How many of these characters can you recall? You see, they all remember you.
Agatha “Sister Night-Wind” Brimlap, Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins’ elder sister who lives in the coal-cellar and visits the children when they are asleep. She visited you, too. Don’t you remember? She keeps all the things the wind carries away. She’s very tidy, Agatha Brimlap, and you’ve misplaced ever so many things. What’s that? Why, the West Wind can’t carry Miss Agatha away. Nothing can. She’s as heavy as a lie and unyielding as a shadow. Can’t move a shadow. Did you ever wonder where things go when they get forgotten? As soon as you forget them, Sister Agatha learns what they are. Sister Agatha’s always learning things, and you’re never too grown-up to get a visit from her.
The Fox-Eyed Man, The Little Prince
Have you ever seen the man with fox-colored eyes? What is essential is not invisible to him. You might not remember him because he was never written or drawn onto the page, but he was there just the same.
The Princess of Nothing, The Phantom Tollbooth
The black-eyed sister to Princesses Rhyme and Reason who lives under the stairs of the Castle in the Air and latches on to Milo’s ankles as he runs away from the Terrible Trivium. She has never let go, of him or of anything.
No-Eyes, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
No-Eyes, No-Eyes, what do you see?
“Nothing and no one! Nothing and no one! Nothing and no one! You!”
The Attic Girl, A Little Princess
“When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in–that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.” In the attic at Miss Minchin’s is a girl littler than all the others. She is as thin as hunger and as raw as want. She never has rages. She never makes a sound above a whisper. The Attic Girl holds in all things and is held in by all things. What will Miss Minchin do when they are the only two left in the house?
Mrs. Helpheart, A Wrinkle In Time
Mrs Helpheart, older than Mrs Whatsit, older than IT, lives in the heart of the tesseract. Meg saw her once, and now she sees her whenever she closes her eyes to sleep. Charles Wallace closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see her, and now he can’t open them. Mrs Helpheart knows about the darkness that existed before Camazotz, the darkness that will come again.
Margaret, The Little House On The Prairie
They buried Margaret in what Ma would normally have called unseemly haste. “Get the body in the ground, Pa,” she whispered, her mouth tight. “Get it in the ground.”
Nail-Hands Sarah, Harry Potter
Harry left her under the stairs! Harry left her under the stairs! Harry got his letter out, and what did Sarah get? Nothing, and no one! Nothing, and no one! Nothing, and no one! Nail-Hands Sarah only wants her due, and Harry’s had her share of things for too long! Harry left! Harry left, and never came back! That cupboard was cramped and you left her alone! You left, Harry! Harry, you left! Harry! Harry! Come back and look at me!
Shadow Gretl, Heidi
The girl who lives in Heidi’s shadow and giggles madly with every word that Heidi says! She follows Heidi wherever she goes! In the winter, on the mountains, when the shadows get long very soon in the day, she comes earlier and earlier! Heidi cannot shake her, and now she never tries!
Mother, Encyclopedia Brown
Encyclopedia’s Mother is always very ill. When her door is closed, he may run about and read books and answer questions and see other children and talk to Sally. When her door is open – Oh Encyclopedia! How you hush and skulk about! What if Mother hears? What if Mother calls for you? Her voice is so tired! Her voice is so tiresome! Her door is open, and she can see and hear you! Where will you go, Encyclopedia?
Just when I thought I’d have a nice night of dreams, MALLORY
Angry, forgotten, vengeful women and girls coming for what’s theirs- I can dig it.
(Joan Aiken had at least one of these in every short story collection and I am inured to them!)
I think my bookshelf is haunted now
I’m going to need the entire Margaret backstory, ASAP.
I was JUST coming here to say that. Please, please write more about Margaret.
You might recall that the Ingalls had 4 children. You might also recall that there was kind of a gap between Baby Carrie and Baby Grace. Well, during that time, there was actually another baby. Baby Margaret. Unfortunately, Baby Margaret just…well…she was what they called sickly. She was born thin and pale and wanting, and you know life is very harsh on the prairies. She seemed to grow, but she was never any less thin or pale or wanting, and the only thing that seemed to strengthen was the reddish gleam in her eyes. The Ingalls found themselves struggling to stay fed–it wasn’t like the prairie wasn’t bountiful, there were all those prairie chickens, and Pa had always been a good hunter, but no matter how much they caught and grew and hunted, they themselves were growing thinner, paler, and wanting. Always wanting, and cold too, while Baby Margaret’s eyes were the color of embers.
