Enchanted

by Alethea Kontis

  “Their names were Crow and Magpie. Magpie had the funny accent. Or was it Crow? Anyway, they’ve come and gone now and you’ve missed them, but they left us a trunk from Thursday.” She took Sunday’s hand and dragged her up the walk to the door. “We had to wait for you, and you’ve dawdled a painfully long time. So hurry!”

  A full head taller than Sunday already and rippling with muscles beneath her boy’s clothes, Saturday constantly underestimated her own brute strength. Sunday followed her just fast enough to keep her shoulder from being ripped out of its socket. Thursday never forgot a birthday or anniversary or nameday, but sending cards and presents at regular intervals wouldn’t have left her and her husband any time for actual pirating and would put them under constant threat of various authorities. So now and again, at random intervals, a trunk or crate would arrive, teeming with gifts.

  Sunday regretted missing the illustrious Crow and Magpie. She would have to ask someone about them later, but whom? Saturday would take forever, purposefully and annoyingly, but Sunday would pry information out of her eventually. Mama would no doubt describe them as dirty rotten scoundrels with eyes on the silver. Wednesday would put together an eloquent string of seemingly unconnected adjectives that one day, months later, would make perfect sense. Papa might do them justice if he wasn’t too tired after the festivities.

  Saturday burst through the door, dragging Sunday in her wake. All heads turned except Friday’s; she was on her knees before the enormous trunk, her patchwork skirts a rainbow pool around her. Trix sat cross-legged on the lid; if anyone was going to open it, he would know about it first. Mama and Wednesday were perched on the couch. Peter slumped beside them, his heavy-lidded eyes trying their best to stay open. Papa stabbed the logs in the hearth with a poker, urging a bit more warmth out of them. Fresh, burning wood always reminded Sunday of Papa.

  “Welcome home, little one. Hour got away from you while conversing with fairies again?”

  Saturday came to an abrupt halt, and Sunday got a face full of cotton shirt. She shoved her giant sister forward. “They do have the best stories to tell,” Sunday said to her father.

  Papa put his hand over his heart. “Better than mine? You wound me! Now, shall we see what booty my daughter the Pirate Queen has sent us?” Trix hopped off the trunk. Papa turned the latch and threw the lid back with a crash that startled Peter awake. Friday gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

  Folded inside the trunk was the most frighteningly exquisite material Sunday had ever seen. It shimmered in the firelight like silver fairy wings. “I can’t touch it,” Friday whispered. “It’s too beautiful.”

  Papa patted her on the head. “Give yourself a moment, darlin’.” He reached over her to retrieve the folded parchment that lay atop the mesmerizing cloth. While he read Thursday’s letter aloud, Sunday closed her eyes and pictured her feisty, fiery sister there in the room with them.

  “Dear beloved family,

  I hope my treasure box finds you all well—Crow and Magpie will report to me if they see otherwise. Or if they don’t see some of you at all, since I suspect Sunday will have been wandering the Wood all day, as she always does once spring warms the ground enough.

  This letter will make more sense if you’ve already seen your gifts, so go ahead and upend the trunk. Papa can finish reading once you’ve hit bottom. Yes, Friday, the fabric is for you, but if you don’t touch it, how are you ever going to be able to make anything with it?”

  Papa smiled, folded the letter, and put it in his pocket. Even oceans and continents away, Thursday knew her family all too well. Friday wiped her palms on her skirt and gingerly lifted the silver fairy fabric out of the trunk. Beneath that bolt was a scarlet one, then one of dusky rose. By the time she uncovered the layer of iridescent blue-gray, her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “All my sisters will have dresses,” Friday proclaimed. “The most beautiful dresses in the world!”

  “Can’t I have trousers instead?” whined Saturday.

  “Dresses designed for damsels divine,” Wednesday said dreamily.

  “Woodcutters’ daughters have no need for fancy dresses,” Mama muttered.

  “I want the silver one,” called Sunday.

