(Note:  “Mr Miacca” is a genuine creepy folktale as told by genuine creepy folk.)

October 1995

Natalie only had herself to blame.  The book had a picture on the front cover of a giant old man eating children in pies and burgers.  That should have been a good enough warning that, well, the book was going to have a story in it about a man who ate children.  But that story, ‘Mr Miacca’, had really bothered her.

The worst thing was that the story never called Mr Miacca a giant, or a troll, or a monster.  He was always just “Mr Miacca,” as if he was a normal person who everyone knew ate children.  The other worst thing was that the only thing you had to do for him to catch you was go round the corner from where you lived.  That was all the boy in the story had done.  His mother had told him not to go too far from home, and he’d only just got round the corner.  How did he even manage to go to school, if those were the rules?  Was it different if an adult was with you, or was he trapped on the same street for every moment of his life?  How old did you have to be before you didn’t count as a child anymore and Mr Miacca wouldn’t eat you?  Had anyone ever tried to stop him?  What had happened to them when they did?

Natalie was still thinking about it the following day, when her mother took her and her sisters shopping in Glamis Road after school.  She must have been to Glamis Road a thousand times, but this time she eyed it suspiciously from the car window.  Everywhere she looked, she could see places where Mr Miacca might hide, ready to jump out and capture you if you took one step too far away from your parents.

The boy in the story had been caught just past the corner of the road where he lived, and, oddly enough, the corner of the road where Natalie lived was exactly as far as she was allowed to ride her bike on her own.  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Natalie?” asked Mum, at the parking-ticket machine, “Are you with us?”

“Yeah,” said Natalie.  She was with them, alright.  She was going to stick to her mum and sisters like glue.

“You looked lost in your own little world for a minute,” said Mum with a laugh.  She got the ticket out of the machine, and handed it and the keys to Natalie’s older sister.  “Andrea, do me a favour and lock up the car for me, alright?”

Natalie watched Andrea all the way to the car and back.  It was probably OK.  She was still in Mum’s sight.  Besides, Andrea was going to be thirteen in a few months- for all Natalie knew, she might already be past Mr Miacca’s age limit.  Still…

Andrea came back, and Natalie relaxed.  She’d probably un-relax in a few minutes, when Andrea insisted on going into a different shop to the rest of them like she always did, but things were OK for now.

“Are you still alright for tomorrow, Andrea?” asked Mum, leading them all out of the car park.  From here, Natalie could hear the sounds of pigeons cooing.  When she was Stephanie’s age, Natalie had heard that mournful “oo-oo-oo” sound and wondered if it was wolves, howling in the distance, waiting for their chance to come down from the hills and feast on unsuspecting townsfolk.  Stephanie herself didn’t seem too worried, though.  She was just trotting along, smiling up at Mum, all curly hair and chubby cheeks, like she didn’t have a care in the world.  Steph wouldn’t last five minutes against Mr Miacca.

Andrea shrugged.  “I guess.”

Mum turned to Natalie and Steph.  “I’m going to be late home from work tomorrow, so I thought Andrea could walk you two home from Girls’ Brigade.”

Natalie didn’t like the sound of that.  Even if Andrea was above the age limit, walking home with her couldn’t be as safe as walking home with an adult, could it?  Yeah, she’d babysat them a couple of times, but they’d all been in the house then, not out on the street.

The other worst thing about the story was that, at the end of it, Mr Miacca was still around.  The boy who was the main character managed to outwit him and get away (twice, actually), but Mr Miacca didn’t die or lose his powers or anything.  He just didn’t get to eat that particular boy.

Mum turned to Natalie and Stephanie.  “Now, do you promise to be good for Andrea?  Do exactly as she says?  Just like you would for me?”

Steph nodded.

“Yeah,” said Natalie.  In the story, the boy’s mother warned him in the first line not to go any further than the corner of their street.  Not listening to her had been his first mistake.

“Good,” said Mum, “She won’t be telling you to do things just to be mean, you know.  It will be because she wants to keep you safe.”

“I know,” said Steph happily, and she carried on skipping.  If Mr Miacca came along right now, she wouldn’t know what hit her.  Natalie shivered.

“Just do as she says, and you’ll all be fine,” said Mum with a smile.  But even then, even before everything that happened, Natalie was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

(To Be Continued)

(Note- The alternative wager mentioned in the RE lesson is sometimes attributed to Marcus Aurelius, but as far as I can tell, that’s not accurate.  So I just left it anonymous.)

