Grayling's Song

by Karen Cushman

  Sylvanus tightened the saddlebags that clanked against the mule’s rough and dusty sides. “Shall we depart?”

  Grayling, Auld Nancy, Desdemona Cork, and Pansy looked at each other, at Sylvanus, and then back at each other. Finally Auld Nancy shrugged and nodded.

  As Sylvanus started to climb onto the mule, Grayling pulled on his tunic. “Do you not think,” she asked in a soft voice, “Auld Nancy might ride? Her bones pain her something fierce.”

  “Nay,” said Auld Nancy, with a shake of her head. “Better for the beast to carry Pansy. She is most pale and frail-looking of a sudden, though I cannot think why.”

  Pansy was to ride? Grayling thought that would be excellent, if only Pansy would ride elsewhere. Away. Anywhere but there.

  “Foolish coddling,” said Sylvanus, grabbing the mule’s lead. “The girl is young enough to be strong and hardy. As they say, ‘a new shoe lasts longer than an old.’ Why, in my day, we not only did not ride mules, we sometimes carried them on our shoulders, for animals were precious and to be cared for, whereas we teemed with young people.” He combed his beard thoughtfully with his fingers. “I remember once when I had two beasts to pack over the Hermantine Pass in winter—”

  “Enough,” Auld Nancy said, and she shook her broom at him. “Enough talk from you. Hailstones and thunder clouds! I don’t know if you have more words or more tears, but they both try my patience.”

  Sylvanus scowled while Pansy climbed onto the mule. “What be in here?” Pansy asked, poking the saddle-bags. “They do be lumpy and uncomfortable under a rider.”

  “Leave off my belongings, wretched girl,” said Sylvanus, and he swatted her hands away. Pansy snorted and settled onto the mule’s back.

  Auld Nancy was right, Grayling thought. Pansy definitely ailed. She’d lost her rosy plumpness. Her eyes were ringed with shadows, and she hadn’t whined or mentioned food in minutes.

  As they left, Grayling turned to take a last look at the flowers Sylvanus had conjured. The bush was black and blighted, the lovely blooms shriveled. “Magic always has a price,” said Auld Nancy.

  Grayling turned away, took a deep breath, and once more sang to her grimoire. The grimoire sang back. “Hurry. This way,” she said to her companions, and they followed her, heading away from the sunrise—west, the grimoire sang them ever west.

  Their steps grew slower as the morning wore on, and now and then one of them stopped to rub one sore body part or another. Every sound made Grayling startle and look around, but other travelers were few and none seemed apt to threaten them.

  By late morning, the sun had dried her cloak a bit, but the sun beat fiercely on the back of her neck. She envied Auld Nancy the protection of her wimple. Finally she unloosed her braid and let her hair hang down her back to cover and cool her.

  On and on they walked, on and on. The morning turned to bright afternoon, and the sun shone in Grayling’s face. She had no hair there to let down. Maybe she could grow her eyebrows long enough to cover her. She snorted at the image and slowed down to walk next to Auld Nancy. “You can command the rain,” she said to the old woman. “Can you then make clouds to cover the sun? My face is sizzling like a sausage in a fry pan.”

  Auld Nancy shook her head. “Belike any magic will call attention to us.”

  Grayling thought of the warlord. She nodded. But without using her magic, Auld Nancy had no more power than Grayling.

  After a time, Auld Nancy and Sylvanus lagged behind, each with a hand on the mule for support, and Grayling found herself walking beside Desdemona Cork. She sniffed deeply of the scent of roses. “I have been wondering,” she said to the lovely woman. “How is it to have people admire you and obey you and seek to satisfy your every wish?”

  Desdemona Cork pushed her cloud of hair back from her face. “’Tis useful at times, and often amusing, but very wearying. And when the enchantment wears off, folks are confused, and I am abandoned.” She sighed a sigh that sounded like a spring breeze ruffling the meadow grass. “If I could choose, I would live in a cottage by the sea, make fresh bread, spin in the sunshine, and live on goat cheese and apples.” She sighed again. “Alone. Blessedly alone and untroubled by the wishes of others.”

  “Could you not choose to live so now?” asked Grayling.

  Desdemona Cork smiled, and a faint rose color tinged her cheeks. “I suppose I could. A cottage by the sea . . .” She fell into a thoughtful silence.