  “There’s got to be something else in that chest!” All the women in the room glared at Trix save Saturday, who crouched behind him, urging him on. Friday stuck out her tongue and lifted out a damask-covered box that had her name on a scrap of paper pinned to the top. She gasped as she opened this, too. “A proper seamstress’s kit!”

  Having had enough of what would ultimately become laundry, Trix shoved Friday out of the way and dove headfirst into the trunk. Papa stopped chuckling long enough to say, “Careful, son.” As usual, it was too late.

  “A bow!” Trix cried triumphantly. “And arrows! She’s sent along some arrows for you too, Peter, but no bow. Too bad.”

  “A proper man-sized bow for Peter wouldn’t have fit inside that trunk.” Papa liftedTrix out of the chest with one strong arm. “You’ve had your treasures now, boy. Let your sisters have theirs.”

  “I will thank you to shoot those arrows outside,” Mama said sternly. Trix was already trying on his quiver and prancing about trying to draw the bowstring.

  Friday handed a no-longer-sleepy Peter the larger set of arrows. He pulled a long sheath from the quiver and examined the arrow intently. Peter had always been fascinated by how things were made.

  “These books are surely for you, Wednesday.” Friday lifted out four thick, leather-bound volumes and handed them one by one to Wednesday, whose smile got bigger and bigger as the pile in her lap grew. Sunday tried not to be envious; Wednesday always let her borrow books from her library at the top of the tower.

  Mama was the just-gracious-enough recipient of a large marble rolling pin, and Papa spared Friday lifting out his new sharpening stone and a bag of dark seeds. Saturday and Sunday received small silk bags with their names written on scraps of thick paper and tied to the closing ribbons. Sunday’s contained a wealth of shiny hairpins with tiny stars and insects and mythical creatures on them. Saturday’s clutch contained a beautiful brush and mirror set. The brush had an elegant ebony handle, and the mirror was silver, with intricately carved roses that stood out in relief on the back and sides. Each piece had words etched into it that might have been French, but Saturday didn’t leave the offending items visible long enough for Sunday to tell for sure. She shoved them both back into the silk bag and then sat on it. Despite Thursday’s good intentions and omniscient magic spyglass, she still labored under the impression that Sunday was a baby ... and that Saturday was a girl.

  She had also apparently forgotten that the family was a sister short. Alone at the bottom of the trunk was one last long, thin, silk bag. The scrap of paper tied to this ribbon read MONDAY.

  No one made a move to touch it.

  Sunday was very young when she’d last seen her eldest sister, shortly after her marriage and before the Woodcutter family had moved into the towerhouse. Mama and Monday didn’t speak at all; while Sunday didn’t know the exact reason why, she could guess. Simply put, Mama was a very hard person to love. Her work ethic prescribed sweating and bleeding and earning ones riches rather than marrying into them and moving away at the first opportunity. Mama accepted Thursday’s gifts because Thursday had always been stubborn and defiant, mishearing Mama’s petty comments and scolding as professions of love. (The girls had learned a lot from Thursday about how to deal with their mother.) This gift for the outcast sister was just a further demonstration of that defiance. Odd and uncomfortable but definitely expected.

  Monday was another story. She had traded her bride gift for her freedom and never contacted them again. The towerhouse had been the beginning and the end of Mondays generosity; Mama frowned upon charity just as she frowned upon everything else.

  It was Wednesday who scooped the small bag out of the trunk. She put it in her pocket and, nice as you please, said, “Let’s hear the rest o
f the letter now, Papa.”

  Sunday was as shocked by Wednesday’s ability to string together a coherent sentence as she was by Monday’s gift. As instructed, Papa retrieved the parchment from his pocket and resumed his reading.

  “Every woman deserves something beautiful. My sisters are no exception. (Don’t scowl, Saturday. You might even thank me one day.) Friday, please don’t forget to make a dress for yourself.. I know how you are. Peter, I knew you would prefer to carve your own bow. Use Trix’s as a guide. Papa will help you.

  I love and miss you all and think about you every day. Don’t worry, Mama: I don’t harbor the slightest notion of giving up my perfect home on the seas, where the stars fall straight into the water and the storms are so fierce that afterward you remember what a divine privilege it is to be alive. Dream of me, my beloved family, happy in my plundering and adventuring, for when the waves rock me to sleep tonight, I will be dreaming of you.