Mum couldn’t actually stop them from going to Dad’s without triggering another round of drawn-out court proceedings, so the following weekend, they were back.  Rosalyn and Oliver sat in Dad and Sally’s dining room, unenthusiastically poking their casserole with their forks, listening to Sally worry about a woman from her church who’d phoned earlier.

“I just wonder if she’s making the right choice,” said Sally, for the sixth or seventh time.

Dad swallowed what he was eating.  “Well, you said yourself, he was gambling away her kids’ university funds.  She’s just trying to protect them.”

“I know, I know.”  Sally fidgeted with her fork.  “I just wonder if… if we give up too easily these days. He’s hardly likely to get better now that she’s left him on his own, is he?”

“It didn’t sound as though he was getting any better with her and the kids around, either.”

“But there was always hope.  That’s what she doesn’t understand.  If you keep trying…”  Sally broke off and sighed, and Rosalyn was filled with a sudden certainty that she’d be saying more-or-less the same things if her friend’s husband had been beating her and her children black and blue every night.  There’s always hope.  If you keep trying…  Yeah, and Sally would never be satisfied that they’d tried enough until the psycho finally killed one of them.  And even then she’d probably criticise the survivors for not visiting him in jail.  “She goes to the same church I do.  She knows that God still loves Frank.  So why can’t she?”

“It wasn’t God’s money he was gambling with,” said Dad, fork halfway to his mouth.

Sally sighed again.  “I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s not really Frank she’s fighting with.  It’s God.  I can’t shake the feeling that if she forgave Frank, God would forgive her.”

Oliver looked up.  “Forgive her for what?”

Original Sin or something, thought Rosalyn wearily, but that wasn’t what Sally said.  Instead, she tapped her knife and fork lightly against her plate, as if calling everyone to attention, and said, with some irritation, “Look, at the end of the day, they swore to love each other for better and for worse.”  She underlined it with one of her gay marriage shrugs.  Her that-settles-it shrugs.

Oliver nodded.  “So, by that logic, should Dad still be married to Mum instead of you?”

And if looks could kill, Oliver would have been going home in a body bag.

*

That Wednesday in RE, Mrs Nightingale brought up Pascal’s Wager again.  “There’s actually an alternative wager,” she explained, “It’s similar to Pascal’s but…  Well, let’s just say that it comes at it from a different angle.”

This wager said that you should always try your best to be a good person.  If God was just, he’d be pleased with you for doing it.  If God was unjust, you were probably never going to make him happy anyway.  And if there wasn’t a God, then at least you’d have done some good while you were here.

Needless to say, Sally would not have approved.  She’d have said that humans didn’t get to decide whether God was just or unjust; he’d created the universe, so he got to define what justice was.  She’d have said that it was unbelievably arrogant to assume that you’d have a better idea of how to live a good life than God did.

Rosalyn didn’t know about God, but she was pretty sure she had a better idea than Sally did, at least.

*

That Friday, Oliver put on Radio One in Dad’s car, and Sally was still going on about it half an hour later.

“I think I’m allowed to set standards in my own house,” she snarled at Dad, her arms crossed.

“Technically speaking, the car’s not…” said Oliver.

“Don’t be cheeky,” said Dad, “And yes, Sally, if you don’t want to listen to something, you’re allowed to say so.  And Oliver should respect your wishes.”  He gave Oliver a dirty look.

“But I don’t see why he has to listen to that kind of music at all!” Sally spluttered, “If it’s wrong here, then it’s just as wrong at his mother’s house!”  She glanced up at Oliver, made a disgusted sound, and turned back to Dad.  “He’s sixteen now- he should be working out the correct way to live his life!  And we should be helping him!”

Oliver scratched his nose.  “So, the correct way to live my life specifically involves no Franz Ferdinand whatsoever?  Is that what you’re telling me?”

Rosalyn, who’d sat in the corner pretending to do homework so she could stay out of this argument, felt her heart sink.  She used to smile a bit when Oliver made fun of Sally, but now it just didn’t seem worth the effort.  Sally would have a reply, and that reply would keep Rosalyn up all night.  That was how it always went.

Sally took a few steps towards Oliver so that she could loom over him properly.  “It’s no laughing matter.  You should hear what my friend Faye told me about that kind of music.  Then you’d see what it really is.”

