Short & Shivery Read online

  “Be quiet! I’ve had enough of this foolishness!” shouted the bridegroom, rising in his seat.

  “This was only a dream, my love!” said Elsa. Then she quickly went on, “The robbers returned at that moment, so the old woman hid me behind some chests in the cellar. While they were making merry upstairs, I looked in one of the chests and discovered—”

  “Silence!” bellowed the bridegroom, drawing his dagger to threaten the girl. But she bravely finished, “I discovered a gold ring, with a picture of this mill on it! The ring that belonged to my father and was stolen by robbers months ago! And here is that ring!”

  So saying, Elsa produced the ring and showed it to the company.

  When the bridegroom heard these words, he turned pale as ashes and tried to escape, his men with him. But the guests seized them all and turned them over to the king’s soldiers, who took them away and had them hanged for their crimes.

  Jack Frost

  (from a Russian folktale)

  Once upon a time there was a widow who had a daughter of her own and a stepdaughter. Whenever her own daughter said or did anything, the woman would pat her on the head and say, “Clever girl!” But no matter how hard the stepdaughter tried, she was always being called “foolish” or “lazy” by the woman, who often scolded her and sometimes beat her.

  The truth of the matter was that the stepdaughter, Maria, was kind and beautiful, while the woman’s own daughter, Yagishna, was plain and selfish. But her mother saw only what she wanted to see, so she praised Yagishna continually and made Maria’s life a misery. Even an angry storm blows itself out at last, but the old woman’s hatred for her stepdaughter never lessened. She said one cruel thing after another, and she was forever grabbing Maria by the collar of her dress to shake her for being “such a burden on us.”

  One day, in the dead of winter, the stepmother made up her mind to have done with her stepdaughter. She told her aged servant, “Old man, take Maria into the open field where the bitter frost is the thickest and leave her there. I don’t want to set eyes upon her or hear her voice ever again. And if you value your life, don’t take her to the warm house of your relatives.”

  The old man begged her not to force him to do such a wicked thing, but the stepmother would not relent. Because he knew that his family would starve if he lost his job, he put the girl on a sled. He tried to cover Maria with an old horse cloth, but Yagishna saw this and snatched it away with a sharp laugh.

  “Do as my mother says, or you’ll find yourself and all your children out in the cold along with her,” she said nastily.

  Heavyhearted, the old man drove Maria out to the open fields near the edge of the forest. He set her down on a heap of snow, hugged her, then hastened home as fast as possible, so that he wouldn’t see the child’s death.

  Poor little Maria remained where she was, shivering and softly saying some prayers. Suddenly a strange-looking man came leaping and jumping from the forest toward the girl. He wore a greatcoat of silver-white fur, a high peaked cap of the same silvery fur, and boots of white leather worked with silver. He had thick white eyebrows and a bushy white beard, while his nose was as red as an apple. His coat and hat were spangled with diamonds, and silver bells on a white ribbon across his chest jingled as he bounded toward Maria.

  “Little girl, little girl, I’m Jack Frost, the Ruby-Nosed,” he said. “I bring the winter wherever I go.”

  “Oh,” she said sadly. “Welcome, Jack Frost! God must have sent you to take me away from this world. It will be hard to leave, for it all looks so beautiful today: the snow is so white and the air is so clean and the ice sparkles like diamonds.”

  Now he was about to touch her body and freeze her to death, but he was moved by her wise words and sad eyes. Instead he reached into one of the immense pockets of his greatcoat, pulled out a fur coat, and tossed it to Maria.

  She quickly put it on, then squatted on her heels. Sitting in the snow, she watched while Jack Frost went leaping and jumping back to the edge of the forest. In a twinkling, he was back, carrying something in his arms. “Little girl, little girl, I’m Jack Frost, the Ruby-Nosed,” he cried. “I have brought something for you.”

  “Is it my death?” Maria asked fearfully.

