“Life and Jacq and the Giant and Death” • by Christopher Degni

Once upon a future, when the Earth was spent and the sun red and swollen, a farmgirl named Jacq cared for two dying things: her father and her fields. Her father, stricken with a plague of old age and fatigue, lay in bed all day, asleep; her fields, following years of declining fertility, yielded only the most meager amount of grain.

Jacq and her father were down to their last drachms of their most precious salt. Jacq pocketed the half-filled cruet of salt and headed to town to strike a deal with the apothecary. It would buy a few more drops of tincture of licorice, the only remedy with any effect on her father’s illness. She hoped there might be enough left over to barter for protein cakes.

The road to town twisted through rocky plains of weeds and dust. Every here and there, a small, white flower poked its droopy head out of the musty earth. And on one of these flowers sat a sparkling purple dragonfly, iridescent with streaks of green. It flitted from one flower to the next, each one perking up in turn.

The dragonfly landed in the road before Jacq, where a new bloom sprang from the dirt, elevating the insect and providing a perch. Jacq, not wanting to crush the delicate creature, stopped.

“Girl,” said the dragonfly, the words forming in Jacq’s head, “we sense you bear salt. We would make you a trade.”

“I must bring it to town for food and medicine,” replied Jacq.

“We offer you more: the opportunity of life in the midst of all this death.”

The dragonfly produced a tiny spherical vial of shimmering golden liquid in its front pair of legs.

“All this precious salt for a droplet of liquid?”

The dragonfly darted up and down in quick succession.

“We should say, all this precious liquid for a few drachms of salt. But we are nevertheless willing to deal, on one further condition.”

“Will it save my father?”

“Sadly, no. But it will rescue your farm. Enrich your fields with it, and when you wake tomorrow, your crops will have grown to enormous size.”

“And your other condition?”

“Your new bounty will conceal more than you expect. When you explore within, look for our sibling, captured and displayed in a menagerie. Bring them sugar, and free them.”

Jacq considered the offer. If she continued to town and traded her salt for a pittance of medicine and food, what would she and her father do once those supplies ran out?

The dragonfly clearly had magic about it. If the farm became fertile again, they could fend for themselves and even sell the surplus food, like the old days.

“We have a deal, then, yes?” said the dragonfly.

“Yes,” said Jacq. She pulled the small cruet from her pocket. “You can carry this?”

“That is not your concern.”

Jacq placed the salt on the road. The dragonfly darted in and out of her hand, leaving the golden sphere behind, and then alighted on the cruet.

“Sprinkle the droplet in the center of your fields before nightfall.”

Jacq returned home, excited to relate the bargain to her father, but he lay silent in bed, breathing shallowly. The sun was sinking below the horizon, so Jacq followed the dragonfly’s instructions before settling in for the night.

The next morning, the light in Jacq’s room wasn’t its normal red character, but orange and dark. Outside her window, the fields had indeed sprouted up overnight—so tall that the giant stalks hid much of the horizon. Jacq checked on her father, then pocketed a small pouch of sugar and headed outside to inspect her new crops.

Jacq marveled at the leaves of long grass. She could see no further than a foot or two into the wheat forest.

She pressed into the shower of wheat, pushing the stalks aside, only to reveal even more densely packed growth. Soon the crops surrounded her, with only a bit of mottled pale yellow sky visible directly overhead, filtered through the oversized spikes that topped the stalks.

Jacq had been exploring the wheat for hours when the forest thinned. When she emerged on the other side, she faced a tower of obsidian, silver, and glass which dwarfed even the wheat. Her curiosity burned brighter, and she slipped into the tower through a crack in the door.

The sun streamed into a grand entrance hall, warm and yellow, through great crystal skylights. Chirps and buzzes and squawks emanated through an arched doorway at the far end of the room.

The archway led to a solarium that, ironically, was darker than the entrance hall. A looming, horseshoe-shaped display table rimmed the outer wall of the room, supporting an array of cages and cloches, each holding some exotic plant or animal: purple butterflies and gray orchids, a giant bear-like creature with fearsome talons and thick red fur, a majestic eagle. And there, in the middle, a sparkling green dragonfly, iridescent with streaks of purple.

Jacq, being quick, sprinted across the room and, being nimble, scrambled up the table leg. She wasn’t eager to meet the master of the castle. On the tabletop, the creatures all stared expectantly at her.

“You brave many dangers,” said a voice in her head that sounded both like and unlike the purple dragonfly. “The signs of Death are all around you, if you know to look for them.”

In the distance, a rumbling.

“I’m here to free you,” said Jacq, positioning herself at the edge of the butterfly’s bell jar.

But the cloche resisted even her full effort to lift it. Thunderous steps shook the entire solarium.

“We need strength,” said the dragonfly.

Jacq remembered the sugar. She drew the pouch from her tunic and placed it where the glass met the table. The shaking rattled all the cages now; then, at the doorway, stood the giant.

“Fee fi fo find, I smell the blood of a humankind!”

With a heave, Jacq lifted the cloche off the table barely enough to kick the pouch inside. The dragonfly made its way into the sugar.

“My collection!” cried the giant, who stood merely three steps away.

“Lift the cloche,” said the dragonfly, “and we can help.”

