Bargain for a Bean

                Jack’s shoulders flexed, gleaming with sweat, as he worked beneath the moonlight. The chill of the night did not keep him cool enough. The sound of the shovel scraping the insides of the earth filled the air with a steady beat which echoed through the forest. Nobody would hear him bury it out here. Nobody who wasn’t a slumbering bear or a troll or else an animal, and Jack knew they wouldn’t care. Except for a raven who Jack thought had saw him, watched him with  knowing eyes as he dragged the bundle up into the mountains, and cawed and cackled when the bag had thump, thump, thumped along a root covered section of the trail.  All the creepy birds in the world couldn’t have stopped Jack from what he did, not even his mother, who had a beak-like nose and two beady eyes, who held her arms like chicken wings at her hips and scolded him much too often. It was a simple bargain, Jack thought out an argument to present to his mother, should she find out what he had done. An old life for a new one. These semi-reassuring thoughts floated lazily around his head, chopped up with the resounding beat of the shovel. He wasn’t sure how deep to make the hole. Almost as soon as the question entered his head, the man appeared behind him.

                “I see you are almost done.”

                “What are you doing here? You don’t need to checkup on me.” Jack frowned and turned his back on the hunched figure in the deep purple cloak.

                “Not so fast, Jack. I need to be sure you are going through with it. You cannot go telling everyone what transpires tonight.”

                “I know that. I’m no town crier. I do the task; I get my money, right? You got my cow, and you got this, so I guess maybe you should be giving me more.”

                “You need not worry that I would cheat you, my son. It is you who might cheat me, if you do not fulfill the task.” The old man sighed and leaned against an oak tree. “Go on, dig, I will wait.” Jack muttered under his breath, but continued with the hole. He thought of his mother. She would not be happy about this.

                Jack was a simple-minded young man, he grew attached to things too quickly and he wasn’t afraid of the things he should be. The dark whispers that wove in and out of the old trees in the forest didn’t penetrate his ears; he had a child’s mentality that what he couldn’t see wouldn’t see him either. And the mysterious old man seemed just as friendly as the elderly woman whose goats he sometimes milked for a favor. He did, however, have a justified fear of his mother.

                In and out the head of the shovel went, digging the hole deeper, wider, and more suitable for its new inhabitants.  Jack grew tired and stopped for a bit, going over to the load and inspecting it. The burlap fit loosely around the lump, and it smelled foul. Jack knew what he was burying, he knew what the sack contained, but as he pretended he didn’t, it didn’t bother him, didn’t faze him at all, when he sat down on it to have some water from a clay jug. The old man walked over to the hole, he looked down into its depth and then up into the sky, as if comparing the two.

                “It has to be bigger.”

                “But you see,” said poor Jack, “My mother will be wondering. She knows I went to sell the cow, but she expects me home by morning tomorrow.”

                “Surely she doesn’t expect you to walk all night?” The old man sympathized with Jack. The boy’s thumb and forefinger worked to spread out the creases that had begun to line his brow.

                “Guess not,” he rationalized.

                “So you could just explain you stopped for a rest, couldn’t you?”

                “Guess so,” he exclaimed. And he set down the water jug, and in his carelessness, knocked it over while reaching towards the handle of the shovel.

                Water ran in little rivers towards the sack, causing its color to darken, and the stench to intensify.

                “You fool! It’s too soon, the magic will be ruined.” Jack hurriedly ripped off his brown vest, the only item of clothing he wore on his wiry chest, trying to seep up water from the sack, though the attempt was futile. “Stop now, don’t move it closer to the water, pick up the jug, boy, and help me move it.” Jack stumbled trying to scurry away from the sack. He ran towards the narrower part of the sack, and at the old man’s stare, moved towards the broader end. Together, they lifted, and the old man directed Jack towards the mound of dirt that had been growing next to the hole. With a final heave, they threw it on top of the pile, and crumbling bits of earth rolled down the sides at the impact.

                Jack turned towards the bag and was horrified to see that it had opened, the loose twine binding it together undone from the movement. The old man stepped back, slightly disturbed by his own work.

                Inside the sack had been the body of an elderly farmer who lived in a cottage and grew nothing, his back too deformed to lift a hoe or strap a plow onto a horse. The old man, whom Jack had been trying to forget was a magician, had killed him one way or another, but some way so that his face was perfectly persevered in its last expression. It wasn’t fear or even anger. It was a complacent look, his mouth slightly ajar, the wrinkles etched forever on dusty skin. His eyes were half-closed, as if waking from sleep, and looking at just his face, Jack could pretend the man had died a peaceful death.