  Give Monday my love.

  Your favorite daughter and sister, Thursday”

  3. Gifts Like Word

  “GRUMBLE? Are you here?” Bucket in hand, Sunday carefully liptoed around the crumbled pieces of the well. In the heat of the day, the rocks perspired more than Sunday herself, and she slipped. She threw her arms out in an effort to catch herself—ihe didn’t want to squash the best friend she’d ever had! After tilting about madly for a moment, she regained her balance.

  There was a deep, rumbling croak of froggy laughter to her left.

  “Caught that, did you?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Though I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

  Sunday found a more level section of ground and plopped down on it. “Grace was a different sister, remember?”

  “So true, so true.” He hopped closer. “You’re early. No chores today?”

  “I wish! I’m supposed to be taking Trix to market to sell the cow; the chores that didn’t get done this morning will still be there when we get home. Tomorrow I’m off to church to help Friday, which means even more chores later. Chores, chores. Sometimes I think all I do is chores.”

  “Will your brother be all right by himself?”

  “He knows exactly where to go, to whom he’s supposed to sell the cow, and what price he’s to fetch. He’ll be fine.” The last part was more prayer than statement. Sunday had outlined every detail with Trix, three times over, but Trix was a force of nature. She refused to think about all the things that could go wrong, so she changed the subject. “I brought you a present.” She held out the small bucket.

  “I...”

  Grumble clearly had no idea what to thank her for, and she laughed. “We talk for so long that you get dehydrated. This way”—she leaned over the side of the well and dropped the bucket in the water, scooping it full to the brim—“you won’t have to excuse yourself to take a swim.” She nestled the bucket between two oversized rocks. “See? You don’t have to go to the well, for I’ve brought the well to you.”

  “I have never known such kindness,” he said.

  “Of course you have,” she assured him. “You just don’t remember.”

  He didn’t contradict her.

  The giving and receiving of gifts had always been important in Sunday’s family. Gifts, like words, carried with them a great deal of power. They bestowed good fortune just as powerfully as they could curse; they could bind people together or tear them apart. The bucket was merely a token of how deeply Sunday valued Grumble’s friendship, but she was glad to see that it meant as much to him as it did to her. If she couldn’t wish him human again, she could at least wish him happy.

  Sunday ran her thumb across the pages of her book. “I didn’t have a lot of time to write last night, but you will enjoy the reason.” Grumble hopped to a large rock beside his new wooden wading pool and settled in as Sunday told him of Thursday’s amazing trunk, her pirate husband, and the magic spyglass that could see the past, present, and future from leagues away—her fairy godmother’s nameday gift.

  Sunday didn’t skim over any detail. Grumble laughed at her reenactment of Trix’s intentions to steal from the rich and give to the poor, and he worried over the puzzle of Thursday’s gift for Monday. When she was done, he urged her for more, so she opened her book and read to him what little she had written about her siblings and each of their nameday gifts from Fairy Godmother Joy.

  With every word she spoke, Sunday felt more comfortable. It was as if she had known Grumble all her life, only to him all her stories were new. She hoped they could be friends forever and was wistful they could not be more. Between all the stories she had left to tell and all the adventures she was sure were yet to come, they would always have something to talk about. Always.

  But she knew that could never be; their friendship would last only as long as Grumble retained his memories. If he stayed a frog, she knew from Papa’s tales that he would eventually forget he had ever been a man. He would not be able to hear her stories. He would lose the power of speech. Eventually, he would not know Sunday at all. Inevitable as that might be, now that she had this precious friendship, she was incredibly frightened of losing it.

  Grumble must have been thinking something similar. “I’m forgetting what it was like to be human,” he confessed. “I can’t remember faces or names, my own included. I’ve forgotten what it was like to get out of bed in the morning. The feel of clothes on my skin. The taste of breakfast on my tongue. Food. I think I loved food, once.”

  Sunday’s heart went out to him.

