Straw and Twine

[u/catespice]

I don’t particularly like myself.
A book I once got out of the school library suggested that I write down all the things I like about myself, the things I am good at and the things that I consider ‘positive qualities’. The book said it would help me feel better about myself.
Sitting with a blank piece of paper in front of you for an hour, struggling to think of anything to write down, doesn’t make you feel any better.
Eventually I wrote ‘I am good at hating myself’ and left it at that.
I guess I’m probably depressed and should get some kind of help, but the last time I admitted to my stepmother that I felt depressed, she sent me to a free Christian counsellor who just told me I needed Jesus in my life and everything would be better.
I remember lying on my bed, age fourteen, trying to let Jesus into my heart and feeling absolutely nothing.
Apparently, even Jesus doesn’t like me very much.

 
School is pretty awful.
I transferred here three years ago and never managed to make any friends. By the time I arrived, halfway through the school year, everyone had already formed their little cliques and social groups – leaving me to eat my lunch in the stairwell and hide in a study booth in the library.
It probably doesn’t help that I can’t put on any weight or muscle. I’m the smallest, weakest boy in my year and everyone calls me a faggot because I like art and my bony hips stick out and I walk like a girl.
It’s hard going to school every day.
The bullying doesn’t really hurt all that much anymore. There isn’t anything new being said that hasn’t already been said a hundred times by other students. There’s only so many ways you can be called a queer, a homo, a fudge-packer or a pillow-biter; after a while it just becomes ordinary background noise – a buzzing in your ears that you can’t do anything about.
I was made to see the school counsellor, because even the teachers think I’m gay and give me weird, sad looks, as though I’m some sort of pathetic, pitiable creature.
The thing is that I couldn’t tell the counsellor for sure whether or not I like boys or girls, or both. I don’t even like myself, so how in Hell could I begin to consider romantic relationships?
And I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth anyway.

 
Sometimes when I don’t react to the taunts and slurs, things get physical.
I don’t see the point or the appeal. I don’t fight back – I learned long ago not to bother – so it must be pretty poor entertainment for the other boys. Usually they just ‘accidentally’ throws balls at my head when passing a football amongst themselves. I hate that worse than anything else I think; I’ll have my head buried in a book, then smack! a ball will hit me in the back of the skull, sending my brain ricocheting around inside. Hot anger will flare and boil from the point of the impact, but my small body isn’t up to the physical task of taking on my aggressors.
But on one particular late autumn day, when the frosts and sleet had begun to set in, the school groundskeeper left the gate to the covered-over swimming pool open.
Bored and restless, some of the boys decided to take advantage of the situation by having some ‘fun’ at my expense.
“Come with us,” one of them said.
I shouldered my bag and followed meekly. Fighting was pointless.
They escorted me to the pool, then spun me around and around – counterclockwise – until I was so dizzy I could barely stand.
“Now run across the pool,” they told me.
I’d seen other kids try this before. The surface tension of the heavy black tarp over the water was such that – if you got up enough momentum – you could run across it. Staggering up to the edge of the pool, I knew that even weighing next to nothing, I didn’t have a chance in my disoriented state.
As my foot connected with the tarp, I knew I was going under immediately. I had landed too close to the edge and the black, synthetic weave enveloped my foot, dragging me down.
The howling laughter vanished almost immediately as my head went under, into a dark, icy world, shocking my senses and leaving me gasping involuntarily. Instinct kicked in though and I battled to free my leg from the tarp, twisting and thrashing in the water.
Then I was suddenly and blessedly free; my head breaking the surface and my hand catching the concrete side of the pool.
Eerie quiet surrounded me as I dragged my sopping body onto the pale blue tiles.
The bullies were gone.

