Widdershins Thrice and Six-Pence

Flash-Fiction - by Mitchell Shanklin

Marigold stroked the elk's ears and decided that it could speak.

"Hello, Marigold! What a pleasant moon we have tonight."

Marigold glanced at the moon, round, violet and low in the sky. And humming ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ as was proper. In the real world, it was silent and white and almost never a perfect circle. And always far away, like Momma.

But in dreams, everything was right.

Marigold picked a marigold from the ground. It smelled like cotton candy and tart blueberries. Exactly how marigolds should smell. She was the authority on that.

“Oh, look at the poor bunny,” the elk said, with a nod to the trees surrounding the clearing.

A gray rabbit sniffled two dozen feet away. Its foot bled, pierced by a wreath of thorns that bound it to a thin trunk.

A quest! Her subconscious was lively tonight. Marigold skipped over.

“Please,” the rabbit said, voice raspy and small. Marigold knelt, already holding rusty gardening shears.

Then she inhaled the sharp, metallic tang of another mind and jolted back, falling onto her bottom.

“Momma said never talk to other dreamers.” Marigold inched away from the rabbit and rose to a crouch.

“Just a snip...” the rabbit trailed into wispy absence as Marigold pushed against it. Then it snapped back into existence.

Her mother’s words rose to her mind.

“You’re strong, flower-baby. Other dreamers will feel that, try to take advantage.”

“How will they take advantage, Momma?”

“They’ll ask for a favor. Then another. They’ll try to twist you to serve them. Shove them out. If they don’t disappear, use six pence. Just like I taught you.”

“Begone, begone, I abjure you hence.” The rabbit cried louder, tears, blood and dirt making a muddy puddle.

“Widdershins thrice and six pence.”

Marigold closed her eyes and spun to the left.

“Momma, why can’t I spin right instead?”

“You could, dear. Widdershins just fits the rhyme better.”

All dreams have six pendulums.

Sky. She changed violet evening to bright noon with dog and elephant clouds.

Ground. The field became a beach, one horizon golden sand, the other blue sea.

Mood. She twisted quiet warmth and whimsy to serious, hard-edged joy.

Firmness. Marigold flattened the misty edges of dream. She clenched each detail, leaving no room for her subconscious or another dreamer.

Others. Marigold scattered hermit crabs and seagulls. A few plastic shovels and a bucket. Shells and pebbles.

Self. Marigold made herself taller, made her skin green and soft like a lily pad, made her hair seaweed, but rainbow-colored. Didn’t want to be too matchy.

And she ripped the thread of quivering fear from her mind.

Marigold felt dizzy, but she was finished. She walked to the toys and started building a sand castle, with her hands, not her mind. It was harder this way.

“But what if the other dreamer is a friend, Momma?”

“When you’re older, flower-baby. Recognizing dreamers is hard. Anyone can be anything. It’s safest to run.”

“You never run away. I can be brave like you.”

“Oh, dear.” Marigold’s mother laughed and cupped Marigold’s cheek. “I’m a grown up and a soldier. But I still run away all the time.”

That’s what her parents always said. When she was older she would understand. When she was older they would explain the dream war her mother fought in, explain how to identify dreamers, explain why her mother was so important that she always had to be away, asleep and cold and distant like the moon.

A high-pitched trill rang out. Marigold swung to the right, knocking down a sand parapet with her shovel. A dolphin lay beached near the edge of the water. A dolphin she had not created. Marigold sniffed. The same sour, stainless steel smell. She knew that she wasn’t old enough or wise enough to tell friend from foe. But it did smell exactly like the rabbit from before. It was following her.

“Not that you ever have trouble with control, flower-baby, but if you do, go small and familiar. Pick somewhere you know like the back of your hand.”

Marigold spoke, spun and thought, all at once this time. She replaced the beach with her bedroom. Unicorn posters and her enormous bed with dark blue sheets. A vase of wrong-smelling marigolds on the dresser.

“AND SIX PENCE” Marigold shouted, finishing the rhyme and opening her eyes.

The room was exactly as imagined, except for her mother on the bed, handcuffed to the headboard. Her hair, straight and brown and flat like Marigold’s, fanned across the pillow.

“Momma?”

“I’m sorry, flower-baby. I only need you to break the rules just this once.” She winced, letting out a breathy gasp. “It’s really, really important.”

That same sour tang, just like the rabbit and the dolphin. It was a fog surrounding Marigold. Her head swam.

“But what if you ever need help Momma? In the war? What if you need me to save you?”

“Daughters don’t save mothers, dear. Mothers save daughters.”

“Liar,” Marigold whispered as tears dripped onto her cheeks.

It had been three months since the last time her mother had woken up. A few days, even a couple weeks, was normal. She always had an IV hooked up when she went on mission, but the last few weeks those army medics with their boxy beige devices that beeped and sighed had come too. Marigold could tell her father was worried.

“I’m trapped, flower-baby. In another mind. He’s distracted, but only for a little while. I’m not strong enough alone.”

“Liar!” Marigold shouted. Her mother was the strongest, bravest soldier. She would never ask Marigold to do this, never need Marigold’s help.

“Please. I don’t have much time.”

Marigold squeezed her eyes shut over tears. Six pence wasn’t just for changing dreams. She spoke, spun and thought.

Ground and sky. She dissolved floor, walls and ceiling, leaving them floating in emptiness.

“I can come home, flower-baby.”

Mood and firmness. The relief of waking from a nightmare. The iron edges of pure reality.

Her mother gasped in pain again. Then she started screaming.

Others and the self. Marigold crushed her mother—the thing that looked like her mother—into nonexistence, throwing it from her mind. She pinched herself out like a candle flame.

Marigold awoke from the dream, opening her eyes to the same room she’d left, but now she was the one on the bed. But now she was safe.

But now she was alone.

“Six pence,” she gasped. Then she sobbed.

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