Spindle's End

by Robin McKinley

  Aunt and Katriona’s baby-magic boarders rose to an all-time high of seven within a month after the wedding and Peony’s suddenly ubiquitous presence in their household was seized on with a slightly desperate gratitude—even two full-grown fairies at the height of their powers might blanch at the prospect of seven baby-magic boarders at the same time, and their other work did not ease off just because their home life was in an uproar.

  Peony was (of course) good with small children, delighted to be of service, and happy to wear a charm that Katriona made her so that she could help maintain some semblance of order. Even if the charm did make everything she ate while she was wearing it taste like sheep’s brains. She mentioned this, after about a fortnight, humbly, to Katriona, who said, “Oh, fates, I’m sorry, that happens sometimes.” She made a new one, and watched Peony closely at their next noon meal, but Peony wouldn’t catch her eye, busying herself with preventing Mona from scaring Tibby into bursting into tears by making goblin faces (complete with warty green skin and fangs) at her. When Tibby wept, the tears turned into all sorts of interesting things, most of which would make Tibby cry even harder.

  The next midday Katriona drew Peony out into the courtyard, pulled the charm off over her head, and handed her a basket. “Go have your meal with Rosie at the forge.”

  Peony blushed. “The new charm is better, really. It almost makes me like sheep’s brains.”

  Katriona laughed. “I can cope alone for an hour. Go on or I’ll put wings on your heels and fly you there.”

  Nearly three months after Peony began taking her noon meal at the forge, Rosie was returning home after a long day: determining whether Grey’s wheelhorse’s lameness behind was caused by sore back muscles (I dunno, said Kindeye, the horse: It’s me ankle what hurts, but it—it do echo a bit, now you ask me) or a mild-mannered riding horse’s head shaking by a tooth abscess (My head buzzes, I don’t like it, make it stop, said Yora distressfully) or if a mare visiting Lord Pren’s stud wouldn’t come into season because she didn’t like the stallion her owner wanted her bred to (Hmph was all she would say to Rosie about it).

  She found Katriona turning the several hundred spiders mobbing the kitchen ceiling back into the grains of barley they had been before Mona turned them into spiders. Katriona was returning them to their original shape very neatly, in clusters, so that they fell into the basin she was holding under them, taptaptaptap. Peony, for once looking a little tousled and harried, was sitting at the table mending knees in very short trousers. When the ceiling was spider-free (nearly: “Oops!” said Katriona at one point. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were a real one”), Katriona put the basin of barley on the table and sighed.

  “Peony, love, you need some fresh air. Our little horrors are all asleep—or if they aren’t I’m going to blow sleep-smoke over them, and professional scruples can go hang for one evening—Rosie, why don’t you take Peony for a walk?”

  They wandered down the road, away from the square, toward the crossroads where you had to choose either Woodwold or Smoke River. It was a hazy, damp night, and you could almost hear the fog-sprites giggling. It would rain by morning. Peony put her arm through Rosie’s and sighed.

  “You’re in our house more than you’re in your own,” said Rosie, a little jealously.

  Peony smiled. “I’m useful there.”

  “You’re useful everywhere,” said Rosie feelingly but without animosity. “Don’t your uncle and aunt miss you?”

  Peony was silent, and Rosie felt a sudden pang of doubt. “Peony?”

  Peony sighed. “I’m so tired, I can’t . . . Haven’t you ever noticed the difference between your house and mine?”

  “Yours is cleaner,” Rosie said promptly. Rosie was very popular with Peony’s aunt and uncle, because she had taken on the exasperating and painful job of bashing and lopping their suddenly riotous dja vine into some kind of order. This was an almost weekly job, and Rosie felt she now knew how warriors riding into battle against fire-wyrms must feel. Dja vines did not, it was true, breathe fire, but their temperament and their teeth were similar. Peony’s aunt, Hroslinga, made a point of inviting Rosie in after each of these hazardous undertakings, and pressing samples of the baker’s best cakes on her. Hroslinga was an earnest, anxious, fidgety woman who kept her house extravagantly clean (thanks to one of Katriona’s charms, any venturesome magic dust fell off at the front step, although this did mean the front step required a good deal of sweeping) and did beautiful sewing; Rosie was unable to carry much conversation on either of these subjects, but liked the cakes.

