Beanstalk Dreams

Climbing Beanstalks
Jack loved the autumn. Everything about that season made her smile with remembered fondness. She liked the feeling of the changing seasons, summer warmth fading into the brusque chill of the fall. Everyone seemed to move more quickly, going about their business with a bounce in their step, cutting through the crisp air that turned their cheeks a rosy hue. Hell, Jack even loved the way the air smelled in the autumn. Perhaps it was because that dry leaf smell reminded her of all the fun times she had had jumping into piles of leaves when she was growing up at Grandpa Jack’s house. Whatever it was, she knew that if she could bottle that scent and wear it as perfume (which is saying something as Jack NEVER bothered with cosmetics) she would.

Gary liked to tease her, saying that she only loved the autumn because the changing foliage matched her hair. Jack only laughed, she liked to blend in, but she wasn’t willing to go quite that far. But then, Gary was always teasing her, that’s why they were such good friends. Jack glanced at the pumpkins that waited patiently on her kitchen table. He was coming over later tonight to help her carve them.

Her cat, Drindel, chose that moment to leap onto the table and gently head butt the pumpkins before turning expectant green eyes to her in a bid for attention. Jack laughed at the picture they made, a black cat among Halloween pumpkins. It was almost perfect, and if Gary had been here, he would have accused her of having a black cat just for the effect of autumn.

Of course, Jack hadn’t chosen to have the black cat, Drindel had been a stray. Someone had driven into the parking lot of her apartment building one morning and dropped him off, abandoning the poor thing. It was fitting, she thought, that she had found him like that, as she was forever picking up strays, but most of them were the human kind.

She scratched Drindel under the chin and behind the ears, and smiled slightly, deciding to give into her craving for hot chocolate. She’d opened the windows, the air was just too perfect and fresh not to, and hot chocolate on a crisp autumn day seemed a perfect idea. Cider would be even better, but she hadn’t thought of it last time she was at the grocery store. Turning, she put the kettle on to boil and picked up a pencil to write cider on her grocery list.

Jack brushed back her short red hair. It was slipping from its tidy ponytail again, being shorter than her chin it didn’t stay up tidily unless she used a lot of hairspray and bobby pins, something she never bothered to do. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a neat person, she was, that fact was irrefutable as anywhere she passed through seemed to become a paragon of cleanliness, it was just that she often didn’t have time to spend on herself. She considered her jobs far more important than her looks; and only cared about her appearance when she needed to look professional for her job.

The kettle whistled and Jack turned, taking down a mug from its position in one of the neat rows that made up her kitchen cabinet. She didn’t know why she owned so many mugs, she lived on her own, but she had seemed to acquire quite a collection. Most were ones given her by children at the shelter for various birthdays and Christmases. The one she chose now had been an experiment in Jonah’s pottery class last year, and he’d given it to her before he and his mother left for their new apartment. She measured three spoonfuls of hot chocolate mix into it, neatly wiping away the excess that fell to the counter before adding the hot water and stirring briskly.

She stood over the sink, glancing out the kitchen window of her third floor apartment to watch the wind toss leaves playfully through the air. A smile played on her lips and she sipped the hot mixture with pleasure.

She was certainly dressed for the weather, her oversized sweater fell to her knees, sleeves pushed back over her wrists to free her hands. It had been Grandpa Jack’s at one time, but she had borrowed it in high school, and now, ten years later, she still hadn’t returned it. Whenever her grandpa jokingly brought it up, she laughed and claimed right of conquest.

The doorbell rang and she turned, puzzled. She wasn’t expecting anyone tonight. She set down her mug and walked to the door, opening it into the hallway of the apartment building.

A teenage girl stood there, suitcase in one hand, her little sister’s small palm in the other. Her blonde hair was wisping out of its loose braids into her freckled face. She was short, a slight young woman who was as willowy as a birch tree, but strong for all that. Her eyes glittered, partly in anger, partly with tears.

