Before the Fairytale: The Girl With No Name (Seventh Night)

by Iscah

  SEVENTH NIGHT

  Before the Fairytale:

  The Girl With No Name

  by Iscah

  © 2012-2013 Iscah

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by Amoeba Ink co.

  www.amoebaink.com

  ISBN 978-0-9835519-1-1

  To copy is naughty,

  If permission you do not seek.

  All rights reserved by author.

  And lest you think this bleak,

  Remember last when you, yourself,

  Did long work and toil,

  So please respect all rights

  On domestic and foreign soil.

  If by chance you know someone reflected in this tale,

  We find this quite wondrous and most unintentional.

  To my parents who gave me a name.

  Acknowledgements

  P.J. Lockabey for the writing sessions and his willingness to beta each chapter, and everyone on Fictionpress who gave me feedback on the serial chapters. Special thanks to

  Loraine Wentworth, SirScott, and C. L. Aaron for their sharp eyes and kind words.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Prologue

  Once upon a time there was a girl with no name. She lived in the landlocked country of Gourlin in a small cabin with a very old man who was her keeper and only friend. She was not unloved nor very lonely for the whole of the world sang to her, but she had her share of difficulties.

  It was not uncommon in this time for women to die in childbirth, and this was the fate that claimed her mother. Her mother had every intention of naming her, but she had waited for two things that never happened. She had waited to look in her child's eyes, and she had waited for her husband to return from his journey. But through the long months her child grew inside her, she sang to her daughter every day and told her secrets and stories that were still buried in the girl's soul.

  The first person to look in the child's eyes other than the midwife was the elderly man who was to keep her. He thought it proper that she be named by one of her parents, so he also waited for her father to return. In the meantime, he called her Little and that worked well enough.

  The girl's father had every intention of returning. He had left his most precious possessions in the care of his new wife and their elderly friend and taken only the bare essentials for his journey. Like many in Gourlin, he had heard the story of how their western desert had more than doubled in size overnight. Unlike many in Gourlin, he had a guess as to why. Perhaps if he had known he had a daughter coming, he may not have gone at all, but it is hard to say. No one plans to be murdered. No one expects the companion who had fought hard against wind and wave by their side for weeks on end in a small boat to reach a shore abandoned three centuries ago by their ancestors to show such treachery. But a black heart had been hidden behind an unassuming face and mild manner.

  The one advantage of the girl's father never being aware of her was it kept her existence a perfect secret from the black hearted man as well.

  Little and her keeper led a quiet life. Her parents had left her no great wealth in gold but a healthy stack of twenty or so books, many of them on magic, but two were handwritten journals about her father's travels. To the girl, they were a great treasure.

  Chapter 1

  The girl with no name had a peculiar talent and affliction. She could change her shape at will. While a potentially useful skill later in life, all she accomplished with it in her infancy was to frighten away her nursemaids. Babies offer enough challenges without suddenly turning into cats or cooking pots.

  The old man did as best he could. He had no children of his own, but he had raised his share of dogs, cats, pigs, and chickens. While too old to be very fast, he was old enough to be patient. So when the crawling babe turned herself into a sack of flour and the last nursemaid quit from terror and frustration, he waited calmly for three days until she grew hungry or bored enough to turn back into a crying baby. When she became a cat, he poured her milk in a saucer. When she became a bird, he filled a dish with seed and allowed her to fly in and out the open window. When she became a snake, he shut her in a basket until she decided to be a baby again.

  As she grew out of infancy and into childhood, she gained better control over her ability and spent most of her time as a girl. The old man bought her dresses, carved toys for her out of wood, and made her dolls from scraps and stuffing. He taught her to clean and cook, feed the chickens and collect the eggs. In the evenings, he read to her.

  The old man had the talent and affliction of being rather wiser than most of his neighbors. Though he had been born with a name and made good use of it for most of his life, at this eve of his existence, the villagers referred to him simply as Elder.

  When the first nursemaid returned to town talking of an evil shape-shifting infant that had killed its mother and clearly been sired by no human father, the people laughed at her. She was an old widow, though not nearly as old as the Elder, and was given to flights of fancy. The second nursemaid was a very young girl. When she returned telling stories about a baby that turned into a cat, they thought she was too easily influenced by the old widow. But the mayor's sister was a practical spinster without an ounce of fancy in her bones. So when she said the baby turned into a sack of flour, the stories of the other two gained new credence.

  On the advice of his sister, the mayor and seven armed men went to visit the cottage of the old man on the outskirts of the village. They knocked on the door and explained their business. The old man listened politely as he could, but when they finished speaking, he began to chuckle.

  "Why are you laughing, Elder?" they asked.