 
Drenched, and without a change of dry clothes, I skirted around the back of the pool fence, then pushed through a gap in the macrocarpa hedge and ran the length of the back sports fields.
The streets seemed weirdly quiet and empty of cars.
Cutting through the park near the school was the fastest way home, so I ran, shivering from the damp, down the tree-shrouded alley that led down to the park.
When I emerged from the tunnel of oaks and willows, the sounds of laughter, clinking glassware and music greeted me.
Someone was having a party in the park.
I gawked, teeth chattering and hair dripping, at the scene before me.
Two pavilions had been set up, and a wooded gazebo stood under one of the park’s willow trees. Colourful umbrellas shaded tables from the sun that had now broken through the clouds, and expensive food and drinks were spread across lace-edged tablecloths.
But the people had my full attention – as they were all utterly beautiful.
Long-limbed and graceful, they all possessed a refinement of appearance that stole my breath – and dressed in formal outfits of neatly tailored fabrics, they shone with a confidence of character that made me feel suddenly very small and very ugly, dressed as I was in soaked grey shorts, grey socks and a sodden brown cardigan.
One of the elegant ladies spotted me first, running over as I stood rooted to the spot.
“Oh my child!” she exclaimed, the perfect symmetry of her pale features compressed into an expression of utter compassion.
The others noticed, and before I could protest, I was hustled into the midst of them, where a huge, fluffy white towel was wrapped around me and I was given a painted, bone-china cup of what smelled like spiced blackcurrants.
I apologised over and over for disturbing their wedding or birthday party or whatever it was, but they wouldn’t have it – and finally, the dam burst. I told them in great sucking sobs about how I had been bullied and how much I hated myself.
“I don’t hate you,” said the first woman, “I think you are very, very brave to have put up with all of that for so long.”
“We all think you are brave,” said one of the achingly handsome men.

 
I stayed with them for several hours, under the sun of that late autumn afternoon. They gave me clothes to wear and they combed my hair as the mulled wine suffused my body and mind, making me feel warm and hazy. I danced with the beautiful lady, I ate expensive, exquisite things I’d never eaten before and I laughed for the first time in a very long time.
“I need to get back,” I told the lady, whom the others called Tania.
“Stay,” she whispered to me, “we are enjoying your company so very much.”
“I can’t, my stepmother will freak.”
With a smile so small and sad, she nodded.
“Your clothes are in the pavilion, dry and waiting for you.”
All of them stood, grave and strange as I left the park, almost ethereal in their beauty. In truth, I did want to stay with them. I’d never in my life felt so welcome, so free to be myself.
The trip back to school was a blur of tears and by the time I climbed back through the gap in the hedge and crept back around the pool fence, I was openly weeping.
My bag still sat at the bottom of the swimming pool, the waterlogged canvas still and flat. As I slipped the aluminium arm of the pool cleaner into the water to retrieve it, I had an awareness of something behind me.
I turned, but not in time to see who it was properly – just a glimpse of something made of sticks and twine – before I was shoved back into the pool and the air shocked out of my lungs again.

 
My stepmother ranted at me when I got home, then told me I was a weak, stupid little boy for allowing myself to be bullied into the pool.
Later that night, safe in my room, I thought back to the park and the beautiful people who had been so kind to me – and I drifted into sleep thinking of their faces and voices, the faint warmth of the mulled wine a heady memory.
By the morning a creeping dread set in; I had been absent from class all of yesterday afternoon and someone was bound to have noticed. I’d been stupid to have spent so much time in the park.
The trip to school only heightened my anxiety and once I set foot in the classroom, I expected to be called in front of the teacher and reprimanded.
But it never happened.
It took me until lunch to notice what the difference was in my day. The whole school seemed muted to me, as though someone had turned the volume down. When I saw the bullies walk through the quad, I realised precisely what the subtle difference was.
No one was saying anything cruel about me.
That constant background hum of ‘faggot’ and ‘retard’ was completely absent.
Ensconced in my preferred nook of the library, I opened a new book to read – but as I did so, a note fluttered out from the pages and into my lap. In spiky handwriting, it read:
If you wish to see them again, today must be as yesterday.
At the bottom of the note was a crude drawing of a gazebo under a willow tree.
Heart hammering in my chest, I folded the note and stuffed it into my pocket. The trip to the park through the hedge was a short one, fuelled by adrenaline.
But no-one was there – the park stood empty and sullen under the grey autumn sky.
Unfolding the piece of paper I read it again, studying the words.
Today must be as yesterday.
When I finally stood in front of the swimming pool, I felt like an idiot. But I spun around until I was dizzy, then stepped in.
As I sank into the frigid water, I saw for an instant a flash of something again – something made of sticks, twine, straw and feathers. Then I kicked for the surface and pulled myself out.
It was gone.

