He sighed and rubbed his shoulder, which worried Sunday. Storyless days happened, when the weather was foul or the work had been troublesome. Most days, however, he brought her a little something: a tale or a trinket. His eyes would get bright, and there would be mischief and laughter in his voice. For that brief moment, Papa was happy, and he was all hers. Not that anything could dim the happiness that still shone inside her from making a new friend, but a story from Papa would have been the perfect ending to a perfect day.
Papa sat back and rested his hands on the table. He looked at Sunday thoughtfully, for a long time. And then he smiled. Sunday caught it and grinned right back at him, for in that smile was a story.
“We went deep into the Wood today.” He leaned forward to whisper the words to her, as if they were a secret between the two of them. “Deep into the Wood, where the trees are so tall and the leaves are so thick that no sunlight touches the dark ground.”
“Were you scared?” Sunday whispered back.
“A little,” he admitted. “I told Peter and Saturday to stay at the edge of the Wood.”
“You told Saturday to do something and she obeyed?” The only orders Sunday had ever seen her sister obey were Mama’s. Everyone always did what Mama said. Every time.
“Well, no,” admitted Papa. “I gave her a very large task and told her she could join me when she’d finished.”
“Did she finish?”
“Not yet. It was a very, very large task.”
“You are a clever Papa.”
“I am a Papa with much experience keeping his mischievous children out of harm’s way,” he said. “The edge is the safest, but deep in the Wood is where one finds the best trees. The old trees. I never take more than one at a time, and I always wait several moons before I take another one. The lumber from that tree will always fetch the highest price. It will be the most beautiful, and it will last forever. No mortal fire can burn Elder Wood.”
“Did you take an Elder Wood tree today?”
“I did. I asked the gods’ permission and begged the tree’s forgiveness before I forced it to give its life. And since no one was around, I did not yell ‘timber’ before its fall.”
Sunday gasped. Anyone who had ever lived near the Wood knew the importance of yelling to announce a treefall. Silence had dangerous consequences.
“The tree came down with a spectacular crash! And when the Wood became silent again, I heard a yelping.”
“Did you hurt someone?” She was afraid to know the answer. It was clear that Mama wasn’t worried; she continued to busy herself in the kitchen as if she hadn’t heard a word of Papa’s tale.
“Very nearly. It took me a long time to get to the other side of the tree. When I did, I found a leprechaun hopping around.”
“A leprechaun? Wasn’t that lucky,” Sunday remarked skeptically.
“Luckier for him! He was still alive to be hopping around,” Papa said. “Trapped by his beard, he was, and mighty put out about it, too.” Sunday laughed.
“I hope you asked for his gold,” Mama’s voice echoed from inside the oven as she retrieved the bread.
“Of course I did, woman! What kind of man do you take me for?”
“A fool, most days,” Mama murmured. She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up a knife to cut the loaf. “Go on, finish your story.”
“Thank you, wife.” Papa leaned forward again and took up his storytelling tone once more. “The leprechaun pleaded with me to set him free.”
“And did you?”
“I asked for his gold first.” Papa glanced at Mama, but she did not show that she had heard his comment. “He promised it all to me. Told me if I used my ax to chop him free he would lead me to it.” Mama clucked her tongue. She was listening. “Of course I didn’t believe him,” Papa said loudly. “I said I wanted proof. He told me he had three gold coins in his pocket. He would give them to me as a down payment, so if he ran away, I wouldn’t be left with nothing for my trouble.”
“And you took the gold?”
“I did indeed. Three solid pieces of bright gold, they were. I put them in my pocket.” He patted his hip. “Then I cut the leprechaun free. And do you know what he did?”
“What?”
“He complained! Cheeky little bugger. Said I had made a wreck of his charming beard and that it would never grow back the same! I pointed out that I was a woodsman, not a barber. The vain imp! Should have been grateful just to be alive!” Sunday giggled helplessly at the thought of burly Papa as a hairdresser. “He would have none of it. Told me that since I had ruined his good looks I didn’t deserve any of his gold. He wiggled his nose and vanished right there in front of my eyes.”