  "Forgive me," he said. "But never before have I seen seven armed men frightened of a sleeping babe."

  Embarrassed, one of the men said, "We're not afraid, Elder. We simply wish to see the child."

  "Have you never seen one before?" asked the old man.

  "Not one that changes into cats and cooking pots," said the mayor.

  "But surely," said the old man. "You have seen a cat? And you have seen a cooking pot?"

  "Well, certainly," huffed the mayor.

  "Then I don't believe you will see anything you have not seen before," chuckled the old man.

  "Surely it frightens you to live with such a creature!" exclaimed the mayor.

  "You mean the child?"

  "Yes, the child."

  "Oh, no, I am old enough not to be frightened by children."

  "No, no, Elder. It is not a normal child. My sister is reliable. We know the child changes."

  "Well, I should hope so," said the old man. "A child that never changed would be a sad creature indeed. A mother may say she wishes to keep her babe small forever, but imagine if it never grew, never learned to speak or walk. It would be a great misfor
tune."

  "You misunderstand me," the mayor said impatiently. "The widow saw the child change into a bird, and my sister saw it become a cooking pot and a sack of flour. Do you deny it?"

  "I have no reason to."

  "So you admit the child changes!"

  "I believe we concluded all children do."

  "But not into birds or cats or things that are not human!"

  "No indeed, unless you count imagination," said the old man. "If she can do as you say, then I find myself the keeper of a rather unique child. But she is sleeping, so please keep your voice down."

  The mayor scowled while the men shuffled their feet. In a quieter voice, he said, "It is my duty to guard the village and protect it from dangers." The old man nodded politely, and the mayor continued. "So you understand that I can not allow this child to stay in the village."

  "I'm afraid I do not understand," said the old man, now frowning. "I've never seen a child, a cat, or a pot, nor any combination of the three that was a danger to anyone, much less in need of seven armed men to escort it out of town."

  "We can take the child by force, if we have to," said the mayor, though he could see his men would be extremely reluctant to do so.

  "Oh, I'm sure you could," said the old man. "But I do not see how the child is a danger...unless as a cat she scratched someone?...no?....Well, perhaps as a bird she pecked the widow?...no?...Did she burn her nurse as a cooking pot? Or perhaps your sister finds bags disagreeable? Surely, I am far enough from the other houses that her crying troubles no one's sleep but my own?"

  The men shook their heads. The mayor tried, but he could think of no argument. "Very well, Elder," he sighed. "We leave the child to your care."

  The mayor and the men returned to their homes. The mayor's mind was not entirely easy about the changing child, but soon after, his sister ran off with a passing soldier. The reliability of the only reliable witness now in question, the girl and her guardian were left in peace.

  The affliction of the wise was that they often forget that others do not share their wisdom. The old man believed that reason once seen would always remain clear, and so when the girl turned six, like any responsible adult with a child in Gourlin, he sent her to school to learn to read.

  Chapter 2

  Unlike its neighbors, the country of Gourlin had the very sensible policy of teaching its children to read. Every child between the ages of six and twelve was expected to attend school at the town hall for three hours, three days a week where they taught three subjects: their own language Western Coastal, basic math for commerce, and the language of their neighboring countries.

  Paper was expensive, and books were rare among those who were not rich. Most children practiced their letters and numbers with mud and sticks on thin pieces of slate. So while few adults were great readers or mathematicians, they were still considered very useful skills. It gave the country of Gourlin a measure of educational pride and reason to feel superior to its neighbors.

  The girl with no name became a great reader, but she only spent three weeks attending the village school before she decided she would learn better and more pleasantly under the tutelage of her elderly keeper. There was a very simple reason why the other children pelted her with their mud and sticks and cruel words. It was the same thing that had driven her ancestors from the land three centuries ago.

  Fear.

  The first day of school the teacher asked the girl her name, and she could give him no answer. The children laughed. After some frustration and a few more questions, the teacher settled on calling her No Name.

  Children are well known for their ability to turn any name into a taunt, and No Name was ripe for taunting. This was not fear, simply childishness. The children's fear grew because, while the girl had better control over her ability, it was not quite perfect. Several times, while looking at the eyes of another student, hers would become the same color. Her hair might grow curlier or straighter or start shifting hue depending on what she was thinking about.

  The children were at first startled and curious about the talent. They asked their parents about it, and while one might hope parents would be less childish than their children, this did not prove true. Their parents made wild speculations and mixed details, which only turned the children's curiosity and concern to fear and disgust. By the third week, they were throwing their mud and sticks at the girl.

