Once upon a summer, p.15
Once Upon a Summer, page 15
“Why turn her into a well?” I ask. “She’s upside down, cannot even…” I wave my hands around, angry at my voicelessness. “She’s alone.”
“She has had you,” Arden amends.
“She didn’t tell me.”
“She couldn’t. My father was specific with his words—just like she tried to be.”
I look at Arden, jaw so tight it hurts. Perhaps he is a trickster after all. “You saw it?”
“I heard it from the forest, though it would not tell me the complete tale. I have seen you talking to Stiorra, finding hearty wood and carving your instruments. You cared for her even when you thought she was one of my kind, and since she cannot tell you herself, I find I must tell you the conditions of her curse even if you can do nothing.”
“Can I? Do anything?”
He shrugs, frowning. “The conditions my father laid on her are these: So long as she speaks not of this spell, nor this tale, she shall be returned to her body if she is filled with that which will not weigh her down.” He purses his lips. “Whomsoever lays the curse has the answer in mind—though there are many possibilities, it is that one we must find. And there is but the last of summer to help her before she becomes the well she appears to be.”
I shake my head, taking my harp back into my lap like it’s a pillow that can bring me comfort. With my knife, I shave down the pillar with long strokes.
Summer will end in seven days. Stroke.
Where do we begin? Stroke.
“You would go against your father?” Pause. “How am I to trust you?”
“I swore I would not trick or harm anyone here, did I not?” He looks at me, blue eyes wide and earnest.
“I suppose you did,” I admit. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“You rejected what the forest destined for us, and it shook me, seeing all the paths I thought ahead of me wither. Can you blame me for needing time to recover my delicate sensibilities?”
I snort. “I think you should travel this path with me, if only so I might laugh.”
Arden smiles. “What sort of never-husband would I be if I didn’t?”
***
Arden knows the forest better than I and helps us avoid disturbing any of the good-folk with a penchant for biting, stealing, and riddling humans to disadvantage. Lily-Fingers calls out, and I announce our presence to Stiorra by stomping so she can hear us coming—not that she has any skirts to smooth or eyes to see us, but it gives her some choice in privacy.
“Someone is with you?” she asks when we stand under her.
“Yes,” I say, and nod as I would in the presence of any royalty. “This is Arden. He is one of the good-folk, which is rather funny considering he looks like a young man, but then I suppose they all do.” I shut my mouth, finding myself nervous and rambling for a reason I can’t name. “He told me about your curse, princess. I’d like to try breaking it.”
The water in Stiorra’s throat rushes faster, as though the words she cannot say are running away. “You shall have my gratitude, Juniper,” she murmurs. “And you, Arden, though I’m hesitant to accept help from…”
“I’m here to help,” he says. “I don’t play tricks as my father does.”
Stiorra gives a flat hum.
“We’ll do our best.” I would lay a comforting hand to her stone, but she’s too high to reach. “What can we fill you with that will not weigh you down? Have you any ideas, Arden?”
“My father never spoke the answer aloud.” He scratches a hand through his copper-red hair, curled like wood shavings. “Air?” With the flick of his hand, a breeze whips up the leaves around us and flies into the well. Nothing happens. “Breath?”
I hang my head, half in exasperation at how difficult this is already turning out to be, and half so I can look at the well. “Not to ask a foolish question, but have you tried breathing?”
A water-logged snort. “I’m a well.”
Sighing, I look at Arden. The very idea was ridiculous, if not something the good-folk would choose. I’ve heard tales of them using outlandish things as answers to their riddles and curses—bannocks, toe bones, three raps on a stone—and I think that’s where we should start looking. “We should find a storyteller. They’re good at taking threads of riddles and twisting them into answers.”
Arden nods. “They have a penchant for imbuing wisdom and truth in stories. It’s a talent my people fear.”
“So, we begin in the village.” I dust nonexistent wood curls from my skirt out of habit.
“Would you also look for my charm on your treks through the woods?” Stiorra asks. “It’s a moon of silver-dipped iron, and precious to me.”
Lily-Fingers crawws thrice and takes flight in a handsome swooping circle.
“Lily-Fingers will search for it,” I relay to her. “We’ll return soon.”
***
A silver-haired storyteller sits on a bench by the hearth, several children gathered at his feet. The tavern sits in comfortable chatter, not loud enough to drown him out, only enough to keep a steady rhythm about the room, constant as the smell of smoke and roast meat. It makes me uneasy, this calm. With so little time, sitting and buying mulled wine as we wait for the storyteller to finish has me fidgeting.
As it happens, we don’t need to approach him, for he comes to us. I offer him my untouched drink.
“Thank you,” he says, and sips. “Telling stories often comes at the cost of a sore throat.”
“It’s the same with playing the harp,” I say. “Sore fingers.”
“I am Cole. What is it you wish from me?”
“How do you know we want something from you?” I glance at Arden, sitting tall and quiet.
“I am a storyteller. To everything, there is a pattern, and I see the weaving of life as and before it happens. And you,” he looks at Arden, “you stand out to me like a stray thread.”
