by Anya Wylde
Seasons changed and she became sadder still. She begged her husband to listen, to help her heal. Her tears dried on her cheeks unnoticed, her needs went unmet. She begged for a child, another human to love, and her husband frowned. He said he loved her and for the moment that was enough. She clutched her barren belly, her cold lonely heart weeping.
Then one dark night, terror crept into the house and made a home in her heart. From then on, people on the streets, the noises in the night, and the slightest chirp of a bird started frightening her. She became a shadow of herself. The beautiful happy princess faded into a distant forgotten dream. Soon her face no longer lit up when she saw her husband. She no longer smiled if he told her he loved her.
She would stare down at her threadbare clothes, the empty purse and the chipped plates and cups that they used. She felt cold and ill. Even if she could scrape together some coin, she would not be welcomed by the king and queen. Her parents had denounced her. The snowcapped kingdom was no longer her home.
She had nowhere to run. She was now all alone.
***
When she started sitting on the old rocking chair, she did not know. She would rock to and fro staring bleakly out at the garden.
As the days went by, she started losing interest in her daily chores, and one day stopped doing them altogether. Her husband continued to come home every night and kiss her cheek and tell her he loved her.
One day she woke from her frigid dream to ask how his work was going.
"Good, my love," he said shrugging his shoulders.
"Did you have a hard day?" she tried again.
"Not particularly," he responded and blew out the candle.
"Goodnight," she whispered.
"I love you, darling," he said and closed his eyes.
While he slept, she rocked harder and harder, feeling colder by the minute. Soon her hands turned blue and her body turned to ice. She sat on that rocking chair a statue of ice, while her eyes still bleakly watched the seasons change in the garden.
Her husband never noticed. He never realised that the cottage was no longer cleaned. He did not know that food was never cooked. When he came home, it was to kiss her frozen cheeks and tell her he loved her before blowing out the candle and falling asleep.
(iii)
She sat frozen on the rocking chair, watching the garden through dull eyes framed by sharp, icy lashes for a long, long time.
She watched how colourful birds came and went as the seasons changed. She watched them build funny little nests and push their little chicks off branches until they learned to fly away. She noticed how slowly the grass grew taller and taller, and how lovingly buds unfurled into flowers as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. She spotted little ants and water rats scuttling about and learned to distinguish between every frog that dwelled by the pond.
She kept watch for so long that she could tell the number of grooves in all the branches within her sight. And when she knew every vein on every leaf, every shade on every stone, and when she had learnt to predict a storm simply by the way the trees swayed or the animals quivered, she turned her attention away from the sights and focused on the sounds.
She listened at first with a detached air. She heard the crickets chattering, the rain pitter-pattering and the far off jabbering jays. She heard the thunder and the wind, the rustling leaves, and the rolling carriages and drays.
She spent hours listening to the world outside, learning to hear sounds that most humans would miss. She learned to differentiate between the sound of a butterfly wings and the sound of a falling feather, and if she tried really hard, she could even hear deep inside the earth where blind moles were busy digging tunnels, worms squirmed about to and fro and snakes were on a hunt.
And then one day, she heard him.
A man.
She could see his hazy reflection in the window. He was tall and dark and stood behind her rocking chair. She tried to see his features in the window pane, but they seemed to dance out of her sight.
He crept closer towards her, and his footsteps sounded softer than a fish skimming over water in some faraway land. She wanted to turn her head and look at him, but after so many years of being an ice statue, she could no longer move her stiff neck.
He stood patiently like an inanimate stone as if waiting for something. Perhaps he wanted her to look at him? Or did he want to stare out at her wonderful little garden and hear all the lovely sounds as well?
For the next few hours they remained like that—one sitting, one standing—both of them still like a placid lake; calm, serene and silent. He departed just before her husband came home. She wondered vaguely if he would return.
He did. He came every day, always patient, still and peaceful.
Gradually, she turned away from the world outside, her attention on him. Questions sprouted once more in her mind, and she wondered who he was and why he came, and every time he left with the setting sun, she wondered if he would return.
He always arrived when the sun’s rays hit the oak tree by the pond. He did not come through the front or the back door, nor did he whoosh down the chimney, but somehow he materialized inside her room like a wizard or magician, moving a hair’s breadth closer and closer to her rigid form …
Until one day his warm breath rustled the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.
She shuddered and her breathing grew ragged. His breath seemed to race through her spine, and the frost on her skin dripped down to form a puddle at her feet.
Why, she asked him mutely, why had he made her feel again?
He looked at her through eyes that spoke of deep wisdom, his handsome face etched with learned lines.
She watched him, frightened and awed at his strength. A translucent, bright, hot shield seemed to pulse all around him, as if he was encapsulated in a ball of fiery energy.
"Sing," he whispered in her trembling ear. "Sing."
***
Sing, she thought, a smile lurking in her eyes. The last time she had sung had been in her father’s palace. The whole palace had implored her to never try again. Even her mother, who had often turned a blind eye to her faults, had been forced to concede that she was tone deaf.
