The Wanderer; or, the Tales of Stingy Jack
by ella mckee
Everyone has stories. I should know—I am one.
Here’s another:
There’s a story they tell by the sea, in a village too small to be named, not by the maps and not even by the people who lived there. There, there lived a lonely fisherman. Why he was lonely, I can’t say—I only saw this story, not the ones before. All I can say is that his soul was so full of sorrow the salt of his tears could have made a whole ‘nother ocean for him to fish in. They didn’t, though, so he just spent all his time fishing in the one that already existed. It didn’t bother him any, because he’d be along either way. Well, one day he came home after fishing, and brought a mighty fine lady with him. She was a strange thing, beautiful, but with big black eyes like a moonless night and shiny hair like she’d eaten naught but fish. She followed him like a newborn babe might—because she knew nothing else. Well, the fisherman wasn’t lonely anymore, because soon they had children—two, if I remember correctly, and I do—so it wasn’t one person in the house, but four. And then one day there were three, because the fisherman’s wife left in the night, leaving their children alone until he found them. Well, not really, because he was never the same again, so they were alone forevermore.
That was one story.
Here’s another:
There’s a story they tell in the sea, among people who don’t have villages, about a woman who was lost and found. What happened before she was lost, I can’t say—I only know this story, not that one. Well, she was brushing her hair on the beach, as seal-folk are wont to do, when a fisherman came and stole her seal-coat. Now, a seal-woman’s seal-coat is no article of clothing; it’s a part of her soul, and she must obey anyone who has it. So she did. She followed him back to his house—such a strange thing for her, feet that had only ever felt the sand, and only for such short times that, now walking on dirt and grass for what she knew would be a long time—and became his wife. She couldn’t do elsewise. Then she became a mother. She couldn’t do elsewise—although she managed to love her children a fair bit, I’d wager, as the seal-folk always do. That didn’t stop when she found her seal-cloak in the attic, locked in an iron box that burned her hands. It was just that she couldn’t disobey him, and they could. It was just that she couldn’t take them with her. So she didn’t. She put them to sleep and kissed their foreheads and hid away all the sharp things they could hurt themselves with and left. She returned to the ocean, where she found her seal-husband—I know little about him, for he is part of the stories I don’t know, but they loved each other—and they swam away. She returned, though, to give her land-children treasures of the sea they could sell to get money and move away. Seal-folk love their children, after all, even if they hate their fathers.
That’s one story.
Here’s another:
There’s a story townsfolk whisper amongst each other, when a child seems strange or loud or otherwise just plain wrong. Once, there was a couple, who, after trying for quite a while, finally had a baby. He was everything they could have wished for—not just a living child, but a perfect one, rosy-cheeked and giggling. Everything was as it should be, until one day it wasn’t, because the baby—now a toddler—didn’t act as they thought a toddler ought to do. He cried at loud noises and sharp smells like they cut into his flesh, and he could read the Bible—the only book his parents owned—but wouldn’t recite it out loud, because he didn’t like to talk. Well, his parents had heard other whispered stories, and they knew they weren’t his parents at all, and that he was a changeling. And, well, there was only one way to deal with changelings: put them into the fire and watch as the fairy that took your baby exchanges it for the real one, lickety-split, because they like to see you suffer, not their own. This changeling was a particularly cowardly one, because he left and brought back the baby—now a toddler—just before they tossed him into the fire, so fast you wouldn’t have been able to tell except for the fact that he acted normal now.
That’s one story.
Here’s another:
There’s a story a boy didn’t tell to anyone, a story I only figured out by watching him. Once, there was a boy. As he grew and grew into himself, he learned a lot of things. Words. How to speak. How to read. And that he was different. Strong scents, tastes, sounds, textures—they all made him feel like he was getting swallowed up in them. He didn’t like to talk to people—he liked to read, but also, for all his sharp senses, he could never figure out what the changes in their faces and voices meant. What he didn’t learn, at least not at first, was that this was considered very wrong. He didn’t learn it entirely until the day his parents almost put him into the fire, convinced that he wasn’t their son because he wasn’t what they wanted. So he lied. He let himself suffocate every moment of every day, and he pretended he wasn’t. He got very good at lying. One day, though, he found someone he could tell the truth to. They moved away together, and he didn’t have to lie any longer.
That’s one story.
Here’s mine:
Once there was a man named Jack. Nobody called him that, though—they called him Stingy Jack, because he hated to spend a single coin from his purse. That didn’t mean he lived a simple life, though. Quite to the contrary. Because Stingy Jack’s smile was as warm as his heart was cold, and he could pluck anyone’s heartstrings like a fiddle until they did whatever he wanted—a category that often involved buying him alcohol. Well, Stingy Jack became so well known for his wicked ways that even the Devil himself caught wind of it, and flew up from Hell to see what all the fuss was about. He found out rather quickly, when Stingy Jack convinced him to shapeshift into a coin so he could use it to buy a drink, then shapeshift back when the bartender wasn’t looking. But before he could shapeshift back, Stingy Jack pocketed the coin and pressed it against a crucifix, so the Devil was in pain and at his mercy. He made the Devil promise to leave him alone for ten more years—having already figured out that the Devil planned to kill him, whether because he coveted him or because he was jealous of his reputation, I can’t say—and so he did. Ten years goes by awful quickly, though, especially when you’re spending it on pleasures as Stingy Jack did, and so soon the Devil showed up again. But Stingy Jack’s silver tongue had only sharpened with time, and when he asked the Devil to climb up the apple tree and pluck him an apple, so he might feel like Eve in Eden before he died, he acquiesced. Of course, the apple tree had crucifixes branded all over, so the Devil couldn’t get down. Only when he promised to never claim Stingy Jack’s soul did Stingy Jack take his axe and chop it through the crucifixes, bringing down the tree and freeing the Devil. Stingy Jack lived for a good long while after that—I won’t tell you about his life, because it’s just more of the same sins, except done to humans—but eventually he died, as all people do, finding that Death was deaf to his pleas. It turned out that didn’t matter, though, because God had no interest in a sinner such as he entering the pearly gates, and the Devil couldn’t break his promise. So Stingy Jack couldn’t die. The Devil—I still don’t know why, he doesn’t strike me as a kind man, but perhaps Stingy Jack’s honeyed words from so many years ago had stuck to him—gave Stingy Jack an ember, and told him that, if put in a lantern, it would burn eternally, just as he was now made to live eternally. Well, Stingy Jack, being stingy, had never bothered to buy a lantern, but it was Samhain, so he simply picked up a carved turnip and put the ember inside. Ever since then, he’s been wandering, lantern in hand, not dead and not alive, and so unseen, as he walks the world, and watches the stories unfold.
That’s just one story, though.
There’s always another.