Helps With The Bitterness.

Sara ran.
Her lungs clawed for air, her chest throbbed, and her legs burned with every step. She hated being tall. Hated the way her knees stuck out in photos, the way teachers asked her to reach things, the way she couldn’t disappear.
She’d put her phone on charge during lunch, just like always. She’d even checked it before leaving school—82%. Enough to get home. Enough to feel safe.
But now, as she stumbled down an unfamiliar street, the screen flickered once, then died. Battery empty. She pressed the power button again, harder this time. Nothing. The silence felt heavier now, like the air had thickened. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts. The houses looked wrong—too far apart, too quiet. The sky had turned the colour of bruised fruit.
She collapsed outside a crooked house with a broken garden wall. The bricks were mossy, the gate rusted open. Her panic bloomed. Her mum would be worried—she should’ve been home an hour ago. She imagined her mum pacing, calling, texting, the messages bouncing off a dead screen.
A voice called out. “You alright, dear?”
Sara looked up. An old woman, maybe eighty, peered over the garden wall. Her hair was silver and coiled like smoke. She wore a cardigan that appeared to be knitted from fog.
“I’m lost,” Sara said, breathless. “My phone’s dead.”
The woman nodded, as if she’d expected this. “Come in. Use mine. I’ll make coffee.”
Sara hesitated. The house looked like it had grown tired of standing. The windows were clouded, the curtains drawn. But the woman’s voice was soft, and the garden smelled of lavender and mint.
Inside, the hallway was narrow, lined with sepia photos of children who didn’t smile. The wallpaper peeled in places, revealing layers of older patterns beneath—floral, geometric, faded stars. Sara dialled her mum’s number and left a shaky message. “I’m okay. Just… I hate being tall.”
The woman returned with two steaming mugs. “Sweeteners,” she said, dropping a small white pill into Sara’s cup from a tin box. “Helps with bitterness.”
Sara sipped. The warmth settled her. The coffee tasted earthy, almost ancient. The woman sat opposite, her eyes gleaming like polished stone.
They sat in silence for a moment. The house creaked softly, like it was listening.
Then Sara spoke. “I was running because they wouldn’t stop.”
The woman tilted her head.
“Gareth Jones,” Sara said. “He called me ‘beanpole’ again. Loud enough for the whole corridor to hear. Then the others joined in. They chanted it like it was a spell. Like it could shrink me.”
The woman nodded slowly.
“I hate it,” Sara whispered. “I hate being tall. I hate how people look at me like I’m older than I am. I hate how teachers ask me to reach things, like I’m a ladder. I hate how I can’t hide. I just want to be… smaller. Invisible.”
The woman’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’re tired of being seen.”
Sara nodded. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry. Not here. Not yet.
The woman leaned forward, her voice low and steady. “Let me tell you a story while we wait,” she said. “About a boy named Midge.”

Henry Joseph Malcolm MacDonald, known to everyone as Midge, was short. Not just short. A foot shorter than the boys, two feet shorter than the girls. He hated it. Not in the casual, self-deprecating way some kids hated their braces or their parents’ taste in music. Midge hated his height with a quiet, burning intensity. It was the first thing people noticed, the last thing they forgot. He was the punchline, the nickname, and the reason people always picked him last.
He tried everything. Stretching exercises from dubious online forums. Letting classmates pull his arms until they ached. He hung from monkey bars for hours, convinced that gravity would eventually reward his persistence. He tried eating only protein; chicken, eggs, tuna from the tin. He tried sleeping upside down, legs hooked over the headboard like a bat. He read somewhere that drinking milk at midnight might help. He drank until he vomited.
One day, he stole his father’s weights. He climbed the only tree in the neighbourhood, crooked old thing that leaned like it was tired of standing, and tied a rope to a branch. He looped it around his legs, attached the weights to his wrists, and jumped. He hung there overnight like a forgotten ornament, swaying gently in the wind.
His father found him at dawn, pale and trembling, and grounded him for a week. Not for the danger, but for the embarrassment. “What if the neighbours saw?” he’d said, shaking his head.
Midge gave up. Not all at once, but in pieces. He stopped checking his height against the doorframe. Stopped asking the school nurse if growth spurts could come late. He folded himself inward, like a note no one wanted to read.
Until he met her.
Her voice had the quality of rain-soaked sound, and her eyes were like wet leaves. She stood in the hedge clearing behind the school, where no one went. The place was overgrown, full of brambles and forgotten wrappers, but she stood there as if she considered it sacred.
“You’re unhappy,” she said, without preamble. “I can help.”
Midge blinked. He was used to being ignored, not addressed. Especially not by strange young women in hedge clearings.
She showed him a pill—small, white, from a tin that looked older than the school itself. “Take it with coffee before bed,” she said. “But don’t go to bed. Go outside. Sleep standing up. You’ll grow taller than you ever imagined.”
Midge pocketed the pill. He didn’t believe her. But she met him every day after school. She never asked questions. Never mocked him. Just stood in the clearing, waiting. His classmates noticed. “Your girlfriend’s waiting!” they’d shout. Midge flushed, but he kept going. After two months, he’d had enough.
That night, he brewed coffee, dropped in the pill, and drank it. The taste was bitter, metallic. He crept outside and stood in the garden, eyes closed, heart thudding.
At midnight, pain stabbed through him. Not the ache of growing bones, but something deeper. His limbs stiffened. His skin turned brown and rough. Fingernails greened. His fingers grew slimy, wet. He tried to scream, but his throat was thick bark.
He looked down. Roots burst from his shoes, curling into the soil. He was immobile. He was becoming a tree.
He tried to move. His arms creaked. His knees locked. He felt his thoughts slow, like syrup thickening in winter. The stars above blurred. The wind whispered through his branches.
He felt everything; rain, laughter, grief.

