The Pendulum

“Creature Comforts 7” by MP Vare

The pendulum appears in the house in March. Abigail does not know if it has arrived by post or if her mother has bought it in a shop in the city. It’s a teardrop-shaped milky crystal attached to a rather chunky silver chain. Her mother holds it gently by the chain in two fingers. It dangles there as an extension of her mother’s arm.

It is a mild March. Sun fills the rooms of the house and in the afternoons they can sometimes sit out. Abigail is aware that their house is beautiful, special. Almost white wooden floorboards run the length of the house, large windows and doors with grids, silver frames on the walls with paintings of birch trees. Maybe she knows from her parents, maybe it’s just something in the air, something solemn and careful, a feeling that you might break something if you make a sound or a sudden movement. She walks the wooden floors with care.

The house is on the edge of the forest and when you look out, all you can see are trees. Behind you, you can feel the life of other people in other houses in the village but in front of you all is still.

*** 

Abigail’s mother’s hands are long and narrow, the outlines of bones and tendons visible on the back of her hands. Abigail watches them as her mother gets a glass from the cupboard and fills it with milk for Abigail.

Abigail and her mother go outside and sit on the porch in the mild March sun. They sit across from each other and her mother looks up and smiles at Abigail. Then she reaches into her pocket and takes out a small turquoise silk pouch. This is where she keeps the pendulum. The pendulum feels disturbing to Abigail. In a way it is a piece of jewelry, but it does not look like the jewelry her mother normally wears, which is gold and delicate. Compared to them, the pendulum seems heavy, almost pushy, present between them as more than just an item. And her mother does not wear it like jewelry, she keeps it in this pouch and takes it out on occasions, their terms unclear to Abigail, like now.

Abigail takes her glass and is just about to drink from it but her mother catches her hand and together, her mother’s hands leading hers, they put the glass of cold milk in the middle of the table between them. The stiff round leaves of the Alder trees rustle.

Her mother retrieves the pendulum from its pouch. Its dense presence in her mother’s thin hands. For a moment her mother closes her eyes and bends her head slightly while she holds the pendulum in her open palms, her lips moving. Then she opens her eyes again and looks up at Abigail with a small, closed, ready smile.

“Remember Abigail, if it moves back and forth between us, it’s a yes, the other way is a no, a circle means maybe or I don’t know.”

Abigail nods.

The pendulum now hangs as an extension of her mother’s arm over the cold glass of milk. Her mother holds her arm and fingers very still, again she closes her eyes briefly, then opens them.

“Is Abigail allergic to milk? Is Abigail allergic to milk?”

Slowly the pendulum starts moving. At first, it’s hard to see which way, it just seems to tremble a little, unsure. Then its movements become bigger. Abigail feels a strange fear come over her, maybe it’s a fear that has been building for a while, lying just under the surface of her skin. It is not the kind of sudden fear she feels when she sees an older boy with a stone in his hand, this fear is slow, gradually increasing like the movement of the pendulum and it is diffuse, in a way, not aimed at anything Abigail can identify. It is not a fear you can bring to anybody and ask for help and comfort with.

“Is Abigail allergic to milk?”

Now the pendulum’s movements become more resolute, and soon it’s clear it’s moving back and forth between Abigail and her mother, answering a clear yes.

Her mother nods almost unnoticeably, she lets the pendulum swing a few more times.

“Thank you,” she says. Slowly the pendulum stops moving before she gathers it in her palm, bends her head towards it, and puts it back in its pouch and into her pocket.

“See Abigail,” her mother looks up at her.

“Yes,” Abigail says.

Her mother pushes the glass of milk towards her. It is cold in her hand. Abigail follows her mother into the kitchen. They stand next to each other in front of the sink.

“Pour it out now,” her mother says.

Abigail pours the milk out, it runs towards the drain, whitish, almost blue, cloudy like the film that little by little covers people’s eyes when they are ill.

*** 

Abigail’s father is a man. His muscles lie right under the skin. Sometimes he grows a beard. Sometimes he smiles at Abigail. Everybody smiles at Abigail. He has taught her to ride a bike, he comes home at night.

“Hello,” he calls out in the hallway.

Sometimes he has a shower before dinner.

