And endless stars to wish upon | Tara Campbell
The beast is a clattering assemblage of moon-lit enamel, a lumbering midnight grin. Its jagged edges glitter as it chitters in its singular, wordless language I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming. Each step a dark promise, tooth clicking on tooth, for that is what it is made of: children’s teeth, held together only by insatiable hunger and unforgiving rage.
The rage is not its own. The rage is that of its creator, the magical being who once was treasured across the land, now banished to an underrealm of legend, of childhood story, of make-believe, shrunk almost to nothingness by disbelief.
With every step the beast takes, it rattles I’m coming.
Gone are the days when its architect flitted from pillow to pillow, gathering treasures for pennies, carrying home sacks full of teeth to be ground into stardust. How could she have known the children would begin demanding nickels, then dimes, then quarters, and on and on, until she begrimed herself with stacks of dollar bills to please them.
Gone are the hours of watching young faces, angelic in sleep. In her eyes those faces have become pinched and rapacious, endlessly greedy for more and more and more.
I’m coming, the beast says as its mistress gazes out from her perch on its shoulder.
They say the universe is expanding. This is not the case; the universe merely looms larger when it’s not full of stars.
The beast’s creator could only gather one tooth at a time, weighed down by ever more riches required to claim them. Why, then, should she have continued to drag her night’s work back and forth to the galaxy mill, her contributions well-nigh worthless?
Gone are the days of surrendering her takings for stardust. Better, she thought, to gather her hard-won teeth around her and make something beautiful. She smeared each tooth with rage and stacked one atop another, building up and up into the sky. To her, the beast is more precious than any child, more beautiful than the stars, taller than trees and shining.
She didn’t design its hunger, however. Its hunger is all its own.
I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, it says.
“Yes, Sweetness, Mama knows,” she croons into its ear. “You’ll have plenty to eat very soon.”
Cold moonlight glints on enamel as the beast swings its pearly limbs toward town.
“And if you save the teeth for me,” she says, “I’ll make so many stars you’ll run out of things to wish for.”
Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing. Her publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising. She's the author of a novel and four multi-genre collections including her newest, Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. Connect with her on Twitter: @TaraCampbellCom