Little Rattle Stilt

Abstract

68 SARAH MINOR Little Rattle Stilt • “Is it John? Ron? Is it Adam? Casper? Binx? Is it Waverly? Xavier? Sylas?” So went on the meantime queen, the miller’s maid, pretty as a grape. “Tell me baby, what’s my name?” “Is it Spiderlegs? Muttonchop? Pearstalk? Is it Melichor? Balthazar? A year prior, near to the day . . . Three was the king, the miller, his daughter. Twowereherovertqualities:indolence&beauty. One was the lie her father boasted, meant as a simile: drawn as straw is to golden hair. The king put her in a tower round as the wheel. “I’ll have straw spun to gold by morn or your dish­ water head.” The work-shy daughter wept, of course, huge aquamarine tears. Tears to fill every lampshade in this castle and the next. Mercy, mercy, the mankin came—a waggish goblin, ugly as an artichoke—through a door in the tower previously invisible to her. “Oh miller-maid-futurequeen , why are you weeping?” asked the imp. “Yes, I spin.” Her pearl necklace for the job. Jesus, take the wheel. And whoosh! In three turns the spindle was full. All at once, it was sunrise, and the king came creaking through the regular door. Three times the size, her second tower of straw. Two the number of empty spindles. One was the name of the helper who came, treading, licking, twisting, this time for her ring. 69 Is it Hipche? Heinrich? Spindleshanks?” This, the third day of her guessing. “Nay,” refrained the goblin, “that is not my good appellation.” “Is it Cruikshank? Slinger? Is it Accident? Arachne? Botticelli? Is it Wahlverwandtschaft? Is it Suzuki?” Ass name by name [she] called the roll. “Mistress Beauty, these are not my name.” “Is it Whuppity Stoorie? Rhiannon? Jolene? Cecilia? Lola? Roxanne? Is it Mami Wata? Is it Beezlebub?” The game repeated thrice. Next morn, the last tower was locked. At sunrise, the king said, he would marry her! She wept two pails of seawater. Poor grape. “And what will you give me now?” the goblin asked the lass. “Myself!” she told the imp. “Nay,” it replied. “I bear no seed. Instead, promise me thy first little child.” The flour girl paused. A name and no one to carry it. Who knows what will happen in the end? Is the length of each limb brief as its memory? Whoosh! The otiose girl agreed. She bred within the year, and on that anniversary , mother’s little helper returned to stake its claim. The new babe, it resembled a toe. Its breath blew bubbles. Still, the miller-queen would not hand it over. The patient imp gave a final instruction. Mercy, mercy, three days to guess its name. A name is not magic, but rather, contains it. He who must not be. Say their names. So it is not magic but language that makes something exist. The spaghetti is worms. 45. Open Sesame! The eve before the imp’s return, the girl confessed all to her husband, but the killer-king could not believe the skill was never hers. True, none but the maid had seen the goblin. And who was the creature? Her other half? A stranger, still? Before spoken words were written there were notches, palm seeds, lists. The queen’s list was limitless. Her face bloated green, sick with the coming loss. In Western practice, the diagnosis of an illness is one-half naming; the other half is the antidote, drawn to each name like a magnet. Among psychotherapists, the naming itself is the cure, and the medicine a winding search for language. Among botanists, plants have names divided into two parts, like Solomon’s child. The first, 70 By now the imp had grown excited. Hopping on one leg, it said to the babe: “Deny thy father!” And to the maid: “They call me ‘Hell.’ They call me ‘Stacey.’ . . . That’s not my name! That’s not my name!” The slovenly girl: “Perhaps your name is . . .” its family name; the second, its species, which is how we all learn our poisons. So it was I, the accountant—hobby herbalist—the only soul to share her tower that long year, who the maid sent to follow...