Abigail helps her mother set the table. They have steak for dinner. Abigail has a small piece cut off her mother’s. She carefully cuts all her meat into small bits before she starts eating. Her father chews. Her mother dishes salad leaves onto her plate. Salad is such a quiet food.

“Did everything go okay today?” her father asks her mother.

Her mother looks up, puts her cutlery down on her plate while still holding on to it.

“Of course everything went okay,” she says.

And Abigail doesn’t know what her father means either, because she and her mother were just home today as planned. It is the holidays.

Now the dinner is silent. Just the sound of the cutlery against the plates. Outside it is dark. It gets completely black here in front of you against the forest. Abigail looks for stars from her chair through the window. Abigail looks for a lump in her mother’s pocket but there’s nothing there. The pendulum is a secret, at night it is hidden somewhere. Abigail would like to find it. She would like to hold it, feel its weight, its power. The cold crystal against the palm of her hand like a cut.

*** 

It is important to eat breakfast. Her father is the master of breakfast. You would think that breakfast was the simple little meal maybe, the one you could easily just ignore, skip, but it is not. There are thick lumps of rye bread, jelly made from meat juice. There’s porridge with bacon and honey, and white beans. Her father eats all of these things while Abigail watches him. He puts a spoonful of white beans on Abigail’s plate.

“We’ll just eat when you’ve left,” her mother says coming in from the kitchen with a pot of tea. She pours for Abigail’s father.

He doesn’t say anything. He chews. He winks at Abigail.

Abigail takes a few white beans with her fingers, puts them in her mouth. She breaks their skin with her teeth. They have a mealy consistency, a metallic taste. She chews and chews until the beans become a mush. She leaves the mush on her tongue.

Abigail and her mother eat fruit for breakfast after her father has left. Her mother peels a tangerine. She gives one section to Abigail and one section to herself. They eat that. Then her mother gives them each another section. It continues like that until the tangerine is gone. Sometimes if they are still hungry, her mother cuts up an apple as well. They are not still hungry today.

Her mother cleans the house, she vacuums, wipes down surfaces, she washes the floor, opens all the windows to air out. Abigail sits in a sunbeam on the porch.

*** 

In the afternoon her mother calls Abigail into the kitchen. She has filled a bowl with walnuts and almonds. She gives Abigail the bowl and they go to sit on the porch. They sit across from each other and Abigail’s mother takes the small turquoise pouch from her pocket. The pendulum seems heavier in her mother’s palms today, as if it’s an effort holding them out there in front of her, as if she’s begging. She opens her eyes and holds the pendulum by the chain in two fingers over the bowl of nuts.

“Is Abigail allergic to nuts? Is Abigail allergic to nuts?”

Abigail is torn. On the one hand she wishes for a no because she loves nuts, but on the other hand she wishes for a yes because she somehow knows that’s what her mother is wishing for. They both stare at the pendulum, waiting for its wisdom, its guidance, its verdict and judgement. Slowly the pendulum starts moving, almost imperceptibly at first, the direction unclear, then gradually gathering in pace and power until the answer is undeniable, the pendulum swings back and forth between Abigail and her mother, yes.

“Thank you,” her mother says to the pendulum as it stills. Then she puts the pendulum away safely in its pouch in her pocket.

“Shall we, Abigail?” she says with a strange resigned joy.

Her mother throws the first handful over the edge of the porch into the garden. Then she nods and Abigail does the same, as if they’re sowing seeds. When the bowl is empty, her mother gets all the bags of nuts from the cupboard in the kitchen and they throw all of them into the garden too. Maybe next year tiny shoots of walnut and almond will sprout everywhere, dense as a lawn.

*** 

Twice a week, Abigail’s mother runs in the forest with her friend from the village. Abigail watches her mother getting changed into her running clothes in the bedroom. Her mother stands in front of the wardrobe. Abigail stands just inside the doorway, not quite in the bedroom. Her mother’s body is long and narrow like her hands, her skin has an almost bluish color. The hip bones on either side of her stomach stick out.

“Abigail,” her mother says when she notices Abigail there.

Abigail feels the shame run like heat from her neck down her back. She leaves the room but only steps just outside, stands there with her back turned to the bedroom and her mother, listening. She hears the rustle of clothes, she can feel the chill of the air on her mother’s skin on her own, she shivers. Then she hears a zip being closed, her mother’s running jacket, and Abigail rushes into the living room unseen.

