by B. J. Smash
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked down into the grave. There she sat, the old woman, Aggie, smiling up at me. From the waist up she was free of the dirt, and her lower half was still under the earth. “Scared you, did I?” She wore an ivory shift dress with a shimmering blue belt that tied around her waist. Although her face and hands were dirty, the dirt had barely touched the dress. She appeared thin and frail; however, she definitely was not dead.
“You could say that.” I lay back down and took a few deep breaths, covering my eyes with my hands. The earth smelled moist, and I recognized something that smelled like sandalwood.
“Time to rise, child. You don't have much time, and we must discuss a few things,” she said pleasantly.
Drumm helped me up, and then he sat on the grass. I sat on the grass, but I swung my legs into the grave so I could face Aggie.
“What is it that you need? The yellow ribbon? I shall give it to you, for Izadora,” she said. “My dear Izadora.”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said.
“Take it then,” she said as she held up one hand holding the ribbon.
I stepped into the grave and took the yellow ribbon from her long, skinny fingers. As I got closer, I noticed something altogether strange about her. One of her eyes appeared green and the other white, almost like an opal with faint shimmering blues, pinks, and greens.
I gulped.
“Ah, yes. The eye. You see, I may be buried under the earth. However, I still see the goings-on of Merribay. I am no fool, and I wish to tell you so. I try to keep my children under control. They normally don't bother the human race, but alas, they continue to torment one another—and now me. Look at what Izaill has done to me. He put me here himself to get me out of the way.” She flicked a worm off from her dress.
I stepped back and sat on the grass.
“Izaill? Your own son put you here?” I couldn't believe it. First he cursed his sister, and then he cursed his mother? This guy was a real screwball.
“Oh yes, he did. He doesn't want me to interfere any longer. In his defense, it's just a game for him. He doesn't see the madness of his ways. Ah, none of them do. It's but only a game to them all, and I must admit, it was a brilliant idea to put me here. It's kept me out of the way. Unruly children. And the only one that has any kind of sense is Montague. He was always a good boy. But I had to punish the others. Always fighting. I separated them you know, but they still find ways to torment one another. Having ordinary people run their errands for them. Poor souls. ”
I nodded my head. I was one of those “poor souls”; I could relate.
I had forgotten about the herb charm Izadora had made, and I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to Aggie. She clasped it with her bony hand, smelling of its contents. “Ah, this is the first stage of breaking the curse that I am under. Imagine that, Ivy. You just killed two bats with one stone.” She chuckled. “You're helping me as you're helping Izadora. The first part of undoing the spell was to get a willing soul to dig me up—and there aren't many in these parts that would be willing to do such a task. They all fear me. It's a dreadful life.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “The second part was to hand me a charm of fresh herbs.”
Izadora must have known this. I gritted my teeth. What would have been so wrong with giving me a heads-up about a few things? She could have mentioned that her mother wasn't dead. She could have mentioned that I would be starting the process of breaking yet another curse.
“So, now you are free to go?” I asked.
“Posh! I'm not free to go yet. You must cover me back up,” she said.
When the words she had just spoken had sunk in, I lay back on the ground and rubbed my head. Immediately I sat back up. I was afraid to take my eyes from her for too long. Who knew what she'd do? She seemed sweet and kind, but how did I really know that? She was, after all, the mother of crazy Izaill and secretive Izadora, not to mention insane Magella.
“I don't think that I can cover you back up. I mean…” This was too much for me. The things I was asked to do just became creepier and creepier, and…twisted. I looked at Drumm for support. He shrugged his shoulders.
“You must. I am under a spell, and you surely can't break it until certain things have been completed. Bad, bad things would happen to you. But once the spell is broken, I shall grant you one wish. Anything you desire that is within my power.”
I had a feeling many things were within her power. “Anything? What must I do next?”
