by Bob Craton
***
Fabiyan stood in the kitchen doorway of the small cabin and watched as Grammi peeled spuds at the table. When she finally noticed him, she gave him a big smile. “There’s my sweet boy,” Grammi said and she reached out for a hug as he walked to her. Both arms went around him as she squeezed but she was careful with the paring knife in her right hand. When she finished soaking up his warmth, she took a breath of his fragrance and asked, “Are you hungry? Do you need a glass of milk?” She tried to rise from the bench as she spoke but Fabiyan still had his arms around her neck and he held on.
“I got a drink already. At the well,” he told her. “And I can get things myself. I’m a big boy now.” If possible, her smile would have widened. “Pappi said I could come in from the field,” he added to explain his presence.
“Why is it that when you come in from working outside, you always smell as sweet as new-mown hay, but when your grandfather comes inside he stinks like he has dead fish in his armpits?” she asked. It wasn’t true in either case but it still made him laugh. He moved to the other side of the table and sat down facing her.
“Pappi said I should do something for you now,” he told her.
“You can help peel,” she said as she handed him a small knife and stacked a few spuds in front of him. He set to work. Making conversation, Grammi said, “Your half-birthday is next week. Think of something special you’d like me to cook for you.”
“But it’s Autumnal Month now and my birthday is in Vernal Month. That’s not soon.”
“I said half-birthday, honey. That’s half way between your fifth birthday and your sixth. Do you remember the red-berry pie I made when you turned five?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Well, in half a year you’ll be six,” she explained. Fabiyan suspected that this half-birthday idea was just something Grammi made up to please him, but the memory of her special treats meant the boy would never object to any pretend holidays. Lost in a reverie of past tastes and smells, he kept scraping his knife across the same part of the spud over and over. Grammi saw and smiled. “You can have anything you want,” she told him.
He grinned, but suddenly a totally unrelated thought entered his head. This time he laid his paring knife down on the table. His grin changed into a very serious look.
“I dreamed about my mother last night,” he told her.
“Oh,” Grammi said as she struggled to keep any note of surprise out of her voice. Her smile vanished. “How do you know it was your mother and not some other woman, my darling?”
“I just knew.”
“I see. Well, what do you remember about the dream?”
“I was sitting in her lap. She was warm and her clothes were soft to touch. Her arms were around me,” Fabiyan said as he gazed at a blank spot on the wall. Then he looked in Grammi’s eyes. “My mother was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“Oh yes, very beautiful. You’ve heard me and Pappi say that before. Aunt Estelinda thinks so too, even if she won’t admit it.”
“Did mother look like Aunt Estelinda?” Fabiyan asked, and his eyebrows moved together in an expression of concern. Grammi laughed out loud.
“No, no,” she assured him. “Your mother looked wonderful – nothing at all like your aunt. Estelinda was always jealous despite being the older sister.”
Now something else worried Fabiyan and he said, “Sometimes I think you and Pappi don’t like Aunt Estelinda very much.”
“That’s not true, honey. We just don’t have much in common with her.” Grammi was serious now.
“I like her. She lets me ride her horse.” The boy meant that Estelinda sometimes let him sit behind her and hold on while she rode.
“I wish she wouldn’t do that. You could get hurt. She treats you much too rough. Sometimes I think she wants you to grow up to be a warrior.”
Fabiyan looked down at the table to hide his grin. He knew what both Grammi and Estelinda thought about warriors, and they didn’t agree. He had his own opinion too but there was no point in telling Grammi about it. Then he remembered something else from last night.
“In the dream, my mother’s hair came down and the ends tickled my nose. It was funny. Her hair was softer even than her clothes and it was very bright and shiny. It was different than mine, wasn’t it, Grammi?”
“Don’t worry about it, sweet boy. You got your dark color from your father. Pappi and I had the same shade, too, before ours turned gray.”
“Aunt Estelinda has dark hair and it’s short, not like my mother’s in the dream,” said Fabiyan. Then he pondered for a moment. “Do you and Pappi not like her because you’re my father’s parents and she my mother’s sister?”
Grammi sighed. “We really do like her, and she likes us too. It’s true, Fabiyan. It’s just that sometimes your aunt can be, well, a little brusque.”
“What’s brusque?”
“Umm, that she’s blunt spoken and a bit gruff. That’s not bad. It’s just the way she is. That makes other people speak the same way back to her sometimes but that doesn’t mean they don’t like her. It just sounds a little bad to sweet boys who don’t know how grownups talk,” she said as she reached across the table in an attempt to tickle him. She couldn’t reach far enough but he squirmed and giggled anyway.
“I like my aunt,” Fabiyan affirmed again.
“I know. She lets you ride her horse.”
“She lets me do other things, too,” he said with another grin.
Oh no, thought Grammi, but she kept those word silent. She said, “I just don’t want you to get hurt and she lets you do risky things. I tell her often to be gentler but she doesn’t listen to me. She’s very hard-headed.”
“And strong, too.”
“Yes, we all know that,” agreed Grammi. “Well, are we finished talking about this?”
Fabiyan wasn’t. “Why can’t I remember more?”
