Emma and the Banderwigh

by Matthew S. Cox

  “We thought you dead,” cried an elderly man.

  Numerous people burst out in cries of joy or wails of sorrow.

  “Why isn’t she speaking?” yelled a youngish male voice.

  “What’s happened to her? Oh, my Hannah!” A man older than her own father, but not as much as Nan, lifted the girl off her feet into a desperate hug.

  Hannah’s mother grabbed and pawed at her, as if searching for injuries.

  After a moment of hanging limp, Hannah raised her arms and held on to him. Seconds later, she raised her head and looked at everyone.

  At that, the crowd erupted in cheers.

  Mother made her way through the group of villagers, took Hannah’s hand, and coaxed her to drink from a small bowl.

  “Em! Em! Em! Em!” Tam chanted her name while slapping his hands on the table.

  “Alright.” Emma sighed and trudged over.

  She took her place by the bowl, jamming her hands into the dough while trying to peer out the window.

  “Well, most everyone thought she wandered off into the woods. But nobody could find her.” Nan finished the chopping Mother had started, and shoved everything into the cauldron. “I can see that distrustful look in your eyes. Just like your Mother.” She winked.

  Emma kneaded the soon-to-be bread. “A child wouldn’t come back from being alone in the woods. That’s why you don’t let me an’ Tam go there.”

  Wrinkles accented Nan’s grin. “Do you think someone took her?”

  “Goblins!” blurted Tam. “Goblins got her.”

  Nan chuckled. Emma rolled her eyes.

  “Not goblins, I’m afraid, Tam. Goblins would have put her in the stew.” She pointed a curved finger at him, wagging it. He laughed. “This… No, this was something worse.”

  “Worse?” Emma made a face. “She’s still alive. That’s not worse than being goblin stew.”

  “Emma, you don’t believe in that sort of thing, so I won’t waste what few breaths I have left on it.” Nan dropped the metal lid over the cauldron to end her sentence.

  “Nan, you’re not gonna die,” muttered Emma. “And there’s no goblins and no monsters. Just bad people. I bet bandits had her, and made her cook and wash for them. When she got sick, they let her go home.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already got the world figured out.” Nan picked out seasonings for the soup, dropping them in one by one. “Don’t need me ruining it for you.”

  “Story!” yelled Tam, before he gave Emma a raspberry.

  “No!” Emma leaned over the bowl to shield it. “Don’t do that near food.”

  Tam laughed.

  “Please tell me, Nan.” Emma grunted, kneading. Her arms were getting tired.

  “Do you believe in goblins?”

  The boy nodded.

  Emma shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “Faeries?”

  “Uh-uh.” Emma glared at the dough. “That’s all stuff to scare little kids with.”

  Nan’s chair creaked as she leaned back. “Dragons, elves, wizards?”

  “Dragons can fly!” added Tam.

  “No, no, and no.” Emma tried to blow a stray bit of hair off her face. “You’re being silly.”

  Halfway between anger and laughter, the expression Emma wore brought a chuckle from Nan.

  “What about magic?”

  Emma sighed. “There’s no such thing.”

  “What of the wizard in Calebrin? Your father met him when he was a boy.”

  Tam waved his hands at her, making plosive noises as if he were some great wizard throwing fireballs.

  Emma shrugged one shoulder out of her dress. “Probably an alchemist with some trick fire to scare people. Stop it, Tam. Don’t spit in our food.”

  He stuck his tongue out at her. She sighed, unable to stay angry at that face.

  Emma waited for a moment, but when Nan didn’t say anything more, she looked up. The old one seemed to have gone still in her chair, with no trace of her usual wheezy snoring.

  “Nan?” asked Emma.

  The elder didn’t react.

  Emma crept closer. “Nan?”

  Nothing.

  “Nan!” shouted Emma.

  Her grandmother didn’t move.

  Emma grasped her by the shoulders. “Nan?” Emma shook her. “Nan!”

  “Calm down, girl.” Nan’s eyes popped open. “I’m not dead. You’re not trying to rush me into the ground, are you?”

  “No!” She sniffled. “You scared me. Why did you fall asleep like that?” Emma pouted and took two steps backward.

  “I wasn’t asleep, dear.” Nan winked. “Hannah was taken by a Banderwigh.”

