The Earwax Witch

The Earwax Witch (2022)

Jardin’s stomach growled. He pressed his bowl of lukewarm butter noodles close to his chest as he tiptoed back up the steep wooden stairs to the attic. On the fifteenth stair he did a little dance to avoid the creak. Soon he would be back in his bed, third one in from the window, eating his supper while his six brothers and seven sisters continued to slumber.

At the sixteenth step the handrail ended. He turned at the landing and started down the center of the room, creeping past the little wooden beds that lined each of the sloping walls in two tidy rows. About halfway to his bed he froze and nearly dropped his bowl.

There was something leaning over his littlest sister Echa. It had its back to him. It was short, not much taller than his mother’s hip, and it had a curly mess of yellow hair that poured from its head all the way to the floor. It raised an arm. Jardin held his breath as it pulled back a sleeve. It had boney fingers with long spiraling fingernails, almost like the noodles in his bowl. Jardin bit his tongue so he wouldn’t scream as he watched it scrape the inside of Echa’s ear with its twisted pinky fingernail. It pulled the nail out and tapped it against the rim of a black jar. Then it turned around.

Jardin gasped. It looked like a girl. She had two eyes and a nose and mouth, all in the right places, but her skin was wrinkled and green. She smoothed her grey dress. It was full of crooked patches and there were pine needles in her tangled hair. Jardin wondered why her mother sewed her dress so crooked and why she hadn’t brushed her hair. He often wished his hair was long enough for his mother to brush every night just like she did for his sisters.

Jardin swallowed and whispered from a few beds away, “Are you…are you the Earwax Witch?”

Her lips twitched.

“I’m not a witch,” she answered sharply. Her voice reminded him of his papa’s meat grinder when it caught on a bone. “My name is Nay,” she added.

She moved forward as quiet as a ghost. She smelled a little funny, like spoiled apples and pine trees.

“Mama and Papa told me,” Jardin whispered, “they told me you were real…are you…are you here for my earwax, too?” Jardin couldn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned his ears.

She nodded, setting her jar down on the floor in front of him.

Jardin felt his stomach twist like a bowl of spaghetti. “Here, here, take this instead,” he pleaded. He held out his bowl of noodles.

She wrinkled her nose. “What is it?”

“Butter noodles. Mama made them for me.”

Her yellow eyes flung wide.

Jardin took a step closer and pushed the bowl out again. “I promise, they’re good. They’re so good it’s all I eat. Please, here. Have them.”

Nay licked her lips but shook her head. “There was a time when I only ate those too, little child. But that was over seventy years ago. Now I only eat earwax.”

“You love butter noodles, too?! Wait, you’re over seventy years old?!”

Nay hissed and held a curled fingernail against her lips. “Yes, to both your queries,” she answered with a nod, her hair bobbing like a tree branch in a gust. “I never grew much after I began eating earwax.” She tilted her head to one side and frowned. “What is your name, little one?”

“I’m Jardin. Jardin Kader.”

Nay took the bowl from his fingers. She stabbed a noodle with her index finger’s nail and brought it to her lips. “My mother used to make me butter noodles, too,” she whispered, then popped the noodle into her mouth and closed her eyes.

Her shoulders drooped. She drew in a long breath and then suddenly looked a little taller.

She stared at Jardin with eager yellow eyes. “Do you have more?”

Jardin nodded and pointed to the staircase.

Nay picked up her black jar and followed him down the stairs, careful to sidestep the creak on the fifteenth stair just as he had.

Jardin walked down the hall and then turned left, leading Nay past the big metal door of the cooler and enormous bags of flour and sugar and into a little store lined with empty display cases. Jardin spun in the center with hands out.

“This side is my mother’s bakery. And this side is my father’s butcher shop. They make all sorts of things that people like, except for me.” He shrugged.

Nay stood at the doorway to the room, trying to remember the flavor of anything else besides earwax and butter noodles. “Why don’t you like their things?”

“Oh, they’re just not my cup of tea,” Jardin answered as he walked over to the counter next to the empty bread baskets. He lifted the cake stand’s glass lid etched with little daisies.

Nay smiled. “I used to make my Grandmother tea every day.”

“Oh,” Jardin called over his shoulder. “That’s nice. Does she live with you? Mine lives in another town.” He slid his dinner plate off the stand.

“She did. My parents sent me to live with her and my Grandfather when I was seven. We lived together for a long time,” her voice trickled out like a hushed stream eddy before continuing, “They passed away many, many years ago. That was around the same time they paved the roads in town.”

