By Jennifer Lesh Fleck
Nightfall, late November. A rustle in the dead hollyhocks outside. I lay my book down with a huff. Swing my legs over the edge of my narrow, iron-framed bed and slide my toes into old silken slippers. I listen, poised, testing the air. Under crush of boot heel, phlox and sage perfume up.
Someone’s out there.
I twitch aside the lace curtain from icy panes. A figure skulking around, come to ogle my priceless art collection. Youth edging into Man—oh, I remember him now. A boy I’d once spared, now returned to glimpse remembered wonders. Slinking through the darkness like a starved fox, hungry for shriveled grapes and sad harvest leavings. Like the others who have come before, he’s not as sly as he thinks.
Only fools wander my way in the Westlands.
This one’s a handsome lunker, his eyes burning like cinders under a bushy brow. A pistol rides his hip: virgin metal, never fired. He weaves between dying coneflowers, transfixed by my art. Takes in my marble sculptures, each by each, as the clouds part briefly for the moon, bathing my garden in lunatic light. Memorials of those I’ve known briefly, lusted for, who have otherwise turned my head and caught my eye.
Of course he beelines to the feminine. The one entitled Venus—I never know their birth names. I tucked her in the loveliest of grottos, its stone walls heavy with ivy, leaves gone blood-scarlet in this autumn chill. A place of honor and contemplation, reserved for my favorite piece. Plump, pretty, forever caught in her coquettish turn: hip cocked, backwards glance. Spring water slid down her skin when we met that long-ago day. Now my admiration lives on, endures within each droplet I carved. Her cold marble eyes are rounded, her mouth a surprised ‘o.’ What was once fear and hatred can—if you squint—be reinterpreted. Becoming coyness, flirtation. A beckoning.
The youth can’t help himself, either. Reaches for her with hands gloved softly in doeskin. Traces her arm tenderly, the Pentelic stone gleaming like frozen moonlight. Art is transformative, magic: he sees her now exactly as I saw her then.
So why, then, is he crying?
Hitching, gulping, pathetic, like his heart’s been shattered. He shivers and stamps those expensive new boots. Gazes up through wet lashes, something pleading in the look he offers the night sky. As though these cloudy heavens could be burdened with the concept of mercy, might take pity on him, spare him a terrible fate as yet unknown.
Under Venus’s milky glare, the gloves come off. He brushes curled leaves from a chilled stone breast, measures breadth of hip with his gaze. Nobody asks a statue’s permission, nobody begs. They take hold of what they covet, and they do what they please. Crashing thoughtlessly into cloistered spaces. Mortality clinging to them like pond slime on a frog’s haunch.
I frown. This intruder’s desires…so pointed and so male. So typical. I should capture his portrait, just like this…
But ultimately I decide against rash actions. Instead, I’ll toy with him, poke around, investigate and savor. Leaving my front door open, I glide along the cold flagstones. The constellation Perseus rides the shrouded skies. Hidden behind cloud cover—still, I feel that knowing twinkle. My creations silently look on, too. Diana, the ones I’ve entitled Cupid and Bacchus. Leda, sans her frothy and amorous swan. And others I’ve known and—to be truthful—have halfway forgotten. Left neglected, they crackle and craze, sometimes shedding whole limbs with little ceremony.
Deep in his private scenarios, the young man never notices my approach. I come from behind, my heavy tresses piled and knotted on my head, my breath unfurling in plumes like smoke. I wink at Venus, slip a loop of silk around his tearful eyes, knot tight.
Not much struggle, after all. I have his muscled limbs dropped and hogtied in moments flat. I drag him blindfolded to my cottage. His spine thumps the threshold, and he moans.
“Shush,” I say. “I’ll not hurt you if you obey.”
* * *
November becomes December, by and by.