The dark man spoke no more. He offered her no reason, no hint as to why she must sing.
But she must sing, that was all he said before he vanished from her sight.
Her husband entered the room that night, but she did not notice. He told her he loved her more than anything in the world before falling asleep. She did not hear him.
She must sing he had said, but how? She knew nothing of songs and tunes, of ballads and rhymes. She glanced at her husband sleeping on the bed. No one must know, her heart whispered, for if she failed she couldn’t bear to be laughed at yet again. She got up from the rocking chair and went to the kitchen to think. Her starved body reminded her to eat, and she bit into a juicy pear as she contemplated her future.
When her husband left the next morning, she followed close behind. The path ahead forked into two, and he took the left while she walked down the right one. She came to a small garden, walled on all sides and blooming with scented flowers. Choosing a bench facing a pond filled with swans and ducks, she made herself comfortable. No one could see or hear her in this place.
This is where she decided to sing.
***
She opened her mouth and sang the first notes. It was a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her every night. It was a bitter sweet song meant to sooth and comfort, but the moment the first few words of the song left her lips, every bird in the vicinity shrieked in protest and flew away, the flowers in the garden withered and died, while the frogs hopped out of the pond to complain.
Her mouth turned down, her heart heavy.
"Sing," the voice whispered again.
She eyed the grumpy looking ants and snails glaring at her. She pursed her lips undecidedly.
“Sing,” came the voice again, this time more insistent.
She nodd
ed and tried again.
The fish sped right to the bottom of the pond and hid under rocks, while the bees covered their ears with leaves and looked mightily annoyed, and every snail and ant near where she sat packed up their bags and departed to make a new home across the pond.
But this time she did not give up. She tried again and again. And from then on she returned every single day to sit on the bench and sing. She sang songs from her childhood or snippets she had heard on her long journey. Sometimes she made up songs and lyrics or simply hummed or whistled a few tunes.
The squirrels threw nuts at her to make her stop singing, the birds dropped berries on her head, and all the leaves on the tree above her dried up and fell off. At first, she ignored the complaining animals, but then one day, she became aware of the wonderful sounds of nature. She heard the lovely rustle the leaves made when they withered and fell all around her. She realised that the bouncing acorns that the squirrels were throwing her way made a wonderful rhythm. The berries the birds plopped onto her bonnet rattled around charmingly on top of her head. And together the leaves, the acorns and the berries made the most wonderful symphony.
With an odd thrill in her heart, she began trying to learn from her surroundings. She started with the birds, trying to mimic and sing like them. She imitated the hens, the ravens and cockatoos. She went on to buzz like the bees and ring like the temple bells. She even tried to ape the words she heard some school children singing close by.
She learned it all and finally made a song.
The birds reluctantly fluttered back to the garden to hear her song. They nodded in approval. It wasn’t so bad. The squirrels, too, heard her song and admitted it was bearable, and they stopped throwing nuts her way. The rest of the creatures heaved a sigh of relief, and life went back to the way it had been. The ants, beetles and the snails arrived with their luggage to make their homes once again near her feet. The fish swam back up, the bees went back to work and the frogs complained no more.
The garden was once more at peace.
Pleased, she rushed home that evening to sing for her husband.
He heard her song and smiled and told her she was talented. He begged her to continue at her little task, reminding her that he loved her and always would.
"Stay busy," he said. "It is good for your sweet little head."
Her shoulders drooped, and she once again returned to the rocking chair, but before she could sit the voice came back and whispered in her ear. “Do not stop. Sing.’’
***
Her chin lifted and she moved away from the chair. Anger raged through her veins as she watched her husband sleep. He loved her, he said over and over again, and yet he had allowed her to turn into a frigid statue. She recalled those early days of marriage when she had just began to cook grand meals…
One day, he had taken her to an inn and suddenly announced to everyone that his wife would now dance with a spoon. The inn had erupted in applause, and she was pushed onto the table to twirl and dip with an inanimate silver spoon.
Another time he made her eat paper soaps, telling her it was biscuits, and laughed as she had frothed and foamed. He had laughed until he had cried and called all his friends home to witness the bubbles that came out of her mouth every time she hiccupped or spoke.
He had continued to demean her and flaunt her faults until slowly and surely he sapped all her warmth, leaving her chilled to the core. He expected her to thrive without love and companionship, to be content without affection, encouragement or coin. For him, she was a royal doll carved out of white unfeeling stone. Something he kept as a decorative piece that he brought out now and then to show to the world. Something exotic that he had picked up on his travels that now sat hidden away gathering dust. But she was not a statue, nor was she made out of stone. She still lived and breathed. She could still think and move. And in spite of months spent in silence, she still had a voice—a voice that allowed her to speak, a voice that allowed her to sing.
