The Seventh Magpie

by Nancy Chase

  Catrin looked out at Magpie Island. How could there be a road on such a small crest of rock? How was she supposed to make a hundred loaves from just a handful of grain? Still, she had completed the other tasks. She must complete this one too, or in a few days her father would marry her off to a stranger.

  As if reading her thought, the crone asked slyly, “And how fares the king?”

  Catrin glanced down in surprise. “Well enough. He paces up and down the corridors and talks of wedding plans. For a wedding that must not happen.”

  She lifted the reins, and the horse stepped onto the causeway. She tried to keep her back straight and her head high because she knew the crone was watching from the shore, but today the stones weren’t dry. Low waves rolled across the path, sighing around the stallion’s fetlocks. When twice his hooves slipped on the wet stones, she could bear it no longer. She hid her face in his soft mane and didn’t look up until they reached the other side.

  In the great hall she found Hugh and Baldwin sitting at the feast table. They leaped to their feet and rushed to welcome her.

  “Hugh, you’re here! I thought you weren’t able to leave the tower until you solved the secret of the Sunstone.”

  “You solved it, Princess,” he said. “When you opened that last lock, the crystal cracked open like an egg, and there was a core of solid gold inside. The secret I was seeking was there all along.”

  “I must answer another riddle,” she said. “Will you help me?”

  “Of course,” Baldwin promised.

  “What must we do?” Hugh asked.

  The road to the south stretched across a barren, hot land. The shallow hills barely rippled from the surface of the plain, and overhead the sun hung like a bronze medallion in the flat, coppery sky. A shrunken brown river crawled alongside the dusty road.

  “Why do you think it’s called the Giant’s Wheel?” Hugh asked.

  “I don’t know,” Catrin said. “I wonder how long it will take to get there. How can there be such a long road on such a small island?”

  “Magic,” Hugh replied.

  Baldwin stopped at the crest of a shallow rise in the road and shaded his eyes against the harsh light. “Look!” He gestured with his spear. In the hollow below, a cluster of sagging thatched buildings huddled like a lonely island, half-submerged by desolate fields. All around, endless as waves on the sea, the bent and sun-faded stalks of the previous year’s grain crop still swayed and murmured. As Catrin and the others approached, the breath of the dead wheat enveloped them: dry, sad whispers like the hushed voices of lonely children.

  Pebbles crunched beneath their footsteps. Somewhere in the distance a crow shouted to its mate, while overhead, zigzagging bronze dragonflies stitched the air like darning needles.

  Up close, the lopsided cottage, the garden shed, the leaky-roofed barn, and all the other outbuildings proved to be much larger than they had seemed from a distance. The cottage windows were too high in the walls to peep through; the doors were ten feet tall and as wide as Catrin’s arm span. A rusty watering can, the size of a barrel, sat by the doorstep.

  In the tall grass near the stoop, Baldwin kicked at a broken-handled shovel that had a blade as big as a sled. “It seems there may be an actual giant to go with the Giant’s Wheel.”

  “Or was, at one time.” Hugh stood on his tiptoes to peer into the mouth of a huge clay oven hunched in the weeds beside the rotting woodpile. “It doesn’t look as if any of this equipment has been used in years.”

  Beyond the cottage, a colossal disk of stone loomed in the center of the dusty farmyard. Balanced upright upon its rim, it towered over Catrin’s head, its center pierced through by a large, round hole like the hub of a wheel. She gestured for Baldwin and Hugh to follow her. “This must be the Giant’s Wheel.” Though the midday air shimmered with heat, when she brushed her fingers across the rough granite, the stone itself was cool.

  The whispering in the wheat field redoubled, teasing and tantalizing like voices half-heard in the wind. Troubled by words she couldn’t understand, Catrin called out, “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  The voices stopped, but the feeling of being watched intensified. In several places, the wheat shuddered and swayed, disturbed by something unseen.

  Baldwin and Hugh closed ranks with Catrin, and Baldwin raised his spear. “Who’s there? Show yourselves!”

