Faerie Fruit

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Since before you were born, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Mistress Dale might look of an age with Dorothea, or near enough, but she could not be more than seventy years or so. A mere nothing.

  Helewise made no objection to this extraordinary pronouncement but continued to walk quietly beside Dorothea, helping her along with endearing solicitude. ‘Did you hear that the bridge is restored?’ she asked. ‘The Wynspan. Southtown is once again upon the other side, as it ought to be.’

  ‘That is why you are here, I suppose.’ Dorothea felt less inspired by this news than her fellow drinkers had apparently been.

  ‘Yes, I came this way over the span. I shall be going back that way soon.’ She paused, and appeared to be studying Dorothea in some thought.

  ‘You had better say it,’ said Dorothea wearily. ‘Whatever subject it is that you are trying to find some delicate way of broaching.’

  ‘Where will you go, after your swim?’

  Dorothea had a cosy enough nook inside a little earth-walled cavern on the edge of the Lynwood. It was chilly this time of year but it sufficed well enough, and she thought of it as her own. It was difficult to call it home, though, for she had never felt that it performed that role at all.

  ‘To bed,’ she said evasively, and hoped Mistress Dale with her gentle questions would be satisfied.

  Mistress Dale, it seemed, was not so oblivious as the majority of the people of Berrie, and not easily deterred either. ‘May I invite you to my home?’ said she. ‘I live at Sevenleaf Farm in Southtown. I have a bed for you there, if you will accept it.’

  Unlike Dorothea, when Helewise spoke of a bed she meant a real one. The kind with a wooden frame and a mattress and blankets and all the good things. It had been long indeed since Dorothea had slept in one.

  But her natural habit of suspicion was not so easily quieted. She squinted at Mistress Dale, searching for some ulterior motive, some hidden purpose behind her guileless eyes. ‘Why should you offer me that?’

  ‘I think you are in need, though I do not at all blame you for being unwilling to acknowledge it.’ Helewise smiled. ‘And my husband is much away at present. I would welcome the companionship myself.’

  Clever. Take a dash of charity, add a splash of ostensible self-interest, and mix. Dorothea would drink it down.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, and hoped that Helewise would not hear the tremor in her voice as she spoke.

  So they went, and Dorothea decided as they passed above the Wyn that perhaps she would bathe tomorrow night, instead. The darkened sky was hidden behind a heavy bank of clouds, and through the obscuring mass she could not glimpse so much as a single star. The rain chilled her skin and a creeping, dank wind set her shivering. Nonetheless, she could not help gazing longingly at the dark, cold waters as she crossed the bridge.

  Southtown was on the other side, or so Helewise had promised. There was no sign of it. Dorothea ought to be able to see the top of Harebell Street from the bridge, and Toadmoor curving away east. Instead she saw a wall of mist, which cloaked the far end of the bridge so completely that she could see nothing beyond.

  ‘Are you certain that the bridge is mended?’ said she, and when the moment came to set foot into the fog she hesitated.

  ‘Perfectly,’ said Helewise stoutly. ‘I shall go first, and show the way.’ Which she did, with admirable resolution considering the absolute impossibility of seeing where she stepped.

  She vanished into the fog, leaving Dorothea standing alone on the other side of it.

  ‘It is quite safe!’ called Helewise, naught now but a disembodied voice.

  Dorothea mustered her courage. Why should she shrink from stepping into the unknown? She, who swam the waters of the Wyn at all seasons, and had proved herself unkillable in the process.

  On she went. Her skin shrank from the touch of cold, clammy mist as she walked through, though why it should be so leery of it Dorothea did not know, since it had already received a thorough wetting by way of the rain. She half expected the bridge to fall away at any moment, for her foot to come down upon empty air and send her toppling into the river — or somewhere worse, for if Helewise was to be believed she was venturing into Faerie now.

  But the bridge held, and on she went, and the clouds cleared away to reveal Harebell Street as she knew it. More or less. She did not remember its being so liberally grown over, come to think of it, though that was certainly Goldwyne’s Bakery just over the way there.

  ‘Sevenleaf is not far,’ said Helewise, who waited for her at the top of the bridge.

