Sap O'Lilly: Three Recollections

Flash Fiction - Supernatural/Folktale

Greetings, Talebones Readers!

I’ve got an experimental piece of flash fiction for you, today.

Inspired in part by the fun I had with my entry in the collaborative Ynysfall Codex hosted by

The Chronicler

, as well as some real-world recollected cultural history I’ve been reading lately (more details in the Author’s Note at the end), I decided to try my hand at a slightly different style: re-imagining a folktale through a more epistolary format.

But also: this piece of fiction was inspired by prompts from my Storymatic deck! I use my Storymatic all the time. A dizzying amount of my Substack fiction was written with the deck as a starting prompt or troubleshooting measure. And frankly, in this age of AI outsourcing, anything that supports us as we exercise our own human brains and creativity feels more important than ever—and no Wi-fi required!

Because of how much I love it, I reached out to Storymatic and they generously provided Talebones subscribers with an exclusive discount code that you can use at the Storymatic online store!

Enter TALEBONES at checkout to receive 10% off items in your cart.

(NOTE: I don’t get any kickback from this code, just the benefit of sharing the love of a writing tool I genuinely adore and constantly use. I hope you enjoy!)

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Photo by Jarred Decker on Unsplash

There used to be a very small town on the Palouse called Cullahan. It sat isolated on the rippling muscles of the earth at the edge of a vast golden pelt of whispering wheat.

No one remembers its name now, and I’m not sure what ultimately became of the place. Maybe it went bankrupt, or maybe it simply sank into the earth the way some places seem to do. But I had heard stories about some of its curious customs and beliefs, so I made it my mission to hunt down any information I could discover about it.

I managed to find three of its former residents who were willing to speak with me.

The following are their recollections, transcribed from audio recordings made in June 2015.

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I. Fruit

I was just a stupid kid back then, but I know what I saw.

My friends and I liked to sneak into the wheatfields around Cullahan sometimes and play games, and when we got a little older we would take bottles of beer out there and play cards and you know…get a little handsy with our girlfriends, that kind of thing. Kissing and stuff, just fooling around.

And one night we were doing that, just having a bit of innocent fun—it was me and three of my friends and their ladies—when we heard a truck engine coming from a distance, back along the highway, and that was unusual because Cullahan was pretty far away from everything, even then. And the truck got closer and turned off its headlights like it wanted to be sneaky, and we hid in the wheat and watched as the truck parked on the edge of town and some men got out, and they had weapons with them. Rifles, I think. Shotguns. Baseball bats.

We were so scared, all of us boys, because even though we liked to act tough we were still kids then.

The men walked past us on the road, approaching town, and they lit torches and they sounded real angry in their whispering to each other and we didn’t know what to do. We just knew that they had come from another town over to do Cullahan harm, but we didn’t know why.

But then, and I swear it’s true…before they could hit the boundary of town, a shape came up out of the wheat. It was the shape of a woman, but kind of wrong, and I can’t really explain that. But she had long long hair and she wasn’t wearing any clothes, and in the light from the men’s torches her eyes flashed bright gold like a cat.

She made short work of them. It was bloody, and bones broke easy like snapping straw. The shotguns were useless, like twigs. The torches she snuffed out with her breath. And we just watched her do it, unable to move we were so scared.

But after she was done, she looked at us—right at us where we were hiding—and smiled, and it was a good smile. Like kind, like a mother, like everything was going to be okay. And then she pulled the bodies and the truck into the wheat like it was nothing so that it disappeared, like the wheat ate it all up. And the blood soaked into the ground.

She was gone, back into the wheat, like nothing had happened.

There was a saying back then that our grandparents would say all the time: All praise Sap O’Lilly, and all praise his Bounteous Bride. It was an old story, probably, and folks weren’t really telling stories like that anymore. But I admit, the saying kinda made sense after that night. I don’t think I can explain that.

We told that story a few times and I’m not sure anyone believed us.

