Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

  No, what stopped her in her tracks was another part of the story altogether.

  . . . we had gathered the last of our fall crops, protected those that would stay in the field with heaps of dead leaves, ferns, and earth, and had killed and preserved our first wild pig and a deer. That, together with the fish and game I had smoked, lent us a feeling of confidence that we would survive our first winter here, and allowed me to consider making plans to celebrate with our Cherokee brothers.

  And that very morning was the morning she appeared, standing outside my shield, at the rock wall we had built to shelter our gardens. In her green gown, with her blazing red hair and her special green lizard familiar spirits, she was unmistakable. And she was a creature I had never expected to see again.

  Nor was I entirely easy about seeing her now.

  Sometimes she was called The Malachite Maid, and was said to be the protector of miners against abusive foremen. But mostly she was called Hozjajka Mednoj Gory, and by that name she was a strange and enigmatic creature indeed, and that is how I knew her.

  Just before our village had been destroyed, I had had several encounters with her. She had offered to be my patron, as it is said she does for craftsmen, for she collects them. Those she favors the most, she takes with her into her kingdom under the mountain. I had not quite accepted her patronage—for those who take her as their Mistress must never look at another woman, lest terrible things befall them—when the boyar burned our village to the ground. Had she come to me then—well, I probably would have accepted her, for where else was I to go and what was I to do? But she did not, and I followed the rest of my village, and then, went on my travels.

  I never saw her again while I was within the borders of Rossiya, nor once I was out of them. I certainly did not expect to see her here, so far from both our native lands.

  If she was powerful enough, and determined enough, to find me here . . . I knew I had better go and greet her courteously and, if I was lucky, turn aside any anger she had with me.

  I thought about telling Sally to remain at the cabin, but with a second thought, I knew that it was of little use to do so. She wouldn’t obey me, and she had every right, as a Master in her own power, to know what we might have attracted—or be facing. Because if the Mistress was wroth with me, she would also be wroth with Sally.

  So I cautioned her about what we were going to meet; on her own Sally went to get some of the balls of cornmeal and beans we had learned to cook from Blue Doe, a piece of honeycomb, and a wooden cup of our first brewing of vodka. These we carried down to her, as she waited, with the stillness of a malachite statue, for us to approach her.

  I came first, and bowed low to her, as to a Tsarina, and addressed her respectfully. “Be welcome to my home, Hozjajka Mednoj Gory, and I beg you to accept hospitality of us.” I spoke in the language of Rossiya, of course, but Sally knew enough of it to bring forward the wooden plate on which our poor offerings rested.

  She stared at them, then at Sally, then at me. “And what of your promises, Pavel Lebedev, when last we met?” Storms threatened in her green eyes, but I knew she would punish falsehoods, not truths.

  “Oh fairest of creatures, I made you no promises,” I replied. “I said only that I must think upon your most generous offer. It was not by my will that my village was burned to the ground and my people sent away before I could make an answer to you. You are also the patroness of mines and miners, and I am neither of these. I thought you had forgotten me.”

  “This is true,” she said grudgingly, her eyes flashing nevertheless. Or perhaps her eyes flashed in memory of what our boyar had done without her leave. Her next words proved my second guess true. “And the boyar has paid for his impertinence.”

  I did not ask her what she meant. In truth, I no longer cared, though once I would have been glad to hear all the details of his downfall—for downfall he most certainly would have suffered at her hands. “I did not dare the impertinence of calling upon you,” I continued—which was true—“and I did not think you were still interested in my services”—which was also true. I had been greatly despondent, and saw little value in myself and my poor skills. “So I followed where the boyar sent my people. And then—I just kept going.”

  “And so you ended here.” It was, obviously, a statement. Anger faded from her eyes.

  “Even so. And on the way, I met one who to me is worth more than all the jewels under the mountain.” I gestured to Sally, who once again offered the platter with a pretty gesture.

  “Even more than all the skills I could teach you?” she asked.