  In such circumstances, Grayling wondered, would I choose the cottage over such magic as Desdemona Cork’s? The word cottage awakened memories of rain on the roof thatch, the comforting whisper of her mother’s spinning wheel, and mugs of warm cabbage soup. Soup. Her belly rumbled. Desdemona Cork’s roast meat seemed so long ago. When might they eat again? And what? Would they be reduced to catching and cooking weasels and badgers?

  “I have gone my limit,” Auld Nancy said at last, while the sun still shone in the sky, “and can walk no more now, not with these old bones.” She sat on a stump and rubbed her knees, and Sylvanus dropped down beside her. Pansy slid off the mule’s back and stretched. Grayling could not say who looked the more weary.

  She put her basket down, and Pook the toad crawled out. He flipped his pink tongue at a passing insect, snatched it right out of the air, and gulped it down. Then with a shudder, he became Pook the mouse again. “This mouse is grateful for this new shifting,” he said, “for he feels much disgust at the eating of bugs.” He spat a tiny spit before clambering up Grayling’s skirts and into her pocket. Grayling peered into the basket with its cargo of blackened herbs, bits of broken jars, and toad droppings. With a homesick sigh, she dropped it at the side of the road.

  She turned to Auld Nancy and, at the sight of her drooping there, frowned with concern. Auld Nancy had been less peevish of late, Grayling realized, and less bossy, as if she did not have the strength. Pain marked the old woman’s face as she rubbed her neck and her knees.

  Grayling bent down to Sylvanus. “Is there aught you can do to relieve Auld Nancy?”

  The magician shook his head.

  “Not spell? Charm? Incantation?” Grayling grew increasingly frustrated with him. “Not draught? Elixir? Brew? Anything?”

  Sylvanus waved her away. “I choose not to deplete my skills by using them on petty complaints.”

  Grayling scowled at his selfishness and dropped down next to Auld Nancy. “I have heard my mother sing a song,” she said to the old woman, “that might help with your pains.” She began to chant, slowly and softly:

  Aches from cold,

  Aches from old,

  Aches, go away.

  Rub rocks and stones,

  And not old bones.

  Aches, go away.

  Let Nancy rest,

  Not feel so old.

  Aches, go away.

  After a few moments, Auld Nancy stretched her limbs and smiled. “I believe that did help some. Almost like magic. Gramercy, Grayling.”

  “You would do better to thank Hannah Strong, for it be her song.”

  “Aye,” Auld Nancy said, “but ’twas your voice and your goodwill.”

  When they were ready for the road once more, Sylvanus helped Auld Nancy onto the mule. Pansy, of course, sulked. Grayling reflected that Pansy was irritating, annoying, and a hindrance on this journey. Why hadn’t Auld Nancy sent her back to her mother? Her mother was a reader of palms. Perhaps she had a grimoire and enough magic to be rooted, too? Was that why Pansy was here?

  No matter the why. Pansy was here and walking next to Grayling. “When did you come to Auld Nancy?” Grayling asked.

  “’Twas shortly after Lammas Day. My mother sent me to make something of myself.”

  “Were you not something already?”

  “Not something my mother approves. For the most part, she looks at me and sighs.”

  “I know that sigh,” said Grayling, shaking her head. “Feeble Wits, my mother calls me, and Pigeon Liver. Are you now becoming something?” she asked Pansy. “Has your
time with Auld Nancy changed you? Are you—”

  Pansy interrupted. “I hope we will be eating soon.”

  Seemingly not, then, Grayling thought.

  “We turn here,” Sylvanus called, and he led the mule onto a rutted path that headed due south.

  “Nay,” Grayling said. She gestured to the west. “The grimoire is this way.”

  “We must first call on the widow Bagley, whose cottage is through here. She has a cinnamon and garlic cheese I must sample. Certes, the struggle between the two strong essences will provoke especially powerful visions.”

  While Grayling stuttered “but . . . but . . . but . . .” and pointed west, Desdemona Cork, stumbling over a tree root on the rough and rugged path, asked, “Cheese? We are doing this for cheese?”

  “Aye. As you know, I am an adept of divination with cheese.”

  “I thought that was a silly jest,” said Grayling as she joined the others on the path to the cheese woman’s cottage.