“Lisa?”

“He came after Suzy.”

Jack nodded and opened her door wider, allowing two more strays to wander into her life.


One month earlier:

“Did you get the paperwork in for Windy Bluebeard?” She asked, fixing Gary with a look that clearly stated that he had better have.

“Of course!” he assured her. “I’m not the only one who works long hours around here.” But he was smiling. “Jack, I promise that the office doesn’t fall to pieces when you take a few days off. I can handle things.” He gave her a measuring look while he sipped his chai tea. “I’m not entirely sure you took enough time off,” he added, “you still look a little peaked to me.”

Jack sighed inwardly as she wrapped her hands around her mug of coffee to ward off the chill that seeped into her hands every autumn and seemed to reside there until spring. He was right, she hadn’t completely recovered from her recent bout of the flu, but she didn’t feel as if she could miss any more work. It was too important.

The two of them sat in a small coffee shop called the Caffeinated Cauldron. It was just down the street from the battered woman’s shelter they had founded just over two years ago. Jack had decided to start the shelter to help victims of fairy tales who had befallen the same fate she had. Fairy tales, it seemed to Jack, were full of abuse, and while she understood that it was considered to be a trial one must pass to be considered worthy of a happily ever after, she certainly didn’t see it that way.

Jack had been there, she understood the pain these women underwent, and she was determined that fairy tale or not, no one should have to live without a sense of dignity. Her ex-husband, Joel, had been a sweet man up until the day she married him. It was then that he became obsessive and abusive, eventually pushing her down a flight of stairs because she hadn’t gotten him a glass of water as quickly as he would have liked. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, the childhood rhyme resounded in her head. Well, Joel hadn’t come tumbling after, but her fall had landed her in the hospital, where she met Gary, the knight who had answered the domestic abuse call. Knights were the policemen of this fairy tale city, ever trying to catch the ‘bad guys’ and put all to rights. Gary had become her friend, and helped her through her divorce and the resulting struggle with her confidence. She didn’t know how she would have made it through without him. That’s why she had decided to found the shelter, so that no one else would have to go through it alone either. Once Gary had learned of the idea, he had given up his baton to help her cause.

“How is Windy?” Gary asked. “I know you spoke with her today, has she decided to divorce her husband?”

“Not yet,” Jack thought of the pale woman she had seen today. Who knew what horrors that dark-haired beauty had withstood as a wife of Bluebeard? Except for her first day at the shelter she hadn’t spoken of him at all, though she could tell he was always on her mind. “I don’t think she’ll go back to him though, it’s certain death for her if she does.”

“She might welcome it,” Gary replied gravely, his brown eyes holding her grey ones. “It’s certainly seems an easier solution than working for a new life.”

Jack sighed and looked away, across the room, searching for something, anything to distract her. She knew very well that he was reminding her of her own struggle with that very issue.

“Look at me, Jack.” There was no ignoring his voice. She obeyed, trying to smile at him. He was nice enough to look at, and if she ever wanted to risk a relationship with a man again there was no doubt in her mind who she would choose. Gary had light brown hair and a long nose. His features were hawk-like, she liked to pretend they had become more so over time as his job as a knight. There were predatory features, but safe. The kind of predator you knew only sought the bad guys.

“I have new neighbors,” she told him, to change the subject.

“Oh really? Do tell.”

So she did. She’d gotten home the other day to a moving van in the apartment parkinglot and two little girls playing ball in the small patch of lawn behind the building. Well, one of them wasn’t little, she looked to be in her late teens, but her sister was younger, around seven years old.

“Well that’s good news,” he told her with a smile. “Maybe you can hire one of them to feed your cat when you don’t make it home.”

Jack blushed guiltily. She often slept on a cot at the shelter when there was a lot of work to be done. Gary sometimes joked that the only thing that kept her from spending all her time at the shelter was her black cat, Drindel. “Maybe,” she said and smiled. “Well I’ve gotta get home and feed him. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early!”

