The Fairies of Sadieville

by Alex Bledsoe

  “Yes. A young woman. We’re—”

  “Don’t say you’re in love,” he barked, all the hesitation gone. “That’s just insipid. She’s in love with you because of what we are, and whatever you feel for her can’t be anything more than a passing breeze.” He stood and shook himself, as if awakening his whole body. “We don’t mix with anyone, do you understand? If we do, we can never go back. We have to stay pure.”

  “But sir, perhaps the Queen—”

  “I know what the Queen said!” he roared. “I was there, remember? She said it to me!” He paced now, speaking mostly to himself. “I heard every word, saw every gesture, felt every bit of her magic. She exiled us with a thought, and just like that, here we are!”

  “I understand,” the Drummer said, knowing this had been a mistake, wishing he was anywhere else.

  “Do you? Perhaps you do; you’ve always been different from the others, always followed your own way, even back in the Queen’s forest.” He ran his hands through his grimy hair, leaving it spiked and wild. “Do you truly see that she might regret what she did? That it was only a stupid bet, only a momentary mistake in a lifetime of faithful service? Maybe even right now, she’s considering bringing us back, returning us to our homes and our names, ending our exile. If we start mixing with these others, loving them and having children with them, then we’ll be tied to this land just as we were to our home.”

  The Drummer took a deep breath. “Sir, whatever happens in the future, we’re here now. We don’t need to fear the Ta-Mihzo. We could help them, they could help us.”

  “No. No,” he repeated more forcefully, as if hoping the word itself would carry back to the Queen. “They can’t help us, and it’s not our place to help them! We’re just visitors here, we’re waiting for our call to come back home.”

  The Drummer bit back his words. “Aye, then. Thank you.” He stood, picked up his drum, and turned to go.

  The Man in the Rock House sat back down and began to pick his lyra again. “Drummer.”

  He turned back. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’m sorry I have to do this, but I have no choice. I order you to have no more contact with this woman. Not with her, not with her people. And if you disobey me … I’ll sing your dying dirge.”

  The Drummer started to respond, but the words caught in his throat. He walked out of the cave, the view of the sun-drenched valley blurred by his tears. He pushed past the Tall Woman’s attempt to stop him and ran for the shelter of the forest.

  * * *

  “Father,” Dahni said, “you sound like an old woman. A cranky old woman.”

  “Don’t speak to me that way,” her father Kesak said as he stirred the stew. As a village elder, he was one of the most venerated men of the tribe, whose wisdom was often sought to settle disputes. He was respected and honored by all the Ta-Mihzo.

  Except for his own children, of course. And especially his eldest.

  “I don’t make idle rules,” he continued. “I let you run free, and don’t demand an accounting of your time. So when I tell you something, I expect you to listen!” He didn’t intend to shout the last word, or to slam the wooden spoon into the side of the simmering pot for emphasis, it just happened. It made both of them jump.

  “Don’t treat me like a child,” she said through her teeth, her fists clenched at her sides.

  “I’m not treating you like a child,” he shot back. “I’m treating you as I would anyone in our tribe. You are no mere girl, you’re a future leader, and that’s why I expect you to keep the whole tribe’s interests at heart over and above your own.”

  “They have no plans to drive us out.”

  “And how do you know this? Because of the boy you keep going off to meet? Did he teach you that noise you’ve been making lately?”

  “Yes,” she said, her chin high. “They call it ‘music.’ It lets out feelings that words can never express.”

  “Maybe those feelings are supposed to stay hidden. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Father, please, just talk to them. We share this valley; why not share it in peace?”

  Kesak put down the spoon and stood, his broad shoulders straight the way they were in the council lodge. “Dahni, I didn’t want to have to do this, but—”

  She fought the tears pushing at the corner of her eyes. “He’s had many chances to kill me, or to capture me and drag me to their village. He’s never even tried.”

  “The long-tooth cat is good and kind to its mate. Not so much to others of its kind who come near its territory.”

  “He’s not an animal.”

  “No, but he’s different. And I’m telling you: do not see this man again. And if their leader has any sort of sense, he’s told your young man the same thing.”

  “My young man,” she repeated bitterly. “No longer.”

  “I’m sorry.” He reached out to hug her, but she shrugged out of his arms and ran out the door.

  21

  Sixela and Dahni sat in the healer’s lodge. The Stranger slept, as he always did. They spoke as if he wasn’t there, like he was no more than another pot or bundle of skins. “I love him, and now I can’t see him,” Dahni said, her voice flat and hopeless. “Sixela, what do I do?”

  Before Sixela could answer, the flap of her lodge flew open, and a tall, gangly boy appeared. “Sixela, my mother is ready to have her baby,” he gasped, out of breath. “Please come now.”

  “Go tell them I’m on my way,” Sixela said, and got to her feet. She put a hand on Dahni’s cheek. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Make no decisions until then, please.”

  When Sixela left, Dahni sat alone in the medicine lodge, staring into space and wishing for an end to the pain inside her. So she nearly screamed when a new voice said. “I’m sorry we’ve done this to you.”