  Dorothea was tired of talking, and vouchsafed no response. Her limbs were tired of walking, too, her stomach was tired of heaving, and in general she was simply tired. She hoped Sevenleaf was not far indeed, or she might crown her embarrassments of the evening by dropping in the street and lying limply wherever she fell, too feeble to move.

  So much for the burst of renewing vigour she had felt by way of the bluegages. Lame she might no longer be, but she was still old.

  Mallinerla and Pippin mulberry-trousers chose that moment to rejoin them, the former attracting Dorothea’s attention with a flurry of those burbling words she was so fond of. Dorothea turned back, surprised, and wished she had not, for her back crimped painfully.

  The dratted girl looked all delighted about something, who could tell what.

  ‘Mother!’ she said again. ‘I knew you were not lost forever!’

  Dorothea drew a breath, preparing to deliver herself of a speech which would put an end to the girl’s deplorably misguided enthusiasm once and for all. All Dorothea wanted was to be left in peace; to go to Sevenleaf Farm with nice Helewise Dale, fall into the welcoming blankets of a delicious, real bed, and sleep for seven or eight years.

  But it occurred to her that something had changed about the view. The bridge she could no longer see, for the clouds hid it, but scattered down the centre of Harebell Street was a flurry of white flowers.

  Dorothea frowned, for she had thought the street empty when she had walked that way moments before. Either she was drunk enough to imagine the flowers now, or she had been drunk enough to overlook them earlier.

  But no, for the trail of flowers grew thicker nearer to Dorothea, and when she looked down she found that they were visibly sprouting around her feet. Pale as starlight were those graceful leaves, and the flowers paler still.

  ‘Moonflowers,’ cried Mallinerla, her hands clasped in rapturous, overblown ecstasy.

  Dorothea felt an almost overwhelming urge to push her into the river.

  ‘Someone,’ she said with a long, long sigh, ‘needs to bring me a cup of tea.’

  Chapter Four

  In which a Brother and a Sister turn to Botany.

  Barren was the house where Moon no longer lived. The pool of water before it had probably once been clear and serene; now it was dank and dark and overgrown with weed, no longer reflecting the light of the stars above. The house itself, once a vision of ethereal light, was dark and broken and silent. Nothing stirred save a mournful wisp of night-time breeze, rustling through the discarded leaves which drifted about the ground.

  Hattie Strangewayes stood in the middle of the empty promontory, surveying the place with frowning brow. Theodosius stood with her, wielding a lantern with worthy intent, though its pale glow did little but make the clinging shadows appear deeper than ever.

  The light of two more lanterns wavered bravely in the darkness: one held by Tobias Dwerryhouse and the other by Clarimond Honeysett. The four of them had explored the place thoroughly, but discovered little of any use to tell them where — or why — Moon had gone.

  ‘It needs a good sweeping out,’ said Hattie decisively. Leaves had piled up in the corners of the house and dirt lay everywhere; the place was a disgrace. ‘I shouldn’t wonder she does not wish to come home, if this is what she has to look forward to!’

  ‘I cannot suppose she knows what state it is in,’ said Clarimond. ‘If she has been here at all in the past hundred years
, why would she not stay?’

  ‘Perhaps she was bored with lighting the skies, and wanted an adventure.’ This did not seem unreasonable to Hattie, though perhaps Moon could be said to have carried her point a little too far.

  ‘Not for a hundred years,’ said Tobias, and Theodosius agreed. ‘Not at the expense of all of Faerie, surely.’

  ‘Some ill luck must have befallen her,’ said Clarimond. ‘If she still lives at all, and Sun does not believe it can be so.’

  ‘Sun is in despair,’ said Tobias. ‘And Greensleeves thinks as she does. I cannot think it likely that Moon is not dead.’

  Clarimond sighed. ‘If she is not, how is she ever to be discovered?’