  But he had not returned to take her life away. He brought her a chest, heavy and deep, and filled with bedding and petticoats and all sorts of warm clothes.

  Then Maria sat on the chest in her fur coat, laughing and clapping while Jack Frost danced for her.

  A third time he bounded away to the forest’s edge; this time, when he came back, he gave her a cloak embroidered with silver threads and studded with pearls and diamonds.

  Wonderingly, Maria drew this cloak over her fur coat. She looked as beautiful and elegant as a grand duchess. For a long time she sat there happily singing songs, while Jack Frost danced lightly over the sparkling ice and snow.

  Meanwhile, her stepmother said to her servant, “Go, old man, and bring home my daughter so that we may bury her.” Then she set about fixing the evening meal for herself and Yagishna.

  A short time later, the gate creaked, the doors flew open, and the old servant dragged in a chest, heavy and deep. Maria followed, radiant and regal as a princess.

  When the stepmother saw all the riches Maria had returned with, she immediately set an extra place at the table for the girl. She sat her stepdaughter down, pretended to ask her forgiveness, made a great show of giving her the daintiest morsels (even though Yagishna complained about this), until she had gotten the whole story out of Maria.

  As soon as Maria was asleep, the old woman called her servant. “Old man,” she ordered, “harness the horses and have them ready to go at the first light of dawn. Take my daughter to the same field, in the very same place, and leave her there. Then return for her in the evening, to gather up the treasures she will receive.”

  In the morning, the old woman struggled to awaken her daughter.

  “Let me sleep,” complained Yagishna. “It’s too cold to do anything else.”

  “You must go and get treasures from Jack Frost, you lazy creature,” her mother scolded.

  “Can’t we just take Maria’s gifts for ourselves?” asked her daughter crossly.

  “We will, we will,” said her mother impatiently, “but why settle for one treasure when we could have two? Now, get up!”

  Grumbling, Yagishna did as she was told. She put on her warmest coat and hat and boots. When she was on the sled, her mother bundled her up in furs and blankets. Then the old servant drove her to the field and left her there, just as the morning sun turned the ice crystals bright as diamonds.

  Yagishna sat on her pile of furs and tried to keep her eyes open.

  Suddenly Jack Frost came prancing from the edge of the forest.

  “Young woman, young woman, I am Jack Frost the Ruby-Nosed,” he said.

  “Then be quick and bring me a treasure,” said Yagishna, who thought he looked foolish with his leaping about and jingling bells and nose like an apple stuck to the front of his face.

  “Young woman, young woman, I am Jack Frost the Ruby-Nosed,” he repeated. “I bring the winter wherever I go.”

  “When you’ve brought me my treasure,” said Yagishna disagreeably, “you can go, and take winter with you. It’s ugly and cold. Now, where is my gift?”

  “Young woman, young woman, I am Jack Frost the Ruby-Nosed,” he cried, dancing closer to the girl. “And here is your gift of diamonds and silver.”

  And he stretched out his hands to Yagishna.

  In the evening, while Maria stoked the fire, her stepmother anxiously watched the door for the return of her daughter.

  Suddenly she heard the creak of the gate outside. Without waiting, she flew to the door and saw the old servant standing beside the sled, cap in hand. Impatiently the old woman pulled at the mound of furs on the back of the sled.

  “Yagishna, foolish child, come out from underneath. You’ll be warm inside in a minute, but first show me your
treasure.”

  To her horror, when the woman pulled back the last fur, she saw her daughter lying there, a cold corpse. Silver snowflakes frosted her eyelashes, and ice like diamond chips beaded her lips where her last breath had frozen.

  The shock was too much, and the greedy stepmother fell down dead in the snow.

  Maria became mistress of the farm, where the old servant continued to serve her faithfully all the rest of his days.