Arden cocks his head and says nothing until I explain our purpose here, where he tells Cole exactly what his father said. “So long as she speaks not of this spell, nor this tale, she shall be returned to her body if she is filled with that which will not weigh her down.”
Cole nods. “I can weave a tale in which you may find an answer.” He closes his eyes and drinks again, dirtying his purple sleeve when he wipes his mouth. His eyes dart beneath his eyelids.
“Where there was no wind, a woman danced,
her hair as brown as oak.
She volunteered her head to stone,
begged sailing winds from the good-folk.
For there was an army of leathered men
who wished to tread the sea,
but not a sail could billow when
the good-folk stilled the breeze.
Take from me what life I breathe,
she said, send these men to other shores,
And such a vision was she
that the good-folk could scarce ignore.
The king of old looked upon her,
and saw what she could be,
The very wind she begged for,
which her people now did plead.
He took her body, made it air,
and gave her rules to follow.
Fill her with something weightless and true,
to break her silence shortly after,
For how can joy be held without at least a little laughter?”
Laughter—have I made Stiorra laugh before? I thank the storyteller, though I dislike the tale he spun, and he smiles with a gleam in his eye only common in those who travel and tell the tales of it. “How can I pay you?”
“I shall simply keep this part of the story for my own,” he says, standing. “If it does not work, seek my kin in the next town. They are a better weaver than even me.”
I am inclined to agree, if only because I no longer believe anyone could sacrifice themselves so happily, even in verse.
***
Stiorra laughs. I laugh. Arden laughs. Lily-Fingers crawws.
And still, with only days remaining to save Stiorra, she remains stone.
I finish carving my harp, trying to dig comfort out of the wood.
***
The long-dry fountain, a galloping horse, sits in the centre of the village. It’s from there that the second storyteller speaks. Their voice, though soft and melodic, rings out across the dirt yard for all to hear, even over the sound of cattle, carts, and sellers peddling iron charms. Though I’m sweaty from the long walk, I link arms with Arden as we approach the crowd. His steps are too smooth and soundless for the common-born human man he pretends to be, and he’s so curious about the goings-on around us that his feet seem intent on carrying him away.
His body stiffens like a wood log when the iron peddler jangles a fist of charms.
“Have you ever touched it?” I whisper.
Arden eyes the necklaces dangling from the man’s pointer finger, each charm fashioned in the shape of nails, swords, and arrow tips. “When I was a babe. It’s not pleasant.” He turns the arm I’m holding so his palm faces up, a burn line running across the length of it. “Fear of iron is a learned thing.”
“As is fear of you,” the storyteller says, suddenly before us.
I plant myself between them and Arden without thinking. The storyteller’s hair, dark as pitch and springing from her head in a cloud of curls, frames an unassuming smile. “Greetings,” I say.
She waves a hand, telling us to follow her back to the fountain where folk have tossed coins to the waterless bottom in return for the tale. “I am Neryn. It is obvious you were waiting for me, and not to sing my praises. What is it you want?”
Arden seems speechless, so I relay our story, including what we learned from her kin, how his solution didn’t work, and how we only have three days left.
“Forgive me,” Arden says, “but you’re quite beautiful.”
I elbow his side with the arm linking me to him. “You cannot just say things like that. Even if it’s true,” I add, a blush creeping up my neck.
“When one speaks the truth, there is nothing to forgive,” Neryn says around a smile. Her reddish-brown cheeks glow brighter as she says to me, “I will weave this tale for you, but only while you play a song. I’ve not made enough coin this season, and you have the fingers of a songstress.”
A song is a thing I can give, but I’m wary of the time we have left. “A quick song,” I say. A half-question.
When Neryn nods, I pull the flute out from the pocket of my skirt and unlink my arm from Arden’s before sitting on the pale ledge of the fountain. I test a high note. It echoes beautifully inside the bowl of stone.
So, I play. The tune comes to me of its own accord, the fountain whispering in my ear, the lilting chorus of a time with water and without, of glorious golden sun in summer and delicate dancing snow in winter. My fingers rise and fall with the grace of the breeze it tells me about, with the ease of heat clinging to stone.
Neryn stands beside me and begins her tale.
“A field of wanting wheat did cry,
for leaf and stalk and soil were dry.
Strong farmers, high-born, men of all,
Mourned the life-giving touch of rainfall.
They thought what thing might grant them water,
might be to gift the great king’s daughter.
For a daughter is a natural victim,
to what or whom she’s given.”
“There is no heroism without the drawing of swords,
a silver cut of valour
But if she keeps her silence,
she may yet take on its pallor.
So the story spun is one of thanks,
for what she stood to do,
For the choice she had was hers, of course,
and nothing but the truth.
The princess hangs against the sky,
cursed to carry the water for which men cried,
It’s in their bones and in her stone,
where the weightless-heavy secrets lie.”
