Seven Wild Sisters

by Charles de Lint

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but he’d already drifted off on me again.

  It was kind of funny, if you think about it. For three years I’d been desperate to see one of the fairy people from those stories Aunt Lillian was always telling me. But now that I had, I couldn’t wait to get back to her house and be done with it. I just hoped she could figure a way out of this mess I’d found myself in, because I sensed that my troubles had just begun.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  t was closer to supper than lunch by the time I finally crossed the stream and started up the hill to Aunt Lillian’s house.

  “Oh, girl,” Aunt Lillian said as I pushed the kitchen door open with my hip and came in. “What have you got us mixed up in now?”

  Root lunged up from the floor but I blocked him with my leg and laid the little man down on the kitchen table.

  “It’s not like I did it on purpose,” I said.

  Aunt Lillian took charge like I’d been hoping she would. She got a swallow or two of her tonic in between his lips and rubbed his throat to make sure it went down, then wrapped the little man in a blanket and put him in a basket near the stove. Root was exiled outside the second time he came sniffing up to the basket, hoping to get him a decent look at the rootman.

  “Tell me what happened,” Aunt Lillian said.

  We sat on either side of the basket while I explained how I’d come to be bringing the little man to her house in the first place.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” I said, finishing up. “I couldn’t just leave him there.”

  Aunt Lillian had been studying the little man while I spoke. She looked up now.

  “You did the right thing,” she said. Her lips twitched with a smile. “Do you know what you’ve got here, girl?”

  I shook my head.

  “A ’sangman.”

  “You mean he’s made of ’sang?”

  “No. I mean he’s one of the spirits we’ve been paying our respects to whenever we go harvesting. Looks like you finally got your wish and stepped into your own fairy story.”

  “I never wanted anybody to get hurt,” I said.

  Aunt Lillian nodded. “Guess there’s always got to be some hurt to get the story started. In my own case, I got snakebit.”

  I knew that one by heart, how the snake bite led to her finally meeting the Apple Tree Man and all.

  “Let’s have a look at those arrows,” Aunt Lillian said.

  I fetched the makeshift envelope from my knapsack and carefully spilled the arrows onto the top of the kitchen table. Aunt Lillian lit a lantern and brought it over. It wasn’t dusk yet, but the sun was on the other side of the house, so it was dark enough to need it here. With a pair of tweezers, she picked up one of the arrows and studied it in the light.

  “Lord knows I’m no expert,” she said, “but I’m guessing these are bee stings.”

  I gave her a blank look.

  “They’re also called fairy shots,” she explained. “These ones here are what the bee fairies use on their enemies. They don’t have stingers, so they can’t exactly sting the way their bees do.”

  “He… the ’sangman said they were poison.”

  Aunt Lillian nodded. “I’m sure they are. And a lot more dangerous for the likes of me or you than to another fairy.”

  “Do you think he’s going to die?”

  “I don’t ’spect so. If he’s still breathing after—how many of those arrows did you take out of him?”

  “A hundred and thirty-seven.”

  “I think he’ll pull through. I’m more worried about you.”

  I gave her a startled look. “Why me?”

  “Because you’ve done the one thing we’re never supposed to do with the fairies, girl. You’ve gone and stepped smack into the middle of one of their differences of opinion.”

  “Was I supposed to leave him to die?”

  “Not according to the ’sangmen, I’d say. But the bee fairies’ll have a whole other take on the situation. They’re the ones we’ve got to worry about now.”

  I didn’t want to think about that. I stood up.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “Can I leave the ’sangman with you?”

  “You can’t go now,” Aunt Lillian said.

  “But I never told Mama I was staying overnight and she’ll be worried.”

  “Which do you ’spect would trouble her more? To have you stay here tonight—which I’m guessing she’ll figure out pretty quick, even if she does feel like giving you a licking when you do get back home—or to have you dead?”

  “De-dead…?”

