Sadie was not the only one to experience this stirring of new emotion. The two little girls had profound superiority complexes. Sadie performed a puppet show she had written for Marie. She held the puppet of a crow in one hand, and that of a wolf in the other. The two puppets argued for fifteen minutes about who was the more wicked.
“When did you write that?” Marie asked.
“On that rainy day when it was impossible to go out.”
Marie felt so taken aback. How could her friend simply sit at a desk and write a play that was both cynical and brilliant? She was clearly a genius. It immediately made Marie feel she was not.
Before she had met Sadie, she had always been the best girl her age at whatever she did. But now there was someone else their age who was very good at things. While this was fascinating and attractive, she found it stirred odd and ugly emotions in herself. It planted the seed of jealousy in her. And that seed began to grow and it bore thoughts that were like tendrils. Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive.
* * *
While practicing archery in Marie’s backyard, the girls discovered the other had particularly good aim. Because they both hit the mark so easily and so often, they could not impress each other. They were both used to thrilling at least somebody with their skill.
They stood facing each other. They both had a sack of arrows slung over their backs and bows in their left hands. They were at the back of Marie’s property, which was demarcated by a tall black fence with stakes that were twisted like licorice.
“Since we have perfected our aim,” Sadie said, “we must now perfect our courage.”
“In what way?” Marie inquired.
“There’s no point in shooting again and again at a stationary object, is there? We need to be pursuing foxes and living things. It’s not that the target is moving that makes it hard to kill. It’s the act of taking life away from something else, for sport. It’s the morality of it, Marie!” Sadie had a look of absolute glee in her eyes. “I would love to kill a fawn. Its darling head would look adorable on my wall. My mother thinks hunting is a morbid sport for a lady. She won’t let me go with my father and brother.”
“That’s a pity,” Marie said, although she was unconvinced.
“It’s for the best. If I went with my brother, I would be possessed by an urge to put an arrow into him. I would like to have him stuffed and used as a coatrack.”
“You don’t like your brother?”
“He’s awful. And he hates girls. He hates me because I’m a girl. He can’t even look at me because he hates me so much.”
There was a black cat climbing on the fence. They say that black cats are unlucky, and this one certainly was. Especially as it had decided to leap up onto a fence the very moment after Sadie had delivered her sadistic speech.
Later, Marie thought she would have tried to stop Sadie if she had thought her friend was serious. If she believed Sadie was actually going to murder the cat. But she didn’t. She didn’t think it was possible. It was so out of the realm of what an ordinary girl might choose to do on a Thursday afternoon.
Sadie pulled out an arrow from her sheath and set it in the bow. She then let it go. It struck the cat. The cat let out a sharp cry and fell off the fence. He made a small thud when he landed. He rolled onto his back with the arrow in his chest.
It was almost comic. As though the cat were a puppet in a play and were performing its own death. They huddled next to the dying creature. The cat looked up at the sky. He had expected many possible endings to the day, but this had not been one of them.
“I liked that cat,” Marie declared. “He had a very merry way about him.”
Sadie had no interest in cats or any understanding of why anyone might care about them. She quite enjoyed drowning kittens in the bucket in the kitchen. Sadie personally believed there was a proliferation of cats in the neighborhood because they weren’t being used as target practice.
“I think that was excessively cruel of you,” Marie said.
“If you think I’m cruel, we don’t have to be friends. You have so many anyways. I’m taking you away from them.”
“No, no, no. I didn’t mean that. I meant it as a compliment.”
Both girls shrugged the death off. And Marie walked Sadie home.
“I’m competing at the elocution contest at Lady Brickenton Hall,” Marie said. “You should read a poem too.”
“You won’t mind?”
“Of course not. But I’ve won this competition for three years in a row. So don’t be disappointed if you lose.”
They pressed their pretty lips against each other’s and kissed.
* * *
That Saturday, much of the Golden Mile filed into Lady Brickenton Hall, a grand building made of red bricks. There were squirrels and rabbits and foxes carved into the masonry around the large front door, looking like a spell had been placed on them by settlers, turning them into stone. Marie went up on the stage. She was wearing a pink dress and had pink roses in her hair. She announced she would be reciting Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.
Marie stood on her tiptoes and waved her arms about as she recited the words in her pure and melodic voice. The audience was bewitched by Marie’s performance. They did not take their eyes off her. There was a look of delight on the spectators’ faces as they followed Marie into the land of fairy tales. They were in a forest where they could meet goblins and eat a strawberry that would steal their souls.
Marie was open with her gestures, she allowed the audience members, each and every one of them, to enter her body. She behaved in a manner that would normally be considered unbecoming to a young girl or lady of the time. Ladies were supposed to moderate their physical behavior. They were supposed to speak in an articulate and reserved fashion. They were not supposed to act as though they were transported by their emotions. Because look what power the female imagination had. People lost their grasp on reality when Marie spoke to them. Marie could lead people straight into the ocean. She could make them accept the most sordid behavior. She could start an orgy of some sort. And she was so young. She was only at the very beginning of her power.
* * *
Sadie went up immediately after Marie. To everyone’s surprise, she announced that she, too, would be reciting Goblin Market. Marie was the most startled that Sadie had chosen the same poem as her. It worked to her disadvantage. The audience would have just heard it. They would be bored of it. The story itself would hold no suspense for them. Their attention would wane.
Sadie did not move her body around the way Marie did. She glared at the audience as she recited the words, curtly and viciously. Her dark seriousness pervaded every word. The audience followed Sadie even if they didn’t want to. They were now in a menacing fairy tale with perverted goblins pulling at their hair and sticking poisonous berries in their stomachs.