  She slowly turned. The Stranger watched her from his pallet, clear-eyed.

  And he’d spoken in Ta-Mihzo.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. His voice was weak, but kind. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Dahni swallowed hard. “You … speak our language.”

  “Yes. Learning new tongues is something our people do very easily. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  “So did you listen to the whole conversation?”

  He smiled wryly. “I had nothing else to do.”

  “That’s rude,” she said, smiling back.

  “I apologize. But I have a suggestion that might solve your problem. Would you like to hear it?”

  She nodded.

  “Our people have one particular weakness. I bet you can guess what it is.”

  “Music,” she said without hesitation.

  “Very good. So if you want to force a change, you have to sing it into existence.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Again he smiled. “It will, I promise you.”

  * * *

  It took the Drummer most of the morning to make the climb, his drum bouncing against his back. Finally, though, he reached a ledge that let him look out over the whole valley.

  He sat and dangled his feet off the ledge. He situated his drum between his knees and began to play. His rough hands struck the skin with a fury that threatened to punch right through, and the sound rang through the still air.

  The callused skin on the Drummer’s hands began to split as he played, streaking the drumhead with blood. He wanted to scream, but his voice was nothing compared to what he channeled through his instrument.

  In their village, the Tall Woman looked up. She knew who it was, and what he was saying, and it filled her with sadness and, when she looked off toward the Man in the Rock House’s cave, a simmering fury. How long would they agree to be led by a man who made someone feel what the drum conveyed?

  Then joining this came the high keening wail of a woman.

  “Now who,” the Tall Woman muttered to herself, “is that?” But of course she knew.

  * * *

  As the Stranger had advised, Dahni stood by the rive
r, putting all her feelings into a pure, wordless wail that caught the wind and spread out across the sky. Birds rose from the trees around her, frightened by the sound. In the river, agitated fish jumped and churned against the water’s surface.

  * * *

  The Tall Woman looked around. Everyone else had also paused to listen. The whole village was frozen by the pain in the music.

  The Tall Woman said nothing. The Drummer and his native lover had earned this moment, this last comment on what they’d lost. A final release of their mutual pain would let them both move on, she thought.

  Until the next day. When they blended their songs again, sending ripples of loss, loneliness, and aching pain across the valley.

  And the next.

  * * *

  Finally, after many days, the Drummer returned from one of his climbs to find his entire tribe waiting for him at the village well.

  “This has to stop,” the Tall Woman said. The others murmured their assent.

  He looked around at their grim faces. “What?”

  “Your drumming, and her singing. You’re depressing us all.”

  The Drummer looked more closely. Many of them had eyes red from crying. “Pull the other one,” he said, but there was no humor in their faces.

  “’Tis no mockery. Lad, you’ve both made your point. The Messenger’s on his way to their village to arrange a meeting.”

  It took the Drummer a moment to register this. “Wait … he’s what?”

  “Arranging a meeting between the Ta-Mihzo and us.”

  “Does the Man in the Rock House know about this?”

  “The meeting was his idea.”

  22

  The representatives of the two tribes met on a small island in the middle of the river, just after sunset. Treeless and flat, it was perfect for an intimate meeting, and the river’s width and noise ensured privacy. A circle of torches provided illumination; on opposite banks, the newcomers and the Ta-Mihzo waited and watched.

  Everyone assumed the Man in the Rock House would speak for his people, but he never emerged from his cave. The Tall Woman was forced to take his place, and now stood opposite Kesak, clad in the elaborate ceremonial attire that indicated his importance. The Tall Woman likewise wore a long fur cloak, the closest thing to a garment of status that her people had yet created.

  Dahni stood beside her father, covered in the body paint that marked her as a leader of the next generation. The Drummer, standing beside the Tall Woman, was dressed no differently than the last time she’d seen him, and carried his drum before him, ready to play at a moment’s notice. They were ostensibly there to translate for their representatives, but all they could do was stare at each other, aching for an end to the ritual so that they could finally touch each other again.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting,” the Tall Woman said. The Drummer translated the words into the Ta-Mihzo language.

  “Our children are the reason for this,” Kesak said. “They suffer for our cowardice.” Dahni repeated his words in the Drummer’s language.

  The Tall Woman laughed. “The Drummer is not my child. I sit here for our leader, who is in seclusion. I have his authority to make decisions, and to hopefully build a bridge where there has been only a wall. Or in this case, a river.”

  Kesak’s expression after the Drummer translated showed that he was impressed with her eloquence. “Then we should be able to settle this peacefully for us both.”

  “I agree,” the Tall Woman said.

  “And as a symbol of this,” Kesak said, “I present one of your own. He was discovered on the verge of death by my daughter, and healed by our medicine woman.”

  The Stranger stepped out of the shadows behind the torches. “Hello,” he said to the Tall Woman. “’Tis wonderful to see you again.”

  “It’s you,” the Tall Woman said, her voice trembling with emotion. To Kesak she added, “Thank you.”

  Kesak turned to his daughter. “You and your young man should perhaps try more … singing. Something happy now.”