  The Waterfall of Ghosts

  (from the Japanese writings of Lafcadio Hearn)

  There was once a small village in Japan very near a cascade called the Waterfall of Ghosts. No one could say for sure why it was called this. Some people thought they saw the twisting shapes of ghosts in the mists that rose from the rocks onto which the water poured; some claimed to hear ghostly voices—or the voices of gods or demons— in the roar. It was considered a holy place, so the villagers built a small shrine at the foot of the falls and left a little wooden money box there for visitors to make offerings.

  One frosty evening in the last century, the women and girls who worked in the local factory, where they spun hemp into lengths of rope, gathered around the big iron stove after their work was done.

  As they warmed their hands by the coal fires, they amused themselves by telling ghost stories. By the time a dozen stories had been told, even the bravest began listening with new ears to the whisper of wind at the doors and window frames. They began to grow uneasy at the idea of walking home through the dark.

  Then one of the younger girls, who was enjoying the little thrills of fear she was getting, said, “Just think of going all alone tonight to the Waterfall of Ghosts!”

  Her suggestion provoked shudders, followed by nervous laughter.

  “Why,” said the girl, unwilling to let the matter rest, “I’ll give all the hemp I spun today to any person who goes!”

  “So will I!” exclaimed another, caught up in the spirit of the game.

  “And I!” another promised.

  Soon all but one of the women had offered her day’s output of rope as a prize to anyone brave enough to go to the waterfall that night.

  The only spinner who did not join with the others was a young woman named O-Katsu, the wife of the village carpenter. “Listen,” she said, “if you will all really agree to hand over the hemp you spun today, I will go to the Waterfall of Ghosts.”

  Her words were met with cries of astonishment; most thought she was joking. But when she repeated her challenge several times, they realized she was serious. Each of the spinners promised to give up her share of the day’s work to O-Katsu, if she went to the waterfall.

  “But how will we know if she really goes there?” several women asked.

  “Why, let her bring back the money box from the shrine,” said the old woman the others had nicknamed “Grandmother.” She added, “That will be proof enough. She can return the money in the morning, after she has shown it to us.”

  “I’ll bring it, you’ll see,” boasted O-Katsu, who did not believe in ghosts. In her greed she had also made up her mind to take the money from the offering box before she returned it.

  Bundling a warm robe around her, she hurried out into the street. The night was frosty but clear. The young woman’s wooden clogs made crunching sounds on the ice-crusted road as she hurried down the empty street. All the doors and windows of the houses she passed were shut tight against the piercing cold. But O-Katsu only pulled her robe more tightly about her, and thought of the coins she would take from the shrine in a short while, and the hemp she would take from her fellow workers in the morning.

  Soon she left the village behind and hurried along the road that ran between frozen rice fields that glittered in the starlight. For nearly half an hour, she traveled through the great silence. Then she heard the distant roar of the Waterfall of Ghosts.

  A little while later she began following a narrow path that wound under high cliffs. Her way grew darker and more dangerous as she neared the bottom, but she had visited the falls before, so she knew the way. The roar of the cascade grew louder and louder.

  The path ran around a huge boulder and opened onto a stretch of pebbled shore. The sound of the falls was now deafening; she could see the water like a shining ribbon of silk against the black cliffs. In the starlight she could just make out the curved roof of the shrine and the shadowy square of the money box underneath.

  She rushed forward eagerly and stretched out her hand to take it.

  But the sound of the waterfall suddenly became a babble of voices crying, “Oh! Wicked woman!”

  For a moment O-Katsu stood frozen, gripped with terror.

  But she was a bold young woman. “It’s only the sound of the water,” she said to herself. When she looked at the falls, she seemed to see strange, twisted shapes boiling about the base. But she told herself, “That’s only the mist.”

  She snatched up the money box and ran.

  Behind her the chorus of ghostly voices cried, “Oh! Oh! Oh! Wicked, wicked woman!”

  O-Katsu did not stop running until she reached the top of the path. There she paused a moment, gasping for breath. Then she ran back toward the village. Around her, snow began to fall lightly on the ice-covered fields, then faster and faster. A wind rose and tried to push her back the way she had come; in its howling she thought she could hear angry voices crying, “O-Katsu! O-Katsu!”

