She looks out the window and wants so badly to see a picture-perfect town in New England. Like in her paperbacks. When the leaves on the trees are golden and red and it’s the week before Halloween. She imagines she’s a heroine in one of the stories; they’re all the same: a young woman on the verge of discovering her powers. On the cusp of something.
But outside is reality. A Canadian prairie blight: scrubby grass, long weeds, dried out wild rose stems. The horizon is all refineries, obscured by wildfire smoke. And beside her window, a farmer’s field in fallow, a wooden fence, and a rotting cross in its centre. Barbed wire all around, and a sign reading, “No Trespassing.”
The truth—she hates it. There are no would-be heroines coming of age on this barren prairie. She’s a spinster. She went grey in her twenties, hit menopause in her forties. Lived too fast and too hard. She’s no one’s fated love.
And this isn’t New England. Here trains scream into the night and vomit black crude into not-so-pristine earth. The farmers carry long guns.
Still, she tries. She stands at the mirror and pretends she used to be pretty. She lives vicariously through her paperbacks. Some nights, when she’s lying in bed, she imagines a future that’s different.
The week before Halloween, she opens her door and stands at the threshold, taking in the morning-dark sky and the frost-burned grass. She watches her breath and cold burrows into her spine.
She tries to work. Her job is with the county. She sits at her kitchen table and answers questions by email about building permits. No one talks to her. Her mind wanders.
Every week, she reads a new paperback about a young woman in New England who comes into her power. Usually a latent witch. She orders new books every week. The plot’s never different. They’ll never stop printing them.
She doesn’t think about how the book heroines are so much younger than her. She imagines her skin is soft like theirs, and that her eyes aren’t so shadowed. That she doesn’t have an alcoholic’s nose.
She doesn’t know how she ended up alone. Why she never found her soulmate. In high school, she had friends. She doesn’t understand what happened. It’s like she missed some essential guide to life.
The day before Halloween, the temperature drops. She goes for a walk and her feet crunch through thin, dry snow. She stares at the field. It will all be canola in summer.
Her grandma told her it used to be different. She said this place was a home. She said she used to hoe potatoes. She pointed her lips at the grave and said there was their family.
Family. She can’t imagine it. She misses her grandma. Her parents and cousins used to live here. They moved to the city, and the coast. They gave up on this prairie. Got sick of that strutting farmer, and renting. She still doesn’t understand how the farmer owns everything.
She walks along the field. It’s surrounded by wild rose. The dried stems and the leaves are crimson. She takes off her gloves and brushes her fingers. The thorns prick, but not enough, so she stops and grips the stems. She still doesn’t feel anything.
She eats pumpkin pie in the dark. Looks up her old high-school friends and lurks on their social media. They stayed in touch until their mid-thirties. After that, it got awkward. Her friends have kids and perfect partners. They’re renovating their kitchens for the third time.
Outside, coyotes yip and she envies that they have each other.
On Halloween, she wears a sweater she bought online from Etsy. There’s a ghost on the front and a pumpkin on the back. It itches. She puts on music and waits for visitors.
She does this every year. She still has hope. Though she knows by now not to buy candy.
It’s after nine, and she’s about to start her latest paperback when something outside rustles. She pauses her music. Nothing. And then—something she’s never heard in all her Halloweens. A thud on the door—once, twice. A voice calls out, “Trick or Treat.”
Her heart races. Could it be? She almost doesn’t dare think it. She knows this moment from her books—the baited breath before everything changes. Something in her gut surges—hunger, fear, and hope.
All of her hairs are standing. The nape of her neck is cold. She pushes down her screaming instincts and walks to the door.
The world tilts when she opens it. At first she thinks, a vampire.
He says, “Can I come in?”
She can’t speak.
He tips his hat. He’s wearing jeans and a lumberjack jacket. Gloves and a belt buckle to go with his cowboy hat. Boots with spurs.
She steps backward. When he raises his eyes, the room shifts a second time. She reaches to the wall for balance.
Those eyes. For a moment, she can’t place it. But her gut knows. There’s a funny taste on her tongue. An old memory, in her bones and her teeth.