Her mother’s friend picks her up. She comes to the forest side of the house. She comes running up through the garden with a light but powerful gait. If they are not outside, she knocks on the glass of the garden door. She runs on the spot. The friend and her mother might hug.

“Stand still,” her mother says laughing and starts running on the spot too. It’s always a surprise to Abigail to see this kind of movement in her mother. And her mother seems so different, so revived and vivid in her friend’s company.

Then they start running down through the garden towards the forest. Her mother turns.

“Lock the door, Abigail,” she shouts over her shoulder.

The friend makes a funny face at Abigail and makes her run silly for her. Abigail laughs. She likes her mother’s friend.

They disappear into the forest. For a while, Abigail can glimpse the bright colors of their running jackets between the tree trunks and branches, then they are gone.

Abigail steps backwards into the house, not turning her back to the outside, to the forest and garden. She locks the door, lets her hand stay on the door handle for a while. Lock the door, Abigail.

When she’s alone, it’s almost as if movement becomes dangerous. Sometimes she forces herself to run, like her mother and her friend, back and forth along the length of the house. She runs fast but carefully, on her tiptoes on the white wooden floor, trying not to make much sound. But mostly she sits by the window watching the garden and the forest, waiting. Though the windows have a different quality when she’s alone, when she’s suddenly so aware, and she feels she must hide. She gets a blanket and creeps into the corner of the living room by the window, wraps the blanket around herself so only her face peers out from the shadows. She keeps gazing into the garden and forest, unsure what she’s looking for, aware she has locked the door against something.

*** 

“Abigail,” they call, knocking on the glass if Abigail has fallen asleep in her blanket. Relieved they are back, she gets up to let them in. They bring a gust of outside in with them, wind and air, something dry and crisp. Both women stand panting for a while, bent over, their hands on their knees.

“Puuu,” they say and straighten up.

“What on earth were you doing child?” her mother says and laughs. She picks Abigail up in the blanket. Abigail likes to be called child.

Her mother and the friend make tea in the kitchen, if it’s warm they drink it outside on the porch, otherwise they sit on the couch together with their legs pulled up. Abigail is happy and there’s no need to listen in.

*** 

On this particular day though, the friend arrives at the front door. The doorbell rings and her mother comes out of the bedroom in her running clothes. She looks towards the garden, then opens the front door. Abigail follows her. There’s the friend, she’s in her normal clothes, jeans and a jumper, her car parked in the driveway.

“Hi Abigail sweetie,” she says over the shoulder of Abigail’s mother.

“Hi,” Abigail says.

“Is everything okay?” her mother asks.

“Yes, yes, everything is okay,” the friend says.

Her mother steps aside to let her in.

“I’ll just get something in the car.” She seems a bit nervous, not like her normal self. She runs towards her car.

Abigail and her mother stay by the open door in the hallway. That side of the house is in shade at this time of the day. Here March doesn’t feel mild.

The friend comes back carrying a tall layer cake decorated with white and brown chocolate flowers. They step aside to let her in.

“Let’s have coffee,” the friend says. And walks to the kitchen in front of them. “Walnut and chocolate cake with praline frosting,” she says.

Abigail’s mother doesn’t say anything, she looks at her friend and the cake out of the corner of her eye while she puts the kettle on. Abigail starts running on the spot, swinging her arms back and forth, breathing hard.

The friend starts cutting the cake. She puts three large pieces on plates, hands Abigail one.

“Maybe you can go play in your room,” she says to Abigail.

“Abigail is allergic to nuts,” her mother says and takes the plate from Abigail, but indicates for her to go to her room.

All Abigail can hear are low whispering voices and now and again somebody walking on the floor. After what feels like a very long time to Abigail, she hears what sounds like a chair falling and then her mother’s voice shouting.

“This is like a fucking intervention.”

Abigail gets up and walks over to the door, she puts her hand on the door handle unsure what to do.

“Just get out.” Her mother’s voice sounds deeper than normally, almost sneering. Abigail opens the door and sees her mother pushing her friend towards the hallway, her friend’s powerful body resisting. Her mother pushing with all her power, her body pressed against her friend’s. Neither of them notices Abigail. Their struggling bodies disappear into the hallway.

“Can I say goodbye to Abigail?”