The last notes canter from my flute, tumbling around the fountain’s bowl until they slow and fade into a silence broken almost immediately. Hands in pockets and purses, the clink of coins into stone, the clapping of hands—it brays in my ears as people shake my hand and compliment my playing. They say my flute is beautiful, a thing of envy. They ask where they might purchase such instruments, and I sputter that my family carves them, quite overwhelmed by the compliments. Some push coins in my hand, others tug at my sleeves for another song.
Arden plants himself between me and the swell of people, and nods to Neryn with something more than farewell and thanks in his eyes. I think a part of him stays with her, a part of her with him, and a part of me in the fountain.
***
When I make it to Stiorra the day after next—alone, for sharing secrets is hard to do even with one person—I glow red-cheeked with giddiness and heat from running. The excitement of freedom, the elation of having done something and loved it to chest-bursting happiness, the hope her curse might end today. “I played the flute for them, and they acted as though I’d spun gold from it. They even asked to buy anything I made. Me!”
“Of course,” Stiorra says. “You play so beautifully, I’d think it a wonder if they didn’t.”
I cannot stop smiling as I build a small fire for light rather than warmth. “Thank you. I’ve not even told my parents. I had to tell you first.” When the fire clings to the kindling and the air smells richly of burning wood, I tell her the tale Neryn spun, and how the answer she gave was secrets—for what else is weightless and heavy at the same time?
“Are you sure?” Stiorra asks. “I shall hold your secrets forever, Juniper, but it’s still much to ask of you.”
My hand goes to my pocketed flute, a source of comfort. “Nobody knows me as well as I’d like,” I admit. “I think… We’ve spent enough time together that I’d like it to be you.”
The water in her rushes faster, rather like a tumbling heartbeat. “Then I’ll share mine first.” A pause. “I don’t wish to wed a man.”
I wait for the magic, for something to happen. Nothing does—and it stings, for I see myself in her admission, feel it like a warm blanket. “Nor do I,” I whisper, then shout it so it echoes in her throat. “And I don’t like Cobbler Farlan’s shoes. I said I did, but they’re too pointed in the toe. I don’t dream of having children, even if it’s expected of me.” Shouting into the night and Stiorra above me, my chest relents the tension I’ve always had coiled there. “I resent that people listen to my music more than they do my words.”
“I like the sound of your voice, Juniper,” Stiorra says. “I look forward to your company and think of it when you’re gone.”
I smile, quite forgetting the purpose of our secret-sharing. “Sometimes when I’m carving in the shop, I imagine myself sitting against this rock, talking to you like this. In my head, I tell you everything. How I eat the carrots on my plate only to please my father, how I wish to play music until the ground takes me into herself, how I have never seen the ocean but often dream of sailing far away so I might see new things and plant them in my songs.”
Losing ourselves to the shouting, our voices echo several times over, the same way hopes dare to grow roots in my heart. We spend the afternoon like this, stopping only when dusk bruises the forest and night soothes it to darkness, and Arden comes with Lily-Fingers perched on his shoulder. Their arrival stings, for it reminds me of what I hoped would happen tonight, and what has not, and what we have only tomorrow to do.
Tears come far too easily to me—my mother has always said this. But Arden settles at my side and hugs me without judgement. He folds his cloak and tells me to lay my head upon it, and together we rest under the canopy, the stars that appear through the needles of it, and Stiorra who is still a well.
Lily-Fingers crawws, and I make an almost-nest out of the crook of my arm for him to stand in.
“I never thought I could trust one of the good-folk,” Stiorra says after a while. “But you seem a good friend to Juniper.”
Arden grins at me. “Anything for my never-wife.”
“While I do some things sometimes for my never-husband,” I reply, earning a laugh from both of them. Lily-Fingers narrows his eyes, disturbed from his sleep.
“I’ll share a secret,” Arden says. “I’ve always seen myself fitting more with your people than with my own. It’s that, perhaps, that outcasts me.”
I look at him. “Is this a safe place for you to admit such a thing?”
“No good-folk will come here until the curse is broken, or… set,” he whispers to me.
“How do you know this?”
“I bargained for it,” he says. “Privacy.” There’s a shine in his eye I can’t name the meaning of, and I thank him. “Another secret I hold is that I get drunk off milk and honey—”
“Everyone knows this,” Stiorra and I say.
“—and turn into quite the talented dancer,” he finishes the funny admission that turns sad with every echo.
“Then you must show us,” Stiorra says.
“No.” I frown. “We should think of answers.”
“Juniper—”
“No,” I say again, sitting up and disturbing Lily-Fingers so much that he perches himself in a nearby tree. “We can’t waste any more time.”
“Happiness, laughter, none are a waste,” she says. “In fact, I desire it. Dance for me. Let me hear your laughter, the thump of your feet on the earth, the heaviness of your breath as you move. This way, I may fill with joy and hope that one day I might dance with you.”
Arden stands first and offers his hand to me. “Will you hum for us, princess?” he requests, and Stiorra agrees.
“In the morning, we do all we can,” I say to them both, unable to deny her request.
