The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales
Page 21
I nodded, still riding the falling edge of my unintended binge. “That’s the kind of needy shit I’d pull. Wouldn’t put it past me.”
That got a laugh. It also got me evicted from her lap as Olivia stood up, dusting her palms together. “Okay. Time for some actual water. Maybe treat ourselves to a wash, too. Whaddaya say?”
Leaping to my feet as dramatically as I could, “I say to heck with washing. Let’s hit the mudhole out back of the Stephensons’ place.”
She laughed again. “You mean the stock pond?”
“That’s rainy season talk!” I scoffed. “It’s a mudhole, and by now it’s probably at its most soothingly muddy.”
“It’s probably long dried up, but even if it isn’t, how will we get the mud off again?”
“Sun-baking, as our ancestors did.” I grabbed her hand and led her toward the door. “C’mon, I hear it does ah-maze-ing things for the skin!”
For the next hour, we were kids again. The heat faded into the background of a romp in the thick silty muck. We rolled around, we threw mud clumps at each other, and we laughed more than we had in years — possibly ever. We gave each other the best possible send-off. I didn’t know when Olivia planned on leaving, but once she left, we’d never see each other again.
There wasn’t really anything stopping me from going with her. I could’ve found her map and made a copy. I could’ve secretly followed behind her, dogging her steps toward the east coast without telling her. Then I could’ve met her family, if she ended up finding them.
Such fancies were foolish for two reasons. First, she’d figure out I was there, one way or another. She’d either sense my presence or find me taking a dump in a patch of poison oak. At that point, I would become the burden she feared: slowing her down, obligating her to care for me. Second was that she did not want me there. Simple as that. Her family — the father of her children, her surviving daughter, and any other additions thereto — was not mine. The sphere of her family unit was uncontaminated by her past, free of its weighty baggage. It was almost wholly of the world beyond the tipping point. I had no rightful place in that world.
And I was not invited.
That should’ve made me sad, I guess. Instead, I felt something more like acceptance. An entire generation buried itself alive to make way for the birth of that new world. Those ways and ideas were underground with the people who held them, and that seemed to be for the best. We of the old world had fucked up. The least we could do was leave the kids alone as they got on with things. Who wanted some meddling old coot peering over their shoulder while they tried to live their lives?
Our muddy ablutions completed, we lay down on the grass in the partial shade of a skeletal maple tree. I remembered when these trees used to get huge, with trunks so big you couldn’t wrap your arms around. On that day, I’d have been pressed to find ten to make such a bundle.
The sun was setting, but we were mostly dried by then since the heat remained sweltering. It’d cool off quickly once the light had gone. We lingered a few moments longer. Neither of us wanted to be the one to say, “Let’s go home.”
“It really is okay, Liverwurst,” I said. I had to work to get the words out through the thick mask of dried mud around my mouth.
“Oahnalleeat,” she replied.
We laughed at how silly we sounded, then spent a minute excavating our faces.
“I hate that nickname.”
“I know. Why else would I use it?”
When the top curve of the sun dipped below the distant trees, we knew it was time to go. Still neither of us moved. We held on until the tension became unbearable. “As the eldest, and therefore most responsible person here, I declare it’s time to get our asses home,” I announced.
When I stood up, stretching and flexing, a shower of dried mud flaked away from my skin. It felt especially pleasant in the cooling air. I reached my hand down to help Olivia up. She hesitated before taking it. Together we walked across the field to the back end of our family’s property. Where the lots met, there used to be a line of wooden stakes, their tops sprayed fluorescent pink. They were long gone, along with the concept of owning land.
“That was a good idea,” observed Olivia.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“I guess everyone has one sooner or later.”
THE TROUBLE WITH STORIES is that they begin and they end. Lives certainly follow this pattern: one is born, one dies. Life as a whole does not. There are no happy endings, because nothing ever ends.
Nevertheless, I tell stories. I weave them out of the ether, out of threads stolen from life’s tapestry. Strands of the Fates, spun and snipped, slip golden through warp and weft.
And when I’m gone, what becomes of them?
I’ll never know, because my story will be over by then.
The Curse of Forgiveness
There was a girl who was raised by wolves. Though she was a fierce hunter and rough in manner, she grew to be the most beautiful woman ever born. She roved the forests and ranged over the hills, rarely staying still for very long.
Her mother had named her Willow, after the slim bending trees that grew near water. As is the way of things, Willow took after her namesake. Her limbs were long and lean, flexible yet strong.
One day, she met with a hunter in the woods. He was setting traps to catch wolves, under contract to some farmers in the nearby valley. They blamed the wolves for stealing away their sheep, and he could sell their pelts in the market besides.
Willow had a knapped flint at his throat before he knew what was happening.
“Take your traps from here, and you’ll leave with your life,” she warned him.
“If I take my traps away, I’ll be branded for breaking a contract. And if that weren’t enough, I’ll be out the earnings for it and the pelts. How will I afford to keep my life should I give in to your demand?”
She thought on this for a moment, then released him. The moment she stepped into his sight, the huntsman was smitten, for her beauty was quite overwhelming.
