by Peter Beagle
He was giving up! I could not believe it. I flew up, and called mightily, and he saw. I circled where she was hiding.
“Rhodopis?” he called into the growing night. The barge drew close to land, and he leapt upon the grass and called again.
She came and knelt at his feet, refusing to look at him. She was terrified. I wished to comfort her but I did not dare.
“I am told that this slipper is yours.” He held it in his two hands, like an offering for the altar. “Would you please try it?”
She did so, trembling, then drew the other from the laundry and put it on her unshod foot. He laughed with joy and kissed her on the forehead.
“She will be my wife. It has been decreed!”
That should have been the end of the story. The end of all of this. But it was not.
The master threw a great party to celebrate the joyous union decreed by Horus himself. I, disguised as an older version of my earlier Egyptian maiden sat with him while he told me how very happy he was for her. We all, drunk with wine, curled up and slept in the courtyard, oblivious as each of the slaves took a pin and pierced the sleeping Rhodopis with it. She became a dove, and flew above the crowd, mad with confusion and grief.
There are versions of the story where she is found, restored. This is not one of them.
Eleanor knocked on the loaf, testing its hardness. She wrapped it in a cloth and placed it on the table. “Did the fairy go after her?”
“I think she did.” I said, after drinking some honey water to soothe my throat. “She wanted to make things right more than anything, but she was not able to.” I tilted my head, hearing hooves. “Your family is home.”
“You don’t have to leave. They never enter the kitchen. It is my own paradise.” Her hands were quick, steady, straightening her apron and her bodice, checking her hair.
“I should, though. I have things I need to do ere I rest.”
“Rest? You never tell me anything about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do?”
For once, the stepmother served me well. She was calling out for Eleanor, and she could not be refused.
“Another time, dear child,” I said, and soon I was away. I was struck by the thought of those pins. How had the slaves gotten them? Such powerful magic was not easy to find so quickly.
We almost ran into each other, the farmer and I. He grabbed my elbow to keep me from falling, and I clung to him for a second before leaping away.
“Well,” he said, as an elderly lady hobbled up to him.
“Young man, I demand you take something for the food you left me.”
He blushed like a beet, and he shook his head. “I was told that you have your son’s children in your care. You need it more than I…”
I grinned at him. He blushed deeper, if possible, and finally managed to get away, pulling his donkey’s lead gently. I fell into step beside him.
“Have you mended your ways, farmer…Gregory?”
“I should have realized you can read minds,” he said, looking none too pleased.
“No, I cannot read minds. Your donkey told me.”
He scratched Edgar between the ears, looking at me, wondering if he should be worried. “I decided you had a point, and thought I could help some of those I saw when I was last in town,” he admitted. “But I am not doing it to please you.”
“Such pride,” I chastised lightly. He winced.
“Am I in trouble?”
I shook my head. I would be the last to cast stones for that.
We walked in silence for a bit.
“I’m hungry,” I said, and walked around to the back of the cart. “There isn’t much left.”
“I bought what I could on the way back,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t much.”
“What about yourself?”
“I am not such a saint. I will put some food by and go home.”
I pointed at the cart. I didn’t say anything, just envisioned the things that had been stored in it. The wood told me tales of cheeses, vegetables, game, casks of honey and bags of flour, beer and wine, apples, eggs and more. I added other things from memory, longing for the taste of olives, sour and sweet, soft cheeses and lovely almonds. I had been dreaming of oranges and grapes, and I added them too. Then thought of the wagon frame, the sides, everything straight and hard and new.
I reached in, and took an orange, peeling it with my sharp nails. “What?” I asked, and then offered him a section. “Don’t worry. It will never run out. But it will never be too heavy, either. Nor will the axles break, or the wheels need repair, or the sides repainted.” I gestured as if this were nothing.
He placed a hand on a cart side, reverently. Shocked did not describe the expression on his face. “Will the food spoil?”