Nobody spoke of it, and certainly Laura would never write of it. She was a little girl when this happened, after all. She’d spent years convincing herself that she’d dreamed of Baby Margaret. She dreamed, maybe when they had malaria and were laid up in bed, that Margaret had grown so tall and slender and wanting, as pale as the sickly underbelly of the kind of mushrooms that will kill you in the pulse of a breath, that she was taller than their house, taller than the sky, towering, wanting, her baby’s cries more like a vulture gone to the dark side. Ma and Pa were good God-fearing Christians, mind you, but even they knew when they were out of their league.
The woman from downriver who folks said knew how to hex came. Laura and Mary and Carrie were all sent to bed. They were sick with malaria again, Ma and Pa said, and it’d be a day or two before they got more quinine. “I feel fine,” Laura said as she was shuffled into the trundle bed. “Best to rest, Little Half-Pint,” Pa said.
Poor Baby Margaret. She was born sickly, and she was laid into the grave that very night. It was best to bury her right away, Pa told the girls the next day. They said she had the cholera.
When Laura stops writing she sometimes senses something chill and watching….
And then Ma was expecting again, and everyone was waiting, waiting, waiting to see. And the baby was born smiling with golden curls and bright blue eyes, and they named her Grace.
There were no babies born after Grace.
Hey, are you ok? Do you need a hug or a referral for a therapist or anything?
By which I mean, I see Mallory has competition for the title of QUEEN OF MY NIGHTMARES.
😀 That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in weeks.
I used to do text-based roleplaying with a friend, and I was always in charge of describing the monsters and stuff.
My name is Margaret and I’m not sure how I feel about this
“Nothing and no one! Nothing and no one! Nothing and no one! You!”
Welp. Now I know what I’ll be scared of during tonight’s middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom. And tomorrow’s.
So have all the copies of the Phantom Tollbooth that will not stay in my house been stolen by the Princess of Nothing?
(I have bought it at least four times for it to vanish completely)
Snap! I’ve lost 2 copies….
That bitch has our stolen bikes I FUCKING KNEW IT.
mallory you are poking me with your words.
Oh my god. Like, usually I can handle Mallory destroying our childhood, but from Sister Agatha on I’ve had a sinking, creepy sensation crawling up and down my body. NO, please?
*sees Little Prince image*
at least it is not a children’s stories made horrific, i think
*clicks through, instantly regrets decision and passes out*
Look it is Monday I do not need this I need sleep this week.
I was awake until 4 this morning.
I will be awake until 4 tomorrow morning.
And probably every morning thereafter. Thanks, MALLORY.
Please start tagging everything with “JESUS MALLORY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE” so we can store all the horrors in one place. Thanks.
MARGARET. I always thought it unlikely that the Ingallses had four kids and all four lived.
It’s also possible these are all the same woman at various stages of her life.
The real Charles and Caroline had a boy, Frederick, who only lived for a few months. It’s unclear what the cause of death was. Laura (and her daughter Rose) chose to keep Freddie out of the Little House series.
Thanks! There had to be at least one, right? I bought the new Pioneer Girl a few weeks ago but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Here’s hoping there are many more interesting truths.
Pioneer Girl is SO GOOD. But it’s a sit-down-and-pay-attention read, not a tear-through-it read.
Laura (and her daughter Rose) chose lots of things for Freddie.
Oh my GOD, Ethyl.
There’s some chapter in one of the books that’s all “Ma wasn’t feeling well, and Pa took the girls out for a long day of exploring, and they picked up pebbles and arrowheads,” right? I don’t have my Little House books anymore, but wasn’t there clearly a chapter that hinted at Freddie’s existence?
The timeline of the books is pretty mixed up from real life. In reality when Pa took Laura and Mary looking for arrowheads, Ma was giving birth to Carrie. The family traveled back and forth to Wisconsin more than once, which Laura condensed for the narrative.
I knew there was a secret birth involved! Thanks for clarifying.
So wait, that’s when they’re around other people, right? He doesn’t just leave her in a cabin/sod house to give birth by herself? My memories of the Little House books are a bit jumbled. This is possibly Margaret’s fault.
At that point in LHotP they have some neighbours, not nearby, but close enough to help when they’re sick. So I imagine there and in real life, the neighbour women would have been by to help.