  “Think about it, girl.”

  “But bees don’t come out at night.”

  “No, I don’t suppose they do. But we don’t know that bee fairies don’t. ’Sides, I need you here for when we talk to the Apple Tree Man. We need advice from someone who’s got himself an inside track on such things.”

  My eyes went big.

  “We’re going to talk to the Apple Tree Man?”

  Aunt Lillian smiled. “Well, we’re going to try.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  he sun had set by the time we left the house and went out into the orchard.

  “No point us going out until after dark,” Aunt Lillian had said earlier. “Folks like the Apple Tree Man aren’t particularly partial to us seeing them in the daylight, don’t ask me why. So we might as well have us a bite to eat.”

  There was a half-moon coming up over the hill behind the house as we walked through the apple trees to the oldest one in the orchard. According to Aunt Lillian, this was the Apple Tree Man’s home. Unlike the other trees, she never trimmed this one. It grew in a rough tangle of gnarly limbs, surrounded by a thornbush that was half the height of the tree. I’d wondered about it choking the Apple Tree Man’s tree but Aunt Lillian assured me that while we might not be able to tell the difference, he kept its growth in check.

  I always like being out at night. There’s a quality to moon- and starlight that makes the commonplace bigger than life, like you’re seeing everything for the first time, never mind how often you’ve seen it before. It was no different tonight, except for the added excitement of finally having me a look at this mysterious Apple Tree Man.

  We’d brought a blanket with us and I spread it on the ground while Aunt Lillian had a one-sided conversation with the tree. Anybody watching us would have thought she was just as crazy as some folks already figured she was. I guess I might have had my own questions concerning the matter if I hadn’t found that little man in the ’sang patch earlier in the day.

  After a while Aunt Lillian sat down on the blanket beside me, slowly easing herself down.

  “I guess he’s not coming,” I said when we’d been sitting there a time. I didn’t know if I was disappointed or relieved.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Aunt Lillian said. “It’s been a while since we spoke. Could be he’s just mulling over what I told him.”

  I wanted to ask if he really lived in the tree, if she’d really ever talked to him, but I’d always taken her stories the way she told them to me—matter-of-fact and true—and didn’t want to start in on questioning her now. ’Sides, it wasn’t like I could pretend this kind of thing might not be real. Not after my own adventure.

  “What are you going to do when you can’t stay here by yourself anymore?” I asked when we’d been sitting there awhile longer. “Where will you go?”

  I was thinking of the coming winter. Looking back, I realized I’d been doing more and more work around the homestead this past summer. Not just the heavy work, but easy tasks as well. What was Aunt Lillian going to do now that I had to go back to school during the week and couldn’t come out here as often?

  “I ’spect I’ll go live with the Apple Tree Man—unless he’s moved away. Is that what’s happened?” she asked in a louder voice, directed at the tree. “Did you move away? Or do you just not have the time for an old friend anymore?”

  “There’s no quit in you, is there, Lily Kindred
?” a strange, raspy voice suddenly asked, and I pretty near jumped out of my skin.

  Aunt Lillian’s teeth flashed in the moonlight.

  “Just doing my neighborly duty,” she said. “Sharing news and all.”

  He came out from the far side of the tree and if it hadn’t been for the ’sangman I’d found, I’d have said he was the strangest man I’d ever seen. He was as gnarled and twisty as the limbs of his tree, long and lanky, a raggedy man with tattered clothes, bird’s nest hair, and a stooped walk. It was hard to make out his features in the moonlight, but I got the sense that there wasn’t a mean bone in his body—don’t ask me why. I guess he just radiated a kind of goodness and charm. He acted like it was a chore, having to come out and talk to us, but I could tell he liked Aunt Lillian. Maybe missed her as much as she surely did him.

  He sat down near the edge of the blanket and looked back and forth between us, his gaze finally holding on Aunt Lillian.

  “So is it true?” he asked. “You’ve found a ’sangman?”