  The dead stalks parted, and a small boy emerged, dragging behind him a little wheeled wooden boat on a string. Catrin’s breath caught in her throat. He looked just like—

  “Geoffrey!” As soon as she said it, she knew she was mistaken. Geoffrey had been a young man when his ship had been wrecked. This child was only seven or eight years old. He looked very much like Geoffrey had the day Catrin first met him, but he was not the same boy. She bent down to greet him. “Who are you?”

  He only looked up at her with sad, shadowed eyes. More children arose from the field, emaciated, dirty, and somehow insubstantial, as if long seasons of sun, dust, and hardship had bleached away their vitality. They poured out of their hiding places by the dozens and surrounded Catrin and her friends in eerie silence. The youngest ones were barely old enough to toddle along on their own bare feet; the oldest were nearly Catrin’s age.

  Catrin shrank back against the rough stone, grateful for her friends on either side of her. “What do you want with us? Can we help you?” A communal sigh washed through the crowd; the children swayed, supple as stems of wheat, but made no other reply. The boy with the boat turned and pointed back toward the field.

  The group parted and an older boy prowled forward, a scrawny teenager with a long, horse-like face and a broken front tooth. “No grownups allowed.” He scowled from beneath his mane of limp chestnut hair. “This is our place. Go away and leave us alone!” Despite his belligerence, he seemed twitchy. His eyes shifted from side to side, and he held his shoulders in the hunched posture of someone who habitually expects a blow.

  “I’m not a grownup,” Catrin said. “I’m a princess, and I’m here on a quest. These are my friends. Won’t you let us speak with you?”

  Although she spoke gently, he flinched at the sound of her voice, and flung a panicky glance back over his shoulder. “All right. But be quiet, or you’ll wake the giant.”

  “Giant?” Baldwin asked.

  The boy’s gaze flickered toward the knight, but he replied only to Catrin. “We don’t talk about him.”

  “That’s fine,” Catrin said. “Why don’t you start by telling us your name? Mine is Catrin.”

  “Max.”

  “Who are your friends, Max?” She gestured at the silent children.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know their names. They don’t really speak, not so you can hear them. I guess you could say they are the lost children. The wounded, the forgotten, the forlorn. The world is a cruel place, and life is painful. When it’s too much, the children come here to rest and heal.”

  “You mean they are ghosts?” Baldwin asked.

  The boy shrugged again. “They are children. I take care of them until it’s their time to return to new lives.”

  “And how long have you been doing this?” Hugh asked.

  “Four hundred years.”

  Hugh raised his eyebrows. “No offense, but from the looks of them, you’re doing a miserable job. They’re skin and bones.”

  “It’s not my fault,” the boy snapped. “It’s because of the giant. But don’t worry,” he told Catrin, “I made him sleep. You’re safe here. I can take care of you and your friends, until it’s your time to cross back over.”

  “Thank you,” Catrin said. “But we aren’t lost. I’m here on a quest. I must make a hundred loaves of bread from this handful of grain.” When she opened her palm to reveal the golden grains of wheat, a flurry of whispers leaped and scattered through the crowd like hares in a meadow.

  The boy frowned. “Are you sure you’re not one of the lost children?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Be
cause that sounds like the Ritual of Return. The one to cross back over into new lives. The one we’re all waiting to do.”

  “How does it work? Perhaps my friends and I can help you if you tell us how it’s done.”

  Max shook his head. “You can’t. If we try, the giant may wake.

  “But—”

  “No! It isn’t safe. Besides, the children aren’t ready. It’s not their time yet. Best let it be and stay with us. I’ll take care of you, I swear.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Catrin. “If we can’t help you, we must complete our quest and be on our way. As soon as we figure out what to do.”

  The little boy with the boat tugged at Catrin’s sleeve and pointed toward a little barren patch of ground beside the barn. “Over there?” Catrin asked. “Something you want us to see?”

