Behind the Brambles
Flash-fiction - by Megan Baffoe
Mawusi spent her sixth summer picking fruit.
Next door grew plums—the sweetest of summer bruises, purple and soft, but the mistress of the house employed a gardener who was very vigilant when it came to pests. He had informed Mawusi’s father last year that small children could be far more devastating than slugs or snails, if not dealt with properly. So, this summer, she had been instructed to venture further; strawberries grew in little jewel-like clusters down the lane, but never—and, Mawusi thought, Nature had missed a trick in this regard—with cream and sugar; there were apples, too, from an ancient tree, that she suspected of either being a witch or owned by one. Whether or not the apples tasted magical, she never knew, because the parakeets always pecked them to rot before she could get a tooth in edgeways.
“We have fruit growing in the garden,” her mother would say, whenever Mawusi complained. Once, she had said it with a half-laugh, endeared; now, she was distracted, with the only thought given to Mawusi’s fruit that she should bring the best home for her aunt. Mawusi did not understand enough about illness or aunts to take on her mother’s worry; certainly, she was not going to prioritise it over her fruit-picking.
This year she had turned to blackberries. There was no shortage of brambles down the country lane; she could eat until she had purple cheeks, and still take plenty home to enjoy in either crumble or pie. Her mother didn’t like her out of sight, but by the end of the road the brambles all curled in a little arch—like a picture in a storybook, with a little rabbit in a waistcoat or Sleeping Beauty—and the primroses grew in between the grasses, and from there she could see the cottage. The Sun would shine down on her little feet, and—with Mawusi in her little check dress, and a child’s teacups and toys all scattered round, and the flowers bright and birds singing—it would all be rather lovely.
It was in this storybook scene that Mawusi met Death for the very first time.
She had been looking for Princess Clementine—who was, at the time, her favourite doll—to pick some more blackberries, and was rather perturbed to see him there instead. He was a crouching, cowering creature—a skeleton of something, for sure, although Mawusi thought that even the adults would not be able to tell her what. He had his bone claws pinched in a circle, from which he was blowing bubbles, although he had no mix; they were strange shapes, and all differently coloured. It was perhaps because he was simply not concentrating, because, the whole time, he was digging behind the brambles, as if he had dropped something very precious on the ground.
Princess Clementine, from her position on the ground, did not think much of him, but Mawusi decided to remember her manners. She asked very politely if she could help.
Death—although he had given no indication that he had seen her there before—did not jump, but his strange, bony head cracked a little to the side, so that his socket-less eyes were staring right at her. He did not reply.
Princess Clementine’s doubts about him doubled, with the opinion that he was rather rude. Thankfully, Mawusi had spotted a gracious way out of the conversation; she could see, to the side, a pale envelope, one that looked like it might belong to a grown-up.
So she pointed.
Death walked like her aunt did, slow and staggering, with the bones all grinding together. But he did not seem to be in any pain. He took it up with his claws, and Mawusi saw the words inscribed on it. Yes, she was still learning her letters, but she recognised that name.
“Are you here to see my auntie?”
There was silence for a moment, and she and Princess Clementine were afraid that Death was going to say nothing again. But then he spoke. His voice was booming and loud, and made all the blackberries quiver.
“Not for some hours yet.”
Mawusi licked her lips nervously. This situation, in all, felt quite out of her reach, and Princess Clementine’s urges to match his bad manners did not help. But in the end, she decided to follow her mother’s example, and offer Death some tea.
He sat with her and the dolls until the Sun went down. He didn’t talk much, nor eat many blackberries, but he was happy to blow bubbles all the while. Sometimes, they seemed to just appear in front of him, without being blown from the stick; and those, he would pop, with his strange little claws.
Princess Clementine wanted to play too. Mawusi wasn’t sure that Death would agree (she had never met an adult so enthusiastic about bubbles), but he said yes—with a strange, almost human, glint in his eye. He watched very intently as the bubble disappeared, and then left soon after it; so suddenly, in fact, that Mawusi had no time to offer him some parting fruit. She took them home for her aunt, instead; but was informed, rather shakily by her father, that she was no longer with them.
Mawusi did not meet Death again until she was twelve, by which time she was perhaps only partly sure that their tea party had been real and not a memory. It was Autumn, now, and she walked across the path with a care that a child does not have, wary of muddying her school shoes.
There was a woman there, behind the brambles. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes—pale and blind, like moons—met Mawusi’s.
“Hello,” she said, more boldly than she felt. Then the woman turned, and she realised that she was once again looking at Death.
It was not that she looked the same. No; today, she had long, curling hair like a storybook princess, and a crown of rich fruit upon her head. When she saw Mawusi, she smiled, and her teeth looked to be made of rotting meat. But she had, in her fleshy claws, an envelope.
Mawusi swallowed. And then, she asked, in the voice that owned the bravery that she didn’t—
“Who’s the letter for?”
“Not you,” said Death, voice strangely soft. Mawusi said nothing, and Death cocked her head. “What—is that not what you would like to hear?”
No, Mawusi wanted to shout. Yes, at the same time. Her brain hurt. Her eyes burned. She thought, perhaps, that there should be no envelope at all. Death’s teeth began to protrude from her mouth, and her claws from her nailbeds; she was taller, and thinner, her face more skeletal. The lychees began to bleed, and the colour from her hair faded until it was bone white. Mawusi opened her mouth to scream—and then, Death disappeared, as if she had never been there.
Mawusi thought about looking in the newspaper, to see if they had reported some local car crash or illness or some strange accident—but she didn’t. She didn’t want to see Death; the thought of it made her feel sick to her stomach.
And then, until it was her own time, the two did not meet again.
She had called for Death, certainly. When her mother was taken from her, she had flung open every box of her belongings in some kind of twisted hope that she would see a bony claw. But she did not. She screamed and cried and called names, but it responded not. Not even when she walked down that little country lane, as if she were a schoolchild again; not even when she walked behind the brambles, which looked rather overgrown and far less pretty than they had when she was a little girl. But there was nothing there; just the beginning of dusk, and memories.
No Death, and all Grief. She thought about her mother. She thought about her aunt. She regretted the tea party terribly.
Death did not. It told her so, when it finally came, this time for her instead. Her room faded around her; she saw not a man or a woman, but a sky, tinged with the purple-red of sunset that she recalled about the day of her mother’s passing. It was something about the shine of the stars, glowing and sightless, that reminded her of Death’s strange eyes.
There was no time for last words, no real final memories; they all crumbled, intangible, rotten fruit in the face of those timeless constellations. She might have remembered something—or rather, it might have remembered something—about blackberries, and first meetings, and the kind of tea a doll drinks. But there was no time to linger; because then, there was no Grief, just Death.