  “I wouldn’t trouble you if it wasn’t true. I know how you feel about your kind and mine mixing with each other.”

  He looked at me. “I don’t know what she might have told you, miss, but—”

  “My name’s Sarah Jane,” I told him. “Sarah Jane Dillard.”

  He sighed. “But the first thing should have been not to share your name with any stranger you might happen to meet in the woods.”

  “He’s right about that,” Aunt Lillian said.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” I said. “I didn’t think you were a stranger.”

  “No, he’s a stranger, all right,” Aunt Lillian corrected me. “That’s what you call folks you never see.”

  “The point Lily and I keep circling around like two old dogs,” he said, “is that it’s dangerous for humans to be with fairies. It wakes things in you that can’t be satisfied, leaving you with a hunger that lasts until the end of your days, a hunger for things you can’t have, or be, that only grows stronger as the years pass. It wasn’t always so, but our worlds have drifted apart since the long ago when magic was simply something that filled the air instead of what it’s become now: a thing that’s secret and rare.”

  “How he goes on,” Aunt Lillian said.

  There was no real anger in her voice. I couldn’t recall a time when she’d ever seemed really angry about anything. But I knew this old argument that lay between the two of them was something that vexed her.

  The Apple Tree Man ignored her.

  “How do you feel, Sarah Jane?” he asked me.

  I thought it an odd sort of question until I started to consider it. How did I feel? Strange, for sure. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, to find out that things you really only half believed in are real. It starts this whole domino effect in your head where you end up questioning everything. If men can step out of trees, how do I know they won’t come popping out of my salad bowl when I sit down to eat? I glanced up at the moon. For all I knew, it really was made of cheese with some round-faced old fellow living in the hollowed-out center.

  Who was to say where the real world stopped and fairy tales began? Maybe anything was possible.

  Just thinking that made the world feel too big, the smallest thing too complicated. The ground under the blanket seemed spongy, like we could slip right into the dirt, or maybe sideways, to some fairy place, and we’d never return.

  “I guess I feel different,” I managed to say. “But I can’t explain exactly how. It’s like everything’s changed and nothing has. Like I’m seeing two things at the same time, one on top of the other.”

  He nodded, but before he could say anything, Aunt Lillian spoke up.

  “What do we do with the ’sangman?” she asked.

  The Apple Tree Man turned in her direction.

  “The night’s full of listening ears,” the Apple Tree Man said. “Perhaps we could take this indoors.”

  Aunt Lillian shrugged.

  “You’ve always been welcome in my house,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  f it was odd just seeing the Apple Tree Man and knowing he existed, it was odder still to have him in Aunt Lillian’s house. Inside, he seemed taller than he had in the orchard. Taller, thinner. And wilder. His bird’s nest hair looked twice the size it had been, with leaves and twigs and burrs and who knew what all caught up in it. He brought with him a strange feral scent. Mostly it was of apples, but underneath was a strong musk that made me feel twitchy. His knees were too tall to go under the kitchen table we all sat around, so he had to sit to the side, those long, twisty legs stretching out along the floor.

  I went and got the ’sangman and set him and his basket on the table in front of the Apple Tree Man. The little man was still unconscious, but Aunt Lillian said he seemed to be sleeping now. The Apple Tree Man agreed with her.

  “They’re tough little fellows, no question,” he said. “Have to be to survive—how many stings was it?”

  I was about to answer when we heard a low, mournful howl from outside. That was Root, I thought. He really didn’t appreciate being locked up in the barn with nothing but Aunt Lillian’s cow, Henny, and a handful of half-wild cats for company.

  “A hundred and thirty-seven,” I said.

  The Apple Tree Man nodded. “So I’m thinking he must have really ticked somebody off. Usually it’s no more than a sting or two, just as a reminder that they’re not friends, not no way, not no how.”

  “Why are they feuding?” I asked.

  “It’s like in the song.”