When I’m not tending my new houseguest, I juggle the usual chores. Both my garden’s sole artist and its audience, I make my daily rounds, kicking an errant pebble from a path or stooping to pull a dead thistle when I must. The lowered sun casts its sheepish light. The iron sundial sits useless. Last summer’s gaudy dahlias, peonies, roses, and geraniums blacken in rain-soaked mulch piles, reeking of sweet tea and rot. The grotto’s ivy sprawls leafless, its twisted bones on display.
When the breeze gusts, it makes a skeletal rattle of the ivy, sending a crow winging off with a grumpy cry. It rarely snows here in the Westlands, so close to the sea. And never this early. But it does get bitter-cold.
Last night’s first hard frost created today’s miracle. It glazed a spider’s web, left it sparkling and crystalline in the sunrise. I open my mouth to exclaim in delight. Then I become aware of myself, standing alone beside the toolshed, robbed of purpose and direction, pitchfork in my hand forgotten.
The wind dies down.
Against this backdrop of stillness, my artworks are the paradox.
Here, a village maiden is caught mid-flight. A single toe-tip connects her to the earth. Her body is cantilevered, her robes and sorry rope of a belt rotted away. A masterwork!
And there, a more humble piece, memorializing an old slack-bellied man I’d once happened upon. Not my usual choice of model, but still, the work has obvious merit. He clutches his beard beneath stone-blind eyes, mouth open, awkwardly yawing. The exchange we had that particular day was petty and unkind, surely. The exact words have been lost to time, I’m afraid.
Always art has been my worthy companion—why does it no longer seem quite enough?
* * *
In the smaller of the two bedrooms, the Youth awaits the creak of the door and my feet squeaking the floorboards. He’s become an entertaining fixture. Like furniture, only mouthier, talkier. Chained to the bed, his eyes forever bound in white satin.
“Glimpse me not,” I remind him daily. “That’s the rule, Youth, should you wish to live.” Youth. It’s what I’ve dubbed him. I don’t care to know his true name, nor share with him mine.
He’s called me a litany of things. Kidnapper, captor, jailor…and even ruder terms not worth repeating.
He’s kept me busy!
That first night, I dumped his things down a well: the shiny pistol, the suit of traveling clothes still stiff and new. Then the two leather boots dropped through the unspeakable mystery of my reflection—plop, plop. From the cellar I fetched sackcloth for Youth, cozy enough if you ignore the scratch and smelling pleasantly of root vegetables and mildew. Whistling him awake, I pressed a metal dipper of water to his lips. Offered him a saucer of porridge, thinned to make it easier to tip into an open mouth.
Nothing overly spiced or stimulating, not in those early days. He refused his supper, anyhow, lips puckered and babyish.
I treat him wonderfully, though he fails to notice. Instead, we go through things.
First he struggled, finding himself manacled at wrists and ankles. Spat surly words, skin shredding nearly to bone. Ribs flared by fury, his teeth snapped air. Next came the begging and bargaining, the threats. Mentions of a mounted party hunting for him day and night. Promises of riches and rewards, should I be polite enough to free him. This went on a while—maybe days?—but subsided. Hunger does it. Exhaustion, too.
Now he’s softened, sweet as honey butter half-melted on the featherbed. Says nice things, and is treated—in careful increments—much nicer, in return.
Youth says, “Good afternoon, kind Friend! I hope your ramble was pleasant and the weather gentle.”
And “Tell me a story, then I shall have my little nap before supper.”
And “I like your porridge well enough, but adore your tarts. When I smell them baking, my day’s made. What man needs more than this?”
This lovely, comely state. My resolves cracks. I admit I’m charmed.
* * *
“My bones ache. Please, Friend. Let me sit up like a proper gentleman.”
“You mustn’t peek, now.” I fiddle with his blindfold, check and double-check the knot.
“Please, Friend. I’m half-afraid I’ll choke, dining flat as this. What a sordid way to go, wouldn’t you say?”
I loosen Youth’s chains, if only to see what happens next.
Over the next few days, I unlock and remove the manacles, too. Eventually all but one ankle, tethered to the iron frame. I have hearing like a bat’s, a marksman’s gimlet eye. Nothing moves within these walls without my knowing. Nothing approaches outside.