  Sylvanus scowled at her. “Many things,” he said, “have the power to foretell the future or discover what is hidden. Not only cheese but dust, flour, roosters, and ice, if you know how to use them.”

  “Nay,” said Grayling.

  “Aye,” said Sylvanus. “Also spiders, pig bladders, and shoes.”

  “Truly?” asked Grayling.

  “Truly,” said Sylvanus.

  Grayling shook her head. The world outside her valley was full of wondrous things, but was the wonder worth the trouble?

  X

  he path narrowed, and wild blackberry bushes on either side reached out to snag Grayling’s hair and her skirt. Soon it curved to reveal a clearing and Widow Bagley’s home. The dwelling was more hut than cottage, and the thatched roof was quickly becoming unthatched. In the yard sheep, goats, and a red cow grazed while tubs and tuns and a big vat bubbled unattended. The cottage door was open—or missing—and from inside came the odor of sour milk and herbs.

  An old woman appeared and beckoned them in. By pig and pie, thought Grayling, she is even older than Auld Nancy, if that be possible. Desdemona Cork waved the invitation away, Pansy turned away, and Auld Nancy nodded on the mule’s back, but Grayling, curious, followed Sylvanus.

  The cottage was dark and damp, and its sharp, musty smell made her nose burn. Dripping bundles of drying cheese hung from the roof over the table, making puddles that a yellow cat was lapping. Wax-covered orbs of finished cheese were hung in the rafters to smoke and in dark corners to age. The room looked to Grayling like a magical forest where cheese grew instead of flowers.

  Sylvanus approached the cheeses. He rolled his eyes and twitched his nose, sniffing and poking and tasting slices of the creamy rounds. “This,” he said finally to Widow Bagley. “This cheese I will have, and I will give you two coppers for two rounds.”

  Widow Bagley snorted. “Six coppers,” she said.

  Sylvanus shook his head. “Six? Nonsense. ’Tis thievery and greediness. I will give three.”

  “Eight coppers,” said the widow.

  “Eight? Nay. ’Tis not done that way. When I increase my offer, you lower your price until we meet in the middle. Four, and that be my last offer.”

  “Twelve,” said the widow.

  Sylvanus sputtered. “You do not understand bargaining. I increase, and you decrease. Now I offer six, and ’tis absolutely as high as I will go. What say you?”

  “Done!” said the widow, and she spit on her hand and offered it to Sylvanus.

  Sylvanus cheerfully paid the amount she had demanded in the first place and left the cottage with two cheeses tied together and hung around his neck. The others hurried behind him. He is obviously no shrewd bargainer, Grayling thought, and he believes in magic cheese. Was he but a muddle-headed dolt and no help to them at all?

  They turned again to the west, Pansy shuffling in the rear. Amidst the trees, the remains of a cottage still smoked. And there, as if standing guard, was a tall tree, not human anymore but not quite tree. Grayling poked Sylvanus with her elbow and bade him look. His face, what she could see of it beyond the beard, paled. Why had he not seen such before? Where had he been?

  A fierce and menacing wind blew against them, buffeting them as they struggled against it, heads down. The wind bit at Grayling’s chin, clutched at her ankles, and crawled up the sleeves of her gown. Her heart grew cold, and she felt dark despair settling over her spirits again as she trudged on. Suddenly, with a last swirl of dust, the wind was gone.

  Nor was this a natural wind, Grayling sensed. Something was happening, something ominous and bleak, something they could not understand or control. Would it only strengthen as they drew closer to the grimoires? How could they fight it? She looked at her ragtag band of companions, muttering and grumbling and limping, and she succumbed for the moment to the despair.

  “How much longer must we trudge this road?” asked Desdemona Cork. “I wish to be quit of the journey.”

  Grayling sang a snatch of song and cocked her head to listen. “The grimoire is near,” she said. “Mayhap we will reach it next day or the next.”

  Auld Nancy scowled. “I fear this be too easily done—”

  “Easy? You think this easy?” Grayling’s cheeks blazed. “I have left my mother rooted to the ground, trekked through woods and swamps, been threatened and menaced and imprisoned, suffered blisters, frights, and empty belly. I do not in any way think this easy!”

  “Hist, girl. I did not mean ’twas not difficult, for all of us, but I wonder why some power would take the grimoires and then let us find them.”