Anger bubbled in her veins and hatred grew in her heart. No longer would she be weak and trodden upon. No longer mocked and pitied. With this silent vow wrapped around her like a cloak, she walked out of the door in the middle of the night and went and sat on her favourite bench in the garden.
The glittering moonlight cascaded down to where she sat. The light soaked into her pores, filling her up and washing away her anger. The soothing scent of night flowers and ripe peaches lacing the chilly breeze buried into her soul. She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes.
An owl hooted somewhere up in a tall, dark, shadowy tree.
She hooted back.
The owl fluttered down closer to where she sat and cocked its head in surprise. It had never seen an owl quite like her, and an owl she must be for she had hooted so well.
She smiled at the brown wide-eyed bird and suddenly felt filled with a strong a sense of purpose. She would sing, she vowed, sing better than anyone in the world.
She sang until she forgot she was a princess and a daughter or Anahita and a wife. She sang until she forgot herself and was lost in notes and rhythm. She continued to sing even after the sun rose and the sun set. She sang over and over again, and with every day that passed, her voice grew a touch stronger and more confident.
She sang like the birds until they were fooled into thinking she was one of them. She sang like the insects until they crowded out onto the path to see if they had left behind one of their kind. She sang like the leaves until the trees bowed their head and rustled their branches to join her in her tune. And then she soared above nature’s sound, singing better than the insects and the birds and the trees.
She sang her own song, a song no longer earthly but so much more. She sang better than the sweetest voice in the world, and people began flocking to hear her. She sat on that bench singing her heart out surrounded by people who had travelled across countless lanes, roads and oceans. Her song healed the aching hearts, her tune lifted spirits high, her voice calmed the most agitated minds, and her words seeped into old bones giving them comfort.
She opened her eyes and saw herself surrounded by hundreds of faces. The little garden was transformed. Colourful tents had sprouted up everywhere she chanced to look. Hundreds of entranced faces stared at her in awe. The walls surrounding the garden had been torn down and the small garden had expanded into a giant field of flowers and trees.
Here no one was a commoner and no one king. All were equal, joined together to hear the simple beauty of her song. The lame sat next to the healthy and the rich rubbed shoulders with the beggars.
She looked behind herself and found her husband counting coins. People were paying him to hear her sing. She spied her mother next to him, her chin raised proudly telling all who could hear her that the girl who sang was her daughter.
She stopped singing, and a disappointed sigh went through the crowd.
"Sing," her husband beseeched. "Why ever did you stop?" he asked.
She complained that her throat felt parched, and he rushed to get her a drink. Rest, he begged, for her voice was precious and should not be strained at all.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat.
Her husband whispered in her ear, “What song will you sing next? I am certain it will be better than your last. Look at the coins your voice has fetched us, enough to buy a palace.”
She opened her tired lids and looked down at the piles of gold and silver.
"Imagine," he crooned, "what we could do when you sing well enough to please the emperor."
"Emperor?" she asked in horror. She did not think she could please someone so great.
He scoffed and told her she could do anything. Couldn’t she see all the people milling about praising her song and willing to give him coin?
“Sing to feed our children,” he begged.
"Children?" she asked in wonder.
"Surely now we can have children, now that you have a voice," he told her.
She was now to sing for her home and
hearth? He thought she was capable of far more than being a decorative doll? Never before had her husband spoken so many words to her, never had he seen her as an equal. But now that he did, she cared not at all.
The love from the people surrounding her lifted her out of her misery. She no longer felt frightened. Her face glowed in confidence, and a beautiful golden aura surrounded her. She glowed brighter and brighter, her light falling upon all those present. Her song had made her realise that every land was the same and every human an equal. The same emotions raged in every breast, and the same sadness and happiness marred every soul.
The men and women started at her in amazement while her mother preened and puffed up. Behind her, gold coins jingled as her husband counted them and sorted them into colourful silk pouches. He occasionally looked up to remind her of his love and to tell her that if she had rested, she should start singing again.
It wasn’t long before she did as he bid. But this time, she closed her eyes and sang neither for the coins, the praise, her husband or her mother. She sang for herself. She sang to make the whole world smile.
She sang and she sang and she sang, her voice soaring over lands and oceans. The trees began rustling in time to her song. The leaves whispered melodiously. The ocean rose and fell musically, the rain tinkled onto the ground.
The birds, insects, and animals joined in her song. They chittered and chattered and crooned and chimed. They laughed and danced and sang all day.
The sun fell away and moon began to creep up. The sky turned dark hushing all the creatures of the land.
It was then that he came to whisper in her ear. “It is time.”
“Who are you?” she asked him in her mind, while her lips continued to sing.
“The same as you,” the man replied.
She stopped singing and looked at him with eyes bright and full of joy.
“It is time,” she nodded and held out her hand.
He smiled and touched her palm. The weight fell away from her shoulders and she became light as a feather. She laughed when he pulled her wrist and she floated up into the air, up over the bench and over the enchanted crowd.