  Tam’s eyes widened, his little hand slipped from his chin as his mouth gaped. He had no idea what that was, but it sounded scary.

  Emma trudged back to the bowl, more than a little annoyed at Nan for teasing her. She picked up the glop of dough, spun it over and flung it back down. “Banderwigh? Is that another one of your faerie monsters?”

  Nan’s dry chuckle turned into a cough for a moment. “Indeed, girl. Only one person has ever claimed to see him. Though, I think it is more of a they than a him.”

  “I still think it was bandits,” said Emma, patting the dough into shape.

  “Bandy-wee!” belted Tam, cheering.

  “They are not all in one place, being solitary things. The Banderwigh lives in the darkest parts of the forest. It feasts upon sadness.” Nan leaned forward, raising her claw-like hands over the table. “It walks the land under cover of night, taking children away from hearth and home to lock them in a little place where no one can find them.” Her stare grew eerie. “There, in the dark, it makes them sad and drinks their tears to feed itself.”

  The boy shivered, and scooted under the table to cling to Emma. She frowned.

  “Don’t listen to her, Tam. It’s just a story to scare little boys inside at night.” Emma sprinkled some flour on a pan and dumped the unbaked bread out of the bowl. “If this monster takes people, why is Hannah back? Doesn’t it eat them or something?”

  Nan clucked her tongue as she stood to grab the pan. “The Banderwigh eats sorrow, child. It drained poor Hannah of all her tears. The girl must be dead inside now, a mere shadow of a person.”

  “That’s silly,” said Emma. “Monsters don’t make people go nutters. Livin’ by herself in the woods made her go nutters. She’s so skinny ’cause all she ’ad to eat was nuts and berries. What does this monster look like?” She kissed her brother atop the head. “It’s just a scary story, Tam. No one’s ever seen one.”

  “Are you so sure?” Emma didn’t like the gleam in Nan’s eye. “A man, older than your father, covered in shaggy black bear-fur and unshaven”―Nan waved her open hand around her face―“with wild hair and a giant woodsman’s axe. His eyes burn with the yellow light of the Netherworld. He’s neither dead nor alive.”

  Emma frowned at the dough, prodding it with her fingers. Nan’s words were scary, but she could not bring herself to believe such fancy. It was silly how serious the old woman was when talking of such things. She knew Nan was only trying to give her a fright, but she found herself holding on to the table to keep from shaking anyway.

  “Probably just some poor old man who lives alone in the woods that people are afraid of for no reason.” Emma made a face at her flour-coated hands. “People always make up stories when they’re scared, or they don’t wanna do something.”

  Grandmother smiled, ambling to the stove on three legs, two living and one wooden. She hooked her cane in the crook of her arm and opened the metal oven. After putting the bread inside, she closed the door and added another two hunks of wood to the fire. Emma wiped her hands on a rag. Nan wobbled closer, leaning two shaking arms on the stick to prop herself up as she fixed Emma with a stare.

  “How likely do you think it to be for a girl of six to survive on her own in Widowswood? Do you think bandits would keep a pauper’s daughter for ransom? What of the wolves, or the goblins
, or the emerald creepers?”

  Those, Emma believed in―spiders half the size of a horse, with bright green hair. She believed in them because she’d seen one once. It was dead, on the back of a merchant’s wagon, but it was real. Two weeks’ worth of nightmares came from that, but she’d been only five then. At Nan’s suggestion, she imagined running into one alone in the woods―one that wasn’t dead. She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering, giving Nan an accusing look for making her think such thoughts. Tonight, her dreams would be wrapped in spidersilk.

  Nan chuckled. “Emma, come help me―”

  The door flew open and smacked into the wall.

  Emma gasped, grabbing the edge of the table with both hands. Father was home. The clatter of light brigandine armor and broadsword was even louder than the sound of his boots on the floor. All thoughts of giant spiders and child-stealing monsters with axes fled her mind.

  He sighed at her. “Em, it’s high time we got you some proper clothing. You look like a beggar girl.”

  She pulled the dress out to the sides, appraising it. “But Da, Nan made this…”

  “Yes, she did. Two years ago, and you’ve worn it to death. It’s falling apart.” Heavy steps thudded over the floor as he crossed the room to hang his cloak on a peg and lean his weapon against the wall. “Tomorrow, we’re going into town.”

