Suddenly They Heard Footsteps

by Dan Yashinsky

  At that moment the sleeper awoke. He yawned and stretched and shook his head. He looked at his friend and said, “What a strange dream I just had. If only I could have what I just dreamed about!”

  “What did you dream?” asked his friend.

  “Well, first I dreamed I was walking and walking, for a very long time. Finally, I came to a great palace made of pure white marble. I entered the gates of the palace and met many lords and ladies dressed in fine clothes. They were singing and talking, and they greeted me warmly. I stayed with them for a while, but then I left. Although they begged me to stay, I continued my journey. I came to a river too wide to get across. After much searching I found a bridge that spanned the river, and I crossed to the other side. Then I travelled for a long time until I came to a huge hill. There was an entrance on the side, and when I walked in I saw that it was an ancient burial mound, such as they used to bury kings and queens in a long time ago. I entered and saw in the middle of the tomb there was a dead king. At his feet was a treasure. I went closer to take the treasure, but just then I wanted to see the face of the king. I was just about to lift the cloth and see who he was, when I woke up. What a strange dream!”

  His friend listened very carefully to the dream, and then said, “Follow me.” He led the dreamer through the meadow, past the skull, over the stream, and up to the small mound at the far end of the field. “Let’s dig this up,” he said.

  The dreamer was puzzled, but he knelt down and brushed the dirt away. There they found a soldier’s helmet. They picked it up and turned it over. Inside, there was a photograph. In the photograph a young woman and a little boy were smiling and waving goodbye.

  “How did you know this was here?” the dreamer asked.

  “I followed the blue butterfly,” said his friend, and told him what had happened. Both men marvelled at this strange experience. They tried, but they never found out whose helmet it had been, or who the woman and child were waving to.

  On the third night the father told the little boy the story of “The Green Mist.”

  A long time ago people believed that everything in the world was alive: the water and the earth and the weather. Everything had its own spirit.

  In those days people would go out into their fields in late autumn and sing lullabies to the earth, preparing it for the long sleep of winter. When winter came they bided close to home. They were afraid the spirits of the earth grew restless in the long, cold nights. For protection, they would carry a light all around their homes before turning in for the night. And they’d always be sure to leave a bit of bread and some salt out by the threshold to keep the spirits from going hungry. As winter neared its end, the people would go out into their fields at dawn, turn over a clod of earth, and recite the strange, ancient prayers they had heard from their grandparents. They would pray for the Green Mist to rise up from the ground and signal the beginning of spring.

  There was a certain family back then who had endured a long and bitter winter. The worst of their troubles was that the daughter of the family, a lovely, tall teenager, had taken sick and was getting sicker by the day. She had wasted away during the winter and now, near winter’s end, she’d barely the strength to lie beside the window and gaze out at the patches of snow. She would lie there all the day long, watching for a flash of cardinal’s red, or a show of green buds, or any sign of spring at all.

  “Oh, Mother,” she’d say, over and over, “if only I could wake the spring with you, the Green Mist might bring my strength back to me, when it brings strength to the flowers and the corn and the apple trees.”

  And her mother, working, mending, cooking the girl’s broth, would look at her daughter lying there and look away, shaking her head.

  Spring was late coming that year, and the girl was failing fast. She grew as pale and wan as a snowflake melting in the sun. She knew now that she’d never be able to go out into the fields with the others to dig up the clod of earth and wake the spring.

  “At least,” she whispered to her mother, “at least take me to the door for the prayer, and I’ll put out the bread and the salt.”

  “Yes, darling,” answered her mother, “I promise.”

  And every morning the people went out to see if the earth had wakened; but winter still lay white and heavy on the land.

  One day towards nightfall, as the house filled with shadows, the girl turned away from her window. She watched her mother for a long while, her eyes open and unblinking. Then she said, “If the Green Mist doesn’t rise tomorrow I shall never see it again. The ground is calling me, Mother, and the seeds are bursting that will one day bloom over me. Oh, if only I could see the spring wake once more, I swear I’d be happy to live as long as one of the cowslips by the gate—and to die with the first of them at season’s end.”

