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[Ariana Lenoir]

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[This is a story from Ariana's childhood and helps set the stage for the woman she is today.]


A white marble jar sat perched on top of the towering ice box. It shone brilliantly in the early morning light of the kitchen as a small girl gazed longingly up at it. It wasn't simply a jar to her very young mind. It was everything. The blood of the Avatar, the comforting thrumming of the abbey monks, the warmth of sunshine, the smell of fresh wind-dried linens and the feeling of downy kitten fluff rolled into one... and she longed... no... needed it with every fiber of her being.

Cookies. The word itself, even when simply murmured in the child's mind elicited a salivation and aching of desire that tore fitfully at her insides and her concepts of right and wrong. Forbidden fruit. She knew she wasn't supposed to have a cookie for breakfast, in fact her mother had been catching her the last three weeks in her attempts at their liberation from that marble jar that held their sweet, intoxicating aroma confined.

The small girl eyed the jar thoughtfully, keeping her head tilted to try and hear any approaching maternal deity that might catch her in the act. Her nose crinkled up in memory as she recalled the last few weeks as she worked towards her ultimate evil-genius cookie liberation from the confines of their marble prison.


It was the same thing every time she had made an attempt. Her mother always came in right before her ultimate success as if she had ultra-secret cookie cognition. Just before she was able to taste the fruits of her efforts with the never-failing, "Just what do you think you are doing, young lady?" She had tried several responses and so far she had been unsuccessful in her ways of combating that hated question.

First, she tried distraction. She started with flattery such as telling her she looked very beautiful to pointing out other points of interest such as "That's a pretty vase over there." in hopes of making her mother forget about the cookie in her hand. She tried different types of flattery or pointing out different objects, but this never worked. She was always given a "Nice try," before the jar was snatched up by her mother and set back on top of the ice box.

Next, she tried bribery and blackmail. She tried telling her mother that she would be a good girl for the rest of the day if she was allowed to keep the cookie. She tried changing it to week, month and year, but again to no avail. All she did get was a few harsh words from her mother and a stern look before again the cookie jar was removed from her possession. Desperate, she tried to blackmail her mother by telling her if she let her keep the cookie she wouldn't tell her father that she went out and bought a new dress. Her mother informed her that her father knew about the dress and she was sent to her room. She made a few more attempts trying to think of things that her mother did that her father didn't know, but none of it seemed to work and as usual she was sent to her room until dinnertime.

Running out of ideas, she had tried simply telling the wicked truth that she was getting a cookie. That answer was met with her mother's hands on her hips, a strong "I don't think so" which always preceded her mother picking up the jar and placing it firmly back on top of the ice box. She tried doing it several times a day, different times of the day, using flowery 'nice' words or flattery of her mother to see if it changed the outcome. After a week of this extensive testing, she came to the solid conclusion that telling the truth, no matter how you did it, never got you what you wanted.

Finally, she tried the next logical step, she lied. This time her results were ultimately the same, but usually followed-up with the threat phrase every child dreads, "Go to your room, think about what you did and wait for your father to come home." She tried liberating the cookies at different times of days, or several times a day to see if time was a factor in the response in correlation with a lie. Unsuccessful, she determined it must be the lie itself and that it simply wasn't good enough. She tested a series of simple lies which usually included "Nothing" in the phrase. When that didn't work she moved on to more flamboyant ones which usually entailed something along the lines that brigands had broken into the house, taken the jar and she had fought them off, saved the cookie jar and fearing that they may have poisoned the cookies she was testing one in order to keep her mommy and daddy safe. Again, the response was the same although her mother's foot tapped during the long-winded tale with a few rolls of her eyes. She proceeded to lies which focused on others such as saying her daddy said she could have one when he actually hadn't or that the neighbor asked for a cookie and she was getting it for them. Again, it was a definite no-go.

The talks with her father pretty much followed the same script, none of which she listened to. She had learned early that if you go "Uh-huh" or an "I'm sorry" and nod your head a few times that it eventually got the grown-up to be quiet. As long as you paid attention to when it was a question by the escalation of their voice at the end of the sentence and threw in a "I don't know" you could survive the five minutes until they wrapped the speech up with "I'm glad we had this talk", a kiss on the forehead and permission to escape into the house again.

