The girl who cries wolf

A streak of light flashes across the loud, angry sky. Thick heavy raindrops pound the uneven dirt floor, littered with dried leaves and twigs. She follows closely behind him, clutching an odd contraption- a rectangular device attached with a long, squiggly, antenna. “You were right about the storm Professor!” She yells over the howling wind and drumming rain. “Yes, my Assistant!” He cries, voice charged with excitement, as he holds up the thick, metal conductor. She stumbles over a log as he reaches out to catch her.

They tumble on the dry grass laughing. He tosses aside the bent, silver coat hanger, wrapping his arms around her waist. The little transistor radio falls from her hands.

The sun peeks through the treetops.

She thinks of their first conversation. “I live by a forest,” he said, describing it in such a way that when she came to scale those crooked, winding stairs, it was like she had seen it a thousand times before. As if it had always been there, waiting to welcome her. Like the pretty, sunlit room that remained unfurnished, sitting empty in his house, now filled with her paints and brushes.

She would fondly call him her Frankenstein, this man who was a patchwork of all the things she had ever longed for. He gave her such gifts- not the kind that were put in boxes but the sort that filled her with imagination, breathing indescribable happiness into her life. One day, he built her a greenhouse. “So you can create your little monstrous plants,” he explained.

He showed her how to catch the stray butterflies that fluttered from their elusive neighbours, who were rumoured to farm them for cosmetic use. She would listen in morbid fascination as he described how the helpless insects were cruelly dismembered, before their fragile wings were crushed and ground into a fine powder. “Your lips would look beautiful, painted with butterfly wings,” he would tease her.

“Never!” She’d cry alarmed.  

They spent much of their days alone, in their peaceful sanctuary, apart from the little visitor who came on weekends. When the weather was good, the three of them would venture out, past the worn jetty and picnic on their little beach. He would watch them proudly, marveling at the startling contrast between the two things he loved most in the world. His son with hair of spun gold, playing at his favourite rock pool and chattering animatedly in his singsong voice. She, with a small, amused smile on her tiny lips, raven hair tousled by the sea wind. She was different to anything else he had ever known.