“Good point.” I pointed at it, and said, “Not for a long time. But eventually, yes. Everything must fade.”
When I saw her next, she was on her knees, picking things off the kitchen floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Where is your stepmother?”
Eleanor sat up, placing her hands at the small of her back. “My stepmother threw a bowl of linseeds across the kitchen, and I have to pick each and every one up before they get back, or she will beat me.” She said this straight forwardly. There was fear, but she was not wailing and bawling, like so many I know would have been.
“Why would she do such a thing? That is…indescribably cruel!” Ways to avenge Eleanor tumbled through my mind, but I decided to put it aside. Nothing must risk Eleanor’s happiness with her prince. Nothing.
“She found me repairing one of my mother’s dresses,” she said, clearly ashamed. “I know it is out of fashion, but I truly wanted to go to the ball. I know if I saw the prince again…” She sighed, and for a moment, I thought she would weep, but she took another breath and started picking up the seeds again.
“Hold! Don’t touch another seed, young lady.” I stalked over to the window and whistled. Birds flooded the kitchen, black birds, sparrows, birds with feathers of red and feathers of yellow. She gaped at them, and I took her arm and pulled her back into the hall while they fluttered around, collecting the seeds.
“Well, now. It looks like you have some free time after all.”
Her awe became laughter. “Are you going to tell me another story?”
I grinned, and we sat down together in the parlor, Eleanor gingerly, as if waiting for someone to strike her, I with the gratitude of someone who needed comfort for her old bones.
I thought for a moment, and then began, knowing that this was the right story. “Once upon a time, there was a scholar, who lived in a cave with two wives,” I began.
She looked at me, an eyebrow arched. “Two wives?”
“This is not Europe, Dear, but the Far East, a province in Zhongguo. Now, shall I tell the story?”
She nodded eagerly, and after another quelling look, I began. It all came rushing back…
The scholar had two wives; the first wife was as beautiful as the sunset, the second wife plainer, sturdier. The first wife was the favorite, an educated lady who would help her husband in his studies, while the second wife would do more of the work, which she resented.
In the fullness of time they both had daughters, Yeh-Shen, a sweet little girl with a laugh like a brook, and Yeh-Guo, who seemed to have absorbed her mother’s resentments in the womb. Things were happy enough, at first, though the second wife always felt some envy toward the first, for the first wife was more of a companion than she could ever be.
It was, perhaps, that very closeness between man and first wife that saved the second, for once the two of them went out, into the deepest mountains to search for certain crystals, and the mountain fell out from under them both.
The second wife forbade the first wife’s name to ever be spoken again, even beat Yeh-Shen when she called for her mother, and so I will never use hers, so that she may be as forgotten as those she wanted to forget.
It did not take long for Second Wife to become used to the n
ew way of life. Yeh-Shen was a perfect target to bear the brunt of the stepmother’s resentment, for she was beautiful like the first wife had been, and intelligent like the first wife had been, and generous and kind, again, just like the first wife. Rather than warming the stepmother’s heart, it made her hate the child more, and she assigned the girl every menial task.
Every hardship was to be suffered by Yeh-Shen, who slept in the cave’s mouth while Yeh-Guo slept with her mother on a bed made from the first wife’s fine robes, embroidered silks in a rainbow of lovely colors. Every morning as the sun crept over the lip of the cave, she would awake and come out to a small lake to draw water. And that is where she met me…
Being a fish was one of the least unpleasant forms I have taken. I liked it, in fact, liked being suspended in the water, the weight of silence. In this form you can sense far more than most think possible, but there was stillness and solitude to the water, a peace that balmed my soul. One day I felt a yearning for water in my heart, so I changed to that shape, and then let the currents lead me. After many miles I found myself tumbling down into a small, pretty lake below the mouth of a cave.
I had lain in the water awhile, exhausted but exhilarated, when I saw a shadow at the edge of the lake. I moved so I could see better, and there, above me, a young woman dipped her bucket into the water.