His mother noticed the new tree the next morning. “Was that always there?” she asked. His father shrugged. They didn’t notice the darkened room until noon. Then they realised Midge was gone.
They searched the house. Called the school. Filed a report. His bed was still made, his shoes still damp from yesterday’s rain. The milk carton he’d left out was sour by morning. His phone blinked with unread messages. But Henry—Midge—was gone.
His mother walked the garden in circles, calling his name like a spell. His father paced the pavement, muttering about runaways and bad influences. Neighbours peeked through curtains. The school sent automated sympathy emails. A flyer was printed. His face—small, hopeful, slightly pixelated—was taped to lampposts and bus stops.
But the tree remained.
It hadn’t been there yesterday. Not exactly. Now it stood tall, bark rough and dark, leaves trembling in the wind like they knew something. It cast a long shadow across the garden, reaching toward the house.
They didn’t notice how its branches curled protectively. How its roots had cracked the soil in the shape of a boy’s footprint. How the air around it felt thick with memory.
They searched the house. Called the school. Filed a report.
But the tree remained.
Silent.
Watching.
Time moved on. Eventually Midge was all but forgotten.

Eventually, children built treehouses in his branches. A family buried their dog at his foot, and Midge felt companionship. The woman visited now and then, aging slowly. She whispered to him, sometimes sang. Her voice curled around his leaves like smoke.
He watched seasons pass. Birds nested in him. Snow clung to his limbs. He felt everything—rain, laughter, grief. He became a landmark. A fixture. A myth.
He grew. Taller than any boy in his class. Taller than the school. His branches stretched toward the sky, aching with memory. He felt the world shift around him. New buildings rose. Old ones crumbled. Children came and went, carving initials into his bark. He bore their secrets like tattoos.
Sometimes, he dreamed. Not in words, but in sensations. The warmth of a summer afternoon. The sting of a scraped knee. The quiet joy of being noticed.
Years passed. One day, the woman returned and found him gone. Someone had chipped the tree for a new school playground. A sleek, glass structure with biometric gates and automated lessons. No room for myth. No room for memory.
She stood in the clearing, holding the tin. She said, “You should have grown, not to vanish.”
But Midge hadn’t vanished. Not entirely.
At the new school, there was a mural. A tree, painted in soft greens and browns, its branches stretching across the wall. No one knew who had painted it. It appeared overnight without permission. The principal wanted it removed, but the students protested. They said it felt right. Like something that had always been there.
In the mural, the tree had eyes. Not cartoonish, but subtle. Eyes like wet leaves.
And sometimes, when the wind blew just right, the branches seemed to whisper.
Midge had grown. Not in the way he’d imagined, but in how it matters. He had become a story. A memory. A myth that refused to be erased.

