The Storyteller

Two scarred hands carefully parted the branches of an old tree stump, the hood pulled low, only the rise and fall of the person's breath visible. The figure looked toward the group across the street; the area, once filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, prepared meals, and playful children, had transformed after numerous gang conflicts into a scene of smashed, partially flipped cars, cracks in the sidewalks, and roads.

“Eyes so big they can see you better at night,” the figure heard the woman say, noticing she paused briefly and looked in its direction. It retreated quickly. The woman frowned for a moment, and gazing back at the group of boys and girls gathered around the makeshift Christmas tree—a cardboard one; the candles painted in red and yellow.

The children, some in torn clothes, sat close around their Christmas tree, their eyes sparkling and filled with laughter, bumping fists. The woman looked into their eyes; so vast, so warm, so full of curiosity and passion that even the worst characters in her fairy tales would feel weak in the knees. She swallowed audibly.

“Is it the wolf?” she heard a girl ask in a delicate yet assertive voice. Distracted by her thoughts, the woman cleared her throat and squinted at the group for a moment. It was a mix of kindergarten-olds and what might be called precocious teenagers.

The fire in the trash bin flickered, casting strange light on the Christmas tree; the mixture of trash, paper, and plastic from the bin carried a stench that made her nose wrinkle. Her gaze settled on a girl in a red plaid outfit, sitting quietly in the last row, her legs drawn tightly to her torso, revealing the holes in her tights at the knees, exposing her dark skin.

“How do you know it’s the wolf?” the woman asked after the girl impatiently repeated her question.

“Well, that’s obvious,” she said, making a deliberate, purposeful gesture with her hand, “what grandmother has so much hair on her face that you can comb it?”

Laughter erupted from the group; a girl next to her ran a hand through her already frayed hair, greasy and stringy.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” the little girl retorted defiantly.

The woman slammed the book down so forcefully that the flames appeared to escape into the surrounding air. The children's bodies jerked as an unexpected, muffled, yet definite sound penetrated the binding's unyielding material, awakening their senses. They peered in its direction, and only the crackling of the fire broke the silence. The woman leaned closer, her face a mix of light and shadow. She overheard the children gulp. Her entire body shook, and a loud chuckle pierced the silence. The children sighed and joined the laughter, which echoed far into the distance.

She set the book on a decaying, termite-infested shelf that had once served as a chest of drawers in a school and was now used as a gathering spot for street children to swap stories.

"Children, I'll tell you a story. A true story about a girl who lived here in this town, not far from this place: she was covered with hair from head to toe. And on Christmas Day, like today, something changed. What are you saying? Are you up to this? Are you not too afraid to face the unexpected? What do you say?"

Except for the girl in the plaid dress, who shook her head, everyone else responded with a long and joyous "Yes!"

"You don’t believe me? Look around and feel the mystic.”

“I feel the cold and the wet soaking my socks,” the girl shook her head emphatically and laughed.

The woman took up the book and placed it on her thigh, tapped it with her fingers, and looked around again, her gaze settling on the girl with the hole in her tights. The girl with thick brows, who already had strikingly huge eyes, narrowed hers even further. The woman grinned and placed her palm over her ear.

"Do you hear the rushing of the water, not far from here...Pay attention. Hear the lake's ice crackling, birds singing, and a crow cawing. And" she looked around, "there was also snow, just like today and here. The snow reveals much of what happened, including the tracks of a fox, a hare, and a girl whose feet were so covered in hair that she didn't need shoes.”

Her gaze fixed on the children, and a slight grin formed on her lips. The children drew closer together, and she noticed the girl in the plaid dress take another girl's hand, but she didn't look away from the storyteller.

The woman's hand gestures were downward chops and sharp movements as she told the story—causing whirlwinds in the fire, which sent sparks flying over the group, who eagerly reached out to grab them. Her voice was sometimes deep, sometimes high, and occasionally so high that the kids opened their lips and arched their brows so high that the wrinkles on their foreheads were visible in the diffuse, shimmering light. It started to snow slowly and gently, but the snowflakes grew larger and larger.

They danced and twirled about the children before making their way to the barrel fire. The group was unaffected by the cold, which surrounded them more firmly as the fire died down. The horizon lowered, rooted the land in grey silhouettes, and turned thoughts from the mundane to the magical. The storyteller noticed the change. She stopped reciting the story; she closed the book so firmly that the boys and girls were jerked back to reality. They stared at each other, extended their hands, and caught the snowflakes.

“Snow, we have snow!” shouted the girl in the plaid clothes.