  “Hush, daughter,” whispered the mother, bending to the earth, “hush, my beloved.”

  But the very next morning the Green Mist did rise, and the land was filled with the fine, soft scent of spring. The snow melted quickly and the buds appeared and the seeds sprouted and the air smelled sweet and new. The mother and father carried the girl to the threshold and she crumbled the bread and salt and cast it forth, into the garden. She murmured the old welcoming prayer and her parents, holding her, said the words with her, slowly and quietly. Then they put the girl back to bed and she slept for a very long time. She dreamed of yellow sunshine and bright wildflowers.

  Soon the cowslips bloomed and the girl came back to life. Each day she found more health and vigour, until she was able to leave her sickbed and run out to the garden. Her parents stood at the window and marvelled to see her running in the sunshine. She stopped at the gate and gazed down at the pretty primroses. Then she walked among the flowers and held her head and hands up to the great, golden sun.

  And so the days passed. On sunny days she would be in the garden, dancing and joyous; on cloudy days, when the sun was hidden and the flowers stayed furled, she stayed indoors near the fire, shivering and white.

  The garden was in full bloom now, and the girl could not leave her flowers alone. The people were astonished to see the girl lively and beautiful again. They often came around to watch her at her gardening, to look at her graceful, young body bending to tend the flowers, to listen to her songs. Her mother, joyful but worried, would say, “You’re out here too much, daughter, too much… Is it good to be with the flowers so much?”

  “Yes, Mother,” she answered, “for they’ll be fading soon enough… soon enough.”

  One day a boy from the village stopped at the gate to have a chat. He was talking to the girl’s mother and he bent down and picked a cowslip. The girl joined them and saw the flower in his hand. “Where did you pick that flower?” she asked, never taking her eyes from it.

  “From beside your own garden gate,” said the boy; then, noticing her loveliness, he said, “I picked it for you.” He held the flower out to her and she took it from him.

  She held the flower in her hand. She looked at it for a long time. Then she looked at the handsome lad, and at her mother. She looked at the garden and the apple trees, and the ripening fields. Then she looked up at the bright, burning sun itself. She gave a high, strange cry, like a frightened animal. Then she shrank away from the light as if it scorched her, and she turned and ran back into the house.

  She never rose from her bed again. She held the pretty, pale flower and watched it fade and wither, and she faded with it. By nightfall she was dead—a wilted, broken thing, lying beside the window. Her mother took the flower from the girl’s hand and kissed them both, the girl and the cowslip.

  The people around there said afterwards that the spirits of the earth had heard the girl’s wish. They had let her bloom with the early spring flowers, and die with the first of them.

  On the fourth night the father told the little boy the story of “The True Father of the House.”

  Once there was a traveller who was walking down a lonely road. He didn’t know where he could stay
the night, and it was getting darker and darker as he walked. Luckily, there was a big farmhouse down the road; and huge it was, looming like a castle out of the darkness. The traveller hastened towards it thinking he’d find room there, and hospitality for the night.

  When he came up to the front door, he saw an old man chopping wood. “Good evening, Father,” said the traveller. “I’m out on the road tonight and I’m in need of shelter. Have you room in your house for a traveller?”

  The old fellow put down his axe and answered, “I’m not the father of this house. You’ll have to go inside and ask my father. Go into the kitchen. You’ll find him sitting by the fire.”

  The traveller opened the massive farmhouse door and walked into the kitchen. In the kitchen was a great stone fireplace, and in front of it on his hands and knees was a very old man trying to blow on the embers of the fire. The traveller came near him and said, “Good evening, Father. Can you put me up for the night?”

  The old man looked up from the sparks and ashes and replied, “I’m not the father of the house. Go into the parlour and ask my father. He is reading at the table.”

