I was nine then, one of my worst years. Pepper-Man had been a snarling beast all winter, dancing around me always. I fell asleep with his teeth in my throat more often than not. He took to ogling Olivia’s fresh-faced friends with hunger in his gaze, even Olivia herself, with her polished copper braids. No matter how often he tasted me, it never seemed to quench his thirst. No matter what I did to appease him—telling him how I loved him, how much his gifts meant to me—he never seemed to be satisfied. I think I screamed and thrashed and lashed at those girls just so Pepper-Man wouldn’t. He had promised he needed only me, after all. Had promised me I was his only princess. The red marks that I left on their skin were warning signs, what little pain my scratching nails, hard little fists, and teeth could inflict were really nothing in comparison to what he could do.
“How dare you?” Mother cried at me, all flushed and angry, reading another letter from my deeply concerned teacher. “How dare you ruin our reputation like that? Fighting like a street rat! They’ll think you have no manners—no manners at all!”
I was rinsing beans by the kitchen table, guided by our housekeeper Fabia’s stern hand. Pepper-Man was sitting on the kitchen counter, sprawling, more like it, long limbs extended on the clean surface; looked like a spider, gray and spindly. I didn’t give a word in reply. What was there to say?
Mother shook her head, didn’t look as angry anymore, more afraid, or sad. “This won’t end well, Cassie. Not for you, not for anyone. Just think of your brother, what this will do to him. He doesn’t react well to all this upheaval.”
I nodded once. We both already knew there was disaster in the brewing.
“You are jealous, I think,” Pepper-Man said that same night, as he folded me in his embrace. “You do not want me to taste another, you want me to have only you.”
I reddened then, beneath the covers. I didn’t want it to be true. “You’ll hurt them,” I said. “You’ll make them bleed.”
“But so, my love, do you.”
Just as I said, two peas in a pod. We were always the same, my Pepper-Man and I.
* * *
I should have been unhappy that the other girls didn’t like me, but I wasn’t. I had many other friends to occupy my time, way more entertaining than my classmates. I was seven, maybe eight, the first time Pepper-Man took me to see his kin. It was early autumn, the leaves on the trees barely tinged with yellow. It was a Saturday, I believe, since I was home from school but had not been to church and the household was preparing for a dinner that night. Mother, always the perfectionist, was on a mission to make our home as spotless as possible before the important event. In consequence, she and Fabia were tearing my room apart. They had removed all the books from my shelves, laid them out in colorful rows on the soft white carpet on the floor. Golden-haired, red-lipped heroines and dark-haired sidekicks were grinning up at me from the covers. Mother and Fabia were looking for what was hidden behind them.
“Why do you keep doing this?” my mother complained, tossing wreaths of birch and oak, jewelry of bone and fur, down on the floor by my feet. Fabia held half a robin’s eggshell between two fingers, pinching her nose lightly. I looked down. There was a bracelet of dead raspberry leaves, a ring made from deer spine, a necklace of frogs’ legs and hawthorn. It was the debris from these gifts that gave them away. My mother couldn’t stand clutter, and natural matter tends to leave a trail, especially in a very white room.
I kept silent, bit my lower lip. I knew it would do no good at all, telling them the truth. The older I got, the less patient my mother grew with Pepper-Man and his antics. Telling her that these were his gifts would only anger her more.
“We can buy some nice glass beads,” she said. “If you really want to make things, there are classes for that. You could learn embroidery, or knitting.”
Fabia bent down and looked in under the bed, her scrawny behind jutting out in the room, auburn hair bun bobbing. “Oh,” she uttered, pulling forth a gaggle of fresh finds: owls’ eyes, dried up and shriveled in a nest of roughly woven twigs. A crown made from pine needles and apple wood, a bird made from rowan and daisies.
“If you want to keep running around in the woods alone, you have to stop bringing these things home,” said Mother. “What do you want all these dead things for, anyway? It’s not pretty, Cassie. It’s repulsive.”
I didn’t disagree.
Fabia crossed herself as she tossed a pendant of claws and teeth onto the growing heap. Mother caught her in the act.
“Don’t be foolish,” she said curtly. “They were already dead when Cassie found them, weren’t they, Cassie?” I nodded. “She isn’t that mad,” Mother muttered, sending me a furious look.
They tore apart the bed next; fluffy pillows in lace casings, sheets and mattress, everything was thrown to the floor.
“Oh, Cassie, again?” Mother complained when she saw the rusty stains I so stealthily had tried to hide, first by scrubbing the mattress with a washcloth, then by turning it over. “I don’t get where this comes from, why won’t you tell me?” She was looking me over, searching my skin for scabs. I rubbed my neck, knowing very well that like Pepper-Man himself, she couldn’t see the damage done. I could, though. Every day in the mirror, I could see the traces of his love, etched onto my skin in deep punctures. The wounds were just as much part of me as the color of my hair, or the freckles on my nose—just there, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Fabia caught my mother’s eyes, motioned discreetly to her lower region.
“No, no, no,” Mother shook her head, “it’s far too early for that.”
Fabia gave me a lingering look and pulled a pair of yellow rubber gloves from the pocket of her apron, started filling the trash bag with gifts.
Mother stood before me, towering above me. “Is that all?” she asked in her sternest voice. “Talk to me,” she implored when I just stood there, wringing my hands in my skirt. “Why won’t you say something, Cassie?”
I shook my head, looked down at my toes.
“No excuses? No apologies?”
I kept shaking my head. Why should I have to apologize for what Pepper-Man did? I even felt a bit sorry for him, all his lovely gifts tossed and burned.
“Maybe your teacher is right,” Mother said in a quiet voice when Fabia left with the bag. “Maybe you ought to see a doctor—the special kind.” She made it sound like a threat. “I don’t know what to do with you.” Her hands were on her hips now, fingernails like claws on the slick navy fabric. “I give you everything a girl could want, a lovely room with lovely toys, a wardrobe filled with dresses, and what do I get in return? Dead frogs and brown leaves, a goddamn forest under your mattress—”
“I don’t want your stupid toys,” I told her, lifted my gaze and met hers. Suddenly I was furious, outraged at the unfairness of me being punished like that, all my things scattered and tossed, when he was the one who did it. He was the one who brought the gifts inside. He was the one who said to hide it.
“Well, I can see that,” said Mother. Even in her rage, her curls stayed all in place. “You would rather have eyes for marbles and rowan sticks for dolls.”