54 THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER16, 2020
was infected, she reminds the mother,
and her symptoms were the same.
You’re not a doctor, the mother re-
plies. The doctor said she has hel-
minths. If, once she’s finished her worm
medication, she still feels sick, then I’ll
decide what to do. I’m her mother.
Hansa says, May I speak with her?
No, the mother says. She’s resting.
Hansa says she’d like to visit. She’ll
buy—right now—a ticket for a cross-
country non-stop early tomorrow. It’ll
cost two thousand dollars, but she’ll pay.
You may not, the mother says. You’re
not welcome. You’re no longer part of
this family. You live in Boston. Family
means nuclear family. Husband, wife,
dependent child. You think you know
everything, just because you’re a con-
gresswoman. But we have illness in our
home, so you may not visit.
T
he girl can no longer move. At her
request, the mother puts blankets
on a living-room couch. She places the
girl’s schoolbooks on the coffee table.
How’s your stomach?
Better, the girl lies. She’s grateful when
the mother asks, Want some tea?
She’s fourteen, but by the blood moon
she’ll be fifteen.
No thanks, she says. I just want to lie
near you.
All evening, the mother watches TV.
In her sleep, the girl hears a cry from
outside.
The mother says, What was that?
Gretyl says, It was me.
She wants to feed the cat. When
the mother retires, she decides. But,
once she hears footsteps go upstairs,
blackness overtakes her.
She wakes feeling buoyant; rises and
grabs a coat. The night is silent, cold.
She steps toward the woods upon the
snow’s crust. She’s so light that it holds
her up. The gibbous moon illuminates
the trees. It illuminates the starlings,
sleeping in rows on the electrical lines
above the meadows. A noise comes
from behind her. Pitter-patter, pitter-
patter. She looks back; nothing. She
continues toward the woods. The warn-
ing light at the mountain’s dark top
blinks: red, red, red. She hears: pitter-
patter, pitter-patter, and sees that Mihos
walks nonchalantly beside her.
Don’t enter the woods, the cat says.
The girl walks on. She’s drawn to
her childhood playground.
You’ll pay a price, the cat says. But
listen: leave a trail. If you don’t, you
won’t get home again.
The girl touches her pearl necklace.
A twelfth-birthday gift from her grand-
mother. She snaps the string. Pearls
cascade into her pocket. Every ten feet,
she drops a pearl. She crosses the fro-
zen creek. The cat leaps the gully. They
climb the icy, wind-whipped hill. Half-
way up, deep in pines, stands a cottage
gleaming with light. It’s decked with
jewels. An ogre peers out the window.
Come inside, she calls. I’ll fix you.
Mihos shakes his head.
The girl says, I’m cold.
If you go inside, the cat says, you
must shove her into the oven. If you
can’t, you’re fucked.
The girl nods. O.K.
The walls are capiz shells supported
by ivory pillars. Rubies frame the win-
dows. Watermelon tourmalines cover
the roof. The door is amethyst.
The ogre ushers Gretyl inside. She
indicates a golden chair. The girl sits.
Your metabolism’s good now, the ogre
says, but it’ll change. Every winter, you’ll
gain seven pounds.
A fire burns in a vast stone oven.
The ogre adjusts the logs with tongs.
The girl stands. She remembers the
cat’s words. But the ogre turns around,
and now she wears the mother’s face.
She pushes the glowing poker toward
the girl. The girl’s hands and legs won’t
move. She squirms like an overturned
bug. Don’t worry, the ogre says, I’ll fix
you. I’ve waited for the chance.
No, don’t, the girl says, please.
Lucky my husband’s not here, the
ogre says. I’m better than him.
She spears the poker into the girl’s
gut. The pain is a star’s explosion. That’s
it, Gretyl thinks. I’m done.I
n the morning, she still can’t move,
but her torso hurts less.
See? the mother says.
The mother does laundry, vacuums,
irons the father’s shirts.
At lunch, she brings chicken-meat-
ball soup.
Oh, thank you, the girl says. The
soup smells good!
She takes a mouthful.It tastes strange, but she hasn’t eaten
in three days. She takes another.
Her stomach bulges. She jerks for-
ward and pukes all over herself: a foul,
hot, battery-acid waterfall.
The mother changes the girl’s clothes
and puts a steel bowl beside her.
If you’re going to yak, tell me first.
I’m sorry, the girl says.- At two the TV repairman arrives.
He’s slender, weathered, with a mop of
white hair.
He opens up the TV, fiddles.
Eventually, he looks at Gretyl.
Got a virus?
Worms, the mother says.
The man turns pink.
She’s taking medication, the mother
adds.
The mother goes upstairs. The man
rebuilds the TV. Packs his tools.
He approaches the girl.
I have ’em, he says quietly. Makes
my crack itchy. He pauses. Every night
I feel the buggers sliding inside my bum-
hole. Medicine don’t fix me. I’ve taken
everything, and had ’em for decades. But
I’m working. It don’t hurt. Get back to
school, kid!
O.K., the girl says.
The man salutes. She salutes back.
At dusk, Hansa phones the middle
sister. She relays that Gretyl likely has
appendicitis, and that she begged their
parents to drive her to the hospital but
they refused.
Piece of Shit is twenty-five. She’s
studying “creative writing,” in the roll-
ing hills of Idaho. She has a cheap
two-bedroom rental, a kind boyfriend,
and a fellowship.
You had the same pains, Hansa says.
Piece of Shit recalls that, when she
awoke from her appendectomy, six
months prior, her parents were in her
hospital room. She hadn’t even told
them she was ill. The memory is
repellent.
I know you dislike them, Hansa says
softly. Please call. Maybe you can per-
suade them to take Gretyl to the E.R.
Piece of Shit says, Ugh.
Piece of Shit is lazy, vain, solipsis-
tic, and stupid. But she understands
that the parents would have been more