He rose and hugged her. “Take care, Jack. I’ll see you tomorrow.


It wasn’t until a few days later that she first heard it. Something woke her; perhaps it was a remnant of the old terror that seemed to reside only in her dreams. She woke, remembering the raised voices, the threats, and sat up quickly, glancing around in fear of seeing Joel’s figure at the end of her bed.

But there was no one, only the darkened bedroom of her small Perrault Street apartment. Slowly, she let herself relax, leaning against the headboard of her bed and fought down the urge to call Gary. She usually called him when the night terrors came, just for some friendly and light conversation, but not tonight. She wanted to get away from her dependence on him. She was working on rebuilding her life, and that was something she needed to do on her own.

She took several deep breaths, concentrating solely on calming her heartbeat, so it was a few minutes before she realized that she could still hear the yelling.

Sitting up again, she cocked her head to one side, listening. It was definitely a male voice, raised in anger, and seemed to be coming from across the hall. The walls of her apartment must have been as thin as plywood, and though they muffled the words, rendering them incomprehensible, she could still sense the anger behind them.

Jack folded the coverlet back and slipped off her bed, bare feet padding across the wooden floor of her apartment. She emerged into the main hallway wearing only her old tank top and cotton pants that served her as pajamas.

Now she was certain that it was her new neighbors who were yelling. The sound pulsed from the walls and Jack fought down her fear, forcing her professional self to assess the situation.

There was a possibility that this wasn’t a domestic abuse case at all. It could just as easily be a teenager returning after curfew, or any other number of things that teens do to get themselves in trouble. The nagging voice in the back of her head told her that the girl she had seen didn’t seem to be the type to get into that sort of trouble, but who was she to judge? She had only seen the girl once, and briefly.

Jack stood, undecided a few moments more. Perhaps she should call the Knights anyhow, it wouldn’t hurt, and maybe it would only be considered a noise complaint. She was turning to do so when she heard the unmistakable sound of skin hitting skin. She rushed into her apartment and dialed the number for the Knights.

It was a sleepless night for Jack. She didn’t even bother going back to bed after the Knights had come and gone. It hadn’t mattered that she’d called. Soon after she had the noise had quieted, and by the time they arrived the building was as quiet as it should have been at one in the morning.

She lay awake, staring at the ceiling for an hour anyway, before she gave up on sleep and rose, finding work to do around the house. She wished she had her files and papers with her, or that she was at the shelter, so she could have gotten more work, but she wanted to be around the next morning.

Finally, when dawn crept up over the horizon, she took a shower and dressed, bolting breakfast to ensure that she would be outside before the bus came for school.

“You’re the one who called the Knights, aren’t you?” The girl stepped out of the lobby and walked down the stairs to where Jack lounged against the wall, waiting for her. She was tiny; small boned or as Gary would say, built like a bird. Her cheekbones were high and defined, and dusted with freckles, but her nose was short and her eyes a piercing blue. She wore blue jeans and a light blue sweatshirt with a decrepit backpack slung across her shoulders.

Jack surveyed her, looking for bruises, but the sweatshirt she wore covered all but her hands and head. “It’s warm out today,” she said.

“A little chilly,” the girl replied, stuffing her hands in her sweatshirt pocket.

“Sure.”

The girl regarded her cautiously. They stood about ten paces apart, and
neither made a move to be closer to the other. The girl looked at her watch, and then up the road, anxious for the bus to come and put an end to the awkward situation.

“I’m Jack O’Malley,”

The girl raised an eyebrow at her rather masculine name but didn’t comment on it. “Lisa Henderson, that’s short for Vasilisa, but I hate that name.”

Hm, thought Jack. A Vasilisa the fair, it was a name for another version of Cinderella. Acorrding to that fairytale the girl should have been receiving abuse from her step-mother and step-sisters. Jack wondered where the tale had gone wrong. Or perhaps not so much ‘gone wrong’ as changed.

