Christopher Fuller

The Return of the Woodcutter’s Children

 

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The old woodcutter had long assumed that both of his children were dead. However, one day, his son (now a man) emerged from the woods and came up the path.

 

“Is it you?”

 

“Father.”

 

The woodcutter kissed his son several times on both cheeks, then brought him inside and gave him tea with good bread. Tears greased his gnarled face. “I thought I would never see you again.”

 

“Yet here I am,” said his son.

 

“You look well. So robust. Your sister?”

 

“She thrives. A prosperous baker took her for wife. She has many children.” The son looked around. “Where is your wife?”

 

The woodcutter waved as though he were shooing a fly. “That one. She is long dead.”

 

“I am sorry for it.”

 

“Don’t be.”

 

The son looked about him again. “What a fine house you’ve built.”

 

“Oh, just a roof over my head.”

 

“A goat in the yard. Chickens. Stone floor.”

 

The old man turned away, tears filling his eyes, again. “I guess I make do,” he said softly.

 

“Just the same,” the son said before adding more goat’s milk to his tea. “A fine place.”

 

***

 

To the woodcutter’s delight, his son stayed the night, but in the morning was nowhere to be found. The old man despaired and wondered if he might have been dreaming. He was about to put the kettle on when his son reappeared with a large hare. 

 

“I hope you like stew, Father.”

 

Not only a capable huntsman, the woodcutter’s son proved to be a wonderful cook. Also: he swept the house, fetched the water, and did the day’s woodcutting in half the time it usually took the old man. The following day, his son went hunting again, and anticipating another fine dinner, the woodcutter scrubbed the table and gathered kindling.

 

The young man returned at half-past noon and dropped his quarry on the table. The woodcutter found himself staring into the dead, black eye of an enormous swan.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“Oh,” the young man said, laughing. “Have you ever seen such a fat cob? Tonight, we feast!”

 

“On swan?”

 

“No flesh is sweeter.”

 

And, so it was. But, as his son turned the spit, the woodcutter couldn’t resist an impulse to shutter the windows.

 

They picked the bird clean. Indeed, the woodcutter was amazed by his son’s voracity. The young man tore at the bird’s plump thighs like a dog and licked his greasy lips as though they were covered with cake icing. 

 

But afterward, as they stared into the fire, the woodcutter, full and content, felt his unease drift away like smoke. He leaned back and sighed. “It is the greatest joy to have you here. I thought I would never look upon your face again but here you are.”

 

“Here I am.”

 

“I have so many regrets. I am so…” 

 

“Don’t trouble yourself, Father.”

 

“I wish…no, I dare not even wish it.”

 

“Speak, Father.”

 

“If only you could stay for good.”

 

“If it would please you...”

 

The woodcutter slid out of his chair and onto his knees. He clapped his hands and said, “Thank you, Heavenly Father!”

 

“I would like to stay and take care of you, be your rightful heir.”

 

“Of course––you are my son!”

 

“Just the same,” said the young man, “It has been so long. We should pay a visit to the magistrate.”

 

So, the next day, they did just that, and when they returned with the notarized documents, the woodcutter thought that he’d never felt happier. Perhaps, he thought, I have done sufficient penance for allowing my wife to come between me and my children. Perhaps there is such a thing as a second chance. Thank you, Heavenly Father!

 

The woodcutter’s fine house, which stood where his old cottage, the birthplace of his children,  once stood, never seemed so beautiful, sun-dappled or inviting, secure in the clearing he himself had cut, so long ago. “Son, it is good to be home,” he said. “And it will be good to rest, and to eat.”

 

No sooner had the old man said this than he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and fell. Looking up, saw his son standing over him, clutching a bloody stone.

 

***

 

The woodcutter’s son carried his father’s corpse to a small tree near the spot where his step-mother was buried and hung it by the ankles from a stout limb. He placed a bucket under the head and with the same knife he’d used on the swan, slit the throat. Then he dug a fire pit.

 

That evening, just as he was thinking about tea, they arrived: his sister and the old woman who had taken them in when they were children. He set down his knife and whetstone, kissed them both on both cheeks and led them by lamplight to the place where the dead woodcutter lay, drained. 

 

The woodcutter’s daughter, gathering her fine skirts, bent over her father’s corpse. She scrutinized the face for a long while, then took a deep breath, and spit.

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The old woman clapped.

 

“When the others arrive,” she said, smiling. “We will light the fire.” She poked the woodcutter’s pale corpse with an improbably long finger, then, turning, pointed to a spot next to the fire pit. “That is where the Black One shall appear. He will call to each of us, one by one, for he knows us all.”

 

“Then we will feast,” said the woodcutter’s son.

 

The Old Woman folded her hands across her bosom. “Ah! More than that! You will know his embrace! Feel his kisses!”

 

Christopher Fuller is a graduate of The Writers Workshop at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. His recent publications include the stories "When You Walk a Dog, No One Sees You" in the October 2021 issue of MONO and "The Wild Hunt" in the early 2022 edition of Shirley Magazine. He lives in Chicago. Bienvenue au Danse, Christopher.

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