  Dahni, with tears of joy in her eyes, looked at the Drummer. He nodded and picked up his drum.

  And then a new voice roared, “NO!”

  Before anyone could react, before either side even realized he was there in their midst, the Man in the Rock House suddenly struck with a pair of stone-tipped knives. He plunged one into Dahni’s chest, and slit the Drummer’s throat with the other.

  “I won’t let this happen!” the Man in the Rock House said, so loud that his voice seemed to roll around the valley. “We are not of this land, and we will not mix with its people!”

  Kesak held his daughter as she died, the knife imbedded in her chest, her final sound a sigh. The Drummer stumbled past the Man in the Rock House and dropped to his knees, the last of his blood pulsing onto Dahni’s face as he tried and failed to give her a final kiss. He fell at Kesak’s feet, dead.

  Kesak stared at his daughter’s fur-clad slayer. How had he even gotten to the island without anyone noticing? Had he dropped out of the sky?

  The crowds on both sides of the river stood immobile with shock, fear, and horror.

  Then the Tall Woman wrenched the knife that killed the Drummer away from the Man in the Rock House and put it to his throat. “You monster!” she roared, right in his face. “You think you can rule us here the way you did in the Queen’s forest?”

  “I am your leader!” the Man from the Rock House shouted back.

  “No more!” she said, and threw the knife into the river. “We’ve indulged your pitiful ego long enough! You’re no different than we are here!”

  She turned to Kesak, who sat on the ground holding Dahni’s corpse. “He has killed my daughter,” Kesak said flatly. “My child is dead.”

  Although there was no one to translate, the Tall Woman had no problem understanding him. Tears in her eyes, she turned to her people on the bank. “From this point on,” she announced, “I am leader. Those who wish to follow me may do so. Those who still care to follow this traitorous, murderous pig may also do so. But he no longer has any authority over me.”

  She turned to say more to the Man in the Rock House, but he was gone.

  The Stranger stepped around Kesak and Dahni. “I think we’ve done enough damage here,” he said quietly to the Tall Woman.

  “I agree,” she said. “Bring the Drummer back to our village. Let us leave these people to attend to their dead in their way.”

  The Stranger wanted to comfort Kesak; Dahni had been his savior, and his friend. But he knew that all her father now wanted was to never see any of them again.

  * * *

  Soon after that day, Kesak led the Ta-Mihzo out of the valley, never to return. Many of his tribe counseled war, but he saw no point; it would not bring back his daughter. In time, the Ta-Mihzo died off, leaving no surviving mark on time and no one but their usurpers to even remember them.

  As the Tall Woman had proclaimed, the tribe of the newcomers split that night. Her people retained the village, and those who followed the Man in the Rock House spread into the forest below his cave. Upon the Tall Woman’s death in childbirth, it was discovered that she’d passed on her life’s experience to her daughter, something that continued in her line, amassing more and more knowledge with each generation.

  As the eons passed, the mountains wore down to smooth, rounded slopes, the river disappeared underground, and both groups of exiles learned to avoid the world as it changed around them. Their memories returned, a mixed blessing as they now remembered the paradise where they’d once lived. They discovered that they could leave the valley, as long as they truly intended to return. They were able to choose names, and some took wives or husbands from the later people who came into the mountains seeking game, fur, or minerals.

  But the Stranger kept one secret to himself: the cave where he’d been found. The Queen’s magic hid it from the rest of their people, but not him. And he, and the family that descended from him, watched over it from then o
n, waiting for the day that the Queen might let them return.

  II

  SADIEVILLE

  (ONCE AGAIN)

  23

  “And the Stranger,” Sophronie concluded, “was my ancestor.” She did a little half-pirouette, her ponytail swinging behind her head. “And that’s my secret.”

  “Is that all true?”

  “Who’s to say? It’s the story I’ve heard all my life, passed down through the generations. My family’s great secret. And this cave? We’ve kept it from the Man in the Rock House ever since. He hasn’t got a clue, and neither do his people.”

  “He’s still around?” he asked dubiously.

  “Oh, yes. Go over to Needsville, look on the porch of the post office. You’ll find him there picking his banjo, thinking of ways to make his people more miserable.”

  “How will I know it’s him?”

  She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. “He’s still got six of these on each hand.”

  “But if it’s such an important secret for your family,” he pressed, “why are you telling it to me?”

  She gave him a look that he couldn’t decipher. It mixed amusement, sadness, and a sense of something—antiquity?—into an enigmatic little smile. “You ever known something you wasn’t supposed to share, and felt like you were about to bust if you didn’t tell somebody?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, imagine that about a hundred times stronger, and you’ll know how I felt.”

  “How do you feel now?”

  She shivered with delight. “Like a big ol’ weight just came off for a little while.”

  “Will you get in trouble?”

  “Only if you tell somebody. Are you going to?”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “That nice boy Ben. Or your handsome friend Richard.”

  He put his right hand over his heart. “I swear. I won’t tell a soul.” He looked up at the cave, now a mysterious portal to another world if her story was true. “Have you ever tried to go back through?”