  Hattie had no answer to any of these questions, so she devoted herself to the one thing she could do, and that was cleaning. She set herself to clearing out the piles of leaves from the corners of Moon’s greenhouse, and harangued Theodosius until he deigned to assist her. Once that was done, she surveyed the panes of glass that made up the delicate walls, but soon abandoned all thought of cleaning them, for like Sun’s greenhouse this one was ethereal and indistinct, its walls not glass at all but woven light. Unlike Sun’s house, these were muted and dull and they scarcely shone at all.

  Hattie let them be. She turned her attention to the pool, where the thickly-grown weeds stubbornly resisted her attempts to clear them from the surface of the water.

  ‘You had better let be, Hat,’ said Theodosius, eyeing the expanse before them in dismay. ‘We will never manage it, not even with the four of us.’

  For once, Hattie had to accept the justice of Theo’s doubts, for though her efforts had left her sweating and winded she had succeeded in clearing a space only a few feet across. The water stretched much farther than that.

  Tobias had something in the pocket of his coat. Hattie knew this because he kept returning his hand there, and fidgeting with whatever it was. Finally he drew it out, and gazed into the palm of his hand as though he held a great treasure there.

  Perhaps he did. Hattie stole over, consumed by curiosity, and observed that he held not one but two items in the palm of his large hand: a pair of seeds. They were tiny and brown and curled at the ends and she did not at all see why he stared at them as though they were the answer to all problems.

  ‘What are they?’ she said, and sighed when he merely answered, ‘Seeds.’

  ‘Important seeds?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Potentially.’ He was frustratingly disinclined to elaborate, and Hattie considered thumping him before concluding, with regret, that this was unlikely to encourage him to take her into his confidence.

  Clarimond came up beside them, and held out her hand. To Hattie’s indignation, Tobias transferred one of the seeds into her possession without a word of complaint, and Clarimond wandered away again. Hattie was left only to watch as the two of them crossed to opposite ends of the shattered greenhouse and bent to plant their separate seeds in the ground.

  Then Clarimond took a flask from her own pockets and, to Hattie’s excitement, approached her with it. ‘You are fixed here a while, Hattie?’ she enquired.

  ‘I suppose so, for I do not think I will soon restore this place to order.’

  Clarimond nodded. ‘We are bidden to Northtown, to reclaim the Moss and Mist. Will you stay, and nurture the seeds we’ve planted?’

  Hattie brightened at once. ‘I will!’ she agreed at once. ‘Though I hope you are going to tell me what they are.’

  ‘They came from the silver pears that long resided in Tobias’s strongbox,’ Clarimond answered. ‘We do not know if they will grow, but we… hope.’ With which words she put the flask into Hattie’s hands. ‘I suggest watering them from the pool here, and when you do, add a dash of this.’

  Hattie opened the flask and sniffed. The contents smelt deliciously of honey and fruit and who knew what else wonderful, and she could easily have drunk the contents straight down.

  ‘It smells like magic,’ she decided.

  ‘It is. With that, and a very little of Sun’s light, I have some hope that they will thrive. Perhaps just enough.’

  Away they went soon afterwards, leaving Hattie alone save for Theodosius, but since he was lost in one of his lengthy daydreams he hardly counted.

  Hattie fell to with alacrity, and soon had the new seeds watered according to instruction. She returned to her task of cleaning the greenhouse, aware that it would take her many days to render it respectable.

  It did not take many days for the seeds to sprout. Upon a rainy evening but two days later, Hattie bent to examine her charges and saw a spindly shoot poking free of the earth, a silvery leaf unfurling upon its tip.

  ‘Theo!’ she shouted in excitement. ‘You must instantly come and see this!’

  But Theodosius would not, and when she turned to express the intensity of her disappointment with him, she saw him crouched down at the other end of the greenhouse, examining the earth with an intent attention to match hers. ‘Is it a sprout?’ he called.

  ‘It is!’ replied she.

  ‘I have another!’

  Hattie ran to look. The second seedling resembled the first, only it was bigger and stouter and looked in every way likely to exceed its sibling’s efforts.

  She felt it was unfair that Theodosius’s charge should outstrip hers, for she had taken by far the best care. How trying that all her diligence should be so repaid! The seedlings had got it entirely the wrong way around.