She grew up hearing stories about this one. Winter stories, told on cold, clear nights. This is no vampire. This is something worse. There are no mail-order paperbacks written about this handsome stranger.
She holds her breath.
He walks over to the kitchen table and plonks into a chair. Puts his boots on the table like he owns it. The house shudders.
Her pulse jitters. The thorns in her hands are prickling. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s not used to feeling alive like this.
He looks at her. His eyes shimmer. She breaks out in a sweat.
He half-smiles and pulls out a pipe.
“Coffee?” She feels like a fool but can’t help it—it’s her upbringing.
He smiles like he knows it.
“I’ll take a light.” His voice is like a cat.
She fumbles looking for matches. Sweat runs down her cheeks.
He lights the pipe like a showman. She watches him smoke.
On the surface, he’s handsome. Not so young as those actors on TV. He could be her age, or older. He has a dimple in his chin. His hair is pitch.
But those eyes—they’re black-iridescent. When the light hits them, they shine oily-green, like crude or spoiled meat.
She keeps her voice steady. “What brings you to the prairie?”
He grins. Even the pipe-smoke has a sheen.
“I never left.”
He takes his boots down from the table. The heel spurs leave a dent. She watches, rapt, while he rises. He walks to the door and his Stetson brushes the ceiling. He didn’t seem so tall when he entered.
“Thanks for the light.”
She doubles over coughing when he leaves. She’s used to wildfires and smelling the refinery, but this oily smoke is something different.
She stands in the doorway, catching her breath, and the night’s cold climbs up her back.
She spends the winter making ketchup and beet pickles. Working remotely from her kitchen, answering emails about building permits. It bores her. She reads her books. She stares out the window. Some days, the sun is so bright on the snow she can’t look at it.
When spring comes, she cleans out her cupboards and plants potatoes. She barely sleeps the whole month of June; the nights are short. The coyotes barely sleep either.
Before she knows it, it’s summer and the land is bursting with wild rose blooms. It’s blooming with wildfire too. Some days, the smoke is so thick she can’t see the cross in the field. She keeps her air purifier on all the time. The canola crops are eye-breaking yellow. They’re almost as tall as she is.
One July day, the smoke is thinner. She stands in her doorway and slips off her shoes. She walks to a rose bush and lingers. She plucks a bloom and the thorns prick her fingers, but they only bleed a little bit.
She walks to the barbed wire. Pushes down her rising fear, and wishes she were brave like her book characters. She steps one foot over the fence, then the other. The earth is dry and compact. She skulks through canola like a spectre.
She cowers when she reaches the wooden fence. She’s never felt so exposed. She imagines the farmer with his long gun, watching her. She doesn’t have the courage to go closer. She bends an arm over the fence to leave a rose, but flinches when she hears something rustling. She looks over her shoulder for the farmer. The fear’s too much. She tucks the rose into her pocket and scuttles away.
Come Halloween, she waits in her kitchen for the Devil. She keeps her music low so she’ll hear his heavy knock. She’s bought a special sweater from Etsy. It says, “Ready for the Devil.”
She grinds coffee. Puts her air purifier on high. Tries to read, but her heart races. She puts her book down—she can’t concentrate.
At ten to nine, she gets water for the kettle. She chooses a mug. Pulls a chair to the front door and sits, unbreathing. Trains scream and coyotes yip, but she doesn’t hear any rustling.
She’s still waiting when the sun rises. Her eyes have more bags, and her cheeks are all shadow. She opens the door and stands at the threshold. The field is a frozen blight. There’s another layer of barbed wire, and a new sign reading, “I shoot.”
She reads paperbacks until evening. She doesn’t eat, yet something foul and acid rises inside her. She forces it down and gags. The vilest taste is truth.
She puts down her book. The Devil didn’t come. No one did, all year. And apart from those moments as a ghost in the field, she never left this house.
Two years pass. She reads dozens more paperbacks. She confuses the characters and titles, but it doesn’t matter since they have the same plot. There’s no limit to the demand for them. Not like her story. No one wants that.
When Halloween comes, she doesn’t bother with an Etsy sweater. She keeps the air purifier off. She walks to the window and looks outside. The moon shines bright and the field is cold and barren.