Oliver shrugged, and Rosalyn put her hands over her ears and tried to think about something else.  It never worked, but she always tried it anyway.

“Faye’s husband Peter did some missionary work in Africa before they were married, and he took along his Elvis Presley records.  Well, one day one of the local tribal elders came by and heard him playing them.  He looked really scared, and he said it was because of the drumbeats in the music.  He said that before they’d been Saved, his tribe used those exact drumbeats to summon demons.  So you see, it’s not as harmless as…”

“That’s not true,” said Rosalyn.  She’d felt the words building up inside her the whole time Sally had been speaking.

Sally turned around, and looked at Rosalyn as if she was a cockroach she’d just spotted on the kitchen floor.  “It is true, Rosalyn.  Peter told me that himse…”

“Elvis Presley was inspired by black Americans who’d lived through the Jim Crow era!”  Rosalyn hadn’t expected her voice to sound that loud, or for everything to come out as fast as it did.  It was as if the words were jostling each other to get out.  “If they were such wanton demon-summoners, why didn’t they get one to wipe out the Ku Klux Klan?  Or why didn’t their ancestors get one to kill all the people trying to take them into slavery?”

Sally smiled knowingly.  “Ah, well, people always think demons can…”

“Do you have any idea how racist you’d have to be to assume that all African tribes just go round summoning demons?”  It came out as a shout.  Rosalyn hadn’t meant it to, but she wasn’t sorry it had.

Something- probably either the raised voice or the word ‘racist’- seemed to have knocked Sally off-kilter.  The smile had disappeared, anyway.  “Can I ask you a question, Rosalyn?  You laugh at the idea of demons existing, but when you look at, at what’s happening in the world today, can you honestly tell me you don’t think evil is real?”

“Oh, it’s real, alright!” snapped Rosalyn, giving Sally a pointed glare.

Sally decided not to reply to that directly.  “I just don’t understand how people can…”

“I don’t know whether demons exist or not.  But I do know you can’t summon them with a Franz Ferdinand CD!”

Sally sighed.  “But how do you kn…”

“This is how you see the world, isn’t it, Sally?”  Rosalyn could hear the blood pounding in her ears, like a drumbeat urging her to keep up the pace.  “Anyone different from you?  Going to Hell!  Anything you don’t understand?  Fucking demons!  That way you never have to think at all!”  She took a couple of deep breaths.  “You never bother to wonder whether something’s actually true or not!  It’s all just an excuse for you to look down your nose at everyone else!  You talk so much about other people not making time for God, but you’ve only ever worshipped your own fucking ego!”

Dad stood up.  “Don’t you talk to Sally like…”

“And you’re just as bad!  At least she actually believes in this stuff!  You just let her bang on about it so you can tell yourself that you’re deep!”

“Rosalyn, you’re being hysterical…”

“You were about to let her ruin something Oliver likes!”  Her voice caught.  “Something that makes him happy!  Because of some stupid stories about African tribes and demons!”

Sally looked about to burst into tears.  “Oh, ‘stupid stories.’  ‘Stupid stories,’ you say.  If they’re so stupid, why do they upset you so much?”

“Sally, I’ll handle this,” said Dad, practically in a bark.  He took a deep breath, calming himself down, and turned back to Rosalyn.  “Rosy, I think Oliver can survive not being allowed to listen to Franz Ferdinand for one weekend.”

Rosalyn raised an eyebrow.  “‘One weekend’?”

“‘One weekend’?” repeated Sally, giving Dad daggers.  His expression changed, and he seemed to shrink in front of them.

Oliver, who’d been watching the whole thing with a look of horrified fascination, took advantage of the awkward silence.  “It’s OK, Rosy.  I just tune her out, most of the time.”

Rosalyn nodded.  “Well, I can’t.”  The speed and the volume had gone out of her voice.  The drumbeat had left her ears.  All the energy from the last few minutes seemed to have disappeared.  “And I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay over this weekend.”

She turned around and left the room.  Behind her, she heard her dad’s voice.  “Oh, Rosalyn, there’s no need to…  Rosalyn!”

Her bag was by the front door, where she could pick it up and turn the doorknob in more-or-less a single movement.  Some of her other things- her toothbrush, her pyjamas and so on- were still upstairs, but she wasn’t going to go and fetch them.  She wasn’t going to stay in this house for one more minute.