  This was a trick question. I must somehow answer it without offending her. “I am a different sort of craftsman now, Radiant One,” I said honestly. “And I never was an artist. I know that now, and I am humble enough to admit it. Art without skill—well, that can be remedied. Skill without art is empty, and produces only pretty trinkets. I would not fit properly in your service, and would do you no honor by serving.”

  “Hmmm.” She reached across the wall and took the cup of vodka, drinking it in a single swallow. Then she accepted one of the corn-balls, and the bit of honeycomb. I breathed a little easier. She was no longer wroth, and had accepted my hospitality. “But would you enter my service to save your wife?”

  “Instantly, Radiant One,” I replied. “Even though my heart would pine for her every waking moment, and my dreams would be full only of her.”

  Then she turned to Sally, who had not followed more than a word or two of this questioning, and said in perfect English, “I am wroth with thy husband, woman. Yet you may save him. Would you enter my service, come under the mountain with me, and never see him again in order to so save him?”

  Tears started up in my dear one’s eyes, but she said, immediately and steadfastly, “I have crossed wide oceans and left my parents on the other side of the world to be with him. How could I do less than that to save him?”

  Even knowing only that this was some powerful Earth Spirit, perhaps the equal or superior to any of the Great Spirits we had encountered here, she said that! Oh, my beloved brave one, what did I ever do to deserve you?

  But of course, it was exactly the right answer, because at last, Hozjajka Mednoj Gory smiled, as if the sun had broken out from behind the clouds. “I see you are of no use to me, Pavel Lebedev. Prosper here in your new home, with your new allies. You may see me from time to time, for all Mountains are the same to me, and I can be here or back in Rossiya in less time than it takes to blink.”

  Well, that explained how she had made the journey. The Great Ones have powers that are astonishing, to be sure!

  And with that, she began to walk off—only to turn back to me.

  “There is a mine here, which interests me,” she said. “So I may be nearer than you think, more often than you guess, and you may see me in places you do not expect. If you do see me, in the future do not call me Hozjajka Mednoj Gory.”

  “I hear you and obey, Radiant One,” I said obediently, because obviously, there was no other answer to be made. “But what shall I call you?”

  “Jolene.”

  At that, Anna nearly dropped the book. What?

  She picked it back up again.

  “Jolene,” she said. “I saw it on a tombstone. I like it.”

  And with that, she turned and vanished.

  “Aunt Jinny,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “What does Hozjajka Mednoj Gory mean?” She stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables, and her aunt looked at her in puzzlement for a very long moment. “What Great-Granpappy called Jolene,” she added, when Jinny continued to stare.

  “Oh! So, y’all got t’ thet part, hmm?” she replied. “I cain’t wrap my mouth ’round thet palaver, but it means The Queen of Copper Mountain.” She shrugged. “Now y’all unnerstand why I said don’t get twixt her an’ what she wants?”

  “Great-Granpappy didn’ say, �
��xactly . . .” But he certainly had implied more than enough. Anna sucked on her lower lip. “He reckoned she’s purt powerful.” And she remembered that forest spirit that Jolene had ordered about, the one bigger than a house, and shivered.

  “Y’all know anythin’ what c’n be in Ducktown one minnut, an’ in Roosha th’ next?” her aunt demanded. Anna shook her head, because obviously she couldn’t. “Neither do I. Neither does any Marster I’ve arsked. Purt powerful don’t begin t’ describe her. Great-Granpappy was lucky to get shuck of her, an’ he knowed it. It’s might near as dangerous t’ be somethin’ she wants, as t’ get atwixt her an somethin’ she wants.” Her aunt paused for a moment, searching for words. “She ain’t human. An’ she don’t thank like one.”

  “Wonder what she wanted with me?” Anna said aloud.

  Jinny’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “T’plague me, most likely.”

  But Anna wasn’t at all sure of that. The only thing that she was sure of, was that Jolene wasn’t all that different from Grandmother Spider, and that her aunt was right. She was far more dangerous than Anna had ever guessed.

  * * *

  Aunt Jinny turned her loose in the morning, right after tending the pigs and the chickens and eating breakfast. She couldn’t get down the lane fast enough, and Jinny must have known she would be useless until she saw Josh again.