She put those thoughts aside to analyse later and answered the girls unspoken question. “I’m called Jack after my Grandpa, he’s a beanstalk climber.”

Lisa nodded. The silence stretched out for a moment. “Aren’t you going to ask?” she said finally.

“No,” Jack pushed off from the wall, taking a step forward. “I won’t ask, I’ll just tell you that I run a shelter on Beaumont Avenue, and if you ever need a place to stay you have only to ask me.”

“Beaumont’s a residential street.” Her eyes were mistrustful.

“Yes, we don’t want to advertise where the shelter is exactly. That wouldn’t be best for our residents.”

Lisa nodded again. “I don’t need a shelter. We’re fine.”

Jack remembered her little sister. “Well if you change your mind-”

“I won’t.”

Jack shook her head but gave her a card anyway. It was her business card, for her store Star Talers. Star Talers was her source of income, a fairly successful little gift shop that brought in enough money for her rent and a considerable monthly contribution to the shelter. “Call me there anytime during the day, they’ll know where to find me if need be.”

Lisa shoved the card in her backpack and was saved from reply as the bus pulled up. She boarded without a backward glance and with a flare of exhaust, she was gone.


That week passed, and it was a few days more before Jack heard another confrontation. In a way she felt badly about it, for she’d had so much work to do and wasn’t sure if she’d just slept through one or another.

In the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she heard it again. The yelling and the thuds, this time in mid-afternoon on a Saturday. She thought about calling the Knights again, but she knew it would do no good. So instead she waited, standing by the door until she heard the one across the hall open. Heavy footsteps clomped down the hall and she heard the elevator door open and shut.

She ventured into the hall, and only hesitated for a moment before she lifted a hand to knock. I’ve heard of bringing your work home, but this is getting ridiculous.

It was a few minutes before the door opened, and Lisa stepped out into the hallway, shutting it quickly behind her. She was wearing a sweatshirt, one that looked hastily thrown on. Jack felt a pang of pity for her, October had begun with an Indian summer, and today temperatures inside the building had reached about eighty degrees.

“Hi.” She stood warily, her back to the wall.

Jack took a step back to give her some space. “Hello.”

“I suppose you’re going to ask me to go to this shelter again.”

“It’d be great if you wanted to,” Jack tempered, noting the resentment in the girls voice.

“Well I won’t. I’m fine. Really, I just tripped over the carpet.”

Jack just looked at her.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not.” The girl told her.

“I know.” Jack reached into her pocket and drew out her house key, an
idea forming in her mind. She had a spare hidden nearby, so it wasn’t as if she really needed this one.

She removed it from her key ring and offered it to Lisa, who eyed it dubiously. “I’m
not living with you.”

“God no,” Jack said with a laugh. “I’m not asking you to live with me. I actually came over to see if you would feed my cat from time to time. I’m not usually around, you see, and sometimes I have to spend a night over at the shelter, but my cat, Drindel, gets kinda lonely if he’s left by himself for long periods of time, so I wondered if you might look in on him from time to time. You can even introduce him to your sister if you’d like.” There, Jack thought. Now she’ll even have a place to escape to if she needs it.

Lisa considered. “Suzy would like that.” She accepted the key. “When will I know to come over?”

“Oh, just check in once a day, whenever you can.”

Lisa nodded, waiting.

“How much do you think is fair? Do you wanna say, oh, how’s seven dollars a day? All you have to do is feed him and give him some attention.”

“Sure,”

Jack turned and headed back for her apartment. Lisa hesitated. “Come on then,” Jack told her, “You’ll need to know where his food is kept.”


So passed another week and a half. The disturbances continued, about twice a week in Jack’s estimation. When they were over, she was always there, applying slight pressure on Lisa, in hopes the girl would eventually admit something, anything, that would get her out of the mess she was in. She knew Lisa had to decide on her own, but Jack wanted it to be sooner rather than later.