So what harm, this? He chews my tarts, grins under his blindfold. Peach, apple, candied cherry, pickled rhubarb. Warming to him, I describe my summer garden. I paint pleasant pictures to replace what he cannot see, the situation being what it is. I show him marble statues standing bright again, scrubbed of winter’s moss and lichen. The way the oak and linden leaves drowse under July sunlight. Restless breezes push through and the leaves shiver, shimmering and hypnotic. Wasps burrow into peaches hanging heavy and ripe, the insects growing drunk on warmed juices. So stupefied and slow you can pluck one up by its wings, coax it to crawl across your hand like a gentle pet, your face hanging huge like a god’s and blocking the sun.
Youth lies wrapped in bedding, enraptured. Mild, sightless, tractable.
Weak as a kitten.
* * *
Holding someone hostage is intimate.
Youth never speaks of his past, nor questions why I keep him.
Instead he asks me bright questions. I perch opposite him on the quilt, fidgeting, picking at my old stitches, weaving coy little tales. In them, I become a village waif, this cottage and remote tract a surprise inheritance from a mercurial grandmother. With her last breath, she revealed her true nature, casting a cruel enchantment and curse.
One glance my way, fatal for us both.
Youth cannot know the truth, not if I’m to eventually free him. I picture how such a scenario might play out. A house mouse in a reed basket, released to scamper, go go. They say they die, left far from the nest, from all they’ve known. Freedom in a cold, strange place is no mercy.
I must consider this all carefully.
* * *
I roll out a pie’s crust, the corpse-pale dough honied extra sweet for my visitor. Meanwhile, something new has begun to spin in my mind’s eye. A different form of art, one born not of slapdash happenstance, as is my typical method. But more measured and considered, carefully planned. I muscle the dough flat and thin, thinking, thinking. Something effortful and worked for could be an interesting departure.
Is this how other artists manage it? A spark from nowhere rises from the black? Inspiration and insight bloom in cold January’s grip, where once was nothing?
I’ve observed Youth when he thought he was alone. He frets at his satin bandage, edges filthy from sweat and exploratory touches. This is no way for a man to live—it isn’t fair he be kept helpless and blinded. Though fairness has never been the determining hand—not in my life—what if it could be? What if I could rise to the occasion, just this once? Becoming more than I naturally am.
I lay the wooden pin on the floury board. I listen, listen.
Crick open a door, creep up narrow hidden stairs to the widow’s walk mounted on the moss-shagged roof. The bracing cold does not trouble one like me. Gripping the rail, I take in great distances. Turning like a clock’s sweeping hand, I survey it all, the ocean’s westward lip to the snow-laden peaks in the east. My domain. There’s a pass through these mountains carved by bravado, stupidity, and adventuresome feet. Such a man-cut path represents a weakness in my life’s fortress. A fissure that will summon even more men, others looking for him, for Youth.
For even in shapeless sackcloth, his fierce eyes hidden, he maintains a princely air. Surely he’s been missed.
I sniff the breeze, desperately afraid I’ll scent campfire.
Summoning a hawk’s vision, I look and look. Worried I might sight the treachery of smoke rising from some far field or furrow.
All is quiet, now. All is good. The snowy peaks remain impassable in this season. The ocean’s angry thrust will dash any mortal ship against unforgiving rock. But the relentless turn of the year’s wheel, and springtime boiling up to thaw…
I decide. Let this outer world fester in its hatred and petty misunderstanding, for I’ve met someone different than the rest. He turns to me in sightless trust, his smile ever-ready. He offers something remarkably close to joy. I must begin the new work, then. I must complete it fast, should I hope to keep him.
* * *
I’m guessing on the size, but these orbs are pretty—the very prettiest. They must do.
With a chisel I chip and pry them from Venus’s stone skull. All the while a robin out of season watches from a bare branch, immune to my curse. The featherbrained twit dares question my method, perhaps even my madness.
