The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

Once upon a time there was an artist

named Hieronymus Bosch who loved odd creatures.

Not a day passed that the good woman

who looked after his house didn't find a new creature

lurking in a corner or sleeping in a cupboard.

To her fell the job of

feeding them,

weeding them,

walking them,

stalking them,

calming them,

combing them,

scrubbing and tucking in all of them—

until one day . . .

“I’m quitting your service, I've had quite enough

of your three-legged thistles asleep in my wash,

of scrubbing the millstone you use for a dish,

and riding to shops on a pickle-winged fish.”

“Pish, posh,”

said Hieronymus Bosch.

“How can I cook for you? How can I bake

when the oven keeps turning itself to a rake,

and a beehive in boots and a pear-headed priest

call monkeys to order and lizards to feast?

“The nuns were quiet. I’d rather be bored

and hang out their laundry in sight of the Lord,

than wrestle with dragons to get to my sink

while the cats chase the cucumbers, slickity-slink.”

“They go slippity-slosh,”

said Hieronymus Bosch.

“Take us under your wing, take us up on your back,”

they howled, while the claws murmured, “clickety-clac.”

“They’re not what I wished for. When women are young

they want curly-haired daughters and raven-haired son.

In this vale of tears we must take what we’re sent,

feathery, leathery, lovely, or bent.”

That night she awoke to a terrible roar.

Her suitcase yawned and unleashed on the floor

a mole in a habit,

a thistledown rabbit,

a troop of jackdaws,

a three-legged dish,

the pickle-winged fish, and a head wearing claws.

With a pain in her back and a fog in her head,

she walked twenty-two miles and collapsed into bed.

She packed her fur tippet, her second-best hat.

(The first was devoured by a two-headed bat.)

“I don’t mind the ferret, I do like the bee.

All witches’ familiars are friendly to me.

I’d share my last crust with a pigeon-toed rat,

and some of my closest relations are cats.”

“My aunt was a squash,”

said Hieronymus Bosch.

Hieronymus rose from a harrowing night,

saw salvation approaching, and crowed with delight.

With her suitcase and tippet secure on the dish,

she clambered aboard the pickle-winged fish.

“The dragon shall wear a gold ring in his nose

and the daws stoke the fire and the larks mend our clothes

forever and ever, my nibble, my nosh,

till death do us part,” said Hieronymus Bosch.

“My lovey, my dear, have you come back to stay?

Let the crickets rejoice and the mantises pray,

let the lizards do laundry, the cucumbers cook.

I shall set down new rules in my gingerbread book.”