“How’s your little cat-sitter?” Gary asked as they rambled through Seven Swan Park. He had insisted that she take a break, convinced that staying inside the stuffy air of her broom-closet- turned-office was unhealthy, especially for one just recovering from illness. He was probably right, she had decided, and gone with him after a token protest about his over-protectiveness.

“No progress yet. She still won’t admit to me that anything’s going on. It’s not exactly as if she can hide it, but she knows that we can’t do anything unless she asks us to.”

“Have you seen much of the little sister?”

“Actually, no,” They had reached the pond, and she pulled some bread out of the pocket over-sized jacket to feed the swans. It was fresh, because she knew there was a chance that these swans might be enchanted princes. One did
not feed enchanted royalty stale bread.

She handed a piece to Gary and began to crumble her own between her fingers. “Lisa seems to have every day planned out for her, playdates and daycare, and when she does spend time with Suzy, they always go out.” She threw her last crumbs to the hungry swans and straightened. “I think, in part, that’s why she won’t admit it. She’s afraid to be taken from her sister.”

“A very real concern. Did you ever think that it could happen? If Lisa does accept your offer, that is.”

“It’s crossed my mind. I had just hoped that we could figure that part out when we got there. I was thinking I could pull some strings, maybe at least get them to the same foster home.”

Gary stuffed his hands in his pockets and they continued their slow amble along the water. “She’s almost eighteen isn’t she? She could try to sue for guardianship.”

Jack paused, looking at him. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s definitely something to consider.”

Gary plopped down on a metal bench by the water. Stretching his long legs and slouching down so he could stuff his hands in his pockets, he grinned up at her. “So, do you wanna hear the latest gossip?”

Jack laughed, “Of course!” She sat beside him, ignoring the chill of cold metal that seeped through her jeans. When Gary smiled that way, it meant he had something good. Jack had spent the last two days managing Star Talers, and she had only managed to drop by the shelter briefly.

“Well you know that Rob and Bianca became good friends after their encounter with Volden right?” Jack shuddered, remembering. Bianca was a snow white, an albino girl with hair as white as snow and eyes that, while perhaps not red as blood, were still rather pink. She had been ‘rescued’ during her slumber, by a very gothic ‘prince charming’ who had simply taken the sleeping Bianca back to his keep, hiding her in his tower until the day his mother, coming to clean his room had found her and realized she was still breathing. Bianca had been revived, but Volden quickly grew possessive and obsessive, referring to the albino as his wife.

Bianca left him when he became violent but he continued to stalk her, eventually attacking her as she walked home from a friends wedding one evening. Luckily, her friend Rob, a knight, had been with her. He had quickly taken control of the situation and had Volden arrested within moments. It had been a close call, and everyone at the shelter had been grateful to Rob for rescuing her. Rob hadn’t accepted any of their gratitude, but came by to visit Bianca often.

“Well he asked her on a date.” Gary informed her.

“What?” Jack sat up straight, turning to Gary so quickly that their knees bumped. “What did she say?”

“You’re not going to like it.” He sat up straighter, eyes serious now.

“She didn’t say no!”

“She told him she wasn’t ready. You know how it is, especially after a guy like Volden-”

“But it’s been a year since Volden! She needs to learn that not all men are bad, and she and Rob are perfectly suited!” Jack sat back, feeling dejected. She wanted her residents to take chances for a happier life, not waste away in their own fears. “Maybe I should talk to her, I might be able to convince her…” she trailed off, looking at her friend. He had the oddest expression, and she wasn’t sure it boded at all well for her.

“So you think she should?”

“Of course I do, I mean, she can’t just hide from men for the rest of her life.”

“Alright,” Gary shifted so that he was facing her. “So how’s Friday night?”

“What?” Jack was nonplussed.

“You and me, I’ll take you out to dinner, it’ll be a date.”

