Grayling's Song

by Karen Cushman

  “But do not sing to the grimoire until you find the others,” Hannah Strong said. “You will need their assistance and support.”

  The sun was setting behind the trees, shafts of golden light piercing through the greenery, before the teaching was finished. Grayling took the basket of herbs, bottles, and pots and added the hawthorn stick against evil, a wool winter cap with earflaps, and half a loaf of bread toasted but not consumed by the fire. She slipped a piece of angelica root into her pocket for protection. Her mother, not one for hugging, patted her on her back.

  “Mayhap,” Grayling said in a small, thin voice, “I should wait until morning and start fresh on the road.”

  Hannah Strong said, in a voice as soft but strong as silk thread, “You are the wise woman’s daughter. ’Tis up to you to set this right. Go.”

  Grayling pulled her cloak tight about her. She left her mother there in the valley and ventured forth on her own, reluctant and frightened, up the rise.

  II

  hen twilight turned to dark and clouds scudded across the moon, Grayling fell asleep in the hollow of an old oak, cushioned by fallen leaves and moss. The songs of sparrows and thrushes and soft-voiced doves woke her shortly after dawn, and she shivered, both from the early morning chill and from the memory of what had happened. The smell of the fire was yet in her nose and her hair and her clothes, the terrible image of her mother rooted to the ground in her mind and her heart. How was she to go on? She didn’t even know where she was.

  Grayling sat up, rubbed dewdrops from her face with the hem of her skirt, and looked about for something familiar. She knew every inch of the valley, every path that twisted and turned through the forest, every tree, every clearing, every stream. But here, up the rise? Here she knew nothing.

  She had sometimes been to a town but never by herself. She had merely followed her mother as she shopped, visited, and tended. Which was the road to the nearest town? Grayling wondered. What would she find there? And how did her mother fare? Mayhap she should go back and see . . .

  A scritching in the grass startled her, but it was only a mouse, sitting near her basket, cleaning its paws with a tiny pink tongue. Her basket! Grayling let forth a squeal and held her hand over her heart. The basket had been overturned, and the pots were cracked and broken. And empty. The pots were empty. Her only defense against the evil that came as smoke and shadow was gone.

  “Who has done this?” Grayling cried, her heart pounding as she looked wildly about her. She saw no one. “You, mouseling, are the only witness,” she told it. “How I wish you could talk and tell me how this happened.”

  The mouse ceased its preening and twitched its bounteous whiskers. “This mouse must declare, girl with gray eyes . . .” It hiccoughed. “This mouse must declare, it spilled the jars and ate what they contained.”

  Grayling squealed again. “You are talking? Or do I still sleep? I must still sleep and dream.”

  “This mouse is most astonished, mistress, but it is talking indeed. It was an ordinary mouse one moment, and you wished it could talk, and now it can.”

  Grayling understood. “The wishing potion!” she said. “You ate the wishing potion!”

  “’Tis likely. This mouse ate a great many things.” The mouse burped a tiny burp and looked up at Grayling. “Ah, Gray Eyes, be kind. This mouse is yours and pledges to stay by you and serve you always.”

  “And the binding potion also!”

  The mouse clambered onto her lap. “Tell this mouse what you would have it do for you.”

  Grayling stood. The mouse tumbled to the ground, where it shook and shivered and became a frog. “And the shape-shifting tonic! You foolish creature, you have left me defenseless.”

  The mouse appeared again for a moment and then the frog was back. “Shape shifting? This mouse finds it strange and a little frightening but quite stirring,” it said. “Mistress Gray Eyes, this mouse loves you and will never leave you.” And the frog became a goat with two horns and a beard that waggled as he chewed.

  Grayling’s head swam in anger and confusion. Even so, she could not help but find it funny. A shape-shifting mouse. Whoever could have imagined such a thing? “You silly thief! The jar held enough shape-shifting potion for a giant of a man, and ’twas eaten by one small, ridiculous mouse. Or goat. Or whatever you be. Likely you can expect much adventure to come.”

