Two Go In And One Comes Out...

20250515

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Everyone in town knows the song. Children skip to it. Women beat laundry to it. Men chop wood to it. You learn the words long before you understand what they mean.
“Two go in, and one comes out
Zusova’s waiting, toothed and stout
She’ll grant your wish, have no doubt
But two go in and one comes out”
At some point you grow old enough to wonder what it means. It’s no longer enough for grownups to simply say “stay inside the fence, or Zusova will get you.”
You ask about the verses. The ones you know, at least. Maybe you’ve noticed that every family has their own versions of the rest of the song. Maybe you’ve noticed that some verses have names mentioned, accompanied by the singers slapping their chests in mourning.
Maybe you even understand what that signifies.
Either way, if you are old enough to ask, you’re deemed old enough to learn. So they will tell you the story.
Circling the village is the woods. And if you stayed up late, far past the time good children are in bed, you might hear in the distance a haunting, singsong call.
And if you were foolish and followed that call, it would lead you to a monster.
Zusova isn’t her name. It simply means “the toothed owl”. She is tall as the fence, and round as a barrel, and her tattered wings grasp like claws. She can’t fly. Instead she lurks in a dark burrow, singing her wicked song, and devouring anything which is lured by it.
Unless.
If two victims approach at the same time, and both have a wish in their mouth, Zusova will stop and listen. She will weigh each case. Then she will devour one victim and send the other away with their wish granted.
Nobody knows what fickle fancies steer her choice. There seemed no rhyme or reason to human minds. Perhaps it is simple chance. A desperate gambit. A flip of the coin.
Today, despite all the warnings and the fence and the story, there is a new verse to be sung.
“Two go in, and one comes out
The triplets thought them clever louts
Now they cannot cry nor pout
For three goes in then none comes out”
Perhaps, with childlike simplicity, you might ask why nobody tries to drive Zusova away. Can she not be killed?
This will be brushed aside with dire warnings.
Only when you are older, and you see the horrors of the world… when you have faced famine, or seen your family withering from sickness, or been threatened by raiders… only then will you understand why the village has never tried to get rid of Zusova. Then you will understand what might drive them to send, two by two, desperate petitioners with wishes in their mouths.
For two go in, and one comes out
Zusova’s waiting, toothed and stout
She’ll grant your wish, have no doubt
Once two go in and one comes out.

Prompt was “‘Two go in, and one comes out’ is the start to a dark nursery rhyme that everyone in the town knows.”