But ingenuity and determination drive me. I chisel them free from my beautiful Venus—one, two. They’re ragged on their backsides, cut as they are from the world’s smallest quarry.
No, reclaimed. I examine these prizes in the weak sunlight. Reimagined.
Venus stares from dark pits, silent and inscrutable. She’s spoiled and ugly now. But from her sacrifice my greatest work is born.
Back inside, I check Youth to be sure he’s resting quietly, then head immediately to my worktable. Head bowed, my tresses so heavy, I struggle to get it right. Briefly I break to sup my guest and toss his chamber pot. Never once letting on that a surprise is coming, one to free him from the blindfold and chain he hates.
The candle made of fat gutters low. I file and sand, smooth and shape. Finally I paint these orbs. Give them irises and pupils of cinders mixed with my own blood, coaxed from my thumb with a needle. How I long to tell Youth—but not yet!
The pressure of me on the edge of the bed rouses him. His frown in the dark becomes a wide, sappy smile of recognition.
“Be my eyes,” he murmurs dreamily. “Tell me another story.”
How I long to tell Youth everything—but not yet! Instead, I chatter excitedly of spring. So close, now Yuletide and Candlemas are past. I tell him of the red worms who weave paths through the chaotic warp and weft of roots, readying hidden seeds to sprout. The waking crocus that pushes forth as a herald, the yolk-colored daffodils quick to overtake. How rabbits dart and scamper among the feet of my statues, providing entertainment for the thoughtless. How such furry creatures taste taken apart joint by joint, boiled in their own blood and sweet spring water.
“I’m hungry to see and taste everything,” Youth blurts. Perhaps flirtatiously?
I think back to today’s misplaced bird—that sulky character. “Flocks of robins, too. In their natty grey suits and ruddy breasts, they peck and devour those very same red worms. An absolute feast, a massacre in rain-sodden grass.”
“What a lovely sight to behold, Friend. Like living poetry! I cannot wait…”
“Indeed,” I say. And without thinking, I fidget and knock and clack them together in my hand like marbles. Two new beautiful eyeballs. Polished marble, painted just like his.
He startles at the sound.
“Apologies,” I say. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
When he asks what exactly made such a strange clatter, I cannot say, nor find the ready lie.
* * *
It’s never the right moment to perform a procedure as delicate as this. I study Youth all the same, biding my time. Linger at his doorway, toeing the threshold almost shyly. I creep again to him at midnight’s stroke. I tiptoe in before dawn. Each time, I carry a bundle of linen, a paring knife wrapped in its folds. The cloth is meant to sop the blood, whatever flow comes. I am not sure how much there will be, having never before undertaken such a task.
It’s an unexplored realm, waiting frozen like this, petrified in the shadows. I’m shocked to discover there are transgressions that are—even for one like me—a struggle and a stretch.
“Hello?” he says, voice drowsy. “Who’s there?” A sharpened note, in that.
I stand so long tonight, the marble in my hand grows skin-warm. It’s almost like I’m a woman, a human filled with human blood.
* * *
Winter’s final gasp is a storm. I never smelled this late snow in the air, never noticed the clouds gather, conspiring. How careless I’ve become. How distracted and utterly sloppy.
Youth calls for me. He’s caught up in quilt batting, shivering and shaking in the oil lamp’s glow.
“I’ve a fever. Help me, Friend!” His teeth chatter. “I cannot get warm!”
Seeing him stricken tugs something in me. I retreat to gather up my tresses, pile them under a scarf, a touch-me-not. Candlelit in my only mirror, its surface speckled like liver spots, I see a woman’s face, ageless and smooth. I’d almost believed my lies. But my hair. It’s hopeless…
In legend, it’s serpents. But the reality is less like snakes, more like bull kelp. Ugly, bristling bulbs and lashing tassels. Sickly yellow-green, salty and sea-borne. No teeth to them, no poison—nothing dangerous.
The real hazard’s here, in my frigid eyes. I cannot help but turn brute artlessness to art, soft flesh to stone.