  He must have heard her footsteps in the barn, because he met her halfway inside and caught her up in his arms and swung her around until she was breathless, and for a long, long time, wouldn’t let her go.

  She had a thousand things to say, and didn’t need to say any of them. That embrace gave her all the answers she needed.

  So instead she asked something else entirely. “The li’l angel?”

  He heaved a huge sigh. “Done an’ gone. An’ it’s been a rotten three days. On’y two thangs good outen ’em a-tall. C’mon in th’ workshop an’ I’ll tell y’all.”

  He took her hand and led her to the shop, and picked her up by the waist to perch her on her usual stool, while he leaned back against his workbench. Now that she saw him, she saw he looked as if he hadn’t slept for those three days. Shocked, she waited for him to tell her what was going on.

  “So. Mistuh Cooper showed up with his cart an’ hoss three days ago, an’ McDaran with him, ridin’ a livery hoss.”

  “What?” That hit her with another unwelcome jolt, although that corresponded to when McDaran had turned up at Aunt Jinny’s. “Why? I mean, why did he hev McDaran with him, when y’all tol’ me he couldn’t hardly stand the man?”

  Josh sighed. “Wall, he weren’t too clear ’bout that. In fact, he weren’t too clear ’bout anythin’, ’cept thet he wanted thet statchoo right quick, an’ he weren’t goin’ back t’Ducktown wi’out it. Pa weren’t a-tall happy about Cooper bein’ thar, much less McDaran, an’ then—wall, I dunno how the heck he done it, ’cause I know Pa thanks McDaran’s a snake, but McDaran talked to him an’ Ma fer ’bout an hour, an’ next thang I know, they’s invited t’stay, they’s eatin’ in the kitchen like guests, they’s a-sleepin’ in my room, an’ I’m beddin’ down out here. Oh, an’ Susie’s so sweet on thet skunk McDaran thet I cain’t even say ‘boo’ ’bout him without she crawls down m’throat. I ain’t seen nothin’ like it, an’ iffen y’all hadn’t tol’ me ’bout magic, an’ thet he had it, I reckon I’d’a thunk I was a-goin’ crazy. As ’twas, took me most of the fust day t’ figger out he’d done messed with their haids an’ done it with magic.”

  “If he’d’a thunk y’all was a threat to him, he’d’a worked his weasel-magic on y’all, too,” she said, darkly. “Then y’all woulda been givin’ him good Lord only knows what.”

  “Or thet,” he agreed. “But I reckon it’s a good thang he reckoned me no-account, jest th’ pair’a hands what made stuff, ’cause he left me alone. I jest wanted ter be shuck of both of ’em, so I did ’bout a week an’ a half of polishin’ in three days, barely slept a wink a-doin’ it, an’ they loaded the thang up in Cooper’s wagon and took it an’ thesselves back t’Ducktown yesterday. It’d been wuss if he’d been a-hangin’ round m’shop like Cooper did, but he went off a-wanderin’ somewhere fer most of the day, all three days.”

  “He reckoned y’all no-account, ’cause he don’t know ’bout y’all courtin’ me!” she blurted, and then told him, first to his astonishment, then to his anger, about McDaran’s persistent lingering about Aunt Jinny’s place and her going into hiding. She didn’t tell him where she had gone. So far as she knew, he still didn’t know about the Cherokee up in the Holler—and with McDaran around, working his wiles on folks, the fewer as knew, the better, she reckoned.

  “Aunt Jinny made sure I was all right,” she merely said. “I jest didn’ hev no paper nor pencil, so I used them cornhusks an’ threads instead.”

  “Thet was slick thinkin’, Anna May,” he said with admiration, and sighed. “I’d’a liked t’hev got away from Cooper an’ at least sent y’all more than ‘cain’t talk,’ with him hoverin’ over me—but since I know thet was McDaran’s doin’, reckon I’ll fergive him. Thet’s why I didn’ send y’all more messages—he was at m’elbow from th’ dawn till bed. But thet’s the fust good thang thet come of this. He paid me. Paid me right there on th’ spot afore he loaded the statchoo inter his cart.”