In real life there was actually a lot more help nearby – they were actually much closer to other people in that house than the fictionalised version claims.
Not that I’ve read the books recently, but long ago I used to read them over and over, and I thought that at the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake, when we find out that Mary has gone blind from scarlet fever, we also find out that there had been a baby brother born, who died. At the time I thought it was also from scarlet fever, but now I’m thinking it might have been a still-birth?
No, the baby brother is never mentioned in the series (although the death of Laura’s own son is, in The First Four Years. In real life, both were live births but died in early infancy. I believe there’s been some speculation that there was some kind of hereditary problem which only affected the male line, though not sure how robust this notion is. It’s not like dying in infancy was particularly unusual at that time so it may have just been chance that both Caroline and Laura had sons who died.
I would like to read “Nail-Hands Sarah and the Cupboard of Secrets” please. Or perhaps “Nail-Hands Sarah meets Dudley in the Dark”.
Harry isn’t the only one who can have adventures, after all.
I want to read “Miss Minchin and the Attic Girl,” presumably with all the lights on, a cat* purring obliviously on my chest, and reading even after I put my fingers over my eyes but CAN’T STOP.
*the other cat will almost inevitably be an asshole and jump on me from behind at the scariest moment. My first cat, memorably, did this during an episode of Doctor Who exactly as the Beast was saying “DON’T. TURN. AROUND.”
In the Doctor Who season 8 episode “Listen” (which I think I owe a rewatch, because I barely remember anything about it but when I googled to figure out the title I found it seems to have gotten positive reviews) there’s a jump-scare where something grabs a character’s ankle from under the bed.
No joke, while I was watching it my kitten chose THAT moment to pop out from under the couch and grab my ankle.
“Tauriel,” from ‘The Hobbit’
In Lake-town, the house of Bard is attacked by Bolg and his troops. Tauriel and Legolas arrive to rescue the Dwarves and kill the Orcs. As Legolas runs after Bolg, Tauriel takes some athelas obtained by Bofur and uses it to heal Kili’s wounds, uttering a mysterious chant in Sindarin. Half in delirium, Kíli speaks of her beauty and wonders aloud whether she might someday love him. Tauriel tells him to lie still but is obviously pleased, and Kíli moves his hand to hold hers. His eyes began to cloud and darken. “The charm is sealed,” she thinks to herself, “Such pretty little men, and such a pretty little world. I can’t wait until it’s all mine.”
Suddenly Tauriel seems awfully similar to Jadis.
OH MY GOD you are my favorite. Pretty sure this redeems the Hobbit movies.
The name on his birth certificate was Leroy, but only his parents and teachers called him that. All the other children called him Encyclopedia. And as for Mother…well.
Mother called him something else entirely.
WHAT SECRET TRANSGRESSION, LONG FORGOTTEN BY ALL BUT THE BOY DETECTIVE, IS CALLED TO HIS MIND EVERY TIME MOTHER WHISPERS HIS NAME?
Well…he was the baddest man in the whole damn town.
AAAAH
Miss Minchin *deserves* the Attic Girl.
Was just coming here to say that! Miss Minchin was the absolute WORST.
I am hardly Team Minchin, but I’m not sure ANYONE deserves Attic Girl.
(Please Attic Girl, do not be lurking in the corners of my bedroom tonight when I get up to go to the bathroom.)
Miss Minchin IS the Attic Girl
something is wrong in her upper story, as they say
A TWIST
I think Agatha Brimlap sounds amazing and I would like to go out for drinks with her on a regular basis.
“She’s as heavy as a lie and unyielding as a shadow.”
I feel like I could learn so much from her.
Everyone could use an Agatha Brimlap every now and then.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Agatha Brimlap does
What the hell, Mallory.
Ah, you’ve discovered the unofficial motto of The (Hyphen) Toast Dot Net!
See, I thought that was “Jesus CHRIST, Mallory.”
Pity the rights-holders yanked all of the Margaret episodes of Little House from YouTube.
some of us still remember
Cool cool I get it, it’s not enough to ruin books we love, now you have to make up new characters to re-ruin them.
What exactly happened in your childhood, Mallory?
To be perfectly honest, it was a very good childhood. I was safe and happy.
I feel like safety and happiness are required for the development of true existential horror. In the absence of external danger and unhappiness, the mind turns inward to create creeping horror and skulking blasphemy.
