Old Babes in the Wood

Contents Cover Other Titles Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Part I: Tig & Nell First Aid Two Scorched Men Morte de Smudgie Part II: My Evil Mother My Evil Mother The Dead Interview Impatient Griselda Bad Teeth Death by Clamshell Freeforall Metempsychosis: Or, the Journey of the Soul Airborne: A Symposium Part III: Nell & Tig A Dusty Lunch Widows Wooden Box Old Babes in the Wood Acknowledgements A Note About the Author Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Contents Start Copyright Print Page List ii iii v vi vii 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 175 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 255 256 257 259 
 
 
 
 
 Also by Margaret Atwood
 Shorter Fiction
 Dancing Girls
 Murder in the Dark
 Bluebeard’s Egg
 Wilderness Tips
 Good Bones and Simple Murders
 The Tent
 Moral Disorder
 Stone Mattress
 Novels
 The Edible Woman
 Surfacing
 Lady Oracle
 Life Before Man
 Bodily Harm
 The Handmaid’s Tale
 Cat’s Eye
 The Robber Bride
 Alias Grace
 The Blind Assassin
 Oryx and Crake
 The Penelopiad
 The Year of the Flood
 MaddAddam
 The Heart Goes Last
 Hag-Seed
 The Testaments
 Poetry
 Double Persephone
 The Circle Game
 The Animals in That Country
 The Journals of Susanna Moodie
 Procedures for Underground
 Power Politics
 You Are Happy
 Selected Poems: 1965–1975
 Two-Headed Poems
 True Stories
 Interlunar
 Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New, 1976–1986
 Morning in the Burned House
 Eating Fire: Selected Poetry, 1965–1995
 The Door
 Dearly
 Non-Fiction
 Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature
 Days of the Rebels: 1815–1840
 Second Words: Selected Critical Prose
 Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature
 Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (republished as On Writers and Writing)
 Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004
 Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing
 Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose, 1983–2005
 Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
 In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination
 Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004–2021
 For Children
 Up in the Tree
 Anna’s Pet (with Joyce Barkhouse)
 For the Birds
 Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut
 Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes
 Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda
 Wandering Wenda and Widow Wallop’s Wunderground Washery
 Graphic Novels
 Angel Catbird
 The Handmaid’s Tale
 War Bears
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by O.W. Toad, Ltd.
 All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
 www.doubleday.com
 Doubleday and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Owing to limitations of space, all acknowledgements to reprint previously published material appear on this page–this page.
 Cover illustration © Noma Bar / Dutch Uncle
 Cover design © Suzanne Dean
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Atwood, Margaret, author.
 Title: Old babes in the wood : stories / Margaret Atwood.
 Description: First Edition. | New York : Doubleday, [2023]
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022025775 (print) | LCCN 2022025776 (ebook) | ISBN 9780385549073 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780385549080 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Short stories.
 Classification: LCC PR9199.3.A8 O43 2023 (print) | LCC PR9199.3.A8 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20220623
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022025775
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022025776
 Ebook ISBN 9780385549080
 ep_prh_6.0_142781534_c0_r0
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For my readers.
 For my family.
 For friends and absent friends.
 For Graeme Gibson, as always.
 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I
 
 
 
 TIG & NELL
 FIRST AID
 TWO SCORCHED MEN
 MORTE DE SMUDGIE
 
 
 
 II
 
 
 
 MY EVIL MOTHER
 MY EVIL MOTHER
 THE DEAD INTERVIEW
 IMPATIENT GRISELDA
 BAD TEETH
 DEATH BY CLAMSHELL
 FREEFORALL
 METEMPSYCHOSIS: OR, THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
 AIRBORNE: A SYMPOSIUM
 
 
 
 III
 
 
 
 NELL & TIG
 A DUSTY LUNCH
 WIDOWS
 WOODEN BOX
 OLD BABES IN THE WOOD
 Acknowledgements
 
 _142781534_
 
 
 I
 
 
 
 TIG & NELL
 
 
 
 
 
 
 First Aid
 
 
 
 Nell came home one day just before dinnertime and found the front door open. The car was gone. There was a trail of blood splotches on the steps, and once she was inside the house, she followed it along the hall carpet and into the kitchen. There was a knife on the cutting board, one of Tig’s favourites, Japanese steel, very sharp—and beside it, a bloodstained carrot, one end severed. Their daughter, nine at the time, was nowhere to be found.
 What were