                It was the body itself that made Jack’s stomach toss and turn, made him clutch at his gut and rear backwards until he had fallen onto the ground, still staring, eyes unable to pull away. The torso of the man was arched, it seemed as if his spine had come up in between his ribcage and was pushing at the skin, pinching various organs so that purple bruises ran up and down the highest point of the hill that was his upper body. A gash by his left kidney had left the man oozing some kind of white fluid. Jack was vaguely reminded of the milk that had filled a tin bucket beneath his cow years ago, and this made him have to break out of the trance and flip over on his hands and knees to retch into the grass, dirt curling up beneath his finger nails as he clutched the ground and tried to knock out the image from his mind.

                Cool hands lifted Jack; it was the old man, who was apparently much stronger than he appeared. He pushed Jack towards the body, and took his hand. Turning Jack’s chin so sharply that their noses threatened to touch, he thrust three beans into Jack’s palm.

                “Feed them to him. You are almost done.” Jack’s lip drooped and shook, his eyes welling with tears before he thought of his mother’s voice telling him that he was past the point in his life when he was allowed to cry. “There. Put on a brave face. Just like giving feed to your chickens, it is. Not to worry.” Jack fumbled with the beans, and approached the man. He could not grasp the man’s shoulders to steady himself, and he was especially wary of the legs, which had shriveled and dried and looked as if they would turn to dust if Jack brushed them the wrong way. Instead, Jack used one hand to cover the man’s eyes, which were as hard as glassy marbles in their sockets, to both prevent him from looking into them and to get a grip.

                “One,” Jack counted, pushing the first bean between the man’s stone lips. He maneuvered the jaw to chew it, and then used his own finger to push it back into the throat, which was still slick with some mucus-like fluid that made Jack’s stomach shove upwards, desperately trying to heave out whatever was left.

                “Two.” And the process was repeated. This time, Jack closed his eyes, and through his misery, he could hear the old man laughing at his discomfort. Jack wished he was at home, atop his straw bed, sleeping. Surely from now on his sleep would be discolored with nightmarish thoughts and images, frightening him even when he was not awake.

                “Three.” Jack hurried; he barely got his finger out of the man’s throat before he dropped the jaw, his finger getting grazed by the sharp teeth, more carnivorous in death than life. He bumbled, trying to get away from the body as quickly as possible and falling right into the old magician’s arms.

                A whisper curled around Jack’s ear, tantalizingly flitting around the entrance before diving in. “Bury it,” the magician said, “Before it begins to grow.”

                Jack did not want to touch the thing; he grabbed the corners of the opened burlap and rolled the body into the hole. I didn’t want this, he tells himself, just to be sure. I didn’t know he would be so hideous. I didn’t know I’d have to feed them to him. The reasons felt solid enough to Jack, they satisfied the tiny gears turning inside his head, and so he tried not to focus on what he was doing.

                Jack did not see the way when the man’s body flipped, the juices oozing from the wound caught in the wind and flew towards him. Jack did not notice the hollow thud that ensued when flesh met earth and instead heard a night owl hoot in the distance. Jack did not feel himself grip the shovel, he was not aware of the way his muscles worked without him to scoop dirt on top of the putrid form that was no more than a shadow in the depths of the hole. His mind was elsewhere, it was up in the clouds, where he did not have to smell the dreadful smells or see the dreadful sights.

                “You’re done,” The magician once again helped Jack sit down, this time on a log, where they both looked at his handiwork—the old man admired, but Jack’s stare gave away no emotion.

                “I want to go home now,” Jack said quietly, and he was a small boy sitting on a dirty log with mud all over his hands.

                “Just wait for a little while, you’ll see how it’s worth it, you’ll know what to come back for—”

                “No. I’m done.” Jack pushed the old man’s hands off his back. He stood up and threw his belongings into his pack, except for the cracked clay container, which he kicked onto the fresh soil. He shrugged on the bag when a rumbling began. A smile crept along the magician’s face. Jack’s eyes rounded and he watched the ground split open and swallow the jug, and he began to walk closer, started to peer into the cavern, when the old man had to grab him by the pack and pull him back.

                “Move! Quickly!” He shouted; his voice hoarse and straining to be heard above the impending earth quake. Jack ran behind the log he had been reluctant to sit on, now enraptured by this monstrous thing rising up from the ground.

                Both the young and old man watched as a green vine rose, both enormous and graceful, up out of the ground to reach into the sky.