  When the traveller came to the parlour he saw a very, very old man sitting at a table and reading a book. He barely had the strength to turn a page, and each page that he turned raised a cloud of dust. The traveller spoke up: “Good evening, Father. Can you give me shelter in your house tonight?”

  The old man raised his eyes from the ancient volume. “I am not the father of the house,” he said. “You had better ask my father. He’s sitting on the sofa smoking his pipe.”

  The traveller noticed a shape bundled up in blankets and sweaters. Two thin hands poked out of the blankets, one holding a pipe and the other a match. The hands shook so that the pipe could not be lit. The traveller walked over and held the match steady. The old man on the sofa lit his pipe. The traveller said, “Good evening, Father. Is it possible for me to stay in your house tonight?”

  In a voice as thin as the blue pipesmoke the old man answered, “I am not the father of the house. Go ask my father. He is resting in bed.”

  The traveller passed into the bedroom of the house. There was a bed, and in the middle of the bed was a small bump. When the traveller bent over he could see that the bump was a very, very old man. He was so old and wizened that only his eyes seemed to have any life in them. They were open and luminous. The traveller looked at those eyes and repeated his request: “Good evening, Father. Can you put me up for the night?”

  “I’m not the father of the house,” came the reply. “You’d best go ask my father. He’s lying in his cradle.”

  There was a cradle in the bedroom. The traveller stepped over to it and looked inside. A man lay there. He was so old that he was no bigger than a baby. His beard curled around him like a wispy blanket. Except for a wheeze that rattled up from time to time there was no way to tell if he was alive or dead. “Good evening, Father,” said the traveller, “and have you room in your house for a lonely traveller this night?”

  It took a long time to get an answer and the answer, when it came, took a long time coming. “I,” the old man wheezed, “am not”—the voice was a dry as a leaf in autumn—“the father of the house. Go ask my father. He is hanging in the horn upon the wall.”

  The traveller now saw a great hunting horn hanging upon the wall. Slowly, very slowly he approached it. He peered within and saw something there. It was white as ash and tiny: a human face. The traveller now cried out, “GOOD EVENING, FATHER. CAN YOU PUT ME UP FOR THE NIGHT?”

  The voice that came from within the horn was as light as a tomtit chirping. The traveller strained to hear what it said, and what it said was this: “Yes, my child, and you are welcome.”

  Then a table appeared, laden with delicacies and fine wines; and when the traveller had eaten, in came a bed all covered with soft reindeer-hide blankets. The traveller curled up to sleep, and just before he closed his eyes he thought to himself: it is good to find the true father of the house.

  On the fifth night the father told the little boy the story of “The Bird Colour-of-Time.”

  Long ago, back in the time when kings and lords tried to run things, there lived a certain king, and he had an only daughter. She was next in line to rule the land if her father the king quit or died.

  One day the princess fell gravely ill. For a long time she stayed in bed, and nobody knew whether she would live or die. Finally, just as this story begins, the princess became very feverish. All through the night she got hotter and hotter, and then, just at dawn, the fever broke and she began to feel a little better. As the days passed she became stronger, and then one spring day she climbed out of bed and went to see her father. She was still wearing her pyjamas as she walked into the court, past all the lords and ladies and royal guards, and marched right up to the king’s great throne. She had a big favour to ask him.

  “Father,” she said (she never called him daddy or papa), “I was very, very sick. Then I was very, very hot. Now I’m getting better, and it’s time for you to give me a gift because I didn’t die. The night I stopped being so hot I had a dream. I dreamed I met the fastest bird in the world. Would you find it and bring it to me?”

  “What kind of bird was it?” asked the king, a little worried by his daughter’s strange request.

  “It was a little bird, and it was the colour of time,” she said.

  Now, the king had heard of bluebirds, blackbirds, goldfinches, yellowhammers, cardinals, hummingbirds and hawks. But he’d never heard of the Bird Colour-of-Time. “What colour is that, exactly? White or black or clear or the colour of rainbows or what?”