  “An’ the second thang?” she prompted.

  “Th’ second thang was this!” There was a big lumpy roll of canvas on his now-clean workbench, next to something bulky and covered with what looked like an old tablecloth, and he took the end and unrolled it with a flourish—and revealed that it wasn’t a roll of canvas, it was a roll of tools, each in its own little pocket. Carving tools, exactly the sort of thing he had described himself as coveting, from tiny little things for carving pieces like knife-handles and cameos, to ones like those he’d already been using, plus a pair of mallets.

  She stared at them in wonder—and concern. Because weren’t these things supposed to be worth a fortune? She was about to ask where he’d gotten them, when he told her, and her blood froze.

  “’Twas Miz Jolene!” he enthused. “Right arter Cooper an’ McDaran rode off, she jest—turned up. Said she’d seed th’ angel grave marker an’ reckoned I deserved better tools than ole Cavenel was a-given me, an’ jest handed these over! I arst her how I could repay her, an’ she jest smiled.”

  She had offered to be my patron, as it is said she does for craftsmen, for she collects them. Those she favors the most, she takes with her into her kingdom under the mountain.

  And as Josh gloated over his new tools, she was too paralyzed to think.

  She managed, somehow, to feign happiness, because he was happy. But what had he done by accepting the “gift”? Had he actually bound himself to Jolene’s service? Her gut clenched up, and she thought she might be sick.

  “But wait!” he continued, still glowing with happiness despite his obvious weariness. “Lookit what else she give me!”

  He whisked that old tablecloth off the lump, revealing—

  Well, she wasn’t sure what he had just revealed. It looked like a big piece of stone, but what a stone it was! Obviously cut from a much larger piece, the stone was a rough column as long as her forearm and as big around as a melon. And it was an eye-seducing, glorious swirl of vibrant blue-green and emerald green and pale green in layers and waves and chaotic swirls that had no regular pattern to them.

  “What is thet?” she gasped, its greenness dominating the gray and brown and straw-colored workroom.

  “It’s malachite,” Josh said, in a voice so full of the satisfaction of possession she almost didn’t recognize it. “It’s the biggest piece I iver did see, an’ they ain’t a flaw innit near’s I c’n tell from lookin’ at it. Jolene done give it to me, an’ how a tiny liddle thang like her jest handled it like it weighed no more’n a egg, I niver will figger out. She said she give me th’ tools, an’
she give me th’ material, an’ now it was up ter me t’ prove what I was made of.”

  Her dress, Anna suddenly realized. That stone—it’s like her dress. Both the first, fantastical one she had seen Jolene wearing, and the second, more ordinary one, the one with the swirly pattern. The first dress had the colors and the silky sheen of this stuff; the second had the colors and the chaotic swirls.

  “Where’s it come from?” Her head was all a-maze, but her mouth kept asking sensible questions somehow.

  “Same mines where y’all git copper,” he said, hands gently touching the stone, eyes filled with the stone. “Reckon she must’ve got some deal a-goin’ with the mine owners.”

  “Is it valuable?” she asked.

  He shook his head, still gazing on the stone and not at her. “Not really. Not fer itself; it on’y gits valuable arter it’s been carved an’ polished. An’ y’all gotter be careful; th’ dust’ll pisen y’all, so’s y’all gotter sand an’ polish it under water. Thet’s what Jolene tol’ me, anyways. She brung it, an’ th’ tools, jest afore y’all got here.”

  That, she was sure, was no accident.

  “I cain’t hardly wait t’set a chisel t’ this,” he continued, his voice still full of that acute satisfaction.

  “What’s stoppin’ y’all?” She couldn’t help it, she was afraid of the way he was gazing at that stone, she was heartsick thinking of how Jolene was getting her hooks into him, and the words came out harsh and sharp.

  But he didn’t seem to notice as he caressed the column of stone. “I gotter figger out what I’m a-gonna carve, thet’s what. I ain’t niver had a time when I was a-carvin’ something jest I wanted to. The liddle thangs, they was allus what’d sell. The headstones, they was allus fer th’ famblies. But this’s fer me.”