The giant took one step...

Jacq lifted with the strength of fear...

And a second step...

The dragonfly, working with Jacq, pressed against the opposite side of the glass, and the jar tipped...

And a third step! The giant stretched his hairy hand out for Jacq, who was shorter than his pointer finger and skinnier than his thumb.

The dragonfly darted toward the giant, drawing his attention, and then flew between the bars of the eagle’s cage, landing on the bird’s head. The eagle shrieked and erupted into a blossom of silver flames.

“Run,” whispered the dragonfly.

While the giant was focused on the dying bird, Jacq, being nimble, scrambled down the table leg and, being quick, sprinted for the archway.

Jacq peeked over her shoulder to measure the giant’s pursuit. He had regained his senses and scanned the floor for her. Behind him, the eagle-like bird had been reborn in its cage, the silver flames petering out. Jacq passed through the archway, into the entrance hall.

The giant wouldn’t give up that easily. He roared in anger and took two thunderous strides to put himself between Jacq and the outer doorway. Jacq tumbled and jumped and rushed between the giant’s legs. Before the giant could catch up to her trickery, Jacq was through the crack in the door.

“We must go,” said the voice in her head. Jacq had forgotten about her rescue. “He will follow.”

And follow the giant did, though he could not catch Jacq, for she had head start enough, and she plunged into the wheat. Well into the forest, the dragonfly, who’d been dancing between the stalks above Jacq, said: “We are far enough out of the giant’s grasp. It is safe to rest.”

While Jacq caught her breath, the dragonfly landed on a wayward tendril, and the tendril withered into a husk.

“We must go our own way,” the dragonfly said.

“I don’t even know your name,” said Jacq.

“You do,” said the dragonfly, “but you do not know you know.”

“Then who, pray tell, are you?”

“We are Death. And for saving us, we will grant you a single boon.”

Jacq needed no more than a moment. “Bring back my mother.”

Death jittered their wings. “Those who have passed may not return.”

“Then spare my father,” said Jacq.

“We cannot,” said Death, “for he too has passed.”

Jacq cried out at this revelation.

“I have not yet passed,” she said, “Can you spare me?”

“Alas,” said Death, “that too we cannot do. But we can send you messengers of our coming, so you can prepare for your time and not be surprised.”

“That will have to do,” said Jacq.

Death took wing, flitted among the wheat stalks, and disappeared into the sky.

Jacq resumed her escape. Eventually the forest broke, and she found herself at the edge of her field, staring at her modest home. She ran to the house to confirm Death’s word. Her father lay cold and silent. Jacq was now alone in the world.

Scared that the giant could follow her out of the magical wheat forest, Jacq searched the main road for the purple dragonfly, whom she now recognized as Life, to see if they could help her. They were not to be found. Jacq returned to her house and stoked a fire. After harvesting a single stalk of wheat to last her the winter, she brought the flame into the fields and lit the border of the forest in several places.

The fire blazed brilliant and yellow but produced no smoke. On the eve of the second day, just over the roaring of the flames, the giant’s voice called out and went silent. When the fire had burned itself out, after three days and three nights, Jacq’s fields were once more bare, showing no sign of either the giant or the castle.

¤

The next season Jacq’s crops grew small, but fertile and abundant, in the ruins of the magical wheat forest. And the seasons came and went, and Jacq’s lands were fertile and abundant again and again, even as the lands around her grew more barren. She aged and she took a wife, and after some years she lost her wife, and she herself grew more tired and with pains in her joints and a cough that came on stronger each winter. But she feared not Death, for he sent no messengers.

One day, Jacq wandered along the road, reminiscing on the wheat forest, a memory so distant it had taken on the semblance of a dream. The rustling paper sound of dragonfly wings followed her, and when she turned around, there hovered a sparkling green dragonfly, iridescent with streaks of purple.

“It is time,” said Death.

“No,” said Jacq. “It cannot be. You said you would send messengers, and I have seen none. No black butterflies or corpse candles, nor ravens nor owls; no signs in the sun or the stars.”

“But we have sent our messengers,” said Death. “Even as in your youth, you’ve failed to interpret them.”

“What signs are these?”

“Have you not been with pain?”

“I have,” said Jacq.

“And with a cough persistent, a companion at your side for years now?”

“Well, yes,” conceded Jacq.

“And fatigue, always sleeping a bit more?”

Jacq agreed a third time.

“These are our messengers, and you should have listened to their call. We’re afraid it is time now.”

Jacq could find nothing else to argue, and she followed Death out of this life. And even as the sun continued to bloat and weaken, and the Earth itself grew exhausted, and nothing bloomed anywhere else on its surface, Jacq’s patch of land flourished, year after year, until finally the Earth and the sun themselves succumbed to Death.

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Christopher Degni is a 2019 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He writes about the magic and the horror that lurk just under the surface of everyday life. He lives south of Boston with his wife (and his demons, though we don't talk about those). You can find more of his work in NewMyths.com, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, 99 Tiny Terrors, and the upcoming 99 Fleeting Fantasies.

Christopher has sent us some pretty funny little stories lately, so we decided it was time to let him show you a different side, If you want to see more of his work for us, click this link.