“Because you were just a baby when everything happened, honey, and no one can remember things from that age. It’s not your fault,” she assured him. But Fabiyan still had one more thing to say.
“My mother called me something last night. Like she was saying my name, but it wasn’t Fabiyan.” He looked up quickly when Grammi made a noise. Something was bothering her.
“It must have been Lovekin,” she blurted out. “That was her pet name for you. She used it instead of your real name sometimes. Yes, that’s it. It must have been Lovekin that you heard.”
Fabiyan wasn’t so sure, but something about Grammi’s face made him just nod and go back to peeling spuds.
Fabiyan was a good boy almost all of the time but that night he stayed awake in bed pretending to sleep and heard Grammi and Pappi talking in the next room. He couldn’t make out any words until he remembered the knothole in a board low on the wall. He knelt in the floor and put his ear next to the hole.
“He hasn’t said anything before about . . . ,” he heard someone say. The voice was so soft and indistinct that he wasn’t sure which grandparent was speaking.
“. . . why now . . .”
“How can he still remember anything? It’s been four years.” This was a little louder and he recognized Pappi’s voice. The response was quieter.
“. . . I’m surprised too . . . awful day . . . isn’t just a dream.”
“I know . . . shouldn’t have said . . . reminds him more . . .”
“Couldn’t help . . .”
“. . . If he remembers then he needs to keep secrets . . . aunt should come . . .”
“Yes I know . . . loves him too.”
“. . . would listen to her better than us . . . tomorrow . . .”
Fabiyan concluded that Aunt Estelinda might come tomorrow. Having heard something he liked, he crept back under the covers and went to sleep.
Not wanting to miss a moment, Fabiyan waited patiently outside the cottage so he could see down the lane. The nearest neighbors were pretty far away; and when Estelinda got past their home, she always charged her horse, Gl
ori, at full speed just so Fabiyan could watch. He wasn’t disappointed. Hearing the thundering hooves first, he saw the horse and rider burst into sight on the dirt lane. Glori ran like lightning and his aunt leaned forward over the horse’s neck while thrusting one fist into the air.
“Faabiyaaann!” she cried, and the boy laughed at the funny way she stretched his name out. Grammi and Pappi both hurried out of the house just in time to get splattered with dirt as Glori’s hooves dug in and the horse came to an abrupt stop. None of it got on Fabiyan, however. Estelinda leaped down and grabbed him in a great bear hug. Lifting him up, she shook him around until he laughed. “My little man!” she called him and he clung tightly to her neck, not caring that the buckles of her leather jerkin dug into his ribs.
“Be careful!” Grammi said as she stepped closer to the much taller Estelinda, frowning and clucking her displeasure as she moved.
“I’m always careful,” Estelinda insisted as she released the boy back to the ground. When she saw the increasing disapproval on the old woman’s face, Estelinda changed her voice in a way that made Fabiyan laugh. She was trying to sound like Grammi. “Why, hello Estelinda. So good to see you. You’re welcome in our home anytime.” Switching her voice back to normal, she continued. “Thank you, good Theo and Naomi.” (Fabiyan knew those were Pappi and Grammi’s names.) “You’re very kind and I’m grateful to you. You’re as much my family as you are Fabiyan’s.”
Pappi seemed amused at the clowning, but Grammi scowled until she noticed the expression on the boy’s face and tried to improve her look. “Do come inside,” she said.
“We do need to talk, don’t we?” Estelinda replied. “But first things first. Fabiyan, Glori is thirsty. Take her around to the pond and let her drink.”
“By myself?” The boy’s eyes went wide with excitement.
“Why not? She likes you and will do whatever you tell her.”
“Is that wise?” asked Pappi. “Such a powerful beast could . . .”
“Glori will never hurt him,” interrupted Estelinda. “She recognizes his scent and remembers who he is. She understands he’s family. It’s all right, Fabiyan. Go ahead.”
As the boy came close, Glori lowered her head to nuzzle against his hair. He raised his arms to hug as much of the great mare as he could reach. Smiling happily, he walked around Glori to check for burrs in her fur as his aunt had taught him. (Well, to check the lower portions of the big animal within his view, anyway.) Rubbing his hand down her sleek silver side, Fabiyan saw that she wasn’t sweating. One dashing sprint could never tire the mighty Glori, he knew. It didn’t even heat her up.
“Be careful,” Pappi called to Fabiyan as the boy approached the rear of the horse.
“Stop worrying,” Estelinda said. “She won’t kick him. In fact, watch her tail.” The tough leather-whipcord tail could snap and sting a man’s skin but it held still until Fabiyan gave it a gentle tug. Then it wagged like a dog’s. When he finished his circuit and took the reins, Fabiyan looked up at his aunt who smiled down at him. “Go ahead and lead her to the pond. You don’t have to hurry.”
“We’ll be inside,” Grammi added.
Estelinda nudged her and whispered, “Smile at him.” Grammi did her best.
“Is he out of earshot?” Estelinda asked when they were inside the cottage.