“But you still had the three gold pieces?”
“I did indeed, so I don’t feel cheated in the slightest. I brought them home for you.” Sunday’s heart leapt for joy as he reached into his pocket. Whatever treasure Papa had brought would certainly go to the family, but it meant the world that he made a show of giving it to her. Mama acted as if she weren’t paying any attention, but she had stopped cutting the bread mid-slice.
“I’m afraid they’re a little worse for the wear.” Papa opened his hand and dropped the contents onto the table.
“Bah!” Mama scoffed when she saw. “Fool’s gold and fairy stones. Such has been this family’s lot in life. I should have known.”
Sunday’s treasure was three small stones. One was smooth and deep ocean blue run with lines of stark white, one was splotchy green like moss trapped in pale amber, and one was sharp-edged and milky pink. Fool’s gold or not, these stones were hers to keep, a thousand times more valuable to her than any gold ever could be. Inside these stones Papa’s story would live forever; Sunday would remember the tale every time she saw them. It was just as she’d hoped: the perfect end to a perfect day.
“They’re beautiful,” Sunday said over the shiny stones.
“They’re yours if you want them.”
Sunday threw herself into Papa’s arms and hugged him again.
Mama set the platter of bread firmly on the table beside them. “Enough nonsense now. Sunday, mind the stew. Jack, bank the fire and call your children. It’s time for supper.”
2. Conversing with Fairies
MY SISTERS AND I are the products of a woman with as little creativity as her mother before her, and so our naming was as clever in its simplicity as it was damning in its curses. Second born to my mother were the twins, thus securing a female majority in the household that was never again in jeopardy. Monday was indeed fair of face, but Tuesday was the dancer.
Stories describe Tuesday as a slip of a young girl, a moth at the flame, a reed in the wind, a vision of constant movement whose grace the stars and sunsets envied. Ever the Life of the Party, Tuesday garnered invitations for every occasion from Royal Balls to County Fairs (from which Monday always returned home as the belle).
Mama enjoyed the popularity but, true to form, complained about travel expenses and the cost of keeping her active daughter in shoes, which she reputedly remarked was more than enough for twelve dancing princesses. It seemed a godsend when an elfin shoemaker gave Tuesday a pair of scarlet slippers that would never wear out. Mama had her doubts, but she hoped he was right. And so he was,for Tuesday could not dance those shoes to death.
They danced her to death instead.
Tuesday died less than a year post-Jack (my family’s history is broken up into pre—or post—Jack Junior events). There was immense sadness in the wake of her passing, but no one mourned more than Monday. Worse yet, Monday’s grief apparently amplified her fair beauty. She held her tongue to keep others’from wagging, but her silence only added to the intrigue. Songs called her the most beautiful woman in the land. Monday hated every minute. She ventured outside only to walk the many miles to the cemetery on the hill and place flowers on her twin’s grave. Every Tuesday she went, rain or shine, sleet or snow, despite our parents’ wishes.
One sickly green morning,
heedless of the weather as she always was, Monday was caught in a storm sent from the bowels of Hell itself. Tossed in the merciless wind, pelted by walls of rain, and battered by fists of ice, Monday lost her way in the Wood and found herself at the doorstep of a hunting cabin. Inside were two princes on holiday—one dark and one fair—who had chosen to celebrate the storm as most men choose to celebrate everything.
As they toasted each other for the umpteenth time, the fair prince congratulated himself on his recent success at finding the perfect wife. He had given the girl a test, and she had spun three rooms full of straw into gold for him! The dark prince, upon hearing the tale, drunkenly announced that his wife would be so beautiful, so delicate, that she would not be able to sleep comfortably with a pea under the mattresses. And then Monday arrived—a bedraggled, tempest-tossed wretch on the stoop, begging asylum. They begrudgingly offered her a room and slipped a pea under the mattress there. The next morning, when my lovely sister greeted her hosts with a rash of fresh bruises, the dark prince fell to his knees and asked for her hand in marriage.