Tobias N. 
Newberg, Oregon 
Age 79

***

II. Leaf

I remember the day all of Cullahan turned itself inside-out to welcome Tansy Tendman back to town. I was six years old that summer. A great big party was planned for her showing up, and me and the other kids thought it was the most exciting thing. Everyone in town was cooking or decorating the gazebo in the middle of the Big Lawn or putting chairs and tables out. There were lights hanging from the trees and it was so magical. So beautiful. The air buzzed, like it was electric.

Tansy’s daddy, Mr. Tendman, was the mayor then. He had been mayor for a while I think, but I was too young to know anything about that. He had a table set up in the gazebo for the Tendmans and Tansy. Like in a wedding where the bride and groom and their party have one special table. And Mr. Tendman had it all decorated with sheaves of wheat and summer flowers.

I didn’t know it then but it had been a whole year since the Tendmans had seen their eldest daughter and that’s why they were so excited and wanted everything to be perfect.

The other kids and me, we listened for the sound of a car on the road, since in those days you could hear a car coming for miles and miles over the Palouse. But when Tansy finally showed up it wasn’t from a car or on the road. She stepped up and out of the wheatfield at the edge of town like she was emerging from the sea, naked as a jaybird.

It was funny at first, but then it was scary. Unsettling, like. The town watched her as she walked up and the faces on the grown-ups told me that they weren’t expecting her, not like this. The closer she got to the gazebo, the more we saw bugs crawling in her hair and rootlets growing like hairs from her legs and nails long as animal claws. Her eyes were gold as the ripe wheat, and she kept glancing back at the field, like she was itching to go back. Like being away from it stung her.

But out of everybody, her mama and papa acted like nothing was wrong. They welcomed her to the central table and raised their glasses and made toasts and glared at everybody until they acted the part, too. And we all had to pretend that nothing was wrong.

The longer Tansy sat there at the table in the middle while everyone around her ate and drank and pretended, the more her skin began to change. Dark gray spots and patches showed up on her feet, her legs, her arms. It was like mold. She was decaying in front of everybody. I’ve never seen anyone look so sad and so lonely.

And when they finally invited Tansy to speak, like give a speech, she raised her head and said, “I need you to let me go.” Just like that. So soft, but we all heard it. “Daddy, I need you to let me go.”

Tansy’s mama looked at Tansy’s daddy but he shook his head. “Never.”

Tansy sighed, real sad. “Release me from my promise,” she said.

“No,” he said, like he couldn’t see that his daughter was rotting away.

But finally she stood up. And when she stood up, we could all see how powerful she was, even under the rot and decay. There was no pretending then.

She took her daddy’s hands in her strange, strong, bony ones, and she said, “Papa, I am happy with him. I have never felt happier. Let me go.”

And there was a long quiet where all we could hear was the whispering of the wheat, like someone was humming underneath it. Mayor Tendman cried, right there in front of everybody, and so did Tansy’s mama.

But finally he said, “Yes, yes. I release you.”

And a great sighing sound went up from the wheat, and Tansy smiled, and she really was pretty when she smiled even though she looked so strange.

She turned and went back into the wheat, smiling at us all, and we all smiled back somehow even though the whole thing was so strange. She disappeared into the field like she was diving into the sea, and we never saw her again after that. But whenever we passed the wheatfield or harvested from it we always said: all praise Sap O’Lilly, and all praise his Bounteous Bride. And we never went hungry.

Ruth H. 
Bellingham, Washington 
Age 92

***

III. Seed

Oh sure, they told all of us the story growing up. But by the time I was in my twenties I didn’t hear it as much. I still wonder why.

The way I heard it went like this: Tansy Tendman was the prettiest girl on the Palouse. She was the jewel of Cullahan and the mayor’s daughter, but she was also quick and clever and kind, and my mother always told me that was better than being pretty.

One day Tansy and her little sisters are walking the line of the wheatfields, gathering up some sheaves for their mama’s blue ribbon harvest wreaths, when Tansy reached into the wheat and felt a hand close around her hand.

“Oh,” she said, unafraid. “Let me go, please.”

“I just want to look on you,” said the voice from the wheat.

But Tansy was clever. “If you want to look on me, it’s only fair I look on you.”