  Hattie gave more magic, and more love and more care, and watched with smug satisfaction as they grew and grew at an impossible rate — and her own particular charge became undoubtedly the mightier of the two.

  ‘That’s better,’ she told it, lovingly caressing its bright, strong leaves. The little tree now came up to her shoulder, and to her puzzlement it failed to grow any further. Instead it devoted itself to the production of flowers, and put out hundreds of them over the course of a single night. The day after that, the flowers withered and dropped and fruits began to form.

  Theodosius’s tree was the first to produce a fully-formed pear.

  ‘That is outrageous!’ Hattie declared, and would not soon be pacified.

  ‘But see, Hat, your tree is eager to please,’ said Theodosius, and Hattie whirled to find that her doughty little pear tree was putting out fruits as she watched. Soon both the trees were so weighed down with fruit that they sagged sideways, and Hattie set about divesting them of their harvest. She stored the proceeds in a makeshift sack wrought from her largest shawl, and gloated over them in delight.

  ‘How pretty they are,’ she sighed, and they really were, for their skins were purest silver and each miniature pear was perfectly formed.

  ‘Lovely,’ agreed Theodosius. ‘What do we do with them?’

  This question was soon answered, for Clarimond returned — without Tobias, this time — and took them all away.

  ‘May I not keep just one?’ said Hattie in dismay, for the eager little tree had not produced a second harvest, and she could not feel fully confident that it would.

  ‘One indeed,’ said Clarimond, and returned one each to Hattie and Theodosius. Hattie kept hers tucked safely into her pocket, and polished up its silvery skin faithfully each day.

  Chapter Five

  In which an Old Woman gets her wish.

  Dorothea hated pears.

  She had not always hated them. To begin with, she had accepted the gift of fruit with alacrity, and devoured it with full enjoyment. So crisp! So fresh! So juicy! She could happily eat a hundred of them.

  The problem was, she had promptly been given a hundred of them. And by the time she had eaten her way through half of their number, she was heartily sick of the flavour. They were small, it was true: only the size of the bluegages she had eaten with such relish weeks before. Nonetheless, she could not face another, and she said so without compunction.

  And then they resorted to trickery. They were Helewise and her husband, the rather dashing Ambrose; Malline
rla, the pallid but exuberant faerie woman, who called herself a star; and Pippin Greensleeves, the mulberry-clad man who said he was the King of Faerie. And another woman called Clarimond, who appeared once in a while with a fresh supply of the dreadful pears, earning her Dorothea’s instant and eternal enmity.

  Maud Redthorn came to Sevenleaf one bright morning, bringing with her a stack of neat tarts and pies. Every one of them was filled to brimming with pear, Dorothea discovered to her dismay. But since they were baked with honey and spices and nuts she found them palatable enough, and was able to dispatch most of the ones pressed upon her.

  Next it was Dunstan Goldwyne, from the bakery upon Harebell Street. She had always admired his establishment, and gladly accepted the tray of delicate cakes he brought her. She was a trifle dismayed when the over-familiar flavour greeted her upon taking her first bite, but since it was enlivened with marzipan and syrup she was not too much disposed to complain.

  But then Ferdinand Crowther presented her with a new brew, pear cider, and Nathaniel Roseberry appeared with a six fine bottles of pear wine, and Dorothea began to feel that she had had more than enough.

  ‘Why,’ she said with asperity, ‘is it become impossible to eat anything that does not contain a pear?’

  ‘You must eat as many of them as possible, mother,’ said Mallinerla. ‘They are doing you good!’

  ‘I am not your mother,’ said Dorothea by reflex, and would not be brought to admit that Mallinerla was right, for she did feel somewhat better as the days passed. Her weariness lessened, though that was probably the result of sleeping well in a comfortable bed. She also felt brighter of mind and less confused, which was harder to explain to her own satisfaction.

  At night, when she bathed in the River Wyn, her visions were growing stronger, more all-encompassing. It became harder and harder to relinquish them and return to her aged body, and the reality of the cold, dark waters of the river. She longed to remain enfolded peacefully in her beautiful dreams, and never have to go back to being plain, old Dorothea Winthrope.