* * *
With my limbs I warm Youth, settle him. Then he surprises me, seeking my mouth, a pecking baby bird.
Eons since I’ve been touched by another. So as the winds mount their howling attack, I fall upon this man, lift sackcloth, become one with him and quake. His lips curl triumphantly under the rim of his filthy mask.
Eventually I dismount. The stickiness joining us snaps. Side by side, we drift, snowflakes whirling beyond the rimed panes.
Even winter-eyed ones like me can love, I think.
Tomorrow at dawn, then. No more hesitation…it is time. I’ll let him touch them first, cup their comforting globular weight. Then I’ll pry his own pair ever-so-carefully free and toss them in a bowl for the crows. And gently, very gently—one, two—in will slide the shiny-new.
He’ll smile up at me, his painted eyes shining, trusting. Thankful.
Then forever after, he and I. We’ll wander my garden, hand in hand, a mated pair. And with my bright voice I’ll paint for Youth all that I see. The toadstools that appear overnight in a ring danced by fairies’ feet. The bees tumbling into the belladonna blossoms, the willow hanging its heavy head to weep.
Comforted by such thoughts, I relax against him, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. It storms outside, but here we’re safe. I sleep.
* * *
He’s on me. Knees on each side pinch my arms flat. Something’s at my throat. My hair bristles and squirms, freed from its scarf. His blindfold’s gone, his eyes pinched tight.
“My brothers are Caleb and Paul,” Youth says. “Years back we came to fell the Gorgon of the Westlands. You froze them in their tracks, murdered them. Only I escaped.”
“Castor and Pollux,” I chide gently, “are lovingly memorialized.” I stroke his cheek, but he jerks away. “Never will their bodies rot and their bones crumble, their young faces falling to flagrant ruin, then to dust. Your brothers’ visit was a kindness, a convenience. I didn’t need to move them, not one inch. As they stood then in my garden raising their little sword and hatchet, so they stand now. You may visit them whenever you like. We’ll go together, your hand in mine. There’s a way, you see. I’ve found a way for us. Now, you don’t intend to kill me, boy. Now, now…”
“They’re weathered headstones tilted over forgotten graves.” He makes a noise in his throat, then spits in my face. “I mean to take your head, Monster!”
My heart breaks.
I let Youth throttle me for a while using the sad noose he’s fashioned from my headscarf and his blindfold. Then I rise, throwing off his bare legs and his clinking chain. I wipe the childish spittle from my cheek. I slip back on my satin robe, sighing as I straighten its hem.
“Look at me,” I say, leaning over Youth.
“See,” I command.
When he doesn’t, when his head goes side to side and he moans, then begs, then weeps, with my long fingernails I prise open the tender lids. Looming for him, beautiful, my gaze full of tears. We meet eye to eye. His dark pair takes in my endless depths, my spangled secrets, my shadows green and mottled. And now he knows me true.
Milky white steals over his orbs like ice consuming twin millponds. He goes to stone, my love does—now another memory shot through with veins the color of hoarfrost.
His frozen stance in the quilts, so awkward and inelegant…
Unfortunate, a trick of bad luck, worse timing. Not my best work. Later today I’ll haul him to his final resting spot. Somewhere along the back edge of my garden, I think. Where the burdocks grow thick and no paths run, a place nobody visits and that I rarely see.
Jennifer Lesh Fleck has stories published or upcoming in MetaStellar, Gamut, If There’s Anyone Left, Heartlines Spec, Flash Fiction Online, and the 2023 Shirley Jackson Award winner for best anthology, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, among other fine places. She lives with her family near Portland, Oregon in a home that’s a dead ringer for the Amityville Horror House, though repainted a cheery jade green. She’s a grateful recipient of the 2025 Superstars Expanding Universe scholarship. Her work is often informed by the challenges of lifelong hidden disability from a rare inherited disorder. Find her @mettle.and.metal (Instagram) and www.jenniferleshfleck.com.