Jack froze. “Ger, you know I- I mean it’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just we’ve been through this before. I’m not ready to-” and she stopped, realizing that he’d just made his point.

She pushed off from the bench and stood. “Ok, I get it, I push too hard.” She started to walk but he was quick, rising from the bench and catching her arm in one fluid motion.

“Jack, you push for change, I admire that in you, sometimes the world needs a push.” He stooped, forcing her to raise her head and look at him. “But you have to learn patience. They need to make their own decisions.”


Lying in bed that night, Jack reflected on which was more of a slap in the face, the fact that she, who had worked so hard to prevent domestic abuse, was unable to help those enduring it across the hall, or the fact that her best friend had asked her out merely to prove a point.

She sighed, rolling over, and stuffed a pillow over her head, unsuccessfully trying to block out the sounds from the next apartment that haunted her sleep.

The next morning Jack refrained from meeting Lisa out-of-doors as she usually did. She looked out the window and watched the girl emerge from the building, looking around and relaxing when Jack did not immediately appear.

And so it continued for the next week. No matter how mixed her feelings for Gary might be at the moment, she was humbled by the lesson he gave her and had enough sense to apply it not only to Bianca, but to Lisa as well. She had given the girl all the information she needed, and Lisa could find her if she changed her mind. Jack could only pray that she would.


Jack had repaired her relationship with Gary by the time Lisa knocked on her door that beautiful autumn night. It was just as well, for he was the first person she called after listening to Lisa’s account of all that had occurred. Their father, it seemed, had tripped over one of Suzy’s dolls and had sought to beat her with it, but Lisa had stood in his way.

When his rage was spent, he had left the building the way he always did, and Lisa had calmly packed their bags and crossed the hall. It was only a few short steps, but it had taken her a lot of courage to finally take them.

By the time Gary arrived, Jack had made hot chocolate for everyone, and a fourth mug was waiting on the table for him. For the time being, they settled Suzy in the next room to watch television with Drindel, who adored the seven-year-old and the attention she lavished on him.

Gary, Lisa, and Jack sat around the kitchen table. Jack had removed the pumpkins so they could see each other. Ordinarily, Jack would have offered Lisa and Suzy a place to spend the night, but seeing as their father would be returning to the building, they thought it best that they go to the shelter that night. First however, there were a few things that Lisa needed to know.

“Have you ever climbed a beanstalk, Lisa?”

The younger girl raised an eyebrow as she sipped her hot chocolate. “It’s not exactly a part of my fairy tale…”

“For metaphorical purposes.”

“Once, when I was younger I tried. But I didn’t last very long.”

“It’s hard isn’t it?” Jack asked. “It’s hard to climb on, struggling to reach
a goal you’re not sure you can even see. You have to search and test each foothold to be sure it’s stable before resting your weight on it. It requires a certain amount of patience,” here she tried not to look at Gary, but she knew he was silently laughing at her, “and a lot of perseverance, and courage.” She paused, looking Lisa in the eye. “It’s going to be a lot like climbing a beanstalk.”

“I never expected it to be easy.” Lisa told them, placing her mug carefully back on the table. “I mean- it hasn’t been easy so far, and I realize that I might lose Suzy,” she glanced back over her shoulder to the living room where her sister watched TV, “But anything is better than seeing her hurt.”

“It will take a while,” Jack warned her. “It’s taken me this long and there are still some things I know I can’t do, but you’re younger than I was, and that might make a difference.” She turned and looked Lisa in the eye. “It’ll be hard, but you won’t have to do it alone. Are you certain of your decision?”

Lisa nodded.

“Good,” Jack smiled with relief and she and Gary rose to gather the girls’ belongings and pack them off to the shelter. It would be a long haul, and Jack hoped she had enough patience to help her through it, but the important thing was that Lisa had come to the decision on her own, and hopefully her life would be much better from now on. Be prepared for a long haul, she’d told Lisa. Tackle that beanstalk, and don’t give up until you’ve reached the summit.