We owe our current livelihood to Monday. Her bride gift was a tower at the edge of the Wood that had no door—
“No door?” Grumble croaked.
“It has only one high window, on the uppermost floor. The property had been handed down in some royal female line for generations, but it was never used, since there was no practical way of getting inside it,” said Sunday. “If it was ever part of a castle, the rest has long since crumbled. Not that we cared; at the time we were crawling over ourselves like rats in our little cottage. So Papa knocked a door in the tower and built the rest of our house around its base. We call it the ‘towerhouse.’”
“What once was a ‘dower house.’ Very clever.”
Sunday groaned. “Yes, I think Papa came up with that one. Unfortunately, it looks nothing like a castle. More like ... a shoe.” Oh, the years of school-age ridicule that had borne.
“A shoe.”
The way he said the word made Sunday giggle. Her cheeks ached; no friend before had made her laugh as much as Grumble. It was nice to be so happy, even for a few hours. “Between Tuesday’s fate and our house, shoes are a recurring theme in my life.”
“And what of your other sisters?”
Having come to the end of what she’d written about Monday, Sunday folded her journal across her stomach and stretched out in a patch of fading sunlight before answering his question. “Wednesday is the poet, all prosaic and lyrical.”
“‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe,’ ” quoted Grumble. Of all things he might have forgotten, that childish nonsense rhyme about the days of the week wasn’t one of them.
“I might suggest other things she’s full of,” said Sunday, trying to find a comfortable position on the moss-covered ground. The last frost of winter had come and gone, so they’d planted beans for hours that morning. Beans were always the first to go into the garden. The afternoon sun was warm on her weary bones, and the conversation with Grumble was easy and comfortable. No one else made Sunday feel quite so peaceful. She wished she could stay like this forever.
“Thursday ran off with the Pirate King when she was a little older than me, but she still sends us letters and gifts from time to time. She always knows when we’ll be needing something. A package from Thursday is always a bit of an event at our house.”
“‘Thursday’s child has far to go.’ ” Grumble hopped back into the well to rewet his drying skin. “Is Friday ‘loving and giving,’ then?” he asked when he returned.
“Friday is the best of us all. She spends most of her days at the church helping orphans and the elderly. At night she makes clothes for them after she’s finished with the household mending. She performs miracles with cloth that should have worn out long ago; I often wonder what she could do if she had whatever material she wanted at her disposal. There are few who would not envy Friday’s talent.”
Grumble noticed what she had left unsaid. “And you are one of those few.”
It was strange to have someone who listened to her so intently, who cared about her. Sunday liked the attention so much that it scared her a little. “If there is anything of Friday’s I would wish to have, it would be her heart. Every task that Friday performs is done with love: pure, unconditional love with no malice, no strings attached.”
“I find it very hard to believe you lack such compassion.”
“I’m just as selfish as anyone else.”
Thankfully, Grumble did not press her further. “And Saturday? Is she indeed a hard worker?”
“She works hard at being a pain in the neck, most days.” The comment coaxed a chuckling burp from Grumble. “Saturday is best when she’s kept busy. She goes into the Wood every morning and helps Papa and Peter with the cutting like a sturdy workhorse, but I think she takes after Thursday more than everyone realizes. I see it sometimes, that glint of a daydream in her eye. And mischief. Gods help us all if she’s ever left idle.”
“Which brings us to you, the doomed one.”
The laugh that burst from Sunday’s lips surprised her. It was a curious thing, having one’s words thrown back like that. “‘Blithe and bonny and good and gay.’ Who could ever live up to that? It’s not in any way realistic. I don’t want to be happy and good and dull. I want to be interesting.”
