B. Rae Grosz
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“The Old Woman in the Forest”

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Close up on front cover of somewhat 1992 paperback edition of THE COMPLETE FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, translated and with introduction by Jack Zipes. Book is a pale, silvery purple color and the artwork shows a medieval-esque fairy tale princess in a pale purple gown kissing a prince dressed in chain mail, both encircled by flowering vines.

“THE OLD WOMAN IN THE FOREST” from The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

I lost track of how long I was reading. It felt like it was no time at all and the story is only a couple of pages, but I’m sure that I was seven years old, or maybe eight or nine, when I sat down with the book and I’m sure that the sun was not shining as bright as it is now.

black & white photograph of a young girl with long red hair, intently reading a book of Brothers Grimm fairy tales

But no, that’s just the memory of the first time I read them all, all 750 pages of fairy tales in one sitting (which can’t be true—there’s no way that I was actually left alone to read uninterrupted for so long). I remember closing the book when I reached the end and going outside, because I had too many feelings to stay in. I remember being shocked by how warm it was and squinting in the too bright light.

It is too bright outside now and warmer than it should be this time of year but not as warm as it has been. Not as warm as it was then.

That was a summer day. The rhododendron bushes at the end of the driveway were in bloom.

This is fall.

I fell that day. I had too many feelings to stay in any longer, so I went outside, and I had too many feelings to keep still any longer, so I was riding my bicycle up and down the long driveway. I was wondering why people talked about ghost stories and fairy tales like they were completely different and imagining that if ghosts were real, they wouldn’t be white but rather a pale, greyish purple like the cover of the book. I was deciding that if there really was any love in love at first sight, then it must not be the first time you see someone and think they’re beautiful, it must be the first time that you see someone and want to give them every key to happiness you can. I was hoping that there might be birds listening to me, like I listened to them, and trees that would reach for me in return, when I brushed my fingers over their bark.

"Suddenly the branches twined round her and turned into two arms" illustration by Arthur Rackham for the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Old Woman in the Wood."

Then, I thought I saw the ghost of a prince, standing by the rhododendron bushes, and I fell off my bicycle.

However old I was, I knew enough to know that Pennsylvania was not an enchanted wood and had never had any fairy tale princes in it. I knew the ghost was gone when I looked again, because he’d never really been there at all, and I knew that meant that I would never see him again. And I haven’t.

But here I am, beneath the too bright sun again. It’s a fall day. Some of the trees are just beginning to show it, some of the trees are at peak, and some of the trees have already dropped their leaves. I’ve brought the book outside with me—the same thick, greyish-purple paperback that I’ve been reading for decades now—and I’m standing beneath a tree that has a purplish tint to its pale, grey bark and has lost most of its brown leaves but not all. I’m more used to having too many feelings than I was at seven or eight or nine years old, but still, there are times… this time though, it’s not so much about feelings as absence, because I’ve never truly seen a ghost, never truly been in love, and it’s an absence like a hollow in a tree that might hold anything.

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