“No you can not.”

Abigail hears the door open, she feels the cold wind from the outside. She steps back into her room, closes the door. She takes the duvet from the bed to the corner of her room by the window, wraps herself in it. She’s alone in the house, the front door is open, the cold air from the outside is entering, it’s creeping under the door to her room, her mother is outside, her mother sounds like a stranger, like an animal, the friend is gone, the rooms of the house seem so large and white, empty, echoing, unable to be filled. All this as a sharp metallic feeling in Abigail’s back.

*** 

Abigail must have fallen asleep because she wakes to her mother unwrapping her from the duvet.

“Like a little parcel,” her mother says. She smiles. She smells of soap, clean, her hair and skin are damp, she must just have come out of the shower.

“Let’s have tea,” she says. She gently takes Abigail’s hand and they go to the kitchen. She puts the kettle on. She hands Abigail two mugs and Abigail puts them on the tray.

“Mint or cinnamon/apple?”

Abigail chooses cinnamon/apple. Her mother carries the tray to the living room. Clouds are covering the sky and it’s too cold to sit out today. Abigail starts when she sees the plates with the cake on the table. But her mother seems to ignore them, she puts their mugs of tea on each side of the table. They sit to drink. Her mother hums but Abigail doesn’t know the song, it’s quiet and slow.

“Well,” her mother says then, smiles at Abigail and takes the pouch from her pocket. She pushes one of the plates with cake into the middle of the table and holds the pendulum above it.

“Should I cut contact with Ella? Should I cut contact with Ella?”

Abigail sits as still as she can, she doesn’t look at her mother and only glances up at the cake and the pendulum. She feels a new and unfamiliar power coming from them, her mother and the pendulum, a hard smooth unison. The pendulum starts up faster today and it’s quicker to make up its mind. It swings back and forth, between Abigail and her mother. Her mother smiles.

“See, Abigail,” she says while the pendulum swings.

*** 

Her father brings the world, newspapers and sometimes marbles in his pocket. He is made of meat. He comes from the outside, enters. Abigail and her mother are here, inside, as if they were born in this house, as if it was their shell like a snail. Nobody knows where the pendulum comes from.

“What’s for dinner?” her father asks.

And today there’s lasagne. A six-layer lasagne, her mother has outdone herself.

“Well, well,” her father says.

Her father goes to the bin in the kitchen to throw something out and there he sees the cake, which is also at least six-layers, walnut and chocolate cake with praline frosting.

“What’s that cake doing there?” he asks.

Her mother is in the living room and doesn’t answer; maybe she doesn’t hear him

“Why is there cake in the bin?” he asks.

“I’m allergic to nuts,” Abigail says.

He looks at Abigail, puzzled, then he shakes his head, laughs, ruffles up her hair, funny little Abigail. Her mother comes into the kitchen.

“It was bad,” she says.

“How?” her father asks.

“Like butter,” her mother says. “Like when butter goes bad.”

“Like when butter goes bad,” her father says.

“Also, I’m allergic to nuts,” Abigail says again.

Her mother stares at her with penetrating eyes.

“What’s all this nonsense?” her father says, and almost, he almost enters completely, for a moment he looks at Abigail earnestly and urgently and Abigail holds her breath, she wants it and she doesn’t want it, it scares her like earthquakes, wars, and volcanoes that can make walls come down and ruin everything in an instant, and at the same time, she feels it is all she wants, that she might actually die without it. But then her father shakes his head, laughs a small overbearing almost non-existent laugh and goes into the living room to wait for dinner.

*** 

Abigail cannot sleep and part of her doesn’t want to sleep. She has opened the curtains to let the moon shine on her and keep her awake. She thinks hard about the pendulum, trying to make some connection with it, to get it to tell her where it is, where her mother keeps it when it is not in her pocket.

*** 

In the morning Abigail sits across from her father at the breakfast table. He eats large chunks of rye bread with meat juice jelly. He winks at Abigail. He puts bits of bacon on her plate. She picks one up and bites it, it is crispy and salty. She eats the whole piece and then another. Her father nods, she smiles. He reads in his paper with words and blurred pictures of bridges and roads. Abigail’s mother is in the kitchen, she’s standing by the sink letting the water run over her open palms.

