Afterwards, Ruby took Grandma's pearls, the blue and white pitcher and basin, her Bible and the lace tablecloth. She felt superstitious about opals - did Mother want the engagement ring? The silverware Grandma willed to little Mary (that was me). No, the headstone really did not look that small, and would be ready in May. Would Mother please check when the time came.

So Grandma died and was buried. And I thought that was the end. Just a memory now and again, or an old photograph. I got older. I finished school. No more Grandma, I thought. I married. Then the dream started...

The farm house went up for sale. I drove back by myself, with no money, but hoping to buy it. It stood like a ship on the land, the woodshed a prow pointing into the past. The yellow brick walls were so long, I walked and walked the length, but never reached the end. Begonias still bloomed in the windows, and the blue-grey shutters hung warm and rough in the sunlight. I ran my fingers over the slats, finding some loose and ready to fall.

As usual, the door from the orchard stood unlocked. The dining room hadn't changed, still weighed down with the massive black table, the chair backs carved with gargoyle faces. The china cabinet leaned heavily into the room. The mirror behind its shelves shot back everything clearly, but where I stood, the reflection blurred.

Up the narrow, boxed-in staircase, the upper rooms opened, unchanged. Uncle Hubert's fat alarm clock crouched on the dresser, minus its spidery hands, the small door at the end of the landing invited, treasury of my past - baby carriage, ruffled clothes, trunks, a bird cage, yellowed books - piles dust-thick with memories, perched on the narrow open floor, casting down to the woodshed below. But when I bent and pushed through the door, the attic was gone!

A vast, barren hall yawned before me, like a rotted country church, crossbeams hung grey with moss. Thin streaks of sunlight sifted through cracks in the board walls. I stepped forward slowly. The floor sagged with each step, like wood sponged by fungus in spring. I stopped, afraid. Grandma, where are you? No answer. I backed to the door, and down the narrow steps.

Outside, a crowd of prospective buyers eddied and flowed, murmuring up from the plum trees, towards the old walls' trumpet vines. Nobody knew me. As I drew closer, face after face blurred.

Again and again I dreamed of the house. Always I climbed to the attic. When I tried to cross the floor, it sagged. always I stopped and called out for Grandma, but could not see or hear her, although I felt she was near.

I found her on moving day. Finally Jay and I had bought our first home. With the unpacking mostly finished, we wanted to celebrate. I lifted Grandma's silver chest from a carton, wiped off the dust, and set it beside the sink. Sunlight filled the window above. In the distance spread a comforting blur of new green... I put my hand on the lower drawer. Then I remembered. Grandma was there. After she died, I tucked her into this chest, face upturned in the sunlight, smiling. But after so many years, what would I find?

The drawer stuck. I asked Jay to give it a tug. Up over the edge, showered a bright spray of yellow. "What th -!" Jay leapt back. "That's just Grandma," I laughed, unprying the drawer from his grasp. Not a bone, not a bit of flesh. Grandma had turned to pure light, light that danced from drainboard and dishes, spilling into my hands.

I look at my mother now. Hips broadened by age, her legs grow heavy with fluid. Already her knuckles have stiffened. By the end of die day, her smile grows quiet, rouge a little smudged off. Although she still wears it short, sometimes I notice blue shadows, forget-me-nots blurred in her hair.

The Beanstalk, et al

A Short Story by Marvyne Jenoff

Jack hacked down the beans talk with such fierce and exuberant leaps that the remaining stump reached well above his head. He flung down the axe, kicked at the giant to make sure he was dead where he lay, and ran off to find a girlfriend to whom he could boast. When he found her he brought her back to the stump of the beanstalk. There in the shelter of the few remaining leaves Jack built them a simple house.

The giant's widow looked down through the hole in her cloud where the beanstalk had been, and she did not like what she saw. There, outside the little house were displayed the bag of gold, the hen that laid golden eggs, and the golden harp, all of which Jack had stolen from the giants' house. And there was Jack in front of his girlfriend and a few passersby, gesturing with his arms wide as if boasting about a fish he had caught.

Mrs. Giant could have killed them in one swoop. She could have simply let herself drop down through die hole in the cloud and landed on them and their house, doing away with herself in the process. But she didn't. For, by killing something so small, the principle went, she would become small herself, and that wouldn't do at all. By a similar principle, a giant-killer takes on giantly qualities, and Mrs. Giant decided she would wait until Jack became a worthy opponent. She was also curious to see which of her husband's qualities Jack would manifest, and what sort of man he would become. Jack was the only boy who had visited them three times, and she had grown fond of his courageous spirit and the irrepressible energy with which he moved. She remembered how they had giggled together before the giant appeared and Jack had to hide behind the stove and keep silent as she discreetly passed him the tastiest bits of their dinner. Finally, embarrassed at dwelling on Jack, Mrs. G. pulled herself together the only way she could, by remembering how Jack had robbed them and killed the giant, and she proceeded to grieve her husband and set the record straight about him.