I couldn't believe it. Here I was running around, doing things for Izadora, and now I'd be doing things for Aggie. Would it never end? On the other hand, if she granted me one wish, and Izadora failed to bring my father back, I would wish for his return…but did I really want to be the one that freed Aggie?
She smiled at me kindly. For all of her reputation, she seemed to be quite a nice old lady. She even had a sweet, gentle face. But the eyes were mesmerizing and scary as heck.
“I know what you are thinking. But it would be in your very best interest to get me out of here. Not that I've minded it, as it's been a nice resting place. However, the point is, Izaill gains power. And I shall have to put him in his place before Izadora has a chance to. I fear what she will do to my boy.”
It amazed me how she still refereed to her children as if they were but young kids.
Out of nowhere, a bat flew by, ruffling my hair. I ducked and swatted at it. Drumm did the same. Just as we were getting our bearings back, it flew by Aggie, and she reached up and grabbed it out of midair.
“Harm none, little bat,” she said, and let it go. It flew off and didn't come back.
“Now back to what I was trying to tell you. Izaill knows you are helping us. You will need something to ward him off.” She unpinned a silver broach from the inside sleeve of her dress. “I had to hide it there, or he would have taken it. Anywho, you take the broach. Wear it. By the end of the tomorrow, this will all be over. For the good or the bad, I cannot say. Everything is nothing but a circle of events. It started with you, and it ends with you.”
I shuddered to think Izaill would be after me. He was horrifying. I took the broach, looked it over—it was a silver rose—and I pinned it on my shirt.
I couldn't speak. How would it all end? I wished that I could jump ahead to tomorrow and see what happens.
“Anywho, for the third and final part of breaking this curse, you will have to find my son, Montague. He will know what to do,” she said as she picked little pieces of dirt from her dress. “Also, something you must understand about my family and me: Sometimes we work together. Sometimes we work against each other. It is but a game we play.” She winked a sagging eyelid. “But we will always be family. Now, are you in?”
I sighed and wiped the sweat that had formed on my brow. “Okay. Where will I find Montague?”
“No one knows where Monty is. He's been under the radar for years now. Just go to the sea and write a message in the sand, asking him to come forth. If you are who I think you are, he will come.” She lay back down in the dirt and folded her hands over her chest. “Now cover me back up.”
I wanted to vomit. In fact, I did get up and vomit behind the white hawthorn tree.
“Now, now, Ivy. Remember what I said; it's a game we play. No harm comes to me. It is about who can outwit who, and who can outplay who. Izaill is one up on me, that's all. For now.”
As I tossed the dirt over her, she hummed a tune. The more dirt that landed on her face, the more mumbled it became, until…nothing. I patted the dirt down a bit with the shovel and turned to Drumm.
“Let us go now,” he said.
“Gladly,” I agreed.
The whole run back, I was skittish. I had jumped when Drumm grabbed my arm, warding me away from a skunk. We would have been fine had I not yelled out. Too bad for us when the skunk turned and sprayed. It had to be the most putrid smell I'd ever come upon.
“Good going, Ivy. We shall have to bathe in the river, but first we must deliver the
yellow ribbon to Izadora.” His face scrunched up like a prune, and all the while he couldn't help but smile.
“I have a headache,” I stated firmly. The smell was so potent, it was a wonder I could see straight.
“I do as well, but things are as they are.” He took off running, and I followed closely behind him.
***
“So, how was Mother?” Izadora answered the door as the beautiful young maiden, clenching her nose. Her red-brown hair was glossy and vibrant, bouncing around her shoulders. “I see you had a run-in with a skunk.”
“Aggie is fine. She told me to find Montague.” I rubbed my temples.
“Montague? No one has seen him for ages.”
“She told me to head to the sea and write a message in the sand. I have to do it today.”
“A message to summon him? I suppose it will work. Did you get the ribbon?”
I pulled the ribbon out of my pocket. In the light I could see some sort of black letters along the length of the ribbon.
“Ah, I see you have her broach. I've always wanted that broach. Good piece, it is,” Izadora said.