  “Aunt Lillian said there was a song but she couldn’t remember it.”

  “A ’sangman fell for one of the bee fairies and took her away from her hive. Everybody used to know the chorus.”

  He began to sing softly:

  Once he took her in his arms

  and kissed her long and true,

  Once he took her in his arms

  wasn’t nothing nobody could do.…

  Halfway through Aunt Lillian began to sing with him. I liked the way their voices blended. It was a natural sound, like when Laurel and Bess sing together.

  “That does sound a lot like ‘Shady Grove,’ ” I said.

  The Apple Tree Man smiled. “The old tunes go around and around,” he said. “You can’t give any of them just the one name, or the one set of words.”

  “So why did ’sang and bee fairies get mad at each other?” I asked. “Falling in love’s supposed to be a happy thing.”

  The Apple Tree Man glanced at Aunt Lillian, then looked back at me.

  “The bee fairy that the ’sangman in the song stole away was a princess,” he said, “and the bee folk didn’t much cotton to one of their highborn ladies living in the dark woods, in a hole in the ground. They’ve been fighting about it ever since.”

  “Sounds like pretty much any feud in these hills,” I said. “It starts with something small and then goes on until hardly anybody remembers the whyfor. They just know they don’t like each other.”

  The Apple Tree Man nodded. “I suppose we’re not so different from you in a lot of ways.”

  “You can certainly be as stubborn,” Aunt Lillian said.

  He gave her this look again, kind of sad, kind of moony, and it got me to wondering about the two of them. Aunt Lillian never made out like there was much of anything between them ’cept friendship, but they sounded a bit like the way it could get when Adie’d run into one of her old boyfriends.

  If they’d ever been a couple, I guess he’d been the one to end it. I already knew that Aunt Lillian wasn’t too happy about it, but now I got the sense that maybe he wasn’t, either.

  “Can you take him with you?” Aunt Lillian was asking. “Let him finish his mending in your tree?”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s you and Sarah Jane.”

  “Because of the bee fairies?”

  The Apple Tree Man nodded. “There’s no telling what they might do when they find out you�
�ve helped him. And they will find out. Not much goes on in the meadows or the woods that they don’t know about.”

  I didn’t like to hear that. I’d always found it a little creepy in Sunday school when we were told that God was always watching us. Then I decided I didn’t believe in God—or at least not the way they talked about him—and I felt like I’d gotten my privacy back. Now I had fairies to think about.

  “What can we do?” Aunt Lillian asked.

  “We need to find you a safe place to stay for the next couple of days—just until we can see how the land lies. We need to find a way to tell both the ’sangmen and the bee fairies that you weren’t taking sides. You were just being neighborly, helping someone in their need.”

  “It’s the truth,” Aunt Lillian said.

  The Apple Tree Man nodded. “But you know as well as I that sometimes the truth isn’t enough.”

  I liked the sound of this even less.

  “I can’t just be going off without telling Mama where I’ll be,” I told them. “She’s going to be mad enough I didn’t come home tonight.”

  “I don’t know what else to do,” the Apple Tree Man said. “It’s too dangerous for either of you to go anywhere right now and I doubt your mama would listen to the likes of me.”

  Just saying she believed her eyes in the first place, I thought.

  The Apple Tree Man stood and picked up the basket with the ’sangman in it.

  “Come with me,” he said. “And don’t bother bringing anything. You’ll find whatever you need where we’re going.”

  Aunt Lillian and I exchanged glances. When she finally shrugged and stood up, I joined her. I know the Apple Tree Man said I needn’t bring anything with me, but I grabbed my knapsack by its strap and brought it along all the same.

  We walked back through the garden, out into the orchard. The moon was all the way on the other side of the sky now, but still shining bright enough to light our way. I couldn’t tell what Aunt Lillian was feeling, but I admit I was somewhat scared my own self. Right about then, she took my hand and I felt a lot better.