So the voice laughed and stepped out of the wheat, still holding Tansy’s hand. He was a handsome young man with sun-browned skin, and he had eyes as gold as ripe grain. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothes.

“There,” he said. “Now we can look on each other.”

Tansy’s little sisters giggled and giggled because the man was naked, but Tansy shook her head. “It doesn’t do, you know. Go and put some clothes on.”

So the young man laughed and stepped back into the wheat—still holding Tansy’s hand—and then came back out in the blink of an eye, wearing strange but beautiful clothes made of woven grass and flax. So Tansy knew there was magic in him.

“There,” the young man said. “And now what else?”

“Tell me your name,” she said.

“Which one?” he said. “I’ve got plenty.”

“Pick your favorite,” said Tansy.

So the wheat-man thought it over and replied, “Good folk call me Sap O’Lilly.”

“That’ll do.” Tansy held his hand and stepped up close and said, “Well, you’ve looked on me. What now?”

“I want to marry you,” Sap O’Lilly said. “I think you’d make a fine bride.”

Tansy thought it over. “Are you the one who minds the wheat we grow?”

He said, “I am.”

“If we marry, where will we live?” she asked.

He smiled. “A place no mortal man can see. A place below the wheat. A place where spirits walk. It’s a beautiful place, and it needs a queen.”

And Tansy thought this sounded okay with her. Better than little old Cullahan, anyway. So she and her sisters and Sap O’Lilly walked back into town together to talk to her folks.

But when they got to Tansy’s house, Mayor Tendman shook his head. “Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Never.”

“She’ll be happy,” said Sap O’Lilly.

“I’ll be happy,” said Tansy.

But Mr. Tendman shook his head. No, no, no.

So away went Sap O’Lilly into the wheat, weeping with sorrow. And that’s when the rain started, great heaps of it. It rained over the wheat harvest so heavily that the stalks began to break and snap, the grain-heads molding and mildewing in the wet.

Cullahan suffered without the wheat. It was August, see, and time for gathering everything for winter. The rain dragged on for days and days. And Tansy Tendman begged her daddy to relent and let her go and marry Sap O’Lilly. But he said no. Over and over again.

Finally, after a whole August had passed with unseasonable rain and the wheat harvest was decaying on the stalk and the town of Cullahan begged and pleaded with Mayor Tendman to let her go, the stricken man finally said, “Yes, yes, fine, yes, go and marry your fool spirit Sap O’Lilly.”

But he set a condition: Tansy had to visit the town every summer, to show them she was happy and well. He made her promise, and she did.

And she went straight from her house to the wheatfield where she took the hand of an unseen figure and fell into the wheat like it was a big lake, and it took her, and the rain stopped as soon as she vanished into the wheat. The sun came out and dried up the stalks that were left, and Cullahan managed to harvest enough for the winter—like a miracle.

Even on still days you could hear Tansy whispering sweet comfort to the town of Cullahan from within the wheat, her golden eyes watchful. Sometimes at night we could hear her and Sap O’Lilly dancing in the rows and laughing. It was always good to know that she was looking out for us.

Cullahan’s gone now, but I miss that. I miss feeling that. I was so sure, then, as a child. I was so sure I could feel Tansy keeping us safe. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt something so certain since. Praise Sap O’Lilly. And praise Tansy Tendman, his Bounteous Bride.

That’s all I have to say about it.

Harriet L. 
Kenmore, Washington
Age 101

Author’s Note:

This story was based on the Samish legend of Ko-kwal-alwoot, the Maiden of Deception Pass¹. I meant to re-imagine this tale with all due respect to its Indigenous origins without retelling it beat-for-beat, and I hope I did it justice.

Here are the prompts I used from Storymatic for this story:

• nobody will listen

• at last, love

• broken promise

• a rumor is going around town

• celebrity sighting

The randomized prompts reminded me of the Samish story—which I had recently read—and it was fun to reconfigure the pieces into a new result.

Want a deck of your very own? Remember to use the discount code TALEBONES at checkout in the Storymatic online store for 10% off!

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1. As retold by Ella E. Clark in Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (1953)