The Walnut Tree (from a Farmer in South Carolina)

by Kat Beyer

My mother never minded that I didn’t believe in ghosts. She patiently told me about each one on our farm, from the old man that walked with her and pointed to the ripest carrots and beets, to the woman who giggled in the rafters when the rain was coming. Some were long-dead friends and relations, others helpful strangers. According to her there were even two twins who guarded all the chickens and ducks. They came by one October night after the war was over, and stayed, and no fox or raccoon ever got one of our birds again. My mother left the twins two bowls of cereal every full moon.

“Easiest time for them to see my gifts,” she explained, “their eyesight isn’t so good.”

She taught me what each ghost liked and went on letting me laugh and tease and shake my head.

Stopped laughing about a year after she passed away. Saw the old man for the first time the summer after she went, and he walked the rows with me in the dusk. I apologized for not leaving out his pipe tobacco as she had instructed, but he just smiled and shook his head as if he understood. She always said he never spoke.

A few nights later I asked him, just before I hoisted the basket to my shoulder and went to fetch the kids, would Mama come back too, to help? And he smiled and pointed at an old walnut tree and nodded. Right now I think she’s traveling the world, but I’ll look for her to settle there when she’s ready.

With A Grain of Salt

by David

Taffy had done 18 months for hijacking one of Peter Piper’s trucks. Stole 16 tons of pickled peppers (Why?! Who knows?). But Piper had a good alibi. He’d been home with his wife, eating pumpkin pie and playing cards with a couple of neighbors. So who killed a two-bit hood by ripping his throat out, dousing him with slime, and dumping him in Sir Reginald Thimble’s flower bed? A similar murder in Dressmakers St. put me on the right track My client was a member of the notorious Tailor Gang At last everything was piecing itself together in my head.

*

Sir Reginald’s front door was open. Running up the steps I slipped and landed hard. A trail of goo came up the drive and went through the door. I followed, and almost tripped over the butler. Crushed flat.

Three well-dressed victims had been smoking in a room off the main hall,.my client among them. Blood was everywhere. I stepped back out. A snail the size of a Volkswagen was coming up fast from the back of the house. I pulled a salt shaker out of my pocket and raised it high. The snail stopped in its trail.

“So it is down to me and it is down to you, Deadbolt,” the snail gurgled. I was surprised to hear a mollusk quoting “The Princess Bride.” Usually they go in for live theater when they seek entertainment.

“One question,” I said. It dipped an eye stalk “Why? Did the Tailors pay you to hit the Welshman? And if they did, why start killing them? You’re a pro, not a garden-variety psycho.”

“You humanoids are all crooked. They put the hit on the little thief cos he was stupid enough to rip them off. Only an idiot steals from a syndicate.”

“You won’t get an argument from me,” I said, “but what about the Tailors? Doing your civic duty?”

“Thread-biters didn’t pay me.” It sounded outraged. “I let that get out, that people can push in my eyestalks, and I won’t be eating.”

“Three square salads a day where you’re going now,” I said, “you can thank me later.” Meanwhile, I had unscrewed the lid of the saltshaker. It would last until the cops got here with a couple of 5 pound sacks.

The end

References

“Taffy”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/taffy.asp

“Peter Piper”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpiper.asp

“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpeter.asp

“The tailors and the snail”
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/a24-four-and-twenty-tailors.htm