  Peony gave a sort of half laugh, half cough. “Yes, it is cleaner. And quieter. And . . . my aunt and uncle took me in when my parents died; they’re brother and sister, you know that, don’t you? And my mother’s only relatives, and my father was from the south.” Rosie knew all this. “It never occurred to them to . . . escape the responsibility; they’re good people. They’ve raised me kindly and treat me well.”

  “They should!” said Rosie, unable to remain silent.

  “Ye-es. I suppose. And I’m useful to them, so it’s not as bad as it might be—”

  “Oh, Peony,” said Rosie sadly.

  Peony said drearily, “They don’t love me. Not the way Aunt and Katriona and Barder love you.”

  There was a little silence, and then Rosie said, “I love you.”

  Peony made the little half-laugh half-cough noise again, and in something more like her usual voice said: “Well, I told you we would be sisters, didn’t I? Oh, Rosie, I was terrified of you! You’re as tall as a man, and as strong, from all that time at the forge, and you were Narl’s friend! Everybody is a little afraid of Narl! And your aunt and your cousin are the two best fairies in the Gig, and you talk to animals better than any fairy anyone has ever heard of. You were going to despise me, I knew it!”

  “I wouldn’t have dared. The whole village thinks you’re perfect.”

  “Yes,” said Peony, all the energy draining away from her again, and in that soft monosyllable Rosie heard what her friend was trying to tell her, and her heart ached.

  “There’ll be supper by the time we get back,” said Rosie, and Peony nodded. They returned to the wrights’ yard in silence, but Rosie had Peony firmly by the hand, and Peony did not resist when Rosie drew her indoors. A delicious steamy smell of meat and greens and boiled oats met them, and Katriona’s voice.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. In the first place, seven of the little monsters at the same time? And this—er—lively with it? There isn’t that much magic in Foggy Bottom—in the Gig—and Dackwith’s family, you know, has never had any magic in it ever, not even a third cousin who could clear a kettle. And usually—you know how it goes—all you have to do is herd them, like a sheepdog with sheep. Kids are usually pretty willing to be herded, underneath the tricks; as often as not they’re scared to death by what they can do and really want you to stop them even if they can’t help trying to do it anyway. Not this lot. Some days I’ve actually thought they were going to get away from me—like today, right, Peony?” She was ladling as she spoke, and Rosie and Peony sat down next to Joeb and Barder, Peony’s eyes lingering briefly on her charm, now hanging harmlessly on the wall, above Aunt’s spinning wheel. The little gargoyle face grinned as if it understood the joke.

  Joeb sneezed. No one—including Joeb—had known he was allergic to magic dust till Aunt and Katriona had moved in. Aunt was providing him with free anti-dust charms, since it was her and Katriona’s fault that the wheelwright’s house was suddenly much fuller of dust than it had been, but finding precisely the right strength and proportions was proving difficult. Joeb was perfectly good-humoured about it, and they would get the charm right eventually. (Neither Aunt nor Katriona could think of anything to do about Barder’s mother’s habit of running a finger over some surface, whenever she came to visit, and then inspecting the inevitably dirty tip of it with the expression of a woman who has just found a toad in her soup.)

  “And
it’s not only the children, is it, Aunt?” said Katriona. “I was rite-keeping Shon’s new wheelhorse, and of course he’s risking it by waiting till he can come to Foggy Bottom to have a new animal rited, but the worst has never happened yet, has it? But this time I could feel the—the texture of the keeping trying to twist out of my hands. I’ve never seen nor felt anything like that either.”

  There was a silence, but Aunt was frowning.

  Joeb said hesitantly, “Er—there’s a tale—a fairy tale—” And sneezed, harder this time.