“Yes, and he’s walking slowly,” Pappi confirmed as he looked out the window and then turned back to face the younger woman. He was taller than his wife but still had to look up to Estelinda.
“Good. Tell me about the dream.”
Grammi described every detail that Fabiyan had mentioned and then added, “I always hoped he would forget everything, but he hasn’t.”
“And I always said you were foolish to wish for that. Now you see I was right,” snapped Estelinda. Then she caught herself and softened her tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. The only important thing is to protect the boy.”
“And yourself,” said Pappi.
“No. I made my decision at the beginning of all this. In fact, I had a dream of my own the night I received your message saying that he lived and the vision was perfectly clear. The boy is the one. Everyone knew that before, and it’s still true.” She did not say before what, but they all knew. “I’m going to help him every way I can no matter what the risk.”
“We really do need to decide what to tell Fabiyan now,” said Grammi. “You were right, Estelinda. It’s wrong to just hope he won’t remember but we can’t tell him too much at this age either.”
“I know,” Estelinda agreed. “We have to tell him something, and whatever we say must be the truth even if not all of it. Then we have to trust him to keep secrets. I would rather be doing this when he’s older, but he is brighter and more mature than other children. I’m certain he’ll understand.”
After a pause, Pappi said, “We think you should be the one who talks to him.”
“Yes, it must be me. Family blood binds, as they say. He’ll pay attention to me and take this seriously. You’ll see. He’ll do just fine and turn out even better than we expected.”
“How could anyone be better than we expected?” asked Pappi.
As Estelinda walked away from the cottage, she saw Fabiyan leading the horse home. The boy’s shoes were muddy and his pants legs were soaked up to the knees. Glori always stepped into the water to drink and the mare was much taller than him despite the fact that the boy was big for a child who was not yet six. Not surprising he’s tall, Estelinda thought to herself. Height runs in the family.
“We don’t have to go inside yet,” Estelinda said when she reached him. “Let’s take Glori and go find a nice place to sit in the meadow and talk.” They strolled until Estelinda found a spot that suited her. In the open meadow, no one could get close enough to overhear without being seen. She hesitated just a moment to organize her thoughts and thus let Fabiyan have a chance to speak first.
“Grammi said you were jealous of my mother because she was prettier.”
“What?” exclaimed his aunt. For a moment she wasn’t certain whether she should be offended or just amused, but the look on the boy’s face made it impossible to get upset with him.
“She said my mother didn’t look like you,” Fabiyan replied.
“Wait a minute! That’s not . . .,” she began but she stopped herself. “Well, it is true that she didn’t look the way I do now, but believe it or not, I was beautiful myself back then. I didn’t look anything at all like a man and I wore nice dresses.”
“Really?”
“Don’t seem so surprised, my boy. My hair was a lot longer and prettier then, too. I grew up having no reason at all to envy anyone. That is, not until my little sister came along and showed everyone that I was only the second most beautiful girl in the world.” She smiled and shrugged. “But what could I do?”
“Did you get jealous?”
“Yes, I admit I did sometimes, but it didn’t do me any good. She was nicer than me too and people liked her better.”
Fabiyan studied her face and said, “I think people liked you, too.” She laughed and reached out to ruffle his hair. As she did, she lifted a few strands with her fingers and looked underneath. Just the way Grammi did. Fabiyan continued searching her face.
“I need to be serious now and tell you something, my dear,” she told him.
“About my dream?”
“Yes, that’s right. The dream means you remember things and you’ll probably recall more as time goes by. I don’t think you’ll recollect anything big and important, just little things that a baby might notice. The same as it was this time. But sometimes bad pictures might come into your head and scare you. Honey, you were a toddler when it happened and no one that age could understand what you saw.”
“When what happened?” he asked. Estelinda hesitated but she had already decided she was going to get the words out no matter what.
“Fabiyan, I think you already know this som
ewhere down deep inside yourself, but no one has ever told you honestly.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Your mother died, my dearest boy, and so did your father. On the same day. If you ever dream about that day, it will frighten you badly. If that happens, you run as fast as you can to Grammi, or Pappi or me. No one else! Just let us hug you as tight as we can. Do you understand?”
He nodded slowly, causing one small tear to leak from his eye. His lips trembled but he didn’t cry out loud.
“There’s something else, Fabiyan. Whatever you do dream about must be kept secret. Grammi, Pappi, and I are the only three people in the world you can talk to. I want you to promise that you’ll never say anything about our family to anyone, but first I want to tell you something. In our family, ‘promise’ is a very important word. We never say it unless we really mean it so never make a promise unless you’re truly going to keep it.”
“I promise,” he said as he looked deep in her eyes.
Estelinda was certain he would. She could see it in his face. After all, he was far ahead of any other child his age in so many ways. She undid the buckles on her jerkin and took it off. The shirt underneath was much softer. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He clasped tightly around her neck and buried his face into the hollow of her shoulder. After a long time, his soft voice spoke.
“Aunt Estelinda, what name did my mother call me in the dream?”
She sobbed, one quick hard spasm, and whispered, “I can’t tell you, my love. Not yet.”
~EIGHT YEARS LATER~
