My Ma used to tell me the story of a pretty girl who ate her shoe.

 

She'd sing it in a lovely little ditty as she hung the laundry, or she'll tell me the story at bedtime. The story about a lovely lass who liked to stray from home at night, a girl who found herself trapped in a scary, dark place.

 

Ma used to say that good girls go to bed early, good girls don't stay out after dark, and I believed her.

 

The girl in the story wanted something to eat so badly that she took off her shoe and tried to fill her stomach with it, Ma would tell me. The girl spent days trying to chew the soft leather, bit by bit until she thought it was soft enough to swallow. But she was wrong. It was still too tough to eat. So she choked to death on it. This poor girl with the shoe stuck in her mouth. Nobody ever found her. Not even the dogs could sniff her out.  

 

Ma said she was a bad girl, and that bad girls get what's coming for them. Ma said there's a tailor-made hell for all of the bad girls, so I always thought if your feet took you where you're not supposed to be -- especially at night -- you're gonna wind up so lost and so hungry that you'd have to eat your shoe.

 

When I got older, I began to piece together the horrible truth.

 

When Ma first began telling the story, our whole town was also covered with picture-posters of the sheriff's pretty daughter. Louise, her name was, written in large large under the word 'Missing', which was written in even larger letters. At the same time, Pa also started drinking deep into the night, and going out to wander during the day as if he was searching for something. Before that, Pa was almost never home at night, and Ma used to cry a lot too.

 

Back then, Ma used to tell me that there's nothing in the world more disgusting than breakin' a promise, and I believed her.

 

But when Ma started telling the story about the girl who ate her shoe, the tears were gone. Instead, Ma started smiling all the time. She smiled so much and so wide that it scared me sometimes.

 

Ma told me I don't need to worry. She'll make sure I grew up right, into a good girl.

 

I was going to ask Ma why I had to grow up and be a good girl when I was a little boy right now. But Ma was smiling back then, and something about the look in her eyes shut me right up 

 

When I got older, I thought about how Ma never told the story when Pa was around and sober. I thought about Ma's best friend shaking her head with a strange and sad look in her eyes. She was the teacher at our local school, which was also used as a church on Sundays. Missus Greene was extra nice to me when I was little. She'd drop by the house sometimes with gumdrop candies, and when Ma wasn't around Missus Green would tell me that "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" like it was a secret just between the two of us.

 

I think I understand now, what Missus Greene was trying to say. But Missus Greene was no longer around for me to ask her.

 

Missus Greene was visiting her Gran one day and came back too late. So Ma got her. Just like how Ma got Pa, and the neighbor too. Ma told me it was because they snooped into another person's secrets. And good girls don't peek at other people's secrets.

 

I think- I think Ma wants everybody to be a good girl. 

 

The townfolk are saying it's coyotes actin' up at night. And they're saying that a few good bullets would do the trick and scare the coyotes off.

 

But I don't think it's the coyotes. I think I know what -- who's been killing off the townfolk one by one. 

 

Ma said good girls know how to keep a secret, but I don't think I want to be good anymore.