I let myself go above the edge of the water so I could see her face better, see her eyes. She was not a pretty blonde, this time, but a beautiful Chinese girl, but her eyes were still blue, still kind. She was humming something under her breath.
“Yeh-Shen! Yeh-Shen! Will you hurry up, you lazy girl?” The voice was strident, harsh, like the cawing of crows, and the young girl winced, her shoulders falling a little. She had hoped, I realized, for a few moment’s peace. “Yeh-Shen!”
“Coming, Mother!” She grabbed the buckets and ran, the sort of short, choppy steps of someone bearing a heavy burden, up to the cave. I needed to rise from the lake, take another form, and take a look at Yeh-Shen’s life, but for a moment I forgot how to be anything else but a fish. I’d been one for ages, it seemed, and now I was having a hard time remembering what it felt like to be anything else.
I forced myself to remember what it felt like to have arms and legs, what a head felt like on a neck, the neck on a torso, the way I breathed and felt and looked and sensed. I crawled out of the lake and went to the nearest tree, crawling inside the foreign-feeling wood, letting it comfort me. I could feel the core of it like a heart, pumping in time with my own, and I let myself fall away.
The next morning I left the tree determined to go up to the cave, when I saw her approach through the woods. I ran toward the lake, changing myself back into a fish as I leapt the last bit and dove into the pond. I peeked above the surface, saw only delight in her expression, and knew she thought that I had leapt from the water.
“Hello, Golden Eyes,” she said. “What a beautiful fish, you are, with your scales of copper, silver, and gold.” I disappeared beneath the surface, as if afraid. “Please, don’t go…I won’t hurt you!” She took from her robes a bit of bread, which she broke and held just under the surface of the water.
I took it from her, making sure that I tickled her fingers with my lips, which made her giggle. I let her stroke my fins, then swam away, building up the force to leap above the surface. I somersaulted above the water and landed again, making her giggle with her hand over her mouth, as if trying not to be caught.
“I will be back, Golden Eyes,” she said. “I will bring you food this evening.”
She dipped her water buckets, and then walked off again quickly, pausing only to wave a little to me, smiling as if I were the best thing that had ever happened to her.
As I rose up, now an invisible mist, I could hear Yeh-Shen berated by two angry, screeching voices. Feeling lazy, I let the wind push me to the cave where I settled, like smoke, along the ceiling.
It seemed that Master Wu (for that was the name of the maiden’s father) had wed a swan and then a toad, for Yeh-Shen was beautiful and delicate, with tiny feet and hands, and skin that glowed like pearl. Yeh-Guo bore a great resemblance to her mother: Short, with coarse, sallow skin and tiny eyes. She looked as if someone had placed their hand on her head and squished her down, making her skin and bones compress.
Yeh-Guo did nothing to help around the house, lounging instead in front of the fire, playing with some colored stones idly, as if she was a fine lady and had nothing better to do. Yeh-Shen was on her knees, scrubbing the floor of the cave, while her stepmother sat, pretending to doze in a patch of sun that came through the smoke hole, but I could see her mean, little eyes move as she watched the younger girl, as if waiting for her to make a mistake. I felt far less pity for her than I had, for I could see into her heart, and saw nothing but foulness and cruelty.
I watched for a while, but when I could bear it no longer, I left to explore the area. I needed to find her future husband and, I realized, I needed to walk about for a bit as a woman, or I would forget myself altogether and be lost to the winds.
The village was simple, a fishing village that boasted of a small harbor. Not so far out to sea there was an island connected to the village by a long bridge. It was a magnificent thing, this bridge, made of pale stone, and guarded by a statue of the lion-like Suanni on the left, the clam-like Jiaoto on the right.
“Do you like it?” a voice asked sweetly behind me.
I turned with a start, and bowed. Always the king, my dear sweet boy. Always the king.