  “Yes, Da,” she said, staring down at her dirty feet.

  He rounded the table and put hand atop her head, drawing her into a gentle, but brief hug. He picked Tam up, spun the giggling boy around twice, and set him back in the chair. Emma smiled as he moved into the back room remove his armor.

  Grandmother tapped her cane on the table. “Come, Emma, help your old Nan finish supper.”

  fter dinner, Father worked out guard salaries and schedules in his logbook. Emma had perched in his lap with her cheek on his shoulder, something she hadn’t done for at least two years. Even if monsters weren’t real, a dark forest was scary. He took it as an attempt to beg him off replacing her beloved dress. Emma didn’t care to correct him. After an hour or so, he closed his book and sat with her a while longer, before carrying her to the great family bed. Tam had fallen asleep on the rug by the smoldering fireplace. Emma changed into her nightdress as Father retrieved Tam, set him on the bed, and peeled the boy’s tunic off, leaving him in his skivvies.

  Emma scampered to her spot by the wall beneath the windowsill and curled up beneath the heavy blankets, staring up at the dusty boards of the ceiling. The quiet time between dinner and bed had ended too soon for her liking. Every creak the wind drew from the house made her think about the way the woods felt that morning. Nan’s story hadn’t helped. Surely, the sense of being watched couldn’t have been anything like a Banderwigh.

  Tam snuggled against her; the warmth of his bare back against her cotton nightdress lulled her closer to sleep. Father went outside, standing with Mother on the front porch, the low murmur of their voices audible through the wall. Tam decided to take advantage of their parents’ part of the bed being open, and flopped away from her, arms and legs held out to take up as much room as he could.

  Nan grunted, easing her weight into a stool by the side of the bed. She clutched a leather-bound book, winked at Tam, and opened it. She licked a finger, twirled it through the air, and turned the first page.

  After clearing her throat, Nan spoke in a grand whisper.

  “Many years ago, far off in the land of Endoriel, there lived a young knight by the name of Aemon Steelsong. He was the most trusted of the King’s soldiers.”

  Emma stifled a yawn. Knights again. Is he killing a dragon or saving another princess?

  “One day,” said Nan. “Minutes before sunrise, a creeping shadow slipped through a window into the castle. It had the shape of a man with no legs, and floated without sound through the hallways unseen. When it reached the master bedroom, it breathed an icy pall upon the King of Idyllmar.”

  “You said it was Endoriel,” said Emma, grinding the back of her hand into her eye.

  “Shh!” yell-whispered Tam.

  Nan held the book to her breast, peering over it. “Idyllmar is a nation on the continent of Endoriel, to the west beyond the sea.” She lowered the book and turned a page. “King Ralas fell into a deep and terrible sleep. His skin turned blue and flaked with ice, and shadows hovered on his breath.”

  Tam pulled Emma’s arm over his chest and held on.

  “With the king near death, the weight of Idyllmar fell upon the shoulders of his daughter, Princess Isabelle, who was only fifteen.”

  “That’s old,” whispered Tam.

  Emma faded in and out of sleep as Nan went on, telling of a wizard, loyal only to money, who wanted to wrest the crown away from the young princess upon her father’s untimely death.

  It had been some time now since Emma had lost interest in princess tales; even the old faerie stories seemed childish and boring. Tam loved anything involving dragons, knights, or wizards. Father claimed to have seen a real wizard in the north, in the large city of Calebrin, before he met Mother. Half awake, Emma mumbled at the thought of it.

  Wizards, bah. Someone made up Banderwighs to scare kids in at night―Wizards are stories to scare grown-ups with.

  “People thought the princess part elf, for her beauty, and for how kind she was. One glance from her bright blue eyes could leave a boy dazed.”

  “Eww,” said Tam. “Who’s Aemon gonna fight?”

  Nan held back a chuckle. “No one really knows if the princess got her looks from the Astari, but she was pure as the stories claim the elves had been. The wizard took advantage of her trusting nature, and tricked Isabelle right out from under Aemon’s nose. He convinced her the only way she could cure her father was to go into the dark and forsaken woods”―Nan leaned over Tam, making him shiver―“and retrieve a sprig of Nymph’s Breath from where the Astari Elves once dwelled, long before humans came to the land. He lied, and told her the rare plant would die if any but an innocent girl touched it.”

