A Magic Maker

Fiction Short

Once upon a hill lived an old woman with scraggly grey hair wrapped in a bun. Wisps of curls laced her face top and side like bunches of frayed cotton balls. She rarely went to the market or outside except to tend her garden and then only on Sundays. Her mailbox was attached to her porch wall outside her door.

She ate from the abundance of her garden and froze the meat from her pigs and ate the eggs from her hens. Her garden produced mounds of greens and lettuces, tomatoes on vines, watermelons that trailed along her fence. It was a wonderland of the color of ripened fruit and vegetables which she treasured and had worked long hours to have such a fruitful harvest.

Her neighbors thought her odd, as they did the shape of her house because she kept to herself and never even attended Sunday services. Yet she was, as it was told, the kindest woman anyone ever met to which they puzzled over. Most could not understand why, when Greta had no family they knew of nor had they ever seen anyone visit. She didn’t participate in any social events of the town either.

But every Sunday around noon, she would walk down to the lake at least twenty miles away while pulling a wagon full of produce from her garden. The children of the town would follow her and tell everyone about Greta and what happened at the lake. They couldn’t keep it inside and blurted out whatever they saw and heard. They remarked that she always left a trail of bread crumbles along the way to feed the birds and other small animals of the wood and it was like they knew she was coming. Birds filled every branch that she passed and small creatures waited behind rocks and brush and then would rush the crumbs as she laid them down. The birds all chirped aloud when she was near the lake like raucous music lifted to the sky and served as a bell that alerted the children at play.

“Greta’s coming,” they’d shout and would run to meet her listening for the bumping and thumping of the wheels of her wagon filled to the brim.

Once Greta stopped to sit by the lake, the bravest of the children, Ephraim, who had one whole leg and a half leg made of wood, would hobble down to talk to Greta, and soon after, the rest of the children followed. The birds’ loud and excited chirpings, the crunching sounds of the wheels of her wagon, and Ephraim’s leadership, all were signs of Greta’s arrival.

She told them stories of how she sailed the blue seas around the world, and how she had slain dragons to which she said existed in far lands, and how she captured a whale once too. The children were fascinated and though they were tall tales, believing them was easy. Greta produced trinkets from the Far East, a piece of a dragon’s tail, and a whale’s eye.

Afterward, she gave out goods to the children from her garden that she had brought. They squealed with joy. Greta became known to be The Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe that had so many children, she didn’t know what to do but to tell tall tales until she was blue. Hundreds of children came on Sunday and never did a drop of rainfall on any Sunday while Greta lived and told her stories and gave away her fresh goods.

Sometimes she brought baked goods too, cascading stacks of cookie batches she had prepared, toppling over each other in one bin or another, and every child received something from Greta, the kindest woman in town who made magic every Sunday.

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