace their steps from when they were first taken deep into the asylum. Past locked cell doors they went until they had almost made it back to Dr Grimm’s office. Thumbeana held the tiny bear tight as they hid in a shadow.

In the corridor a scrawny man was being held by two of the lumbering guards. His feet had left the ground and he was tiny in comparison to the guards, yet he struggled with a strength that made the guards shake. He wore nothing but rags and his features were obscured by the dim gas-light shadow. Dr Grimm stood in front of the three, attempting to fill a large syringe with a green liquid. The man kicked it from Grimm’s frail skeletal hand. The bottle shattered with a hiss.

The man pleaded, “Lock me up—you need to lock me up.”

“Calm down,” Grimm replied. “You need to take your medicine. This tantrum will not do.”

“It’s too late, too late, lock me up, sir, I beg you.”

“After medicine,” Grimm insisted.

Too late indeed, for the man threw back his head and with a sickening creak his jaw opened wide and split. From his mouth, slowly at first, came a muzzle and thick black fur, then fangs all the better to eat you with and eyes all the better to hunt you with, ears all the better to catch your screams. The scrawny man’s skin flopped to the floor as the guards and Dr Grimm were dwarfed by the huge frame of the wolf. In one swift movement almost too fast for the eye to catch, a claw shredded the guards. The wolf stood on gigantic hind legs as wolf and man merged into something other. It picked up the doctor and held him in a grip so tight, Thumbeana heard his bones snap. The good doctor did not seem to notice, distracted by the wolf’s huge dripping maw.

It spoke with a deep rumbling growl.

“The girl from the forest—where is she?”

The doctor did not or could not reply.

“I followed her scent. Tell me.”

It was at this moment, Thumbeana noted, that all sanity had left Doctor Grimm. Maybe the wolf sensed it too, for it howled a screaming howl of frustration and, in one clean snap, removed the doctor’s head.