  Emma rolled her closed eyes.

  “Was Isbel imacent?” asked Tam.

  “Oh, yes.” Nan winked. “So innocent, in fact, she believed the wizard’s lie and ran off into Mur’Elonnae, the Forest of Ancestors, to fetch the herb.”

  “Elf words?” asked Tam.

  “Yes,” said Nan.

  Emma’s head felt like stone. After a short sense as though she was falling, she found herself running into an unfamiliar forest, rustling in a puffy pink dress. Stupid princesses. She scowled at thin, silver slippers tight and uncomfortable; her ungainly outfit snagged and pulled on the underbrush. She felt ridiculous, and wondered why any girl would wear such a thing―especially while running into the woods in the middle of the night.

  “Isabelle left her horse at the forest’s edge,” said Nan. “She tucked her long, golden hair into a thick hood, and tightened a belt around her riding leathers. In her haste to save her father, all she had brought with her was a single torch.”

  Emma’s pink princess disintegrated. Her eyes fluttered open. Nan waved her hands about while describing great birds swooping down at Isabelle, chasing her deeper and deeper into the forest.

  “These were not normal birds, not buzzards nor eagles.” Nan added a twang of avian caw to her voice. “They had the faces of ill-tempered old men, and wailed and screamed at her for disturbing their sleep. Whenever she swung her torch at one, it cried out with an awful screech.”

  The scarier the story got, the closer to Emma Tam moved, until he curled against her in their usual cramped sleeping position.

  Nan settled back in her seat. “Isabelle wandered lost in the woods, and could not find her way out.”

  In her waking dream, Emma raced about in a hapless circle, with a torch in one hand and a star-capped princess wand in the other. The morning’s eerie wind took her dream out of her control, filling the dark spaces between trees with real dread.

  “She sensed it would be dark soon,” said Nan, �
�and so she made herself a place to sleep, knowing it dangerous to wander alone at night.”

  Emma whined in her sleep; every turn her dream-self took left her more and more confused. She startled awake, and jumped again at the sight of the wrinkles on Nan’s face changing with every spooky expression she made.

  “It was not until the next morning that Sir Aemon found her missing, and set off at once to find and rescue the princess. Of course, the wizard expected this.” Nan held up a finger. “He wanted Aemon away from the castle.”

  Emma wanted to stay awake, even if the story was another boring “knight-saves-the-princess” tale. She wanted to be with Nan while she still could; the old woman was only trying to amuse Tam. Acting bored and disinterested felt mean. She also knew darkness and spiders waited for her if she closed her eyes. A little anger curled her lip into a snarl. She’d never been afraid of the dark before, even at Tam’s age.

  Her grandmother noticed her paying more attention than usual, and it brought a gleam to her eye. Despite her effort to listen, Emma felt her eyelids growing heavy and caught herself nodding off. Nan’s voice sounded different, dream-like, as though she had become another woman, a character from the story.

  “Aemon ventured into the woods in search of the Princess, but the wizard had summoned a demon who took the form of a beautiful woman. She charmed him with a stare, and fed him a brew that turned him into a statue of living ice.”

  “As it turned out, it was Princess Isabelle who found Aemon, and needed to rescue him,” said Nan.

  Tam grumbled.

  The old one’s voice blurred as Emma drifted in and out of sleep. She caught bits and pieces of the story: a fairy queen with a promise of a potion that could help Aemon, running through the forest, and something about Isabelle getting captured and locked in a dungeon.

  Nan’s retelling swelled into a new life within her half-dream―one that made Emma think she smelled the must and leather as Princess Isabelle decided not to wait around to be saved. Emma’s head dipped forward onto Tam’s shoulder.

  Emma floated from her safe, warm bed into a musky underground hallway of wet grey stones, where a fifteen-year-old girl with perfect blonde hair struggled against the barred door of a tiny cell. Creatures under the control of the wizard had captured her in the night, stuffing her into a bag and dragging her through the forest. Her clothes looked expensive, but made for travel or fighting: leather armor, pants, and heavy boots. Much to Emma’s surprise, Isabelle looked angry rather than terrified.