  She plopped herself back down on the ground, her legs curled beneath her. A girl and a shape-shifting mouse against the fury that could fire a cottage and curse Hannah Strong? Grayling was certain her efforts would come to nothing, but she could not go back to watch her mother become a tree. The other wise folk—the hedge witches and charmers and cunning women—certes they would know what to do. If she could find them.

  Towns, Hannah Strong had said. Many towns. “Know you the way to a town?” Grayling asked the goat.

  The goat shook its shaggy head. “This mouse may look like a goat, but within, it is still a mouse,” the goat said in a voice still distinctly mouselike. “This mouse knows only what mice know: eat, sleep, mate, and run away.”

  It was up to her. “Well, then, I say we go this way,” she said, pointing. “This path leads down, which is easier than going up. My legs still pain me after yesterday’s climb.” Grayling ate her bread, then considered her basket. But for her winter cap, it now held only wilting herbs and a few empty and broken pots and jars. Should she trouble herself to carry it with her? It spoke to her of home, so she grasped it tightly and got to her feet.

  She looked one last time down the hill to her valley. There was mist on the treetops, but still she could see their herb garden and, through the trees, a peek at the ruins of their cottage. She blinked to banish her tears, squared her shoulders, and turned away.

  The girl with the basket and the goat took the path down. Sunshine caressed the soft hills, their green now marked with autumn’s browns and golds. It would be a good day, Grayling thought, for weaving straw into hats or finding honeycombs or watching her mother brew a rose-petal tonic to calm the belly. It was not at all a good day for being brave, going into a town and singing, and battling powerful, mysterious beings.

  The path was dusty and deserted, and her footsteps padded on the soft earth. The goat, snacking on thistles and thorns, followed.

  As the day wore on, the sun grew warm, and Grayling, grown drowsy, tripped over a tree root and stubbed her toe. I knew ’twas an unsound, unwise, daft, and doltish decision sending me, she thought. I cannot even walk to town without bumbling. But what if her mother knew that Grayling had some hidden power, unknown to Grayling herself, and that was why Hannah Strong had sent her? What if she could shake her hair, and flowers would appear in her path, or wave her hand, and sausages be brought her, or snap her fingers, and her mother be released? Would that not be splendid? She shook her hair like a pennant, waved her hand, and snapped her fingers, but nothing happened, and Grayling walked on, limping a bit and grumbling.

  Around a corner they happened upon a party of children, young enough to be cocky and hotheaded and old enough to make trouble. Grayling froze, and she held tightly to the angelica root in her pocket.

  “Hie, girl. Give us your coins!” a boy shouted. He grabbed one arm just as another boy grabbed the other, and they pushed and pulled her back and forth between them. She tripped and stumbled and fell to the ground, and the boys danced around her.

  The biggest boy seized her basket. “Have you coins in there? Or food? Give it here.” He pulled her wool cap onto his head with a grin and searched the basket for something valuable. Finding only herbs and broken pots, he cursed and swung the basket away.

  “Look, a goat!” a girl shouted as that animal, still munching, drew near. “Supper! Hist, Barnaby! Make the stew pot ready!” She grabbed the goat by the neck. Irritated by her roughness, the creature changed into a cat, spitting and scratching, before becoming a goat once again.

  There was a sudden silence before the biggest boy whispered, “How did you th
at?”

  Grayling shook her head. “’Twas not me,” she said. “’Tis just that the mouse ate a potion . . .” The boys were not listening. They pulled Grayling to her feet and closed in on her and the goat.

  “Barnaby! Caratacus! Philby!” the biggest boy called. “Magician! We have caught us a magician!”

  “And a goat,” the girl added.

  A big man with a big grin and very big hands emerged from a grove of trees. “Well done, striplings,” he said in a thick and throaty voice. “It shall be goat for dinner. And a magician, you say? This silvery sprite of a girl? If ’tis true, we shall make good use of her.” He grabbed the goat by a horn and Grayling by an arm and, though they wriggled and wraxled, pulled them into the woods.