She jumped up, turned her face to the falling snowflakes, and spun around so many times that she lost her balance and almost bumped into another girl. She fell to the ground and laughed, laughing so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. The group surrounded her; a boy held out his hand; confidently, she took it and let him pull her up with a jerk. Clumps of snow sticking to knitted scarves and mittens. The group turned around, and suddenly it was quiet; even the birds fell silent. Only the crow, with its mixture of hoarse and scratchy cooing, croaks, and clicks, offered its commentary. They looked at each other, then looked again in the direction where the woman always told the stories, but there was only the rising smoke from the barrel to be seen; only the stench remained. The woman disappeared. They searched the area for her, but she was not elsewhere. They called out to her, “Ma’am,” because they didn’t know her name.

Children's voices drifted from afar; the woman turned briefly, her head buried deep in her anorak, only her eyes visible. The howling, groaning, and sighing of the air rushing across the landscape echoed back to her, and she muttered unintelligible words to herself. Her gaze swept left and right; she didn't see the weathered trees rising from the earth to brush against the sky, she didn't see the animal dropping on the path, and she didn't notice the dark figure. Her steps grew faster, longer, until at last she stumbled and fell to her knees. With one hand, she held the hood of her anorak low over her face, and with the other, she braced herself. She sighed as she pressed her soles harder into the ground, straightening her hips more to protect her knees; with a jerk, she stood up, accompanied by a deep exhalation.

The wind had dispersed the snow so much that her footsteps from just seconds before were no longer visible; she blinked frequently and looked around again. The pulsating red light could once be seen from her location, but gusting winds caused the snow to cascade down in a drift even more, forcing her to stick her head even lower.

Her breath caught in the buffeting wind as she crossed the road to take the shortcut through the woods to her building, a tourist attraction; everything was now abandoned, with just the cylindrical domed edifice standing on a high piece of land near the lake. The brickwork was decaying, but the windows remained intact. It was now a mute witness to history, no longer guiding guests.

Many times she fell, breaking branches; she did not see the path; the wind gusts blurred her eyesight. Then, seeing the light a few meters away, she sighed in relief.

She moved the final distance to the front door, slowly putting her white fingertips against the rusted handle. The gentle creak of the door interrupted the silence. She stopped in mid-movement as she heard a crunching sound behind her.

"Ma'am? Ma'am?"

"The forest is dangerous. It was foolish to follow me. People have disappeared, and no one knows what happened to them. But why do I tell you this? You probably think it's just a fairy tale, don't you?” She tilted her head to the side, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the girl in the red plaid dress, the holes in her tights large enough to fit a hand through.

"We are not afraid. Nothing and no one can scare us."

She laughed loudly and turned to face the group of boys and girls. She saw that one of the girls was clutching and protecting a handmade Christmas tree as if it were a treasure.

"Go away. You are not safe here."

"We don't know where to go. It's Christmas, and didn't you teach us that it's a celebration of love and unity? Why would you want to send us into the cold? We face even bigger dangers there."

The handle moved, and the croaking cut through the silence; the children looked toward the door, which opened slowly but steadily. The woman did not look; she observed quietly. A figure in a cloak stood in the doorway, the dim indoor light made her look larger, her scarred hands trembling, and her voice was faint and unclear.

As the children stared at her scarred, some missing-fingered hands, no one spoke. The figure quickly covered her hands with a sweatshirt that read "Happy New Year" once she saw their expressions.

But then something happened; instead of shyness or fear, the children's expressions shifted to pure curiosity.

The girl in the red plaid dress took the cardboard Christmas tree and carefully approached the figure; the others tentatively joined her.

The figure looked to the woman, and she nodded; she clutched her hood with both hands and gently pulled it up, her chest rising and falling quickly. She peered up at the gathering; some had their hands over their mouths, yet the silence made the air crackle with tension.

A boy emerged from the group, holding a straw star he had found long ago, smiling and offering it to her with an outstretched hand.

The scarred girl reached out, reluctantly at first, but then firmly, and grabbed the star from his grasp.

"ThhhThannn, Thank you," the girl said softly.

The boy just nodded; he had lost his speech after learning about the loss of his family in the gang conflicts years ago.

"We serve hot chocolate and freshly baked bread. Come in,” said the woman to break the silence.

As the group followed the scarred girl inside, they passed the woman one by one, brushed off the snow from their clothing, and halted to look up at the latticed cast-iron steps that wound their way up the lighthouse's interior. Their lungs were filled with damp air, yet the smell of freshly baked bread filled their hearts, and they ran towards them; the storyteller watched as the snowdrift evolved, the branches cracked, and the ice of the lake spoke as she closed the door.