She almost misses the knock.
Her heart skips. She almost trips in her rush to the door. She opens it wide.
He’s still dressed like a lumberjack. He takes off his Stetson.
“About that coffee?”
It’s only French press but he takes it.
He smokes his pipe and cracks his knuckles.
“Playing cards, fiddle?”
She threw her cards out years ago—tired of playing alone. And she flunked out of violin in grade three for playing crooked.
“I have potatoes.” Her cheeks burn when she says it. Two years to think of something—and this?
“Dice then.”
He puffs an “O.” Takes off a leather glove and smiles at her. He reaches into his maw while she watches. Pulls out his hand and opens his palm.
Two dice. She thinks.
She’s never played dice, but it can’t be that different from cards or bingo. She knows those. Her grandma taught her.
She sits down. The thorns in her hand are killing her. She reaches for the dice but he closes his fist.
“We play with four.”
He opens his palm. She jumps backwards.
Teeth.
Her gums throb at the sight of them. She looks up.
He puffs his pipe, grinning.
She should say, “Enough.” Shoo the Devil out into the cold, where he came from. She breaks out in a sweat. The paperback heroines are never this desperate.
But she’s tired of hoeing potatoes. Living vicariously through books. Tiptoeing like a ghost. Holding onto thorns just to feel something.
She nods and the room shifts.
He holds out pliers and she takes them. The metal is heavy. She fits them into her mouth and winces when they brush a filling.
She must have been six when a dentist pulled out two of her teeth. He said it would feel like nothing and sound like ice. It didn’t. Fifty years later she remembers the pain.
She closes her eyes and grips.
This is worse than those two teeth at the dentist.
Her eyes are tearing. She’s choking on blood. Her skull throbs. She wipes the teeth on her jeans and throws them at the Devil.
He doesn’t flinch. He only smiles wider. She dries her eyes. For a moment, he doesn’t look like the Devil. He wiggles like a toddler, giddy.
The Devil counts by the tooth cusps—molars have three or five, those with fillings are flatter. Upside-down teeth with four roots count for four when the Devil gets them, but when she rolls them, they count zero.
When she questions the logic, he mansplains her. The ache in her jaw makes her eyes water. When she throws, the Devil blows oil-puffs and her hand goes sideways.
She’s losing badly. The Devil is downright gleeful. He claps when her molars go crooked and his land cusps-up. His cheeks puff, and he preens.
She clenches her jaw. Can’t stand to look. This is where in the paperbacks the heroines come into their power. Realize they’re stronger than they thought. But she’s no heroine. And she doesn’t want him to leave.
The room shifts and she grabs the table. He takes off his gloves and reaches into his mouth. Slams his palm down hard on the table.
“I’ll raise you two.”
She leans forward. Two incisors.
The thorns in her fingers are tingling. Her face drips with sweat. She stands so fast the teeth fall to the ground. She rushes to the window to think.
She feels him grinning behind her.
“Take your time.”
Time. That bastard. He knows she doesn’t have it. She’s not some twenty-something beauty like in her books. She’s past her youth. Menopause was years ago. There will be no renovating this kitchen. The time she has left on this prairie will be alone and scared.
It’s futile, the Devil’s fixed the game and she knows it. But she can’t let him leave. She hates herself for it.
She walks back to the table. She has to win.
He holds out pliers. She shakes her head. Puts her thorny fingers in her mouth and rips out two incisors.
The room shakes. He grins.
Sparks fly when he throws his teeth.
She spits blood onto her palm.
He lifts an eyebrow.
She says, “For luck.”
His eyes shine.
They keep playing. Upping their bets. Adding teeth. She catches up to her earlier losses. For a moment, she’s almost beating him. But he has bigger hands. Her palms can’t hold all their teeth. The table is crimson.
He collects the 16 teeth from the table. Then his oil-eyes flash, rotten, eager. He rips out all four canines.
She tastes bile. Feels a chill at the base of her neck. Runs her tongue along her few teeth remaining. His eyes flash and the room goes sideways. His mouth is so swollen, she can’t tell if he’s smiling or frowning.