  “But when I’m lost in your words, I see rooms and people and colors; I feel laughter and sorrow and curiosity. I forget that I am a frog. Instead I am simply a man, sitting here in the Wood beside his beautiful friend, listening to stories about her interesting life. You are magic to me, Sunday.”

  She bit her lip. Strange emotions welled in her again. It was the loveliest thing anyone had ever said to her.

  “You have ruined me. I didn’t realize how much I longed for the company of others until I had your words. When they are gone, the nights are darker. The silence is loud and bottomless, and I am empty. I miss them, my beloved Sunday, and I miss you.”

  It was no use fighting; the tears came. She was powerless to break his curse, but she could give him what she had. She opened her book to the next blank page and started writing. When she was done, she leaned back and smiled at her friend. “‘Sunday was nothing,’ ” she read aloud, “‘until she met Grumble—a beautiful man, with the soul of a poet. He was her best friend in the whole wide world, and she loved him with all her heart.’ ” She closed the book gently in her lap. Her chest hurt. Her hands shook. “Oh, how I wish—”

  “Sunday!” Her name was yelled loudly, from far away. “Sunday!”

  Trix? What was he doing back so soon? She squinted into the high sun. He should have been gone another hour or two at least...

  “Suuuuuun-daaaaaaaaay,” Trix cried through the trees.

  “Here!” she called out. “I’m here.” And then to Grumble: “Well, like it or not, you’re about to meet some of my family.”

  “It will be an honor,” said the frog.

  Trix crashed through the brush and stumbled into the clearing, quiver at his back, bow drawn with an unsteady arm. It was sweet that he thought she needed saving ... and somewhat frightening that he was armed and dangerous.

  Sunday held up a hand to stop him; the fantasy of dashing rescue fled his eyes, and he lowered the bow. “Ooooooooo,” he said breathlessly. “A Fairy Well.” Sunday grabbed his scrawny wrist before he could scamper off across the slippery rocks and break his neck. That was all she needed.

  “Too right, young sir,” said Grumble. “This is indeed a Fairy Well. I had almost forgotten.” Trix froze and stared at the frog.

  “Trix, meet my friend Grumble. Grumble, my brother Trix.”

  “Wow,” said Trix.

  “Enchanted,” said Grumble.

  “Did you see the fairy when she was here?” Trix asked him.

  “I
did,” said the frog. “She took much delight in playing tricks on people who passed by.”

  The frog’s answer puzzled Sunday. By the state of things, the well had been abandoned for a very long time. Grumble couldn’t have been a frog for that long, or he would have forgotten his humanity entirely. Perhaps he was remembering some other story?

  “Did she trick you?” asked Trix. “Is that why you’re a frog?”

  “No,” said Grumble. “But I did ask if she could remove my curse.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Apparently, only the fairy who places the curse can remove it. All another fairy can do is ... bend it a little. Shorten the sentence. She gave me one more year as a man before the curse took hold, and she provided an out clause.”

  “The kiss of true love?” asked Trix, wide-eyed.

  “That very thing,” said Grumble. He did not raise his head to look at Sunday, but Trix was too clever by half.

  “Did you—?” Trix started to ask.

  Sunday could not bear to revisit her failure. “The cow. You sold her so quickly?” Again, it was more of a hope than a question.

  The wide grin he gave her was unsettling. “I am a shrewd and lucky tradesman! I happened upon a man in the Wood who was on his way to market for just such a cow. Too bad you weren’t there, Sunday, you might have learned a thing or two from your older brother.”

  The excitement that only minutes before had soared in Sunday’s throat now soured in her stomach. No. Please, gods, no.

  “I sold it to him for these.” Trix slowly opened his palm, teasing Sunday with a glimpse of the contents.

  “Beans.” She was going to throw up.

  “Magic beans,” Trix said proudly. “That sly fox was going to give me only one measly bean. Clever me, I got him up to five! After all, what if one doesn’t sprout? Smart thinking, eh?” Trix folded the orange-gold, sweat-stuck beans back into his pocket and patted them. “I will plant them under my tree house and then ... Sunday? Are you all right?”