She heard footsteps behind her, and Dad’s voice said, “Rosalyn, just listen, will you…”

“I’ll text you when I get home,” said Rosalyn, not turning around, “So you know I got there safely.”

“At least let me drive you, for God’s sake.”

She did glance back at him now.  There was still a little anger in his face- probably just frustration, to be fair- but there was also concern.  Just enough for Rosalyn to know that it was a genuine offer.  “No, I’ll walk,” she told him, “I need some fresh air.”

And he didn’t say anything else, so she left.

*

The streets were quiet.  Rosalyn could hear car engines off in the distance, but only two or three cars had actually passed her since she’d set off.  Here in the backstreets, the only real sounds were the birds up in the trees.

Rosalyn wandered along, setting her own pace, and felt as if her muscles had loosened up.  That tight feeling in her chest, in her throat, in her limbs, in her head… all gone. Rosalyn knew that you couldn’t burn off all that terror with just a few minutes of anger, but just for now, she felt more content than she had in months.

It would have been quicker to go by the main road, but Rosalyn had had visions of Sally deciding that her outburst was a sign that she was ripe for conversion, and badgering Dad into starting up the car and going to find her.  Besides, Rosalyn liked the peace and quiet.  It gave her a chance to think.

It was still light out.  The sky faded from blue to white and back again, the sun glowing around the edges of the clouds and turning to gold.  And maybe somewhere behind that sky, there was someone who liked humans and basically wanted them to be happy.  Give Rosalyn a month or two away from Sally, and she might really start to believe it.

Rosalyn walked on, beginning to smile.  She was going to get home and explain to Mum why she was back so early, and then she was going to make herself a big bowl of pasta and watch whatever was on TV.  After that, she planned to go to bed and sleep until morning. Maybe the fear would creep back in tomorrow, and maybe it wouldn’t, but right now, just for tonight, she felt completely calm.

The End

One Tuesday morning, Rosalyn’s friend Carrie found a copy of the Daily Mail in the Sixth Form common room, and brought it over to Rosalyn and their other friends so that they could share in the outrage.  “Who even reads this shit?” she snarled, throwing it open on the table in front of them, “‘The heart-breaking, inspirational poetry of tragic Emily, aged 7…’  Ohh yes, that sounds amazing.”

The others laughed, especially after Carrie read out a poem or two and found that they weren’t so much “heart-breaking and inspirational” as “more-or-less what you’d expect from a bright seven-year-old.”  Even Rosalyn smiled before she said what she had to say.  “You can’t blame her parents for having them published, though.  It was probably a real comfort to them after she died, knowing they still had those poems.”

“I don’t blame her parents,” said Carrie, “They can grieve however they like- I’m not judging.  They’re not the ones who coated a dead kid in treacle to make old ladies cry so they could sell more papers.”  She flicked ahead, the grey pages flying through the air, before settling on a long editorial about a soap that had featured a gay kiss a few days back.  “Look at this wanker!  ‘I have many gay friends, and they were just as outraged as I was…’  Imaginary gay friends don’t count, you jackass.”

“I’m sure he’d have been just as outraged if it had been a man and a woman kissing,” said their friend Jodie, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh no, Jodie!  Nobody would ever use a straight kiss as a ‘tawdry publicity stunt’!  This is a special case, right here!”

Rosalyn thought about what Sally said whenever they talked about gay marriage on the news.  I don’t know what they’re trying to achieve.  It says in plain black-and-white:  “Do not lie with a man as you would with a woman.”  You can protest ‘til you’re blue in the face, but you’ll never get those words to change.  She wouldn’t go on about it.  She wouldn’t even get angry- she’d say it with a shrug, most of the time.  As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.

So what was Rosalyn supposed to do now?  Tell her friends that she actually agreed with the guy in the paper (even if she didn’t)?  Tell them that he was only repeating what it said in the Bible?

But he doesn’t even mention the Bible! Rosalyn thought furiously.  He’s just going on about what a terrible publicity stunt it was, and how its going to ruin the actors’ careers!  Rosalyn knew what Sally would have said about that thought- Look at how many mental gymnastics you have to go through just to avoid admitting the truth– but she still managed to keep her mouth shut until Carrie turned the page.

