"Once the daughter had rowed back to the mainland, the red-haired man took out his sword of white light and with one blow he cut off the giant's head-whackkk!He dropped the head in a sack and carried it back to the lonely king, who stored it under his bed.
"The next morning the daughter said, 'I don't suppose you have the last lips that I kissed last night.' But the lonely king tossed the giant's head onto the breakfast table and said, 'There they are, and weren't they ugly enough?' The daughter smashed every dish on the table-smash! smash! smash!-and threw a plateful of fried eggs and the cat out of the window. But she had given her word, and she had to marry him.
"The red-haired man said, 'Take her out, and strap her to two trees, and beat her with branches, because she has six devils in her.' And that is what he did, and when he beat her, great balls of fire came roaring out of her mouth. But when the fire was gone, she was the sweetest girl that you could ever have met; then he let her loose, and they were married.
"The lonely king said to the red-haired man, 'I must pay you for this.' But the red-haired man said, 'You already have. I was the man in the coffin, lying dead and unburied, and you paid for my funeral, and this was the only way I could thank you.' "
Daisy stared at Holly and said, "Wow. Seriously spooky."
Mickey's Gift
Later, in the living room, with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her, Holly said, "That was some story."
"That was the edited version. The way my grandmother told it, it went on all night, with giants jumping through prison bars and getting themselves cut in half, and mad goblins, and talking fish, and God knows what else."
"Daisy adored it. You're really good with her."
"I have a little girl of my own someplace. About a year older than Daisy."
"I didn't know that you and Sandy had a daughter."
"We didn't. She was somebody else's. That was the reason Sandy and me split up. Well,oneof the reasons we split up."
"I'm sorry. Don't you ever get to see her? Your daughter, I mean?"
Mickey shook his head. "Her mother and I had what you might call a tempestuous relationship. Screaming, fighting, smashed dishes."
"Boxes of Cheerios out of the window?"
"Oh, yes. Cats and fried eggs too. In the end I thought it was better if I graciously bowed out."
"I didn't mean to pry."
"No, forget it. I don't think about it anymore."
"Ever thought of marrying again?"
"Got to find the right woman. Hair like a raven's wing, cheeks as white as snow, lips as red as holly berries. Here ," he said, passing over the shiny gold box with the silver bow. "Why don't you open your birthday present?"
"All right," Holly said, and untied the ribbon. She carefully took off the paper, opened the box, and folded back the turquoise tissue paper. She lifted out a porcelain doll over fifteen inches tall, dressed like Cinderella in white lace and gold, with glass slippers and a sparkly tiara. The doll's face was almost ridiculously sweet, with heart-shaped, hand-painted lips and bright green eyes. "I'm stunned," said Holly, and she was.
"I hope it wasn't a stupid thing to buy you. It was just well, I was stopped in traffic at the corner of Ninth and Multnomah and I saw it in KB's window. Staring at me. For some reason, I don't know, I just thought of you."
She shook her head and said, "It must have cost you a fortune."
"Police discount."
"She's beautiful. I don't know what to say." Nobody had given Holly a doll since she was seven years old. After she had lost her hearing, her relatives had always given her picture books for her birthday presents, and boxes of paints and raffia-weaving sets, as if she needed occupational therapy. As if she were no longer a pretty and playful young girl but a retard.
Mickey volunteered, "They had a Prince Charming doll, too, but he looked as if he batted for both sides."
"Daisy's going to be so jealous. Look, her glass slippers come off. And look at her tiny earrings!"
Mickey watched her with a lopsided smile. "Cinderella," he said. "Just like you. Frumpy welfare worker by day, ravishing princess by night."
Holly stopped tweaking Cinderella's bright blond hair. There was an expression in his eyes which she couldn't quite interpret. Amusement, partly. And flirtation too. Butcalculationas well-as if he were planning something mischievous that included her. "All you have to do is wave that magic wand," he told her.
"Yes but what happens when the clock strikes twelve and I go back to being a frumpy welfare worker again?"
"You're still the same person, aren't you? Under the frump."
She laid Cinderella back in her box and folded the tissue paper over her.
Mickey sat forward. "You're not just pretending that you like it?"
"Of course not. She's wonderful."
"I kept the receipt."
"Don't be silly. Iloveher."
"I saw an apron and I nearly bought that. It had printed on the front:You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet."
She laughed and gave him a playful slap on the arm. She couldn't think of anybody else who would have had the nerve to say that to her. He snatched hold of her wrist and said, "Hey I could arrest you for that. Assault and battery."
There was one of those moments when the clock hesitates, as if it can't decide if it ought to carry on ticking. Then he let go of her and reached for his wine-glass. "Listen I have to go. It's an early call in the morning."
At the front door he gently held her elbow and kissed her on the lips. "Thanks for this evening. Good food, beautiful family. What more could a guy ask for?"
"I'll see you in court tomorrow."
"Sure," he said, and went downstairs, raising one hand behind him in casual salute. Holly went back into her apartment and closed the door. She stood for a long time in the middle of the living room, her fingertips pressed against her mouth, wondering what she ought to be feeling.
Omen
She had a dark and knotty dream that night-a dream in which she was tangled up in nets and snares, and her struggles alerted the attention of something terrible. It lurched and fluttered unsteadily toward her: something black, something utterly inhuman, something that made the nets tremble and sway.
At seven-thirty the next morning, when she let up the primrose-yellow blind in her bedroom window, the sun was eating away at the upper slopes of Mount Hood. The mountain looked remote and enigmatic today, like the unfinished pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, and the sun looked like its mysterious shining eye.
She felt it was an omen. But an omen ofwhat,she couldn't even begin to imagine.
Daisy sat in front of Holly's dressing-table mirror, screwing and unscrewing her lipsticks while Holly braided her hair.
"IlikeUncle Mickey," Daisy declared. "Can he come around for supper again tonight?"
"I don't think so, pumpkin. He's very busy."
"But he said he'd tell me another story, about a mermaid. I liked the story about the lonely king and the dark cloak and the slippery shoes. I wishIhad slippery shoes."