I’m not sure what weird spell Mallory has been casting with this series, her dark enchantments taking ever-deeper root in my heart, but I found this…oddly comforting? Maybe it’s just the 2′ of snow outside my window, which will blind me if I don’t keep the curtain at least partway drawn, or perhaps another piece of my heart has been replaced by my Shadow Self, but I have this delightful feeling of being wrapped in a warm, snuggly blanket after reading this.
…is this what it’s like for mice who are hosts to toxoplasma gondii? Or is it like the giant fungus in that one episode of the X-Files?
Agatha “Sister Night-Wind” Brimlap sounds exceedingly in keeping with P.L. Travers’ general creation. Mary Poppins is pretty much as creepy at some points in the series.
Yeah, I thought before I clicked through that this might actually be a “deep cuts” piece of bizarro stuff we’d forgotten.
hey listen i’m in a room full of children’s books for 9 hours a day and i don’t need this
MALLLORRRRYYYYY
my phone now has that spelling in autocorrect because every damn time.
Never going into an attic ever again.
Genuinely offended that Harry didn’t take Nail-Hands Sarah with him to Hogwarts. He deserves what’s coming to him.
JESUS CHRIST, MALLORY.
“She is as thin as hunger and as raw as want.”
And now I have goosebumps, despite the fact that it’s January in Texas and therefore 73 degrees… SHIVER
All my life I have wanted/tried to be more like Sara Crew. Now I know I should have been trying more to be like the Attic Girl.
At first I thought, why didn’t Mallory do this with the Secret Garden, and then I realized that book is already only populated with vengeful ghosts
THE ATTIC GIRL
There really was an Ingalls who died young. Freddy was born between Carrie and Grace, and only lived a few months. Those years held such painful memories for Laura Ingalls Wilder that she skipped it entirely in the books. That’s why we have the time jump between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake.
When did you decide you were gonna be a horror author, Mallory. This is going to kill me. Sweet dreams :p
No no NO. Is nothing sacred? I don’t think I can read this. Le Petit Prince? NO.
Mallory reminds me that I wish I could go back in time and say this to my parents: you know, if you ever want your 8-year-old daughter to enjoy LSD or a normal sex life in adulthood, you may want to keep _A Wrinkle In Time_ out of her grubby little hands.
whats with a wrinkle in time?
Oh man why do these sounds so real
D:
I am pretty sure I always knew about Margaret
Annie
Artemis is cold, the wind bites like daggers. How can the wind bite, Fowl Manor is warm all the days of the year? A baby is crying somewhere, but he cannot see it. How can a baby be crying, he is the only child in the Manor? He walks down the hall to his parent’s room, where the child is in its crib. How can there be a child in its crib, he is the only child in the manor? He walks in, a strange light comes from the baby. How can a light be coming from a baby, babies do not produce light? He looks down, the baby is strange its skin is like an oak tree and its ears are pointed. How can a baby have pointed ears, babies have human ears? His mother and father are smiling on the bed, but they are thin. How can they be thin, they are the healtheist ones Artemis knows? The baby is growing stronger, and it opens its eyes they are like a cat’s eye. How can they be like a cat’s eye, babies are babies not cats? Butler comes in, angry and grabs the baby. Why is butler taking the baby, he is Artemis’s protector? The baby is crying, and Artemis wants to help it. Why does he want to help it, when he wants nothing but to advance the Fowl name? His mother and father try to rise, but they are weak. How are they week, when they are the strongest Artemis knows? Artemis cries at Butler to stop, and pounds his back. Why is he trying to stop Butler, who protects him? Butler throws the baby out the window. Why throw a defenseless baby out a window, was it defenseless? Artemis falls to the ground, tired. Why is he so tired, it wasn’t like he had exerted himself? Butler cathes him as the room swims. Why is the room swimming, rooms don’t swim? Artemis awakes, after a strange dream about fairy babies. Years later he will get his revenge, though he will never know what drives him to hunt the elves.
My other idea is having Artemis be a fierce Republican partisan who forces Holly design bombs for the IRA.
actual goosebumps
My job here is done.
This reads like an ode to all appearances of the Faceless Old Woman who Lives in Your Home.
And now, the weather.
I think it is necessary to note that there is a real life dead brother from Laura Ingalls’ life that she omitted from the books, but I can’t decide if that makes your version prescient or terrible.