  “Dunno,” said the princess. “It’s just its own colour. I only saw the tail-feathers in my dream. But it is the fastest bird in the world! Can you get it for me, Father?”

  The king was not amused. He had no idea where to look for such an extraordinary creature. Besides, truth to tell, the king was a little frightened of strange birds. He knew that a man could be tickled to death by even one feather—especially from a bird the colour of time. This king didn’t like the idea of dying laughing, or any other way. So he stalled for time. He hemmed and he hawed, he stared at the ceiling, he gazed at his shoes, he pulled his earlobe, he cracked his knuckles, he whistled “God Save the King,” he peeked over at the big clock ticking on the palace wall… and still his little daughter stood before him, patiently waiting for his reply.

  Finally an idea popped into the king’s head. A flying contest, he thought; that’s how we’ll see who’s the fastest birdie of them all!

  No sooner thought than done. The king organized a grand affair, the World’s First Speed Flight Competition for Birds, a truly spectacular sporting event. No expense was spared. Invitations were sent by passenger pigeon (they weren’t extinct in those days) to every bird for miles around. Each species was invited to send its speediest flyer.

  On the appointed day the racers gathered at the starting line, which was the border of the king’s realm. The rooster gave the signal (he and the hen weren’t in the race) and with a loud COCKETY CROW! the birds were off and flying. They rose and raced across the sky in a vast cloud of every colour and hue, each one straining to fly higher and faster than the rest, passing overhead with a terrific beating of wings and piping of birdcry.

  For a time they were all racing beak to beak; but then, all of a sudden, the mighty Eagle pulled ahead. He soared towards the finish line, leaving the rest far behind. The majestic, the one and only Eagle was a sure bet to win.

  The king looked up and thought, “What a fine, what a strong, what a kingly bird—C’est magnifique!”

  The little princess watched the race and shook her head. “That’s not the one,” she said. “That’s not the bird I saw in my dream.”

  The Eagle glided forward, taking his sweet time, as if he had all the time in the world to cross the finish line.

  Then something happened. Just before the Eagle reached the end of the race, a tiny bird that had stowed a
way in the great bird’s neck-feathers shot forward and flitted ahead and across the line—winning the race by the beat of a wing.

  The princess leapt to her feet and yelled, “That’s the one! That’s Bird Colour-of-Time!” But the king was furious. It was outrageous, it was a scandal! That regal bird losing the race to such a disgraceful, cheating little hitchhiker! There was tumult, there was commotion—and in the uproar the winning bird disappeared. Only the little girl saw where it went, and nobody asked her, and she never told.

  The magnificent Eagle was so embarrassed by his loss that the feathers on his head turned completely white. They have stayed white to this very day. He flew away to his own country and became a recluse, always roosting in the highest mountains and brooding on his shame. To console him for his defeat, people turned him into a symbol of victory. Now you can find his picture on flags and shields and money and government buildings.

  As for the little princess, she was happy. Her dream-bird hadn’t stayed around, but she knew it wouldn’t. She was healthy again and, as time went on, she grew up. At the proper time, she became a wise and well-loved queen.

  Time passed, and stories were told about the Great Flying Contest. But you know the way it is with time and stories. The more stories were told, the less people agreed on what really happened so many years before. Some people claimed that the winning bird was nothing but an ordinary wren, a common, everyday sort of a bird out to have a lark with the proud Eagle. Others said no, it wasn’t a wren at all, it was a lark. The only thing they all remembered was that something had flown by awfully fast; something had won the race at the very last moment.

  Whenever she heard her people talk, the queen would smile to herself. She knew perfectly well who had won the race, who wins every race. For there’s only one thing that can outrace eagles, only one thing in the world so swift. Sometimes you see it in a fever-dream, sometimes as a season wheels past, sometimes at the edge of an ordinary sky, glanced at and gone. All you ever see are the tail-feathers as it flashes past—that little bird, fastest of all, Colour-of-Time.