“She told me to wear it to ward off Izaill.”
She glanced at the broach again. “It might help.”
Drumm set the shovel beside the fireplace. “I'll be outside waiting. This smell is making me ill.”
“And by the way, you missed one important piece of information when you sent me to dig up your mother's grave. You could have informed me that she was alive! And she wasn't even in a coffin!” I exclaimed.
“What would she need a coffin for?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, “Besides, you wouldn't have dug her up had you known she was alive. Now let's get to work.”
Izadora wrapped the yellow ribbon around the rolling pin. When it was perfectly aligned, the letters formed into words.
“Aha! First I must take seven hairs from a real maiden's head—one with a pure soul. That would be you. Come closer.”
Stupified, I said, “Me? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure. It says so on the ribbon. Why do you think Izaill buried the ribbon with Mother? He knew I couldn't get to it. Then he placed the rolling pin in Magella's boat. He knew I couldn't go there to get it myself. You are the maiden the yellow ribbon speaks of.” She took me by the arm and drew me closer. “Bend your head down.”
I slowly bent my head down so she could pull out the seven hairs. Each one that she pulled out stung my head.
“Ouch!”
“Only one more to go.” She pulled the last hair out, to my relief. My head smarted, I reached up and rubbed the spot she'd removed hairs from.
“Now I need”—she read the yellow ribbon under her breath—“one fingernail clipping from a male elf.”
I stood there staring at the yellow ribbon. “Did you say a male elf?”
“Of course I did. Where is the boy? Where is Drumm?”
“He's outside with the dogs. How would he know where to find a male elf?” I asked.
“Fetch him for me.”
Leaving the house, I jogged along the bridges until I saw the top of Drumm's head. He stood among the purple flowers, throwing sticks for the dogs.
I called for him. He ran up the stairs, and when he reached me, he said in his weird accent, “What would you like?”
“I think Izadora has lost her mind.”
“Ha-ha! That's nothing new. What does she want?”
“Izadora just said, or at least I think she said, she needed a fingernail clipping from a male elf. And then she told me to get you.”
“Oh did she, now? Well, let's get in there then.” He looked at me with his shining turquoise eyes. “My nails are getting kind of long.”
“What are you saying? You…you…you—”
“Are an elf. A light elf. You haven't figured that one out for yourself yet?”
He knew that I didn't know. “How could I possibly know?” I said.
“The pointed ears…the speeds that I can run—that didn't clue you in? The arrows I carry on my back? The silver bow? None of that made you wonder?”
“I thought…I just thought you were weird. That's all.” I nervously twirled my hair in my fingers. “You mean to say elves are…real?”
“Of course. And what do you mean ‘weird’? You are one to speak.” He laughed. “Just take a look at your own ears. What did they do to them?”
Both of my hands reached up to grab the tops of my ears. The scarring was rough to the touch. “I fell from a tree. They were scuffed.”
“Hmm. Scuffed, you say?”
Before I could reply, Izadora yelled out, “What is the holdup? Get in here.”
He turned and walked away, his muscular back disappearing from sight. After a few moments, I followed. How could elves possibly be real? And what did my ears have to do with anything? They had always been this way, from the time I was a child. I don't remember them being any different.
I walked in to see Izadora cutting the tip of Drumm's pointer fingernail with a gold knife. “Hold still, so that I don't cut you.”
He glanced at me. He surely was an exotic fellow, with those eyes and the full lips. I always assumed he was just different, but I didn't know just how different he was.
“Ivy here doesn't know about her ears,” he informed Izadora.
She had finished slicing a nail off and threw it into a wooden bowl, along with my seven hairs.
“I know she doesn't. We shall fix them when I am done here,” Izadora said.
“Fix them?” I grabbed my ears again, and held on. It never really made sense that I had fallen and scraped the tops of my ears off. I knew that. All of my life I had just assumed that when I was born, my father had plastic surgery done to correct some sort of deformity of my ears. I had accepted that I had deformed ears. So what? But what did that have to do with Drumm and elves and bows and arrows? And, oh my God, he was an elf? A real elf?