He held his hand out to me, and I realized, in my vanity, I had made myself beautiful, for I could not bear to be anything less. I placed my hand in his, and felt the longing awake like a poison in my blood. He felt it too, and I knew, if I wanted to, I could go back to his palace, across the bridge, to the center of the island, far enough away it would seem like another world.
We stood and stared at each other, and I could sense him trying to place me.
“Your majesty, a thousand pardons, but your mother comes…” one of the guards said.
He nodded and leapt back onto his horse, as if anxiously waiting for his mother, in her palanquin, to come to the bridge. He looked for me then, but I made myself a leaf, and whisked myself away.
A fish again, I rested at the bottom of the pond, and contemplated the meaning of beauty.
But she’s beautiful, I thought as I heard her singing voice coming closer. Why can’t I be beautiful too?
I knew if I thought beyond that I would be forced to face my faults—vanity, pride, selfishness—so I put my thoughts aside, and rose to the surface.
“There you are!” She smiled happily. It was getting close to dark, the dusk giving her some room to hide. She took some bread from her pockets. “I have food for you!” She made to toss it into the water.
“Wait!” I said. “No need to get my food wet…” I crawled out onto the bank, and she stared at me in wonder. “You are most kind, Yeh-Shen, to give what little you have to me. It shows that your heart is a gentle one, and I am so pleased to meet someone like you in my travels.”
“Your travels? You must tell me!”
And so I did. Every night she would bring me a little of her food and I would tell her stories. Of course, nothing is meant to last, and as the weather turned colder it was harder for her to sneak away.
It was not an exciting way for me to live either, for every night I would wait for her, the other fish closing around me because they thought me interesting or extra warm, pushing me deeper into the mud, and every day I would wander around righting wrongs and being bored.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t realize it wasn’t her, calling my name. Maybe I’d gotten dull. I had certainly gotten careless, as I leapt from the water, flopping on the bank.
“Hello, Yeh-Shen. Shall we continue…”
“Hello, Golden Eyes,” her stepmother cackled. “I am hungry, and you will make a good meal!”
The knife came down, but I managed to roll to avoid it.
She grabbed my tail, but I made myself slippery, and slid back into the water just ahead of the hand she plunged in after me.
She grabbed one of my neighbors, and I did the only thing I could think of. I made the other fish look like me. She threw it on the bank and cut it neatly. The others clustered near me, not realizing, of course, what I’d done. I tried not to feel guilty, to make a new plan, instead.
Back at the cave, Yeh-Shen screamed and screamed, her howls mingling with their cruel laughter. The silence that came was so abrupt I knew someone had slapped her.
I rose out of the pond, invisible, as she came running down the path. She threw herself down next to the water. “Golden Eyes? Golden Eyes?” Above her, a softly glowing gold mist formed, became the shape of the fish.
“Yeh-Shen?” I whispered, and she looked up.
“I am so sorry…oh! I!” She started weeping again, and I settled around her for a second, giving her a feeling of comfort and warmth before I rose away.
“You must find my bones, Yeh-Shen, and collect them up and bury them. This way, I will always be with you. When you are in need, visit my bones and ask me what you will. But you must be careful of the gifts, you must be wise with them, and do not lose them, or I shall not be able to come back to help you again.”
“Don’t go!” she said, as I let myself disappear.
“I must. Do not forget, Yeh-Shen.”
The night was dark again, but not so dark that I could not see the tendrils of her dark hair sticking to her tear-wet cheeks. I watched as she went up to the cave, walking as if she were a million years old, and went inside.
“This time it will be all right,” I said, though I knew she could not hear. “This time, I promise, it will work.”
It was almost sweet, the way she cared for the bones, carefully reforming the skeleton and then burying them with an offering of rice and bread under a tree. This was the tree I chose to sink myself into. I could not bear to watch any more. Now was the time to wait, and hope.
“Golden Eyes!” I heard someone calling distantly. I didn’t understand it, at first, as I woke, but then I realized it was spring. I could feel the sap pumping in my veins, I felt alive and good and bright. I always feel groggy and dull in the winter.