  “Easy?” Grayling muttered as she plowed on. “She says ‘easy’?”

  The day was darkening when they stopped again, feet sore and bellies empty. Pansy huddled beneath a tree, her face gray with weariness, and Auld Nancy dropped down beside her.

  Trees stood black against the sky, and all was silent but for the hoots of owls and shrieks of birds for which Grayling had no name. The very air seemed dark and heavy. Though reluctant to be alone among the trees, Grayling went to gather wood for a fire.

  A bit of a brook, muddy and stagnant, seeped from ground rutted and tunneled by moles and voles. She glimpsed foxes and furry creatures she hoped were not wolves darting between the trees. Every rustle of leaf or crack of twig underfoot made her jump. Branches reached for her like fingers groping, poking, scratching. Had some of these trees been folks, were perhaps still folks deep in their woody hearts? At last, her arms full of branches and twigs, she hurried back to the others.

  Sylvanus was sitting with his back against the rough bark of a sweet chestnut tree, his eyes closed, his shoulders festooned with autumn leaves. Pansy was whispering to Auld Nancy and Desdemona Cork, and they looked up at Grayling.

  Pansy motioned to her. Grayling dropped the wood and joined the others. “We are wondering over Sylvanus,” Pansy said.

  “Why has he not turned tree,” asked Auld Nancy, “or even seen the damage? He heard rumors, he said. What has he been busy doing?”

  “Was it something with smoke and shadow?” Desdemona Cork asked in a whisper.

  Pansy cleared her throat and said, “I have a worrisome uneasiness about what he carries in his saddlebags. Belike we should examine them.”

  The four turned and studied Sylvanus. His eyes were still closed, and he whistled, puffed, and snorted, every breath ruffling his beard. He did not look so very sly or treacherous to Grayling, but then she had little knowledge of treachery.

  “Sylvanus,” said Auld Nancy, kicking his foot. “Wake, Sylvanus. We would speak with you.”

  Sylvanus stretched and shook his head. “I was not asleep but merely thinking about the problems of the universe. Very difficult work it is, thinking deep thoughts, and ‘the mind cannot grapple when the body is weary.’’’

  Auld Nancy kicked his foot again. “Fie, you old braggart. Stop your thinking for a moment. We would see what you carry in those saddlebags.”

  “Ah, woe, what is it that causes you to distrust
me? I have always done my best.” He snuffled. “But ’tis true, ‘no man is a hero to those who wash his socks,’ as the eminent professor Isidore Muchnick once told me.”

  “Enough!” cried Auld Nancy. “Enough! You ever grizzle and yawl! I swear someone has put a babbling spell on you. Pansy, fetch the bags. We shall see for ourselves if he has been about mischief.”

  Pansy lifted the saddlebags and shook them. Out fell a blue velvet cap and cape, copper coins, a clean shirt, two metal cups with strange engravings, bottles of various green and slimy things, brown bread, two onions, and a ham.

  “Ham!” Auld Nancy shouted. “Ham! You did not tell us you had food! Let us forget this discord for a moment and eat.”

  Pansy grinned a sly, satisfied grin. She had known about the ham in Sylvanus’s bags, Grayling was certain of it. But how?

  Sylvanus stood. “Are you convinced I carry nothing suspicious in my bags? Leave me now to soothe my stomach and my nerves and put my bodily humors back in balance.” He grabbed his velvet cap from Pansy. “And cease pawing my things, you great, useless lump of a girl!”

  Pansy’s grin faded, replaced by her usual sullen pout.

  After Sylvanus stowed his things back in his saddlebags, Auld Nancy said, “I will slice ham. Sylvanus, start us a fire.”

  Grayling watched him with interest. The man was a magician. Would he snap his fingers to start the fire? Or gesture? Point? Clap his hands?

  Sylvanus pulled a tinderbox from a pocket of his dust-colored gown. He saw Grayling’s disappointed face and shrugged.

  “What would suit that ham, Sylvanus,” said Desdemona Cork, and the scent of almond blossoms filled the air, “is a bit of that cheese hanging around your neck.”

  Sylvanus threw an arm protectively across his chest and shook his head. “’Tis not cheese for eating. It has a purpose.”

  “Beyond filling our bellies, I take it,” said Auld Nancy.