The last night though, something changed in the little girl. Perhaps it was boredom or perhaps it was some piece that wanted to please her father, but she really listened to him.

Toward the end, she asked, "How come Mommy always knows when I'm lying?" After all, In her eyes she thought she had told some absolutely clever ones.

Her father smiled, "Your Mother and Father are very good at detecting lies and that no matter how much practice someone has or how well thought out the lie, there is always some sign that they aren't telling the truth."

The little girl thought about that for awhile and then asked him, "Do you and Mommy ever lie, Daddy?"

"All the time, ' he responded, much to the little girl's surprise.

"Do you get caught?" she asked.

"Never, " he said with slightly amused smile.

The little girl frowned with a perplexed look on her face as she scrunched up her nose in thought. She looked up at him and inquired, "How come you don't get caught by other people when you lie if you can always tell when someone is lying?"

Her father laughed gently and poked the tip of her scrunched up nose with the tip of a finger which caused her to giggle a bit as he said, "Because we lie and then we don't lie. If your body and mind believe your words are the truth, than your body won't betray the fact you're lying."

She wiggled her nose a bit, "I don't understand."

"Think of it this way, " he said as he sat on the edge of her bed. "Let's say I'm going out to the market, but I'm always going to the tavern too. An' your mother asks me where I'm going and I say I'm going to the market. Am I telling the truth?"

The little girl pondered for a few moments as her brain tried to wrap around the notion. She then answered, "Yes because you really are going to the market and you just aren't telling her about the tavern, right?"

He smiled, "Good. Now what if I told someone I wouldn't hurt them and then I do so five minutes later. Am I telling the truth?"

The little girl frowned, not so much at the hurting someone, but at the complexity at the scenerio. She was quiet for several minutes as her father sat still next to her and patiently let her sort out her thoughts before she spoke. Finally, he was rewarded as she smiled a bit and looked at him and said with a confident voice, "Yes, you'd be telling the truth."

"Explain, " her father said patiently.

"You told him you wouldn't hurt him and then you did, but you didn't say you'd never hurt him or that you wouldn't hurt him in the next five minutes so you really were kinda telling the truth, " she spouted out.

"Exactly, " he smiled with a look of pride as he stood and ruffled her hair. "Go wash your hands in the basin and then come down for dinner, Ariana."

"Alright!" she piped as she hopped off the bed and sped out of the room towards the wash room.


An so she stood as the last of the memories left her, still staring at the cookie jar. She pursed her dainty lips and then walked out of the kitchen to the living room. Her father sat their with a newspaper and a cup of hot tea. She slided up and putting on her most sweet smile, she asked her father, "Daddy, may I please have a cookie?"

Her father folded one corner of the paper down and peered over at his daughter and said, "Asking now are we?"

She simply smiled and repeated the question with her best award-winning smile.

Her father chuckled softly, "You can have a cookie later, not right now."

She smiled and said, "Okay, Daddy. " and kissed him on the cheek before skipping back to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, her mother enters the kitchen just as she reaches her hand into the cookie jar and begins the same way she always does, "Just what do you think you are doing, young lady?"

"I'm getting a cookie. Daddy said I could have one, " the little girl states confidently.

Her mother arched one of her eyebrows and looked the little girl over carefully. As she was doing so, her father having heard his daughter's incriminating statement, came into the kitchen and stood behind her mother. The mother frowned and looked back over her shoulder at him. He shook his head a little and said, "Ariana, I said you can have one later. I said not right now."

She smiled up at him and then looked at both of them, the brilliance of confidence in her mischievous, blue eyes. "I know. It is later and I deemed the time right now had already passed. Am I lying, Daddy?" she said boldly.

They paused a moment, looked at each other and back to their young daughter. Her mother's hand went to her mouth as her eyes welled up with tears and her father took a step forward to put his arms around his wife's waist.

Her father smiled at his wife and then looked down at the little girl. "No, you're not." They watched quietly as the little girl's eyes lit up and quickly yanked the cookie she had been working so hard for out of its marble prison and shoved it into her mouth with reckless abandon.
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