* Author : Gregory Marlow * Narrator : Scott Campbell * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 797: A Jar of Malice is a PodCastle original. CW for cruelty and references to homophobia Rated PG-13 A Jar of Malice By Gregory Marlow 1982 The morning light woke me as Mamaw slid in through the front door carrying a small flour sack. Mamaw’s couch was made of Brillo pads that left crinkle imprints on my cheeks as I peeled away from the cushion. I had kicked my quilt and pillow onto the floor. Mom used to say I ran marathons in my sleep. But that was before she left us. Mamaw was trying to be quiet in the unpracticed way of a person who had lived alone for over a decade. She pushed the front door closed with a light click and then walked slowly to the kitchen with the flour sack in her hand. I watched her from the couch. She looked old and tired to my ten-year-old eyes, even though she was only fifty-six. The gray hairs outnumbered the brown, and her upper back was permanently arched forward, having spent more hours of her life leaning over a countertop and stove than standing upright. Then I saw the sack move as if something inside had given it a little kick. I sat up quickly and wiped the sleep from my eyes. She’d caught one. 2022 I slide the Mason jar across the quartz countertop of the kitchen island until it sets in front of my husband. Franklin pauses mid-sip of the day’s first cup of coffee. His left eye always droops just a touch more than his right when he is sleepy, but both of his brows go up. He hasn’t shaved this morning, and his sexy stubble is coming in gray. His “Gay and Trashy” mug with a picture of a possum and a rainbow slowly lowers from his lips and makes a slow trek to the countertop with a light clack. The tiny figure is limp and sleeping, curled along the bottom of the Atlas jar. It is a thin and waify figure, like one of those plastic music–box ballerinas but about twice as tall. It is unclothed, but something about it refuses to be naked, as if its skin hides its true nakedness. Dust fogs the glass, and a paper envelope the size of a house key is wedged securely under the rusty band at the mouth of the jar. In canning, the band isn’t necessary after it’s been processed. The lid will stay sealed without the band if you have done everything correctly. In this case, the band is there to secure the tiny envelope. But I know it is also there as an extra level of security. If the seal leaked, the little figure might wake up, and that lid would be no match for them. Franklin looks at the jar, then back at me, then back at the jar. The eye darts repeat several more times, and I can tell the synapses are firing in Franklin’s head. I have only been married to him for seven years, but he has been mine for much longer. We met nearly 30 years earlier in college. We went from roommates to confirmed bachelors to special friends. In 2015, we became husbands. I know how his brain works. I can hear every thought. What date is it? Is it a holiday, and is this a hyper-realistic Halloween decoration? Is his husband taking a craft workshop that he has forgotten about? Is the coffee not working, and are his eyes malfunctioning? Is this a fairy in a jar? Franklin sets his coffee cup down and looks up at me.