The woman leaned back. “It’s wrong to get preoccupied with the way you look,” she said.
Sara finished her coffee. Her chest felt warm. Her legs no longer ached. The heat spread slowly, like ink in water, softening the edges of her panic. Her shoulders dropped. Her spine felt lighter. She looked down at her hands—they seemed thinner, paler, almost translucent in the lamplight. There was a knock at the door. The old woman didn’t flinch. She stood slowly, smoothing her fog-coloured cardigan, and walked to the door. She opened it with the latch still on. Her eyes gleamed through the gap like candlelight behind frosted glass.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m looking for my daughter,” said the woman outside. Her voice was tight, clipped with worry. “She’s tall. Brown hair. She called from this number.”
“No girls here,” the old woman replied. “Haven’t seen anyone.”
Sara’s mother frowned. Her coat was damp at the shoulders, her mascara slightly smudged.
“She told me she was lost.” The old woman tilted her head.
“Lots of girls hate something about themselves. It passes.” Sara’s mother hesitated. The porch light flickered. She shifted her handbag higher on her shoulder, brushing her fringe back. Her fingers lingered on her jawline, tracing the place where her skin had begun to loosen. She hated how her neck looked in photos now; how it folded when she turned. She hated the way her daughter had started to resemble her, in height if not in expression.
“She wouldn’t just vanish,” she said.
The old woman smiled. “Come in. Use the phone. I’ll make coffee.” Inside, the hallway smelled of lavender and old paper. Sara’s mother stepped carefully, her heels clicking against the floorboards. The house felt too quiet, like it had swallowed sound. She glanced at the sepia photos lining the walls—children with solemn eyes, their expressions blurred by time. She dialled her daughter’s number, her fingers trembling slightly. The line rang once, then cut to voicemail. She left a message.
“Sara, it’s Mum. I’m here. I’m worried. Please call back.”
A spider crawled across the table; small, white-bodied, with legs too long for its size. It moved with purpose, not panic. It paused beside the receiver, then skittered across a phone charger cable, coiled loosely on the table like a forgotten lifeline. Sara’s mother squashed it without thinking. The sound was soft. A muted crunch beneath her palm. She wiped her hand on a tissue from her bag, barely registering the act. The old woman returned, carrying two mugs.
“Sweeteners,” she said, dropping a pill into the coffee. “Helps with bitterness.” She paused mid-step. Her eyes flicked to the table. To the smear. To the charger cable, now slightly askew. Her face didn’t change, but something in her posture did. A subtle collapse, like a curtain falling behind the eyes. Sara’s mother took a sip. The coffee was strong, earthy. It settled in her throat like a stone.
The phone rang.
From inside the sitting room.
Sara’s mother turned. “Is that—?”
The old woman nodded. “Go ahead.”She followed the sound. The sitting room was dim, lit only by a single lamp with a shade that looked like pressed petals. The phone sat on a side table, old-fashioned, with a rotary dial. It rang again, then stopped.
Sara’s mother picked it up. “Hello?”
Silence. Then a faint sound. Not words. Not static. A soft clicking, like legs tapping glass. Then a whisper, barely audible: “I’m here.” She froze.
“Sara?”
The line went dead.

She turned back to the hallway. The old woman stood there, still holding her mug, her cardigan hanging like mist.
“What was that?” Sara’s mother asked.
The old woman didn’t answer. She walked slowly to the table, picked up the charger cable, and coiled it neatly. She looked at the smear again. Her fingers hovered over it, not touching.
“She was unhappy,” the woman said quietly. “She wanted to be smaller. To disappear.”
Sara’s mother’s voice cracked. “She’s my daughter.”
“She was,” the woman said. “She still is. Just… not in the way you expect.” Sara’s mother stepped forward.
“What did you do?” The old woman looked up. Her eyes were tired now, the gleam dimmed. “I offered her quiet. She drank it.” Sara’s mother backed away.
“You’re mad.” The old woman didn’t argue. She placed her mug on the table, beside the tissue.
“She was tired of being seen. You know how that feels.” Sara’s mother shook her head.
“She’s a child.”
“She’s a girl,” the woman said. “And girls are taught to hate the space they take up. She wanted to be less. So I gave her less.” Sara’s mother turned toward the door. Her breath came fast now, shallow. She reached for her bag, her coat, her keys. The old woman didn’t stop her. At the threshold, Sara’s mother paused. The porch light flickered again. She looked back once, just once, at the hallway, the photos, the table. The smear was gone. The charger cable was gone. The coffee sat untouched. The old woman stood in the doorway, her cardigan trailing like fog.
“She was brave,” she said softly. “She chose transformation.” Sara’s mother didn’t reply. She stepped into the night, heels clicking against the pavement, her shadow stretching long behind her.

Inside, the house exhaled. The old woman sat down, slowly, carefully. She looked at the empty mug. She looked at the place where the spider had been. Her fingers trembled slightly. She leaned back.
“It’s wrong,” she whispered, “to get preoccupied with the way you look.” Then she reached for the tin.

And waited.