  A number of folk were camped in the shadows, and Grayling shivered to see them. Their weasel-brown tunics and cropped hair marked them as the edge dwellers Thomas Middleton had spoken of—vagabonds and petty thieves who loitered at the outskirts of towns and like gnats bedeviled travelers to and from. She held tighter to her angelica root and wished fervently that she had a hare’s foot or anything else with stronger magic.

  The big man shoved Grayling and the goat toward a frazzle-haired woman sitting before a tattered tent of felted wool. “Tie them up hereabout,” he said.

  She grinned a toothless grin and pulled a knife from her belt. “Goat stew! I can make it at once. Fetch a pot and three onions!”

  The boy in Grayling’s cap spoke up. “We did see it change into a cat for a moment and back again to goat. Do you think it safe to eat, or be it devil ridden?”

  The big man shrugged. “Kimper will know,” he said. “We will wait and ask Kimper when he returns.” And that was that. Grayling and the goat were tied to a tree and left while the edge dwellers sat and shared bread and beer.

  Who might this Kimper be? Were he as big and rough as the others, Grayling’s quest was over already. She pulled at her ropes but to no avail.

  The goat nudged Grayling’s arm. “Does this mouse get nothing to eat?” he asked. “I am hungry as a . . . a . . . a goat.”

  “You ate your way here,” she said, “while my belly aches with emptiness.” In truth, it is more likely fear and vexation. Captured and imprisoned on my first day! Tears began to carve a path through the dust on her face.

  The edge folk ate and drank their fill and then, shouting and laughing, in such a mood as in other folk might call for songs and dancing, they retired to a clearing for wrestling, stabbing with sharp sticks, and caving in skulls with cudgels.

  Again Grayling struggled against the ropes that bound her to the tree. “See what you have done with your shape shifting, you stupid creature,” she muttered to the goat. “Would that I had never seen you, that the potions you ate had sickened you, that you would go away and trouble me no more.”

  “Alas, Gray Eyes, this mouse is bound to you.”

  “Then I fear more trouble is to come.” And there was silence.

  The shadows grew longer and the day dimmed as Grayling fell into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of goats changing into trees and Hannah Strong becoming a mouse and Grayling herself, helpless and screaming in a stew pot. She was awakened by the squeaking and rustling of some small creature. “Mouseling, is that you or a real mouse?” she whispered as she wiggled and stretched her aching limbs.

  “This mouse be a real mouse.” Grayling felt a gnawing at the bonds on her ankles. “The shape shifting took it again, and the rope that held a goat proved too loose for a mouse. Now this mouse is free, and you will be too.”

  “Do hurry, mousie,” Grayling whispered, “afore they come back. They would have eaten the goat, and I believe they would consider eating me also.” She wiggled, hoping to break through the nibbled ropes. “Why could you not change into a knife or a hand ax?”

  The mouse continued chewing, and Grayling continued wiggling. The edge dwellers were still in the clearing, punching and pummeling each other, when, over the ruckus, she heard someone say, “Kimper comes soon. He will be pleased to see what we have caught for supper.”

  Kimper? Now! She had to get free now! Grayling gave a final, frantic pull, and the rope snapped where the mouse had chewed. She struggled to her feet, which were stiff and somewhat numbed from being bound. Gathering up her skirt, she fled into the growing darkness, with the mouse scampering after her.

  The rising moon, as full as a flower, played hide-and-seek with Grayling as it darted behind the clouds and out again. Crashing into trunks and ducking under branches, she made her way through the trees to the road, where the mouse, breathing heavily, caught up with her. “This mouse will come with you, Gray Eyes,” it said between pants. “This mouse might yet be of more service to you.”

  “Doubtful,” she whispered, “but still . . .” She searched the road for her discarded basket. “Here ’tis.” She dropped the mouse into the basket and ran as fast as her shaking legs would let her. They will not catch me and make a mouse-and-Grayling stew, she vowed. They will not!

