The Logic of Hunger
By Jennie Evenson
I bought the copper cauldron without knowing its true purpose. A woman in town sold it to me near the castle where the Grand Duchess had once lived. The pot was used, but I didn’t mind. It looked new, and I needed a pot that size, so I paid her a half-penny and took it.
When I got home, I noticed the cauldron had a charmingly jaunty pose. Three legs held up its rounded belly, and one of its legs jutted out at an odd angle. Handles on two sides crooked like arms on a hip. I licked my thumb and rubbed it along its lip, and a sweet sound rang out, high and bright as a glass harp. The sound was pleasing to me, and comforting, as if it were saying something I had longed to hear. Its copper sides flickered in the fire, as if its metal had been freshly polished.
Food was scarce in our town, but I’d managed to trap and kill a feral pig last year, so I had a small store of provisions I could stretch over the winter. The leaves had brittled and browned, and the northerly winds had started. I chopped a small portion of salted pork and my last wild potatoes for a stew, watching the town’s children play in a nearby forest meadow, not far from my hut. I did not have any children of my own, as I had not been blessed with flaxen hair or ruby lips or any of the other usual inducements to marriage, but I counted this a mixed blessing because men too often took to the drink. There were plenty of children in town already, too many to feed. They deserved more.
The town blamed the children’s games on scarcity. Most were nice, but not all. One, a meaty boy with freckles the color of acorns, took pleasure in twisting the arms of others. He saved his worst taunts for the skinniest boy, all teeth and hair, laughing as he sent the boy home with fresh bruises every day. The skinny boy brought a flute with him once, and played it beautifully, and the meaty boy beat him with it. But such is hunger. I watched them, eating my steaming bowl of stew, watching the first snowflakes of winter, then set the cauldron on the windowsill to cool while I took a nap.
When I awoke, six boys stood outside my window licking their fingers. They had eaten my stew to the last morsel, all of them, including the skinny boy, smiling. The freckled boy laughed as I hefted my pitifully empty cauldron back inside the hut.
Their mothers would’ve told them not to steal. They would’ve told them to ask nicely for a bowl, instead. I would have said yes. I rubbed my thumb over the cauldron’s lip and listened for its sweet resonant sound. I was pleased and comforted, but this time I felt something new. I could feel the hooked end of a question burrowing into me.
The next day, the boys returned to the meadow, now coated in snow, all except the meaty boy who had died in his sleep. His mother told the shopkeeper that he had died. It made me wonder if my stew could have poisoned him. None of the other boys had died, though, and they had all eaten it. Even the skinny boy had gotten a few mouthfuls.
A second meaty boy took the first meaty boy’s place as the leader of the games, twisting the others’ arms and pinching them until they bruised. The skinny boy played a lovely madrigal, and the new boy broke his flute into two.
I made a new stew with the last of my salted pork and a few wild mushrooms. I was good at foraging, but roots had now hardened in snow, and the feral pigs had moved south. When the stew was ready, I ate my fill, but this time, I did not set it on the windowsill to cool. I kept the cauldron on my stone hearth. I shut my door and locked it.
When I awoke, five boys gathered around my hearth, licking their fingers, having eaten my stew. They had broken the lock off my door. The second meaty boy laughed as I chased them out.
I rubbed my thumb over the cauldron’s lip and listened to its resonant sound until I felt the question again. This time I had an answer.
When the birthmarked boy died in his sleep, I should have been worried about the questions people might ask. I should have worried the people in town would whisper about me, saying my copper cauldron had turned me into a witch. But no one in town came to ask questions, not even the boy’s mother. She did not trudge out to my hut in the snow. I didn’t judge her, or anyone else in town. Even witches have a purpose.
The next day, four boys played next to my hut. A third meaty boy now pinched and twisted the other boys’ arms. The skinny boy had whittled himself a new flute.
I placed my last remaining wild onions in the cauldron along with a single parsnip I had found in my pantry earlier that day. The boys eagerly watched my hut now, drawn to the wisp of smoke in my chimney, knowing what it meant.
They were cruel to another because they were hungry, and the scarcity was not their fault. And yet I did not lock my door, nor did I shutter my window. I ate my fill and took to my bed to rest, four spoons ready on the table.
One less mouth, I whispered to my cauldron.
THE END
Author Bio: Jennie Evenson has received support from Bread Loaf, Tin House, and VCCA, and she has work published in The Pinch, Ninth Letter, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Brevity, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere.