Emily’s fist pounded against the mason jar, raspberry preserves coating her hands in thick goo. She tried calling out for her husband or anyone that would listen, but the preserves muddled her voice down to nothing. The mason jar was hot, sticky in the southern heat. By the way it bubbled she knew the temperature had risen above ninety.

It all happened overnight after a space was left between her and her husband. Normally there was never room for cold air to blow across her back because his body stayed glued to hers. Last night was different. She actually shivered when the August air crept in from the window, the curtain billowing frantically, as if in warning. She woke once during the night and reached her hand out to her husband, but pulled it away, afraid the simple touch might wake him and their fight would resume.

The next morning she woke up in a jar. Not a life-size jar, but one small enough to fill a couple weeks worth of preserves for biscuits. Emily stuck her hands out, squeezing the sweet preserves until her hands were stained red. She swiped at the jar, creating a space for her to look out behind the pink-streaked glass. Outside she saw her small house amongst the even smaller farm. The chickens pecked for worms on the ground, clucking as if calling for Emily to bring them grain.

“Hello?” Emily called. 

The chickens continued their pecking and Emily sank back, confused, but with the clear memory of her and her husband’s fight from the previous night. The south frowned upon women who didn’t want to be mothers. But Emily couldn’t imagine two more mouths to feed or two more sets of clothes to set out to dry on the clothesline. Emily and her husband were poor. So poor that grits made up a large chunk of their diet and cake on birthdays was a delicacy not always obtainable. Her husband wanted to start a family, not understanding the realistic repercussions of bringing children into a world where they scraped to get by. He didn’t listen, quivering while still inside her, and she laid there because it was easier than arguing with him to pull out. When she skipped her period and felt a pea within her uterus, feeling like the princess from the fairytale, she threw up behind the chicken coop. The chickens, not used to Emily being anything but calm, squawked and fluttered their wings, their habitat disrupted. Emily’s habitat was also disrupted.

She didn’t tell her husband. Instead she pushed her grits around her bowl while her husband soaked up his with pieces of cornbread. The sounds alone sent Emily heaving.

“I think I caught a stomach bug,” Emily said, queasy over the toilet.

“It’s those damn chickens of yours,” her husband said. “Should’ve let me wring their necks a long time ago. We’d be feasting.”

“Then how would we have eggs?” Emily snapped.

“Watch your tone when you speak to me,” he said, heading back to the kitchen table.

For a moment, Emily saw the future. Their kids would take  from them all the things they didn’t have. Their ribs would peek through their skin due to lack of food. Her husband would turn to drinking to fill his stomach and his mind with delirious poison. She would be left with screaming babies, screaming chickens, until  she finally got so tired she’d wring their necks the way her husband said he would.

In the morning, when her husband had left for town, she marched to the chicken coop, adrenaline causing her hands to shake. There was leftover chicken wire in their cellar they hadn’t used but had kept in case the chickens reproduce. With pliers, she cut the chicken wire, fastening a long rod out of it. The chickens walked around her, puzzled by the fact Emily didn’t have any grain in her hands. She squatted, lifting her dress above her hips, the chicken coop hiding the indecency. She couldn’t hold in the scream and set the chickens into another frenzy.

“Emily!” a voice called.

Their neighbour, a red-headed woman, ran to their house, arms flailing.

“Shit,” Emily said.

She threw the chicken wire to the side, using her dress to wipe up the blood streaming down her leg.

“What on earth is going on here?” the woman asked.

Emily couldn’t hide what she’d done. With understanding, her neighbour nodded and led Emily back inside.

“I couldn’t go through with it,” Emily said while her neighbour poured water into their basin. “Look where we are.”

“I don’t blame you,” her neighbour said.

They didn’t speak about it any longer. The pain remained between Emily’s legs the rest of the day, hitting her especially hard when she had to bury the chicken wire.

Emily betrayed herself by telling her husband of what she had done. Her husband screamed louder than she ever heard him and she feared the vein in his neck would pop and he’d bleed out on their floor. She didn’t try to rebut. She simply let him have his moment of anger.

Emily didn’t realise how much of his anger poured over until she found herself inside the mason jar. She knew leaving good preserves out on the ledge in the summer heat made them go bad faster. How long would she be able to hold her breath when the smell became spoiled?

When her husband stormed out of the house, stopping at the porch to lace up his boots she hit her fist against the jar once more.

“Let me out of here!” she screamed.

When darkness fell she longed for her bed and a kiss from the open window’s air. The jar had cooled down some and she found a stray piece of raspberry to use as a pillow, the jelly comfortable enough to use as a cot. She rubbed her abdomen when she laid down, the pea gone, the pain between her legs a dull ache.

The night felt like it lasted only a moment. When she woke up a girl stared into the jar. Her hair was brown and fell to her shoulders, her eyes a misty shade of grey. She stared at Emily, unmoving.

“Can you let me out of here?’ Emily asked.

The girl continued to stare into the jar. Emily moved from side to side, and the girl’s eyes followed. She was human-sized, unlike Emily who was basically Thumbelina. Emily’s heart rate sped up at the thought of the girl taking the jar. She could let Emily out when she reached the bottom of it, but would Emily stay small forever? Or would she be herself again if she found her way out of here?

The jar rumbled when a thunderstorm rolled in, knocking Emily off her feet. When she looked back up the girl was gone and the rain had started. The chickens hid in their coop as the ground turned muddy. Emily’s husband returned, kicking his boots off on the porch. She hated him at that moment. She wasn’t sure she ever truly loved him but she knew he was the reason she was in that jar. She felt it in her heart. It would’ve been easier to submit to him, have the baby and devote the rest of her life to unhappiness. She would pretend to be happy, solely for the sake of her children so they didn’t grow up with hate or sadness in their hearts. But Emily wasn’t an actress. 

She sank back down and counted the raspberry seeds. Maybe if she had  sold enough jars of preserves she would have considered children. But did she even want them? For a second she felt dizzy and was worried the blood loss had caught up to her. She decided if she had the money from the preserves she would’ve used it to catch a bus to the state over and find a proper clinic.

Emily’s night remained the same. Sleep took her one minute and the next she woke up to a little boy staring into her jar. Brown hair, misty eyes. He looked like the girl from yesterday. She stood up to face him better. The only thing that moved were his eyes and she screamed.

“Why won’t you help me?” Emily asked. “I need to get out of here!”

The little boy looked younger than the girl, but wrinkles formed on his forehead and beside his eyes. Suddenly Emily was staring at the face of her husband. She backed up, hitting the side of the jar.

“You bastard,” Emily said. “Let me out.”

The side of her husband’s lip quivered into a smile. He lifted the jar with both hands, holding it up to the sun. The preserves heated up along with Emily’s anger. It grew even more when the sun showed the truth of the jar she was in. There were two whole raspberries in there with her that  she hadn’t noticed before.

Her husband took the jar and sat it on the ledge of the porch. Emily saw the girl and boy walk through the door with him. The house looked cold and her husband smiled again before closing the door. Emily pounded her fist against the jar, tipping it closer and closer to the edge. She finally found the strength to tip it over and she held her breath as the jar fell to the ground and shattered.

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Piper L. White is a self-published author and lead marketing/social media coordinator for Grimsy literary magazine. Her work has been featured in Atlantis, Carolina Muse Arts, amongst others. Her debut chapbook, Barefoot In The Woods, was published by Bottlecap Press in May 2022.