  She followed him, with Baldwin and Hugh close behind. In the shadow of the barn they discovered a rusty, oversized plow. The boy patted its splintered beam and gestured toward the patch of bare earth. “You want us to plow the soil? Oh, I see. You’re saying we need to plant our grain, is that right? Is that part of the ritual Max talked about?” All the silent children drifted to surround them again. “You want us to perform the ritual to help all of you cross over?”

  The boy with the boat reached out and squeezed her hand. A brief little smile tugged at his lips. His resemblance to Geoffrey nearly broke her heart.

  “All right,” she promised. “If you will all help us, we’ll help you. Agreed?”

  Baldwin examined the plow. When he pushed on the handles, which were as high as his shoulders, the plow didn’t budge. “Princess? This won’t work. It’s far too large for us.”

  Catrin considered. At the abbey, the nuns hadn’t used a big, heavy plow. They had probed the garden with shovels and little hand trowels. That gave her an idea.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the giant’s cottage, then turned to the boy with the boat. “The giant, is he sleeping in that cottage?”

  The boy shook his head. “So you could go in there and fetch something for me without worrying about waking him?” The boy nodded, eager as a good dog to retrieve whatever she requested.

  “Children, gather round. I want you to go inside to the giant’s kitchen and collect up all his teaspoons, then bring them out here to me. You will all help me plant this grain.”

  The children trotted into the giant’s kitchen like mice in a pantry and came back carrying silver teaspoons the size of little shovels. Catrin handed a grain of wheat to each child—one hundred grains, one hundred children—and showed them where to dig. Together, they planted the grains, carefully poking each one down into the crumbly soil and patting the earth over it.

  Max glowered at the commotion, his arms folded across his chest. Catrin told him, “We’ll need to water these seeds to make them grow.”

  He nodded grudgingly. “I’ll bring you a bucketful of water from the well.” He slouched off toward the barnyard only to return a few minutes later, empty-handed. “The rope broke and the bucket fell into the well. There’s no way to fetch water now.”

  Catrin rubbed her forehead, thinking. “Children, now that you have finished planting, I need you to go back into the giant’s kitchen and bring out all of the teacups. Each of you carry your cup down to the riverbank and fetch a cupful of water.”

  Happy as chipmunks, the children scurried down to the river carrying china cups as big as milking pails and back again cradling the brimming cups to their chests. As each child watered the seed he or she had planted, a green sprout unfurled from the damp soil and grew into a full sized stalk of wheat. Before their eyes, the green grain ripened into a little field of rippling gold.

  The children laughed hushed, breathy laughs, jumped up and down, and patted their palms together in applause until Max scolded, “None of that. You’ll wake the giant.”

  “What shall we use to harvest the grain?” Catrin asked.

  “There’s a sickle in the barn,” Max suggested. “I’ll show you.”

  The sickle was too large, and its blade was little more than a lacework of old rust. “This will never do,” Catrin said. She sent the children to the kitchen to collect all the giant’s butter knives, and soon the grain was falling in wide, golden swaths behind their silver blades while Catrin, Baldwin, and Hugh gathered the stalks up into sheaves and piled them on the barn floor.

  Max watched their progress. “It takes a long time for that clay oven by the wood pile to heat up. If you want to make bread later, I should go light a fire in it for you now.”

  “I didn’t think of that.” She pushed a wisp of stray hair out of her face. “Please do. That would be so helpful."

  When it was time to thresh the grain, even Baldwin was not strong enough to swing the giant’s flail, so Catrin sent the children back into the cottage again to cut one hundred broomstraws from the giant’s broom and collect one great handkerchief the size of a bed sheet. They spread the handkerchief out on the floor and laid the sheaves of grain on top. They took up the broomstraws as long as their arms and beat upon the stalks over and over to knock the grains loose from the stems. The prolonged thumping tired Catrin’s back and coated her face and arms with a layer of pale dust. She wiped the sweat from her brow. “This is thirsty work.”