“Who holds your contract?” she asked.
“The farmers in the valley,” said he. “They say the wolves take of their flocks, and they will not have it.”
Willow stood up straight and tall. “No wolf worth his hide would hunt a lowly sheep for his supper!”
In this way, she was quite intimidating. The huntsman cowered and apologized. “My lady, I know only what they tell me. The sheep go missing and are never seen the more. They blame the wolves and so hire men like myself to kill them.”
“Killing wolves will no more solve their problem than will casting wishes down wells. If I can find the culprit of this crime, will it satisfy your contract?”
He wanted to say he wasn’t sure, but he thought about the feeling of the flint against his neck and reconsidered. “I suppose it must,” he admitted.
“Then this I will do. Wait here for me. The wolves will bring you food to eat and protect you until I return. Only know that if I am not back by sunset on the third day, you must run for your life, for it means I am dead and my control of the wolves ended.”
The huntsman only nodded dumbly.
Willow took her leave, carrying no more than her flint knife and a spear across her back. She climbed high into the hills above the valley, looking for any trace of the sheep thief. Finding none, she descended to the farmers’ settlement.
“Perhaps if I hide myself here, I will catch sight of the culprit and thus make an end of his mischief.”
She sat herself in a dense thicket at the edge of a pasture where the sheep had huddled for the night. No sooner had she settled in than the ground began to shake. From the treeline beyond came a great ugly troll. His nose was like a burlap sack stuffed with turnips, and his tail was tufted with greasy, matted black hair.
Into the field he strolled, bold as brass, and took up a pair of fat sheep — one beneath each of his hairy arms. Then back up the hill he strode, careless that he might be watched.
“Soon I’ll have the lot,” said the troll to himself. “Then I’ll drive them over the hill to my brother, where we’ll have a great feast of mutton.”
Willow kept herself hidden until the troll lay down to sleep. Then she stole forth, meaning to cut the beast’s foul throat and have done with it.
Though she was quiet as a summer breeze, still she made some sound to wake him. Before he could spot her, Willow ducked down behind a great boulder on the floor.
“Who goes?” demanded the troll, peering into the darkness.
“It is only the summer wind,” she replied. “I meant to blow you sweet smells of night blossoms that you might dream well.”
“That’s all to the good,” said he. “But must you be so noisy?”
“Let me sing to you,” said Willow in the wind’s voice. “The song will lull you into the deepest of sleeps so that no noise might wake you — not even the clap of thunder.”
The troll considered this, for though he was very tired, he feared his sheep might be stolen should he sleep too deeply. “How do I know you don’t mean to steal my flock?” he queried.
“I swear on the North Star and the South Pole that any thief shall wake you. Fear not!”
“Very well,” grumbled the troll, settling his head back on the ground.
When his eyes had closed, Willow sang an enchantment she had learned from Old Mother Owl. It cast the troll into a deep sleep from which he could not be wakened. This done, she crept up to the place where he lay and cut open his throat with her wicked little knife.
A great gout of blood washed out of his throat and over her legs. She went to a wooden trough of water that stood by the wall and washed herself clean. Only, her feet were stained a dark red that could not be budged by scrubbing.
“Old Mother Oak, why are my feet stained so?”
From beyond the cave mouth sighed the answer, in a voice like a wind through treetops. “The taking of any life in this way leaves its mark. Your sin will stay with you all the days of your life.”
“Is there no way to cleanse it?” she begged.
Again came the soughing reply. “Make atonement to the family of the dead. If you do this before the birth of your firstborn, the mark will not be passed to your child.”
She vowed to make atonement to the troll’s brother, though she could not think how. In the meantime, she took the troll’s tail as proof of his guilt and drove the sheep back to the farmers’ lands. When Willow returned to the place where she’d left the huntsman, he was asleep, surrounded by her entire pack.
“Hunter,” she called, waking him. “Take you this tail as proof that a troll took the sheep, and tell them the next trapper they send into these hills will not be so lucky as you.”
The huntsman sat up and took the tail with gratitude. “I thank you for sparing my life. I have nothing to offer you in return, but would ask you to be my wife. Let me care for and shelter you all the days of your life that I might make up my fullest gratitude.”
He spoke so well, and was comely enough besides, that Willow consented. “Only leave me a year and a day to prepare my trousseau. When you come back, I will marry you.”
The huntsman nodded and hurried away to collect on his contract. When he was gone, Willow fell to the ground and began to weep.
Her elder sister sat at her side and offered comfort. “What ails you? Were you hurt on your hunt?”
The girl threw her arms around the wolf’s neck and burrowed her tear-soaked face in its fur. “Oh, sister! I have killed a creature outside the hunt and am marked for my sin. Look only at the red stains on my feet. If I cannot make atonement with the troll’s brother by the time my hunter returns, my transgression will mark my children also. Yet I know not how I might amend myself. What shall I do?”
Her sister replied, “Sadly, dear heart, I know not.” After a long silence, she continued, “Dry your tears and climb upon my back. Together we will go and find Old Mother Pine where she lives, far away. Perhaps she can tell you what you need to do.”