“I assure you, my bonny friend, you are very interesting. And you are a writer, like your sister before you?”
“Well, I’m not quite so melancholy gravy as Wednesday, Our Lady of Perpetual Shadow ... but yes, a little. In my own way.”
“You have a gift for words,” said Grumble.
“A curse, more like. But perhaps it’s good that I write only about the past. Mama says I spend too much time in little fantasy worlds and not enough in this one.”
“If you did not indulge in fantasies, how else would you know if you were living an interesting life?”
“Thank you. I fully intend to argue that point with Mama next time she brings it up.” Sunday looked at the sky. “Which, if not tonight, will be tomorrow morning at the earliest. I will report back to you, Sir Frog.”
Either the gasping half-croaks that Grumble let out were a froggy laugh, or he was dying. Or both. “I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a conversation more, my lady. But as I can’t remember much of anything, it’s possible that’s not saying much.”
“I will take it as a compliment.”
“Please do.” He blew out his bright yellow throat and then sighed. “Would that I were a man, Sunday. If I met you tomorrow, I would probably propose.”
Lulled into comfort, Sunday answered from her heart before she had time to consult her brain. “If you met me tomorrow, I’d probably say yes.” She sat up immediately. The pool of sunlight had faded and the twilight breeze was cool on her skin. “I should be getting back home before I am missed.”
He didn’t acknowledge her reply, but she could tell it had made him happy. She was feeling a little happy herself. “Will you come again tomorrow?” Grumble asked. “Please?”
“I will try.” Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she was sure her face was red again. She ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging bits of twigs and grass and hiding her bashfulness from her new friend, yesterday a stranger and today so much more. The bond forming between them was strong and fast; her emotions seemed entirely too powerful for something that could never happen.
Was she falling in love with this frog? Did she even know what love was? Would that she had ever been courted by a man so that she might know if her feelings were true or fleeting. She wished that she had the power to turn Grumble back into a man so that she might discover for herself.
“Sunday?”
She ceased her tidying and forced her silly brain to stop its chatter. “Yes?”
“Will you kiss me before you go?”
It was as if he’d heard her thoughts. She wanted to try again, though it hadn’t worked yesterday; there was no reason to suppose it wou
ld work today. Sunday felt terrible. But Grumble’s little heart seemed to hold more hope than most people had in a lifetime. Why couldn’t she summon that optimism so easily? At least magic would answer the question of whether her love (or whatever this was she felt) was true ... She pulled her tidied hair from her face and leaned down to kiss his back once again.
Once again, nothing happened. Once again, she wasn’t sure how to feel.
“Good night, Grumble.”
“Good night, my Sunday.”
***
Darkness hugged the world in hazy twilight, and Sunday’s mind cartwheeled with silly thoughts, so her sister easily half scared the life right out of her. Perched atop the garden’s rock wall, Saturday leapt out of the shadows like a huge wildcat. Sunday shrieked, and then narrowed her eyes at Saturday’s anything-but-innocent smile. Sometimes she could be worse than Trix.
And odd. Saturday never had time for her lazy dreamer sister after a hard day’s work. Sunday might have expected Mama at the gate, wooden spoon in hand to rap her on the knuckles for being late. Wednesday often wandered the garden at dusk, having stared at the sky so long she’d forgotten whether she was really in this world or another (it could go either way with Wednesday). All things considered, meeting Saturday meant there was a story somewhere, so Sunday was all ears.
“You missed them, Sunday! They were both so handsome, and they wore daggers in their boots, and they finished each other’s sentences, which was a little odd, because one of them had the strangest accent. But odd in a good way, you know? A very good way.” She said “very” as if the word might stretch all the way to the moon.
As usual, Saturday was starting her story in the wrong place. Sunday would have scolded her, but her sister’s enthusiasm was terribly contagious. “Who?” Sunday asked, half because she knew Saturday wanted her to and half because she really wanted to know. “Who was here? Who did I miss?”
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