  When the edge-dwellers’ camp was far behind them, Grayling found a spot off the road for a rest. The mouse climbed out of the basket, bits of watercress stuck to its chin. “I see you have had your supper,” Grayling said. “I would scold you for eating while I ran, but you did save us back there, mousie, so I will not.” She stopped and thought a minute. “I cannot always call you mousie, for you are at times a goat and even a frog, and I know not what is yet to come. Because you rescued me through your shape shifting, I shall call you . . .” She closed her eyes in thought. “Pook. I shall call you Pook.”

  The mouse cleaned the remaining bits of herbs from its whiskers. “Pook? Was he too a mouse?”

  “Nay. Pookas are fairies, stubborn and annoying but most able shape shifters.”

  Pook sighed. “How this mouse loves to hear you speak, Gray Eyes.”

  Grayling snorted. How many folks could say they were admired by a mouse?

  Darkness fell. It frightened Grayling a bit but also made her feel safer, hidden from anyone following. “I want to go home,” she whispered, but truly she now had no home. The cottage was gone, and her mother was becoming a tree. She snuggled into the roots of an ancient oak as if they were a mother’s arms, and at last she slept. And the mouse watched over her.

  III

  orning found Grayling, with a mouse asleep in her basket, on the outskirts of a town. Early as it was, folks had gathered to buy and sell, haggle and quarrel, barter and bargain and steal. There were masters looking for servants and servants for masters, young women in search of husbands and young men with anything but marriage on their minds, fortunetellers and fortune seekers, horses and horsemen, shepherds and sheep. Stalls brimmed with apples and parsnips and fresh brown bread, silken laces and amber bracelets, woolen hats and wooden spoons. Never had Grayling been alone among so many things and so many people, so many colors and sounds and scents.

  An old woman in russet with a basket of onions strapped to her back pulled on Grayling’s skirt. “Ain’t you the wise woman’s daughter?” the old woman asked. “I seen you with her once. She did help my granny with a cramping in the bowel. Where be she?”

  “Not here,” said Grayling.

  “Likely to be?”

  Grayling remembered the rough, brown bark of her mother’s legs and shook her head. “Nay, not likely. Not likely at all.” She turned to leave, but the woman tightened her hold.

  “Be you wise, then? Belike you can help me. I have a wart here on my heel. Hurts summat fierce when I walk.”

  A young woman standing nearby heard and approached them. “You be a wise woman?” She looked down at the ground as she spoke. “I have me overmuch sorrow. Woe, oh, woe. Can you cheer me?”

  “And me,” said a gnarled old soldier with watery eyes and a crooked nose who stopped beside them. “I worry, worry, worry. Have you a charm or spell to stop the worries?”

  “No, no, and no,” said Grayling, backing away. “I have no magic, charms, or spells. I am but the w
ise woman’s daughter.”

  “What do you have?” asked one listener.

  “And what can you do?” asked another.

  Grayling chewed on her lip in thought. She performed easy tasks—she could gather herbs and make a stew when there was meat, light the candles, and strain the beer. But what could she do to help folk? “My mother has a healing song—”

  “She ain’t here, you said,” said the woman with the wart.

  “Aye. Still, I’ve heard her sing it many a time. Mayhap I can recall it,” Grayling said. She took a deep breath and, shy and uncertain, began to sing, her voice soft and quavering:

  Earth and Mars,

  Moon and stars,

  Orbs that fill the sky—

  Spider webs and

  Beetle heads,

  Beasts that creep and fly—

  Heavenly orbs go by,

  Spirits of creatures come nigh.

  Bring healing from woe, from pain, from ills,

  Let trouble like wind blow by.

  “Is that all? What use is a song?” her listeners called, but one of them said, “Sing it again.”

  So she did, louder and with fewer quavers.

  The old man patted Grayling’s shoulder. “Hearing your sweet voice, I forgot my worries for a while.”

  “And I believe my sadness is less,” said the young woman with a very small smile.

  The two left. Grayling’s heart gave a happy jump. Could it be she had the skill, the power, the magic, to heal with a song?

  The woman with the wart unstrapped the basket of onions from her back, sat, and removed her shoe. She rolled down a stocking more dirt than wool and pulled it away from her heel. The wart remained, large and red. She shook her head. “Belike the others were not healed but merely cheered by the singing,” she said.