Jardin paused in the center of the room, wooden plate in hand, and looked at Nay. “I’m so sorry. Your parents sent you away?”

Nay shrugged. “I tried to eat my baby sister’s earwax. My ears only make so much, you see. And she had plenty. They didn’t understand.”

Jardin blinked and held his face stiff like when his parents put broccoli on his plate.

“We can sit here, if you want,” he pointed to the empty café table by the window. The curtains were drawn shut to the town square. “I have a few more noodles left,” he added.

Nay drifted across the room without a sound and slid into the chair across from Jardin.

“How do you do that?” Jardin asked in amazement.

“Do what?” Nay asked in her gravely voice.

“Move like a ghost. Wait, are you a ghost?”

Nay made a strange sound. It reminded him of his mother’s mixer when the butter wasn’t softened enough. It might have been laughing but he wasn’t sure.

“No, I’m like you. Just…a little different. What is all that?” Nay pointed at the plate, nearly still full except for a few stray butter noodles.

“Well,” Jardin began, “that’s creamed corn, that’s creamed spinach, that’s mashed potatoes, and that over there is a chicken and dumpling. And that’s a sardine, and that’s a piece of liver, and that’s liverwurst.”

“That’s nice they gave you all of this,” Nay exclaimed.

“Do you want it? I won’t eat it.”

Nay frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think I like any of those things.”

“It’s supposed to be good, at least that’s what my parents say.”

“Will you try it with me?” Nay asked.

Jardin fidgeted. “All of it?”

“How about this,” she pointed a spiral fingernail at the mashed potatoes. “This looks like earwax. It might be good.”

Jardin eyed the pile of white mush. Echa always ate that. Maybe if Nay likes it she won’t come back for Echa’s earwax again.

“I guess I could try a tiny bite.”

They each took a little piece of the sculpted mountain, Nay with her fingernail and Jardin with his spoon, and tested it with the tips of their tongues.

Jardin gasped surprise. “Oh, that’s not bad!”

Nay smiled and nodded. “Buttery.” She made her strange laugh-like sound again and took a big scoop.

Jardin took a big spoonful after and the mound quickly disappeared.

He set his spoon down and stared across the table. “Nay, your uh, your face.”

“What’s wrong?” Nay touched her cheek and a bit of her fingernail got tangled in her hair.

“Your face is uh, well, not so green. And you look a little taller.”

Nay yanked her hand free and held it out. It was the shade of a spring birch leaf instead of a dark swordfern.

“Maybe this is good for you,” Jardin wondered out loud. “Maybe…maybe you could come stay here if you want. You can hide under my bed and I can bring you my leftovers every night. Then you wouldn’t have to eat earwax anymore! Or live in the woods.”

Nay hopped off her chair. “No, I love earwax best. And I can’t live with you. I would miss my family.”

“But I thought you didn’t have any family anymore.” Jardin slid off his chair after her.

Nay picked up her jar and shook her head.

“I do. There’s the racoons, squirrels, and elk. And then there are the crows. The crows would never forgive me if I left them.”

Jardin kicked his foot across the floorboards a little and thought. He’d never had his very own friend before.

“Come visit me then. We can eat together, maybe. I mean, if you aren’t too busy is all. I can wait for you at the shop door every night at eleven. What do you think?”

Nay backed toward the door. She hadn’t had a human friend in years. “I guess I could do that. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She unlocked the door without a sound and slipped out into the night.

Jardin peered out from the white lace curtain and watched her scamper down the brick streets.

Nay visited again the next night, and the next, and over time they tried all sorts of foods. Each food was more surprising than the next. They both decided liverwurst was not their cup of tea, but the sardines were good.

With each bite Nay grew bigger and less green. She still brought her earwax jar with her and sometimes sprinkled a little on top of the new food to help it go down easier.

Jardin’s parents seemed happier. They smiled at each other every morning when they found an empty plate in the cake stand. They pinched Jardin’s cheeks and would call across from their sides of the store all day long in delighted voices about what they would leave out for him that night.

On the thirty-seventh night Nay stood as tall as Jardin’s mother. She lifted her head back and dropped a sardine in by the tail. As she began to chew, her hair started to steam up like a boiling soup pot and then suddenly she turned into a cloud of steam.

“Nay! Nay, are you alright?” Jardin wondered if the sardine had spoiled.

“Goodbye Jardin!” She smiled at him and then in a flash she poofed away.

Jardin saved her black jar under his bed. He kept eating what his parents left out for him. And sometimes when he snuck downstairs he brought her jar with him and sprinkled a little earwax on top before he took a bite.