"Dear as Pepper"

Today's post is based on an old Italian folktale called "Dear as Salt."

The wise woman left her cabin in the heart of the deep, living forest and traveled to the castle. There she found the prince, seated at a long table on top of a dais, celebrating his wedding feast.

She gave him a cloth bag full of black and red peppercorns.

"Pepper?" the prince asked, holding the bag open, sniffing. He tugged the bag's drawstrings and gave woman the most graceful smile that his confusion would let him manage. "To be honest, I would have expected mushrooms, or some other forest delicacy. Or at least salt. That has some value. We use that in everything."

The wise woman nodded. "Salt is simple and practical, a good foundation," she said. "But pepper. Pepper adds depth. Bite. Salt stands in agreement with each ingredient and makes each dish what it's meant to be. Pepper makes the whole dish something more." The wise woman bowed and turned to take her leave; the party was no place for her. "Go a year without pepper, and your bride there will say everything is seasoned pleasantly enough," she called out as she walked through the long hall. "But how long can a person look forward to dining on food that's merely pleasant?"

She didn't have to turn around to know that the prince's young bride was watching her leave, and that both her meal and the prince's remained untouched.

"The Witch"

 

Someone had placed a hat on top of her head. It tipped forward like a downed horse and covered most of her face, but it wasn't enough to ward off the vultures, which the boys knew waited low in the trees just some distance from this one, their hunger drawing them long and lean, like shadows, as the sun fell.

A few of the boys could just reach the hat's brim. "Go on, lift it," said Bryon.

"No way," said Louis.

"Chicken. You're chicken."

"I sure am," Louis announced. "Go ahead and show us how it's done, since you're so brave."

Bryon drew circles in the dust with the tips of his toes. "It's disrespectful," he said finally. "I just wanted to see if the body was still here."

"Disrespectful, nothing. She was a witch."

"That's just a story. She murdered someone is all. Ain't no such thing as witches."

"Then take off the hat."

"You do it."

"You."

While the others squabbled, a boy named Henry, tall and quiet, approached the hanged corpse. He raised his hand toward the hat, and everyone stopped. His fingers were so close.

Then the wind gusted. The vultures' shapes grew in the trees. And the boys turned and ran, each one of them suddenly believing in magic.