Once there was a mother and daughter who lived in a small cottage on the edge of the village. Behind the cottage stood an apple tree, with fruit in season and birds nesting and squabbling all year round. The apples were pink and yellow and shone with the soft bloom of dew, but the girl had never tasted them.
Those were the mother’s apples.
Instead, the girl spent all her time working in the cottage’s kitchen.
One day, the mother looked at the girl and realized she was nearly a woman grown. The girl tended the cottage well, so accustomed to her tasks she no longer needed to be reminded of them or managed. In fact, just that day she had done two things unasked: she had reached through the cottage’s window to break off a branch of the flowering apple tree and set it in a pitcher of water, and she had baked herself a little roll of sweet bread from a new recipe she’d come up with herself.
And so the mother took up a knife and cut off the girl’s hands. She hid them in the large stoneware pot that was sometimes used to make stew. When the girl cried, the mother said, “I don’t know why you are crying. You were only going to use them to hurt yourself. Think how I would feel, then! Do you want to hurt me?”
“No, Mother,” the daughter said, and she hung her head in shame. “I am your daughter, and so you must do what you will to me.”
Afterwards, the mother and daughter continued just as before. Only now the girl did just what was asked of her, and no more, and even that she did poorly.
The girl could not help but dream of leaving the cottage, of walking beyond the apple tree and beyond the low stone wall separating her mother’s house from their neighbors’ and beyond the village itself. It would be hard to make her own way, without her hands, but she thought it could be done.
One day, the mother caught her staring out of the window at the horizon and sighing, and so she took up a knife and cut off the girl’s feet. She stuffed them into a cabinet that held tin pans. When the girl cried, the mother said, “I don’t know why you are crying. You were only going to use them to leave me and go alone into the world, where, without hands, you would surely be hurt or starve. And think how I would feel, all alone, then! Do you want me to be lonely? Do you want me to grieve?”
“No, Mother,” the girl said, hanging her head in shame. “I am your daughter, and so you must do what you will to me.”
Afterwards, the mother and daughter continued just as before. Only now the girl gazed no more at the horizon she would never reach, and even in their cottage she struggled to get around.
In the neighboring house lived a family with a boy near the daughter’s age. He had grown into a fine young man, a man who, as he passed by the cottage’s windows, smiled and whistled and once even winked. The girl knew she could not go far, without her feet, but perhaps she wouldn’t need to. One day, the mother caught her smiling back, and so she took up a knife and cut off the girl’s arms. The arms she stuffed up the kitchen chimney.
When the girl cried, the mother said, “I don’t know why you are crying. You were only going to use them to hold and love that boy, who is not deserving and will probably leave you. Why would he stay, when you have no hands and no feet? I will never leave. I deserve your love. Who raised you and cared for you? Who feeds and clothes you even now?”
“You, Mother,” the girl said, hanging her head in shame. “I am your daughter, and so you must do what you will.” But there was something different about the way the girl said it. The mother was not convinced.
Afterwards, however, the two continued just the same as before. Only now the girl no longer returned the smiles of the boy next door, and soon he stopped smiling and married someone else. But neither could the daughter return her mother’s hugs.
The mother’s suspicions grew.
Even without her feet, the girl stood tall and her legs were strong. When the mother slapped her across the face for some job done poorly, which she was wont to do more and more, the girl did not fall to her knees and grovel. And so the mother took up a knife and cut off the girl’s legs. The legs she buried beneath the kitchen floorboards. When the girl cried, the mother didn’t even respond.
“Mother,” the girl said, “I am your daughter!”
Afterwards, they continued just as before. Only now the girl had little left to her that she could do but think. She thought when she, very poorly, performed her chores. She thought when she woke up and when she ate and when she went to sleep. And the more she thought, the more she began to speak. The mother was astonished at some of the things that came out of her mouth.
And so the mother took up a knife and cut off the girl’s head. When the girl lay in pieces on the kitchen floor, the mother looked at her and said, “What a useless daughter! What a waste of effort you are! You do everything poorly, you cannot stand – you do not even return my love! I give and I give, and look at you! What do you give me? I wash my hands of you; you are no daughter of mine.” And though the mother had promised never to leave the girl, she did.
The girl lay on the kitchen floor for a long time. The apples ripened on the tree outside, and the birds chattered and fought. Sunlight crept across the girl’s face. In the cottage all was silent.
The birds were alarmed. One by one they peeked in. When they saw the girl’s torso and head on the floor they flew in to investigate. What was this? One found her arms stuffed up the chimney. Another found her feet in a cabinet. The floorboards were pulled up – quite an effort, for birds – and the legs found under the floor. The girl’s hands were removed from the stoneware pot. The birds plucked sharp quills from their own bodies and bits of thread from their nests and set to work.
The girl’s arms and legs they reattached; her feet were sewn on. Her head was heavy, but somehow they managed it, and the girl thanked them profusely as soon as she could. But her hands they saved for last and were the hardest to reattach.
In the end, the girl thanked them again but told them to give it up. And so the birds tied her hands together by the wrists and slung them over the girl’s back. The girl – adept, by now, at managing without hands – used her teeth to pack a bag of apples from the apple tree and a change of clothes and left the cottage for the first time in years.
She traveled past the apple tree and past the low stone wall that bordered the property and past the village, whose inhabitants ran to their windows to stare as she walked by. She traveled so far her feet became dusty and wore callouses and her strong legs grew stronger and her arms turned brown from the sun.
At the end of her road was a cottage, the same and yet nothing like the one she had left. The girl slung her hands down on the familiar kitchen floor and dropped her empty knapsack. On the front gate she hung a sign, painted holding the brush in her mouth. “Here anyone can live free,” it said. And then the girl sat down in a chair by the fire and began trying to reattach her hands.
Some say she is trying still.
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Jordan Taylor‘s short fiction has recently appeared in Uncanny and The Deadlands, and was nominated for a 2021 World Fantasy Award. Though she’s lived in cities on both US coasts, she currently resides in Seattle, where she shares a little house near the ocean with her husband, their corgi, and far too many books. You can follow her on her website at jordantaylorwrites.com. |