They both had their eyes on me for a moment, and then Izadora poured flour from a canister into a wooden bowl. Then she poured in yeast, salt, and a red liquid from a vial. She walked into the living room, took three things from three different bottles, and returned to the kitchen, dropping them in the bowl.
“You must know the truth. Do you not?” Izadora began to stir the contents of the bowl. “You must know what you are. You have no clue?”
My gut sank. I wasn't stupid but more in denial of what they were trying to tell me. “You are trying to tell me…” I looked Izadora in the eyes, and then I turned to look Drumm in the eyes. “You're telling me that I am an…”
I couldn't finish my sentence, and so Drumm and Izadora did it simultaneously. “An elf.”
I laughed then; I laughed quite hard. When would I wake up from this dream? I began speaking my thoughts aloud. “I had come up to Maine to visit my grandmother, just wanting a pleasant visit while my father went on a hunting trip. He ends up lost or stolen, which is so unrealistic to begin with. I then meet Ian, who sends me out to meet Izadora, who sends me on a mission to steal a rolling pin from her crazy sister, who then threatens my very life. Then I am told that I must dig up the grave of Izadora's mother to retrieve a yellow ribbon. The old woman, Aggie, who is buried alive then tells me to find Montague to finish undoing the spell that she is under.” I found myself pacing the floor, but I continued to babble my thoughts aloud. “My sister is under some sort of obligation to Magella, and I don't even know if she can be helped. There is an even crazier old man on the loose who is called Izaill, brother to the other crazies.” I paused to scratch my head. “To top everything off, I get sprayed by a skunk tonight, and I find out that I'm an elf.”
Both Izadora and Drumm decide to laugh at this point of the conversation that I was having with myself, snapping me back to reality. I thought that I was so far dispatched from reality, when what was real was right in front of me. I couldn't choose what was real and what wasn't. I just had to accept it. “What's so funny?”
“You are beside y
ourself with this news, I see.” Izadora cackled.
“Well, I am going to need some proof. Some real proof that I am an elf.” I stopped pacing and stood with my arms folded over my chest. I tapped my foot and waited impatiently. “It is easy for me to accept that you are some sort of magical person or witch, whichever you are, but it is not so easy to accept that I am what you call an elf.”
Izadora stopped stirring the mixture, handing Drumm the wooden spoon. “Stir this.” She disappeared into the next room, returning with a jar of which the contents I couldn't tell. Taking the cover off, she dipped two fingers into the jar, pulling out a white salve. “Stand still.” She placed the salve on either side of my head, rubbing the contents into my ears. “Once you were whole. When they took your ears, they took a part of you. I now return to you what was taken, making you once again whole. By the name of the earth, the air, the water, and fire.”
I felt my ears start to burn and itch so much so that I thought I'd go mad. I tried to reach up and rub them, but Izadora held my arms down. Moments later, as the room began to spin, I felt something pop out of the tops of my ears. The burning sensation stopped. I sank to the floor, trying to gain my bearings.
After I had caught my breath and the room stopped spinning, I reached up with shaking hands to touch the tops of my ears. They felt different. The tops were pointed. I looked to Drumm, then at his ears. They were regular ears, tapering off to a point. I hated to admit it, but I liked his ears. It was a good thing, to like his ears, because I knew that mine were now the same.
***
“You two have to bathe, you're killing me. Go downstream, quickly, and come right back. We'll have a good talk about things. Now, hurry.” Izadora handed Drumm soap and tomato juice. “This lilac soap I made personally. It will work, trust me.”
We walked along the brook next to Izadora's tree house, about a quarter of a mile downstream. We found a stone bridge and, on the opposite side where the water ran through, a pool of water to bathe in. The dogs came along, wanting to play chase the stick.