The heroines in her books have perfect smiles. Perfect teeth. She forces down blood but it rises up her gullet. She should stop. Keep the few teeth she has left. Give up on that dream of change. Of not being so lonely.
Her eyes tear. She sees herself in twenty years, shivering in the kitchen, hiding from that farmer. Surrounded by piles of paperbacks that won’t stop being printed. Some things are worse than being toothless.
She grabs the pliers out of his hand. Her canines pop when she pulls them. Blood splatters on the floor and on the ceiling.
The Devil claps. “Let’s play!”
He throws the teeth and they land cusp up.
When she takes the dice, she can barely hold them. She throws, and half the teeth fall on the floor, counting as zero. The rest land cusp down.
The Devil tsks. “You know, we’re not just playing for teeth.”
The pain in her mouth is inconsolable. She bends under the table to collect the teeth. Her fingers are so bloody she can’t get a grip. She can’t see through the tears. Her mouth is a swollen mess. Her cheeks are all blood.
The Devil pushes his chair back from the table. Holds his chest puffed and prances around her kitchen like a rooster. When he catches her eye, he claps and clicks his spurs.
He reminds her of the farmer. So certain of his space. Moving like he owns it, like he’s entitled to everything.
Her fist tightens around her fallen teeth. She grits her few remaining ones. Years of bottled-up bile bubble up her esophagus.
He dances around the kitchen, oblivious.
She’s spent. Done with this solitude, this silence. Living like a ghost. Too scared to leave a rose for her own blood and kin.
She’s no paperback heroine—she doesn’t even have teeth. All she has is her bitterness, honed sharp from years alone in the dark. Fortified by hoeing potatoes.
She turns to the Devil. Stares down those oil wells to the bottom. “You want to play more?”
He’s in his seat before she stands. She reaches both hands into her mouth and rips out every last tooth.
His eyes widen. She waits.
He licks his lips. She doesn’t blink. The room shifts.
She claps when he puts his teeth down on the table, though if she’s being honest, she doesn’t give a damn about the game—she’s sick of being cowed by men with hats who walk on this prairie like they own it.
She throws the dice crooked, and the Devil flinches.
In the morning, her paperback can’t hold her interest. She puts the book down and opens her front door. Stands at the threshold and takes in the scene: the rose-killed field, the cross surrounded by signs, and on the horizon, refineries.
Somewhere in the distance, a train screams. Coyotes are yipping, but they stop when they hear her. She walks out in bare feet.
She feels the cold, but it’s nothing. The icy field reflects sun. It’s early morning, but the sky is bright.
Her feet are frozen by the time she reaches the farmer’s field. She holds up her palms to the two wooden signs. There’s still blood on her fingers from last night’s tooth-pulling. She runs her hands along the cold wood, then curls her fingers around the sides and tears the signs down. Splinters dig into her skin and under her fingernails. Blood bursts from a grazed nail. She doesn’t mind the pain, it feels liberating.
She stomps down the barbed wire with her bare feet until it’s only twisted metal. She walks to grave. She’ll take better care of it now; she won’t be so scared. She touches the wooden cross. Family. Now that she’s close to it, she doesn’t feel so alone.
She walks back to her house with a straight back and bleeding feet. The farmer, if he sees her, is too cowed to do anything. She doesn’t know if the Devil is out there somewhere on the horizon, watching. Last night she only saw the back of him, running toothless into the dark.
It wasn’t just his teeth. He was skunked, plain and simple. And a bad loser, to boot. Her grandma hated a bad loser. She would have chased him out herself. The Devil left his teeth and his Stetson. He was so much shorter, on the way out.
Her eyes still have bags, and her hair isn’t any darker. But still, she feels something in her that’s new. Not younger. She’s not one of those paperback heroines. She’s something more solid, substantial.
Substantial. Like her plans. She’ll be coming here more often now. In the spring, she’ll plant potatoes. Come summer, she’ll bring a rose. She likes the field without those signs. Without the barbed wire. It could be a picture.
She walks back to her house and stands in the doorway. The Devil and the farmer can come for her. She’ll be waiting with her thorns, her grin, and maybe her Stetson. She takes in the morning. Her smile is perfect.
Originally published in Northern Nights, edited by Michael Kelly.