  The mud washed off and bruises from the small sticks healed, but it is much harder to get rid of words. The cruelest of these was how the children had mixed up the mother with the nursemaid and told the girl her mother had run off from fear of her. Being a stranger to lies, it never occurred to the small girl to question what they had said, and it weighed in her heart.

  The old man could have set the story right, but the child never asked. He wiped her tears and washed off the mud and offered to teach her at home.

  Chapter 3

  They lived a quiet and happy life for a time. The girl grew taller, and the old man grew older. She read her father's books and learned that far away and across the sea there were other people like her. People who could hear the world sing and make magic and even some who could change their shape. They were called shifters, and it was very comforting to know that though her talent was rare even in the land of wizards she was not the only one. Her talent was a product of magic but did not make her a danger.

  The books revealed to her that the essence of magic was to change a pattern. To control the effect, a magic user must first understand the pattern. Anyone could change a pattern, people did it constantly, but the art of magic was akin to the art of an instrument. Anyone can pluck a string, but it takes talent and study to have the strings produce a song. As with music, some were born with a certain talent and ear for the patterns of the world. For them the wind did not merely blow, it sang. A flower did not simply grow, it composed. Those with the greatest talent could change the composition.

  Most magic is subtle, so it was easy enough to keep secret. They had few visitors, so there was no one to notice that a song helped more easily light the fire or that the flavor of the wood in the walls had been changed to keep away mice and bugs.

  Still the girl knew that people were afraid of her. The books only made the vaguest mention of why the wizards had left the land and crossed the sea, something about kings and sages and counsels, but the girl suspected it had more to do with them not liking to see sticks and mud and cruel words thrown at their children.

  But she also learned from the old man that someone without magic and someone with it could live together in perfect harmony. Three hundred years ago, which in some ways was a very long time and in other ways not long at all, the wizards had lived in Gourlin and the surrounding lands, so her ancestral home was also the one where she lived. She wondered if those wizards had left anything behind.

  She asked the old man if he thought there might be. He told her there were some people who still called themselves magicians in the land, but most people did not believe in magic anymore. "It is hard to believe in what you can not see."

  So the girl gathered eggs from their six chickens, milked their two goats, read her books, and listened to the world sing.

  And then one morning after she had gathered the eggs and made a breakfast, she went to wake the old man, but he would not wake. He looked peaceful but cold, and she ran to the village center to find help. The men came, and the old man was buried.

  The next morning the mayor came to tell the girl that she must leave. The old man had no children or wife of his own, and the law was clear. His property now belonged to the village. She could no longer live there.

  The girl's heart was heavy as she packed her clothes and books and what little money she could find. She took the cooking pots and wooden bowls and hitched the goats to the old man's small wagon. Then she set off to find her father.

  Chapter 4

  Step by step the girl with no name walked down the dirt road that led away from the village. She did not kn
ow where the road led, only that people came and left this way so the road must go to somewhere. The nearly full moon shone down on them, singing its quiet song that changed everyday but was always the same as the month before. The stars chorused along like the chirping of crickets. The trees alongside the path hummed in their sleep. It was both sad and comforting to know that the night had not noticed the passing of her only friend. It was as it always was and would be.

  She let her goats set the pace since they had the greater burden. She was in no hurry. The only plan she could form was to follow the road and see where it led. When she grew tired, she took her goats off the road and tied them to a tree. She rolled the small wagon just out of their reach, for goats will eat most anything they can reach, and took an old quilt from it. The wagon tilted back on the axle of its two wheels, and she spread her blanket under the meager shelter it provided and slept.

  She woke a few hours later to the scream of the goats. A lone wolf was drawing ever closer, panting in anticipation as its helpless prey tugged against their ropes. There was no one around and no time or need for modesty. The girl slipped out of her dress and changed into a bear. She charged towards the predator, roaring out all the anger she felt. She took a swipe with her claws, but the wolf darted away into the underbrush. She was in no mood to chase after it.

  The goats, not quite bright enough to understand they had been rescued, began to work themselves up into an even greater panic. The girl returned to her dress, became a girl again, and tried to reassure them. At first, she did not approach them. She sat still and sang a song of comfort, for most magic is subtle. After a time, the goats grew calm. The girl approached and stroked their necks until they had forgiven her. Then she milked the she-goats and made a breakfast of milk and berries.

  After breakfast, they continued down the road until they found a stream. The girl realized she was ill prepared for travel. They drank their fill, but the girl had nothing well designed to carry water. She had nothing to shelter them at night from foe or storm. In her haste to leave, she had brought very little food. The goats were content to eat the plants on the roadside and nibbled happily on anything that had managed to set root on their path, but the girl's stomach was more selective. The goats were good for milk but could not provide bread, meat, or vegetables.