  “Ward and keep you,” said Katriona quickly. You could lose all kinds of important bits if you sneezed too hard and one shot out, and there was something waiting to steal it. Not that she or Aunt couldn’t get it back, but it was better not to lose it in the first place. “Yes?” she said. “You mean that might apply here?”

  “Well, it might,” said Joeb cautiously; he was still a little in awe of his master’s new family. “It’s just that sometimes when a fairy marries, there’s more magic around for a little while after.”

  Aunt said, “Yes, I know that one. It’s supposed to be one of the reasons fairies marry less often than the rest of you. I think the tale came after the fact, but never mind.”

  “It’s true then?” said Katriona.

  “Perhaps,” Aunt said neutrally. “Church ceremonies trouble the connection between the magical and the ordinary. A fairy in the middle of an important one could draw a kind of magical attention to it that pulls the balance out for a little while.”

  “Draw . . . attention?” said Katriona; and Rosie looked up from her plate, wondering why Katriona’s voice had gone so odd.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Aunt, still neutral. “It’s only a little extra baby-magic—seven of them together are very likely to have had some cumulative potency as well—and Shon may have waited longer than usual.” But Aunt’s and Katriona’s eyes turned to Rosie, and then, after a moment, Barder looked at her, too, thoughtfully.

  “Don’t look at me!” said Rosie. “It’s nothing to do with me! All I did was stand around wearing that silly crown of flowers and being taller than everyone except Barder! I only talk to animals! I’m not a fairy!”

  Three days after that conversation Rosie woke up in the middle of the night to a crash that shook the house. She lay for a moment trying to catch her breath, because she felt as if she personally had been thrown to the ground and the breath knocked out of her, though she was still in her bed. Her head swam. But as soon as she could she levered herself out of bed to look for the others. She still did not know the house well enough to walk through it confidently in the dark, and she felt her way down the stairs, toward the wavering light she could now see round the frame of the not-quite-closed kitchen door.

  She pushed the door open with an effort and found Aunt bent over the fire, which should have been banked and dark at this time of night, rapidly throwing some reeking herb onto the flames, while Katriona knelt by the hearth muttering rhythmically, in what Rosie recognised as a spell-chant; but she had never heard her speak so quickly and desperately before. There were little flickering shadows on the walls, like robins’ shadows, although Rosie could not see the robins themselves.

  “Kat—” she said; but her voice was a croak; the pressure on her chest she had felt upstairs had returned. She thought she heard Katriona falter at the sound of her voice; but by then Rosie was sinking to her knees, her vision slowly clouding over: I’m fainting, she thought; I’ve never fainted before; how very odd this feels; I feel as if I am no longer quite here. There were strong streaks of colour across her vision—purpley grey, like a malevolent fog. And then she felt something round her neck, and it burned, it was burning her, no, it was burning the queer oily cloud she seemed to be suspended in, and then she felt a hand grasping her upper arm so hard it hurt, and she was back in the kitchen again—of course she had never left it—only she was lying on the floor, and it was Katriona’s hand on her arm, and Katriona was kneeling beside her.

  “Rosie?” said Katriona.

  Rosie sat up cautiously. She could breathe again, but there was still a hot, almost-burning sensation round her neck and across her upper chest, as if she were wearing a fiery necklace; she put her hand up to it and found a little bit of charred string, which came apart in her hand. She looked at it, completely bewildered; the fragments smudged across her fingers and fell to her lap. “Oh, Kat,” she said, “I’m sorry; I’ve ruined your magic for you, haven’t I? I didn’t know you ever did—did things—in the middle of the night like this. I woke up—there was this awful crash—and I couldn’t breathe for a moment.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Katriona; there was a lit candle at her elbow, and the hollows of her eyes looked huge. “If—if it was disturbing you, you were right to come and tell us. It’s a very good thing you came down. Rosie, if anything like that ever happens again, come and tell us at once. Do you hear me? Promise. Promise that you’ll find Aunt or me immediately .”

  “Yes—yes, I promise,” said Rosie, looking at her wonderingly. “Was—was it just me? Not Barder or Joeb or the littles?”