  Max had just returned from lighting the fire. “Let me fetch you a drink. And your friends too, of course. There is a jug of cider kept cool in the root cellar.”

  “Thank you, Max.”

  Once the grain was threshed and the empty stalks removed, Hugh went to check on the oven while Catrin and Baldwin scooped all the grains of wheat into the center of the giant’s handkerchief. “Everybody grab an edge,” she told the children, “and hold on tight.” When they pulled, the laden cloth heaved up and tossed the grain into the air. With each toss, the lightweight chaff flew higher than the heavy grains and blew away in the breeze while the plump, newly cleaned grains of wheat slithered back into the center of the handkerchief.

  By the time they finished, a dagger of pain had wedged between Catrin’s shoulder blades, but with Baldwin’s help, she and the children scooped all the grain into baskets and carried them to the place where the gristmill stood.

  Catrin set down her basket. Baldwin frowned at the gristmill. “This could be a problem. It’s far too big for us to move. Look at the size of that millstone. I don’t know how we will grind the grain.”

  “Maybe if we all push together?”

  She called the children to her and they all tried to push, but the huge millstone wouldn’t budge. After all their work, now she wouldn’t be able to complete her quest. She tried to think of what to do next, but she was so tired and sore that she couldn’t think of a single thing.

  Hugh brought even more bad news. “The oven is broken.”

  “What? But Max lit the fire already. We saw the smoke from the field.”

  “He lit the fire, yes,” Hugh said, “but the clay dome of the oven is split right across the middle like an egg, and I don’t think it was an accident. I think Max got the oven good and hot and then poured cold water over it so it would shatter.”

  “He broke it on purpose?” Catrin asked.

  “I don’t think that’s all he’s done. I saw the rope and bucket on the well when we first arrived, and they looked sound to me. Max says the rope broke, but after I found the shattered oven I took a look, and I say the rope looks cut. I think Max cut the rope and threw the bucket into the well so we couldn’t draw any water.”

  “But why?”

  Baldwin scratched his chin. “He doesn’t want us to complete the quest. He kept saying the children weren’t ready, that it wasn’t their time yet.”

  Hugh nodded. “He also said he takes care of them. Do they look taken care of to you? There’s another thing: If Max is protecting the children from a cruel giant who means to harm them, why is every harvesting tool giant-sized? Why did Max go ahead of us each step of the way and sabotage our work?”

  “Oh dear,�
�� Catrin said. “You think the giant is friendly and Max is the enemy? If that’s true, what can we do?”

  “We need to wake the giant.”

  “No!” Max appeared behind them carrying three brimming goblets on a wooden tray. He thrust the drinks at them until they each took one, then he flung the tray away. “You mustn’t do that. It’s dangerous!”

  “You lied to us,” Catrin said, “You tried to ruin our quest. Why, Max? We never did you any harm!”

  Trembling and almost in tears, he would not meet her eye. “You know. You must know. I see the sadness in you. The world is too cruel a place for children. You must not send them back to that, to go through it all again. To be disappointed, to be hurt, to—”

  “Live?” Hugh suggested.

  “Mock me all you want, but those children came here for refuge. I won’t send them back.”

  “It’s not your choice,” Baldwin said. “The children are helping us. They want to go back. They are ready to try again, ready for their next lives to be happy ones.”

  “But they won’t be,” Max insisted. “They’ll be miserable all over again.”

  “You don’t know that. Their lives will be whatever the children make of them. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “You are all against me. But I won’t go back, no matter what you say. You can’t force me.” Max turned and fled.

  Catrin watched him go. “I wonder what happened to him, to make him so afraid to go back.” She raised her goblet to her lips to sip the cool, fragrant cider.

  The boy with the boat ran up and slapped the goblet from her hand. It spun out of her grasp and clattered to the ground, spewing a cascade of liquid onto the hard soil. He pulled the goblets from Baldwin’s and Hugh’s hands and flung those onto the ground too.