  But she kept on, her robe wrapped snugly around her, and only her eyes uncovered. The snow was drifting so high that even her tall clogs could not keep her feet dry. But she was back in the village now, and she could see the lights of the hemp factory ahead.

  Before she went any farther, she took shelter in an alleyway between two buildings and opened the money box. She took all but a handful of copper coins and put these in her kimono. Then she walked toward the lighted windows of the factory.

  The other women had all stayed to see if O-Katsu would make good her boast. They cried out in amazement when she entered, panting, with the money box from the shrine.

  They brought her to the fire, asking breathless questions about what had happened. O-Katsu told them in a few sentences about hearing ghostly voices—though she did not tell them that the voices had called her “wicked.” She said nothing about the coins she had stolen. When the woman nicknamed “Grandmother” opened the box and saw only a few coppers in the bottom, O-Katsu was loudest in crying out how miserly people were to leave such a miserable offering at a shrine.

  “How brave you are, O-Katsu,” said the young girl whose challenge had started the whole business. “You have certainly earned the hemp we promised.”

  The others all agreed, and they good-naturedly turned their day’s output over to O-Katsu. Then they hurried away to their own homes.

  When she was alone, O-Katsu took the stolen coins out of her kimono to count them by the ruddy glow of the fire.

  But the offering box, on the floor beside her feet, suddenly began rocking from side to side.

  “Oh! What is this?” cried the startled young woman.

  As if to answer her, the lid of the box suddenly flew open, and a white mist, like steam, issued from it. O-Katsu looked on in horror, as the mist began to take on strange forms and suddenly became a howling cloud of ghosts. Their bodies were drawn out to amazing lengths; their legs dwindled away to nothingness; their necks were long and twisted like snakes; they stretched their long arms out and clutched at O-Katsu with their thin, pale fingers. Around and around the frightened woman they spun, like a horrible whirlpool, screeching, “Wicked woman! Wicked woman!”

  O-Katsu thought she might faint. She sank to her knees and begged the ghosts to leave her alone. Then an idea occurred to her. She took the coins she still held in her hands and returned them to the offering box. When all the money had been put back, the ghosts poured themselves like a waterfall down into the box. The lid closed with a snap.

  Quickly dressing in her warm robes, O-Katsu took the box and hurried back to the shrine. There
she replaced it, with a promise to give the spirits of that place all the money she would get from selling the hemp she had gained by her disrespectful deed.

  This she did the very next morning, and she was never troubled by ghosts again.

  The Ghost’s Cap

  (from a Russian folktale)

  In a certain village there was a girl who was as full of mischief as she was lazy. Though her mother and father would nag at her to help with the cooking or mending or sweeping, she would slip away to meet with her friends, who were as useless as she was. They would sit on the banks of the river, gossiping and chattering away, while their mothers washed the clothes and spread them on the bank to dry, near the churchyard.

  One day Anya and her friends began talking about who was the boldest. The boasting went on and on, until Anya finally declared, “I’m not afraid of anything!”

  “Well, then,” said one young man, Ivan, “if you’re not afraid, go at midnight to the graveyard. My father and uncle say there’s a ghost who sits on a tombstone there from the stroke of midnight until the first light of morning. Go, make the ghost tell you its name, and I’ll believe that no one is as brave as you. And I’ll give you the silver buttons off my jacket that you’ve admired for so long.”

  “Oh, those!” said the greedy girl, with a toss of her braids. “I’d have to have more than them to go to the churchyard at midnight and meet a ghost.” In fact she did not believe there was any ghost, because she knew that the young man’s father and uncle were notorious for the amount of vodka they drank. They were often seeing spirits in the night, after they’d downed too many glasses of liquor.

  “If you’ll do it, I’ll give you two lengths of lace,” said one girl.