  “Yes, it was just you,” whispered Katriona, and she let go of Rosie’s arm and sat down with a bump. “Different people—react differently. Like Joeb and dust. It’s not your fault.”

  Rosie looked across the kitchen to where Aunt was still standing by the fire; but the herbs she threw in now she threw in pinches, not handfuls, and the tension had gone out of her. She looked at Rosie and smiled. “Go back to bed, dear heart. It’s over now. Kat, you go to bed too. I can finish here. It’s over.”

  The baby-magic wore off at last, and Katriona’s seven little monsters were sent home, Tibby and Dackwith and Mona looking rather dazed, as if they couldn’t quite remember what had been happening for the last four months. The weather was peculiar for the rest of that year (much to the farmers’ dismay), with hailstorms in summer and warm heavy rain after the winter solstice when there should have been hard frosts and fairy rimes which might tell fairy seers something about the year to come. Katriona and Aunt were kept busier than usual disentangling sprite and spirit mischief, and even the good-natured domestic hobs and brownies showed a tendency to curdle milk and sour beer and throw shoes left out to be cleaned in the dung heap. But the year turned, and became another year, and things settled down to their usual level of business.

  Katriona and Barder’s first baby was born eighteen months after the wedding, shortly after Rosie turned sixteen. Rosie was steeling herself to feel superfluous and misplaced (she had spoken to Peony about this, but no one else), and the afternoon Katriona’s pains started and the midwife was put on alert, there being nothing at the forge that couldn’t wait, Rosie went out for a long walk in the forest. She gave herself a very earnest talking-to, only half listening to all the birds and beasts giving her kindly messages for the mother-to-be—or at least only half listening till Fwab turned up. Fwab was a chaffinch who felt that his second-most-important role in life (the first being to raise as many little chaffinches as possible) was to educate the strange human who talked to animals.

  He flew down and landed on Rosie’s head, and gave her scalp several sharp pecks. “Ow!” said Rosie crossly, and brushed him away. He fluttered just out of reach and sat down on her head once again. Pay attention! he said, peck. Babies are important! Peck. Babies are the most important! Peck.

  All right, said Rosie. I hear you. Go away.

  You humans live too long; that’s your problem, said Fwab, but he spread his wings and flew off.

  It had already been arranged that Rosie should sleep with Peony if Katriona was still having her baby overnight; but that night Rosie couldn’t sleep. The houses were close enough together that she could hear the bustle from the other side of the courtyard, and see the glow of the light cast from the upstairs window. Besides, she could hear the mice chatting away about it. Mice are terribly chatty. They will chat about anything, and if there is nothing to chat about, they
will chat about having nothing to chat about. Compared with mice, robins are reserved. Rosie felt that if mice did less chatting they would be supper for cats and owls less often, but this was not her concern. The most important rule of the beast world was: You do not interfere.

  So she lay next to Peony the night Katriona’s first baby was born and listened to the mice, and so of course she knew when the baby’s head was seen, and when the rest of him followed, and she wondered if Katriona had thought about the mice, and if she hadn’t sent Rosie any farther away because it was all right with her that Rosie should know from them what was going on, or that there was nowhere else to send her . . . or that Katriona had forgotten about Rosie in the excitement of the baby. She remembered the dark wakeful nights in the cottage loft before the wedding, when she had listened to the echoes telling her she was not who she believed she was. She wished she had the gargoyle spindle end with her, tucked under her pillow; she had thought of asking if she could take it with her, but it seemed too childish, and she was too old to be childish. She had given up being childish during those last weeks at the cottage.

  She was already tiptoeing round Peony’s room and picking up her clothes when she heard the first faint cry. She dressed slowly and carefully in the gentle darkness, as if she were preparing to meet a stranger she needed to make a good impression on. She stepped into the hallway, but then halfway down the stairs she stopped, and wasn’t sure if she could go any farther. She put her hand against the wall, and finally went on, but as if this were an unknown staircase, and there might be ogres at the bottom.