For the next few minutes, things were a bit easier.  Carrie pointed out and decried a number of little things- an article about how awful it was that people dropped their ‘t’s and ‘h’s when they spoke, a feature speculating whether or not Victoria Beckham had had a boob job- and Rosalyn managed to laugh.  She even joined in on making fun of it, once or twice.  But all that changed when Carrie turned to an article near the back, by the letters pages.  “‘Yes, sex can kill- it killed my daughter,’” Carrie read, “Oh, this ought to be good.”

Carrie read them bits and pieces from the article.  The writer’s daughter had recently died of cervical cancer, and the mother hadn’t even waited for her to be cold in the ground before racing to the papers and implying that she’d brought it all on herself by being a foolish slapper.  The article concluded, “Our Heavenly Father has ordained sex for marriage alone.  We go against that at our peril.”

Rosalyn began to feel queasy.

“So, Our Heavenly Father will strike you down dead for having a few one-night stands?” asked their other friend, Ebony, “Sounds really loving.”

Rosalyn swallowed.  Sally would have said that Ebony had no right to talk about God in that way.  Sally would have said that the daughter in the article deserved to die for defying Him.  And Rosalyn was so very scared that Sally was right.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Carrie, “My cousin Naomi shagged her entire university class, and she’s still here.  Unless God’s just behind schedule with her.”

Sally would have said that Rosalyn should tell her friends to fall to their knees and repent of their blasphemous words.  Sally would have said that to do otherwise would be to condemn them to Hell through inaction.  Sally would have said that if Rosalyn was ashamed of God, then one day God might be ashamed of her.

Jodie spoke up.  “I say, have as much sex as you can, and just get regular cervical screenings.  Best of both worlds.”

“Or just avoid having a mother who writes for the Daily Mail in the first place,” muttered Carrie, shoving he paper aside.

“Well, yeah…  But that wouldn’t have stopped her from being dead.”

“Sometimes dead is better, Jode.”

Sally would have said that Rosalyn should have given them her testimony on the joy of knowing Jesus (or the joy that she imagined would come from knowing the first thing about Jesus… or the joy that would come from your entire concept of religion not being a terrifying, confusing mess…).  Sally would have said that Rosalyn should have saved their souls.

And the worst part was that, underneath all the guilt and the fear, there was a big part of Rosalyn that just wanted to let loose and make fun of a stupid newspaper with her friends.  And Sally would definitely not have said that was a good sign.

*

One day. Rosalyn fainted twice in three hours, and the school called her parents.  It was then that they finally noticed how much weight she’d lost.

“She wants to look like the girls in the magazines,” Sally informed Mum and Dad, as they stood around in Mum’s living room, “It’s a sign of the times.”

“She’s worried about something,” said Mum.  She cast a suspicious glare at Dad and Sally.  “I don’t know what’s going on in your house, but…”

“Just what are you implying, Maggie?” snapped Dad.

“I’m implying that anyone would be off their food if they were being filled up with hellfire and brimstone every other weekend.”  Mum wasn’t all that tall, but at that moment, she seemed to tower over Dad and Sally, her blonde hair shining around her face like a halo.  “I’ve held my tongue because I felt Rosy and Oliver needed their father in their life, but good God, if you can’t even protect your own daughter…”

Dad spluttered.  “You?  Hold your tongue?  That’d be something worth seeing.”

“‘Good God’?” muttered Sally, her lip curled in contempt.

Dad prodded with his finger in Mum’s direction.  “They’re at your house twelve nights out of every fourteen.  This is something that’s happened on your watch.”

“It only started when you married the Mother Superior over there!” snapped Mum.

Sally’s lip trembled.  “Excuse me for trying to introduce some morality into their lives!  But I suppose that’s not very politically correct, is it?”

Rosalyn herself hadn’t said anything for at least an hour.  She sat in one of the armchairs in the corner, staring at the ground, until they all finished shouting and Dad and Sally left in a huff.

Mum came over and stood, awkwardly, a yard away from where Rosalyn was sitting.  “You don’t have to listen to her, Rosy,” she told her, “Just because she married your dad doesn’t mean she has the right to run your life for you.”

“I know,” said Rosalyn quietly.

“You know the things she says aren’t true, right?”

“Yeah,” said Rosalyn, because it wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d said something else.  Mum thought that all religion was just a coping mechanism.  She thought that people only believed in it to avoid admitting to themselves that the universe was a bleak, indifferent place.  But at this point, Rosalyn would have been quite happy to believe that the universe was indifferent.  Indifference didn’t strike you dead for thinking the wrong thoughts.

(To be concluded)