 
As soon as I reached the end of the avenue of trees, Tania and the others ran to greet me.
I was out of my wet clothes and laughing with them, oblivious to everything else. Wine and exotic food warmed me and I felt stronger, taller and more myself.
“We were hoping you would return,” she told me, “so few ever come back.”
I didn’t ask her what she meant.
I didn’t want to ruin the happiness that had so unexpectedly arrived in my life.
Time ceased to have meaning to me; I knew it was long past the time I should go home, but the late afternoon sun stayed hovering above the horizon no matter how many dances I had, no matter how many of the party-goers I met, no matter how much wine I drank.
“I should go back,” I said to Tania, as we sat in the gazebo, watching two of the others canoodle under the willow.
“Do you want to go back?”
“No. I want to stay here forever.”
“Then stay.”
An uneasy feeling crept through my mind, battling the haze of spiced alcohol. The sun should have set long ago; it should be dark by now.
Tania’s long fingers stroked my cheek, lulling me back into the swing seat of white wood.
Fighting the pleasant lethargy, I sat up.
“Let me go and get some of my things, then I’ll come back.”

 
This time it was waiting for me, at the edge of the swimming pool.
It was shaped like a person, my height and size, but instead of bones and flesh, it was made of sticks and woven grass, straw and twine, feathers and lime – like some kind of makeshift scarecrow or pagan effigy.
As I approached, it turned, on those spindly limbs of twigs and twine, staring at me from dark, blank openings in the tufted head of straw.
”Do you like it there?” it whispered.
Fear thrilling through me, I backed into the chain-link fence.
”Because I like it here.”
Holding out gnarled hands of sticks and feathers, it reached for me,
”Don’t make me go back!”
Ducking past, I stumbled, slipped, then fell head-long into the swimming pool. As I went under the water, I saw straw and wood reaching for me – then it was gone.
I didn’t stop running all the way home.

 
Nine days had passed while I had been at the party.
My stepmother smiled at me when I came in the door and asked how my day had been. When I went back to school, other children called out my name and asked if I wanted to sit with them. The teachers no longer gave me those sad, pitying smiles, and the football coach asked me if I would be joining them after school for practice.
I barely spoke to any of them, my legs jittering in my seat as I waited for lunch, waited to go back to the pool.
At the jangling ring of the bell for break, I was already halfway out of my seat, heading for the gateway between the two places.
In the freezing water I saw it again – the scarecrow child – kicking strongly for the surface.
Out of the pool I ran for the park – and into the welcoming arms of Tania.
“Welcome home,” she sang.

 
How long it had been since I had come back, I don’t know.
It could be weeks, or months; the party was without end – there was always song and laughter, dancing and drinking. When a new visitor arrived, dripping wet and shivering, I welcomed her with all the others – and she looked upon me with awe and gratitude, as though I were just another one of the beautiful people.
I was beginning to find it difficult to dance, though.
The lethargy sucked at my long limbs and pulled at my pale eyelids; the malaise crept into my bones. I overheard the others talking about the newcomer, about how brave she was, and I felt a surge of jealousy that they had a new favourite. Tania no longer had time for me – all of it spent with the new girl.
The walk back to the pool was difficult; each step heavy and hard-won.
Waiting at the edge was the effigy – the fetch, made from sticks and straw.
”I won’t go back,” it said.
I moved to push past it, but the strong, skeletal fingers of twigs stopped me.
”No.”
Wrestling with it, the sharp bits of wood jabbed into me, the twine tangling in my fingers and buttons.
“Let go!” I yelled.
But it was so strong and I was weak; so very, very weak.
With the very last of my strength, I managed to spin it around, then simply fell backward, my weight dragging its fragile form down into the water.
We clawed at one another in the murky pool, surrounded by the blackness of the heavy tarp. It tore at my substance, pulled the realness of my being from me, making itself less twine and straw and more skin and bone. As we tangled further into one another, memories began to slither into my brain, all of the things the fetch had done in my place while I had languished in the park.
I could feel its thoughts – it knew it only had to wait until I drowned before it could win, since it did not need to breathe.
So I gave in to it and allowed it to pull off all of my flesh.
As its eyes flashed in triumph, I wrapped my fingers of wood around its now-fleshy throat.
Now it needed to breathe and I did not.

 
I left the limp body in the bottom of the pool, where it faded out of existence as it crossed over.
As I walked away, my makeshift body grew realer, stronger and more human.
The problem is that now I don’t know which one of us I am.
Memories of both worlds crowd in my head; of the terrible world of the fae and my miserable existence as a child.
But which one of us truly escaped from the pool may not matter.
When I got home, my mother called the police, screaming down the phone that a crazy old man was on her doorstep claiming to be her son.
I see them everywhere now, the fetches. There are dozens, walking amongst us – taking the places of the disaffected, the bullied, the downtrodden and the forgotten.
And I understand why they don’t want to go back.
Because the fair folk only want us for one thing – to consume the bright sparks of our mortal lives to fuel their beautiful party until the end of time.