They say goodbye to her father in the hallway, they wave to him, they watch the car reverse up the driveway. Then he is gone and her mother closes the door.

Her mother cleans, she vacuums, she makes sure to get all the way into the corners, she moves furniture, then she washes the floor with quick movements. Abigail sits on the couch and watches her.

“Lift your feet Abigail, or go somewhere else,” she looks up at Abigail, looks at her for a little too long as if she doesn’t trust her.

“I’ll have a shower,” she says when she’s done with the cleaning and this is what Abigail has been waiting for.

She waits until she hears the shower come on, then opens the door to the bathroom and quickly but silently closes it again so her mother won’t feel the cold air entering. The room is full of steam, warm and humid, it smells of flowers and coconut from her mother’s soap and shampoo. Her mother is behind the shower screen, so Abigail can’t see her but she can feel her there, she can feel her mother’s body in the room, breathing in the curtain of hot water falling on her, for a moment she will be soft and content. Abigail suddenly feels very tired, a strong urge to lie down and sleep comes over her. She could just lie down here on the floor in the humid warmth in the presence of her mother’s body and sleep. Abigail squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, no. No, Abigail. She opens her eyes again and looks around her. Her mother’s clothes are lying on the chair and in her mother’s pocket, she can see the lump of the pendulum.

The coldness of the rest of the house hits Abigail in the face as she leaves the bathroom. It feels like all the little drops of steam and sweat freeze on her skin. She lets out a small gasp.

In her room, she puts her shoes and jacket on and grabs the knapsack she has already packed. She leaves by the glass door, runs down through the garden and into the forest. If her mother looked, she would be able to see Abigail’s blue jacket now and again appearing between the tree trunks and branches until it was completely gone. Abigail hears her own breathing as she runs, she hears the dry leaves and small branches crackle under her shoes. Sometimes Abigail turns and when she can’t see the house anymore, she stops.

She has never been to the forest on her own before. The air is white and crisp. She stands among the birch trees, their long straight white trunks, and the thin branches where a light green sheen has started to show. The mild March sun. Abigail keeps expecting to see something moving between the trees, a deer maybe, a wolf, though there are no wolves here. Another human being. Things, maybe, to lock your door against. Or maybe her father. But Abigail is alone with the pendulum. She feels it there in her pocket pressing against her thigh, the way her mother must have felt it. She takes the pouch out of her pocket and the pendulum itself from the pouch. She puts it in her palm. Feels the hard milky crystal, the links in the chain one by one touching her palm. It is heavier than she expected, cold against her skin. Abigail stares at the pendulum now lying in her own hand. But it’s as if it has changed character out here in the ripe forest, without her mother, without the ceremony, without dangling from her mother’s bony fingers, and now more resembles something you see at a flea market and judge not worth buying. On a sudden impulse, Abigail kisses the pendulum then puts it back in its pouch.

With the trowel from her knapsack, Abigail digs a hole under a birch tree, in between its roots. She sits on her knees. The ground is dark brown. She looks at the beautiful turquoise silk pouch laying there in the hole. The dirty ground soils the smooth fabric and Abigail feels something like sorrow, like grief. For the pendulum, for her mother, and maybe for herself. And she feels a kind of finality, like something is over and it is the first time Abigail has experienced that feeling.

*** 

In the house, her mother opens the bathroom door. She has a towel wrapped around her head and one around her body. The hot steam stands like a cloud around her.

“Abigail,” she calls. “Abigail.”

About the Author

Ea Anderson is originally from Denmark and a graduate of The Danish Academy of Creative Writing (forfatterskolen). After moving to Scotland, she started writing in English. At the moment Ea lives in the south of France. 

Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Trampset, West Trade Review, and The Woven tale Press, among others. She’s the recipient of a Pushcart Prize 2025, volume XLIX. More information can be found on ea-anderson.com.

about the artist

MP Vare is a disabled transgender parent living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Lenapehoking. Their artistic life is shaped by becoming a later-in-life parent, the infertility journey that preceded parenthood, and the gender affirmation journey that followed. MP is dazzled by neuroplasticity and the shifting nature of identity; they are actively reparenting themself while raising three children. They are inspired by the process of coming to terms with disenfranchised grief and forgiveness. MP’s poetry and art appear in Opal Age Tribune and Beyond Queer Words.