rough-edged as this is, I still like it, and have been trying for years without success to interest editors into running it (even for free) as a specialty item, to no avail—but, given the fact that I have other multiple-version variants of a couple of other stories out there, in various magazines and collections, I thought this one deserved to be published, too.
Personally, I find both versions of the story somewhat flawed; this one for obvious reasons, but I’m not 100% fond of “Dear D. B. ...” simply because I didn’t have the opportunity to do a much-needed revamp/rewrite on it prior to it getting published—N.C.’s editor knew that the magazine was folding soon, and wanted one last story from me in it...and “Dear D. B. ...” was in his submission pile, so he ran with it as-is. One comment I received from Peggy Nadramia over at Grue was especially apt—she noted that D. B. would have to have a slew of odd jobs on the side in order to survive in New York City, even living in a low-rent hovel. That is something I would have liked to have addressed in the story, but I’m not planning on rewriting something which is already fairly well-known. But Peggy’s point was well taken....
The incident which actually inspired me to write this one was the misidentification of me as a male writer in an early small press appearance—at the time I thought it was funny, and only gradually considered the notion of public perception influencing bodily reality....
MOTHER GOTHEL AND PERSINETTE
Of all the flowering trees in her garden, the sorceress Mother Gothel loved her persimmon tree the best; a wandering witch from the distant island called Kyushu presented it to Mother Gothel as a token of her affection, and each summer, when the red-orange berries ripened, their sweet ovals, when sliced in half before the succulent tasting, reminded Mother Gothel of that witch’s hidden, deep pink sweetness.
Thus, whenever Mother Gothel tended to her garden, she spent the most time near that special tree, counting each ripening fruit, and savoring each minute spent in anticipation of her harvest-time feast...and its accompanying memories, for in the land where she dwelled other sorceresses and witches were scarce indeed, and often the years were long and lonely between her all-too-brief times of shared passion. Mother Gothel’s only neighbors were a married couple who lived on the other side of the high stone wall which surrounded her garden, and their mutual happiness was too complete to allow the wife to offer any such joy to Mother Gothel...but when the sorceress entered her private garden one afternoon, she discovered the husband plucking the smooth-fleshed ripe persimmons from the lower branches of her love-token tree, his vest pockets already stuffed with the sweet berries, even as his hands held still more berries.
“How dare you sneak into my garden and steal what is rightfully mine? Did you grow this fruit, that you feel obligated to fest upon it?” she hissed through her snaggle teeth, as the frightened neighbor man stammered, “N-not for me...it is my wife who craves these sweet berries. Without them, she would die of hunger, and starve the child growing within her—”
The mention of a child piqued the interest of Mother Gothel, for in her case, the appellation “Mother” was a term of respect among her fellow magic-makers and spell-casters, not an indication of her own fruitfulness. And since she was a woman wise in the ways of divination, she looked up at the window in the neighbor’s house, the high one which overlooked her garden, and by making some signs with her gnarled fingers, and peering through the configuration of her overlapping hands, it became known to her that the child growing within the belly of the neighbor-woman was a girl...a girl-child who would become a woman, with the secret sweetness only a woman possesses.
Deciding that the stolen berries might be worth that future—the sorceress uncrossed her hands, and said as she stared at the frightened neighbor through her cloudy blue eyes, “Keep the fruit you have taken...but in payment, I want the fruit of your wife’s labors in return. Take as many more of my berries as she needs, as long as I am given the child—” (Mother Gothel didn’t let on that she knew the child would be a girl) “—once it has been born. And fear not, the child will thrive as my garden thrives.”
Seeing the sorceress’ garden was a lush paradise of tall-growing trees and many-petaled flowers, the husband agreed to Mother Gothel’s request.
That harvesting time, Mother Gothel only savored but a few fragrant red-gold berries, but come early winter, she was given a gift of a girl-child, carried into her garden by the neighbor couple, who were grateful that they’d escaped the wrath of their conjuring neighbor, and be allowed to live out their lives unscathed (which is what the couple did do; and they had many more children, none of whom were nourished on a diet of persimmon berries while waiting to be born), simply by giving up the milk-skinned baby with the flaming orange-red thatch of wavy hair, which did not match that of either parent, but instead came from the colorful sweet fruit her mother had consumed.
Once the couple had tip-toed out of Mother Gothel’s enchanted flowering garden, the sorceress raised the autumn-haired girl-child as tenderly and as attentively as her beloved persimmon tree; as a sign of her interest in the child, Mother Gothel named her Persinette, both for her flaming hair and for her pre-birth diet.
But Mother Gothel thought not of the child as a daughter, for even though she was an enchantress, she was also once a human being, with the same needs and aches and longing of a woman...but, even as she was well-versed in the black arts, and the ways of magic and spell-casting, she was also moral, in her own dark way, and thus she envisioned the fire-haired girl not as her daughter, but as her some-day love; but, just as the berries of her dearly-thought-of Asian witch-woman’s gift-tree were not fit for the tasting until they were fully ripe, so was Persinette not suitable for the taking by Mother Gothel, even as she longed to partake of the girl’s hidden sweetness.
So, as the girl grew closer to her sixteenth winter, and her time of ripeness, and the temptation all but overcame Mother Gothel, she cast a spell over the stones and the mud, in the field near her humble sorceress’ abode, and caused to be built a tall, tall, tower, with but a single room at the top. And it was in this room that she placed Persinette, who by this time had hair longer than the number of hours in a day, glorious, rippling bright hair caught up in two rope-thin braids which the young woman wore in a crown-like coil atop her head. Whenever Mother Gothel’s desire to feast her cloudy eyes upon the young lady grew too overpowering (just as she often sat under her beloved persimmon tree, and gazed at the slowly ripening fruit amid the dark oblong leaves), Mother Gothel would stand at the base of the tower and implore:
“Persinette, beloved Persinette,
Uncoil your hair for me.”
And down would flow the silken braids, upon which the sorceress would climb to the top of the tower (even though she possessed the ability to fly to the top), until she be so tired upon her arrival that she could literally do no more than feast her eyes upon the budding beauty of Persinette, and watch the continual growth and maturation of her gift-child into a fruitful ripe woman, even as her mouth watered in anticipation....
But it so happened one day, that when she finished her climb to the top of the tall, tall tower, then sat exhausted upon Persinette’s narrow maiden’s bed, she noticed a gently-rounded swelling beneath the flowing gown of the henna-haired girl, right above the hidden sweetness within her. Noticing Mother Gothel’s pointed stare, the girl asked sweetly, “Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming tight?”
And despite her already certain intuition about the origin of that swelling beneath Persinette’s simple gown, Mother Gothel made the secret configurations with her hands, and, when she peered through the open spaces of her fingers, she saw what was resting within the belly of Persinette. Two babies, a boy and a girl...neither of which had been nourished to sweetness on a diet of persimmons.
Keeping the worst of her rage to herself, Mother Gothel stroked that rounded
