The Corn Maiden: And Other Nightmares

THE

CORN MAIDEN

AND OTHER

NIGHTMARES

Also by Joyce Carol Oates

The Barrens

Beasts

Rape: A Love Story

The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

The Museum of Dr. Moses

A Fair Maiden

Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

THE

CORN MAIDEN

AND OTHER

NIGHTMARES

JOYCE CAROL OATES

The Mysterious Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

New York

Copyright © 2011 by Joyce Carol Oates

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or to permissions@groveatlantic.com.

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, copyright © 2011 by The Ontario Review, Inc.

The following stories were first published in the following publications:

Nobody Knows My Name, Twists of the Tale, edited by Ellen Datlow, Dell, 1996

Death-Cup, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August 1997

The Corn Maiden, Transgressions, edited by Ed McBain, Forge, 2005

Fossil-Figures, Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, William Morrow, 2010.

A Hole in the Head, Kenyon Review, Fall 2010

Beersheba, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 2010

Helping Hands, Boulevard, 2011

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN-13: 9780802195036

The Mysterious Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

11 12 13 1410 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

to Jonathan Santlofer

Contents

THE

CORN MAIDEN

AND OTHER

NIGHTMARES

THE CORN MAIDEN*

A Love Story

APRIL

YOU ASSHOLES!

Whywhy you’re asking here’s why her hair.

I mean her hair! I mean like I saw it in the sun it’s pale silky gold like corn tassels and in the sun sparks might catch. And her eyes that smiled at me sort of nervous and hopeful like she could not know (but who could know?) what is Jude’s wish. For I am Jude the Obscure, I am the Master of Eyes. I am not to be judged by crude eyes like yours, assholes.

There was her mother. I saw them together. I saw the mother stoop to kiss her. That arrow entered my heart. I thought I will make you see me. I would not forgive.

Okay then. More specific. Some kind of report you assholes will type. Maybe there’s a space for the medical examiner’s verdict cause of death.

Assholes don’t have a clue do you. If you did you’d know it is futile to type up reports as if such will grant you truth or even facts.

Whywhy in the night at my computer clickclickclicking through galaxies and there was revealed on my birthday (March 11) the Master of Eyes granting me my wish that is why. All that you wish will be made manifest in Time. If you are Master.

Jude the Obscure he named me. In cyberspace we were twinned.

Here’s why in sixth grade a field trip to the museum of natural history and Jude wandered off from the silly giggling children to stare at the Onigara exhibit of the Sacrifice of the Corn Maiden. This exhibit is graphic in nature and not recommended for children younger than sixteen unless with parental guidance you stepped through an archway into a fluorescent-lit interior of dusty display cases to stare at the Corn Maiden with braided black bristles for hair and flat face and blind eyes and mouth widened in an expression of permanent wonder beyond even terror and it was that vision that entered Jude’s heart powerful as any arrow shot into the Corn Maiden’s heart that is why.

Because it was an experiment to see if God would allow it that is why.

Because there was no one to stop me that is why.

DISCIPLES

We never thought Jude was serious!

We never thought it would turn out like it did.

We never thought . . .

. . . just didn’t!

Never meant . . .

. . . never!

Nobody had anything against . . .

. . . . .

(Jude said it’s Taboo to utter that name.)

Jude was the Master of Eyes. She was our leader all through school. Jude was just so cool.

Fifth grade, Jude instructed us how to get HIGH sniffing S. Where Jude got S., we didn’t know.

Seventh grade, Jude gave us X. Like the older kids take. From her secret contact at the high school Jude got X.

When you’re HIGH you love everybody but the secret is basically you don’t give a damn.

That is what’s so nice! HIGH floating above Skatskill like you could drop a bomb on Skatskill Day or your own house and there’s your own family rushing out their clothes and hair on fire and screaming for help and you would smile because it would not touch you. That is HIGH.

Secrets no one else knew.

XXX videos at Jude’s house.

Jude’s grandmother Mrs. Trahern the widow of somebody famous.

Feral cats we fed. Cool!

Ritalin and Xanax Jude’s doctors prescribed. Jude only just pretended to take that shit. In her bathroom, a supply of years.

Häagen-Dazs French Vanilla ice cream we fed the Corn Maiden.

The Corn Maiden was sleepy almost at once, yawning. Ice cream tastes so good! Just one pill ground up, a half teaspoon. It was magic. We could not believe it.

Jude said you can’t believe the magic you possess until somebody instructs how to unleash it.

The Corn Maiden had never been to Jude’s house before. But Jude was friendly to her beginning back in March. Told us the Master of Eyes had granted her a wish on her birthday. And we were counted in that wish.

The plan was to establish trust.

The plan was to prepare for the Corn Maiden in the knowledge that one day there would be the magic hour when (Jude predicted) like a lightning flash lighting up the dark all would become clear.

This was so. We were in readiness, and the magic hour was so.

There is a rear entrance to the Trahern house. We came that way.

The Corn Maiden walked! On her own two feet the Corn Maiden walked, she was not forced, or carried.

Of her own volition Jude said.

It was not so in the Onigara Indian ceremony. There, the Corn Maiden did not come of her own volition but was kidnapped.

An enemy tribe would kidnap her. She would never return to her people.

The Corn Maiden would be buried, she would be laid among the corn seed in the sun and the earth covered over her. Jude told us of this like an old fairy tale to make you smile, but not to ask Why.

Jude did not like us to ask Why.

The Corn Maiden was never threatened. The Corn Maiden was treated with reverence, respect, and kindness.

(Except we had to scare her, a little. There was no other way Jude said.)

On Tuesdays and Thursdays she would come by the 7-Eleven store on the way home from school. Why this was, Jude knew. Mostly high school kids hang out there. Older kids, smoking. Crummy mini-mall on the state highway. Rug remnant store, hair and nails salon, Chinese takeout & the 7-Eleven. Behind are Dumpsters and a stink like something rotten.

Feral cats hide in the scrub brush behind the Dumpsters. Where it’s like a jungle, nobody ever goes.

(Except Jude. To feed the feral cats she says are her Totem.)

At the 7-Eleven Jude had us walk separate so we would not be seen walking together.

Four girls together, somebody might notice.

A girl by herself, or two girls, nobody would notice.

Not that anybody was watching. We came by the back way.

Some old long-ago time when servants lived down the hill. When they climbed the hill to the big houses on Highgate Avenue.

Historic old Skatskill estate. That was where Jude lived with just her grandmother. On TV it would be shown. In the newspapers. In The New York Times it would be shown on the front page. The house would be called an eighteenth-century Dutch-American manor house. We never knew about that. We never saw the house from the front. We only just went into Jude’s room and a few other rooms. And there was the cellar.

From Highgate Avenue you can’t see the Trahern house very well, there is a ten-foot stone wall surrounding it. This wall is old and crumbling but still you can’t see over it. But through the gate that’s wrought iron you can see if you look fast, while you’re driving by.

Lots of people drive by now I guess.

NO PARKINGNO PARKINGNO PARKING on Highgate. Skatskill does not welcome strangers except to shop.

The Trahern estate it would be called. The property is eleven acres. But there is a shortcut from the rear. When we brought the Corn Maiden to the house, we came from the rear. Mostly the property is woods. Mostly it is wild, like a jungle. But there are old stone steps you can climb if you are careful. An old service road that’s grown over with brambles and blocked off at the bottom of the hill by a concrete slab but you can walk around the slab.

This back way, nobody would guess. Three minutes’ walk from the mini-mall.

Nobody would guess! The big old houses on Highgate, way up the hill, how the rear of their property slopes down to the state highway.