And so Willow crouched closely on her sister’s strong back and wound her fingers into her sister’s mane. The great she-wolf leapt forth over the hills, across the fields. On and on she ran, while beyond and below them all the world sped by.
Then at last, they traversed the horizon. Over the crest of light they went, into the kingdom of the rising sun. Every surface was touched with gold; the air itself was gilded. No sooner had they entered than a brace of guards in golden livery appeared at their side to lead them into court.
There, resplendent on his throne, was King Sun. He had the rough, ruddy beard of a farmer with a face to match — broad and friendly as the day was long.
“What do you seek in the land beyond the horizon?” said he.
Willow, lacking manners, replied, “We seek Old Mother Pine. Does she not reside here?”
“But for your impertinence, I’d have told you straight off. Since you’ve no manners toward a king, I set you this task: go to the lake at the southern border of my kingdom. Take this net of angel’s hair and use it to catch the largest carp in the lake. Bring this fish to me alive, and I will tell you all you need to know.”
When they had quit the palace, the wolf scolded Willow. “How came it that you know not the way to address a king?”
“Ask my mother” was her reply.
Together they went to the southern tip of King Sun’s realm, where there lay the lake. Willow took the net from her shoulder and reached it into the water. No sooner had she done so than a great fat carp leapt into it.
“Are you the largest carp in this lake?” Willow asked the creature.
The fish boasted, “To be sure, I am!”
“Then you’re with me,” concluded the huntress, who flopped the carp onto her sister’s back.
Her sister said, “We must make haste to return so that the carp will remain alive. Climb on my back and hold the fish tightly. I will run my fastest to get us there the sooner.”
Willow did as she was told, climbing on her sister’s powerful back and cradling the fish’s slimy body to her breast. The pitiful thing stared at her with one rolling golden eye as it gasped for breath.
With one great leap, they were gone. In half the time it had taken them to get to the lake, they were back before King Sun in his golden palace.
“Have you the carp?” he demanded.
“I have,” replied Willow, holding forth the very fish.
It gasped slowly now, for it had been out of the water a good long while. Swiftly and softly, King Sun came forth and kissed the carp. Thereupon it transformed into a slender youth with a golden robe.
“Father?” spoke the boy. “I had the strangest dream …”
The king caught up the boy in a hearty embrace.
“My son! My son! He is returned to me!” To Willow, he said, “For this boon, I will tell you whatever you wish and give you half my kingdom besides.”
Humbled, Willow ducked her head and spoke gently, “My lord, I have no desire for wealth or land but only to know where Old Mother Pine resides. I must ask her how I can atone for the sin of murder.”
“If anyone knows the answer, surely it is she,” replied the king gravely. “Yet I know not where she lives. Seek you the Sultan of the Moon, for he shall know better.”
As the sisters turned to leave, the king bade them stop. “Take as your gift this cup that is always full and this boodle that is never empty. They are trifles, to be sure, but may prove helpful on your journey.”
Willow and her sister left the kingdom of the sun. They travelled many a weary day and night until they came to a place where the sky was black at midday. Everything, every surface was gilded with silver.
�
�This is surely the Sultan of the Moon’s realm,” said the she-wolf. “Now remember your manners. We wolves are more beholden to the Sultan of the Moon, for he is our ruler. He’ll brook no insolence from the likes of you.”
Willow nodded and said nothing.
There was no escort for them this time, only a parliament of owls whose number grew and grew the closer they came to the palace. Until at last when they arrived, all over the whole of the castle were perched owls of every kind: stark white, speckled brown, and downy grey.
They stepped inside in silence and went up the main hall into the court room. Here were perched a dozen more owls, each the size of a man. They wore helms of worked silver and carried halberds at their sides. On the throne sat a great fat man whose face was round and red as a harvest moon. He beckoned the pair come closer.
“What seek you in the silvered Sultanate of the Moon?” he asked. His voice was low and melodious as the ringing of silver bells. A poor match for his hideous girth. He was so sorry to look at that Willow quite forgot herself once again.
“We seek Old Mother Pine that she might help me cleanse my sins. Know you where she lives? Only say if you don’t for we haven’t much time to waste.”
“That’s a tart mouth you have, girl, to speak so to a sultan! For that, though I would have told you what I know, I shall first set you a task that might teach you some manners.”
At Willow’s side, her sister sighed. “My lord, I reminded her to keep her tongue not ten paces from your door. On behalf of all wolves, I beg your forgiveness.”
“As you like,” replied the fat sultan, his several chins quivering. “Just know that for her misstep, you will all be punished. When my face shows full in the sky, no wolf shall rest. Running and howling, you will make obeisance to me until time itself is ended.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said the wolf.
To Willow, he said, “There is an orchard at the northernmost end of my realm. On the trees there grow the rarest fruit in the world: soul plums. Find the tree which grows the fattest and roundest of these fruits and gather them all in this birchbark bushel. Take care to pack them well so that not one is bruised! Bring this fruit to me unscathed, and then will I tell you what you wish to know.”