The Silver Gate

by Kristin Bailey

  Wynn wandered through the darkening shadows as the moon rose on the horizon. The stars began to appear in the dimming twilight, but they didn’t look very bright in the light of the moon. Sap was tree blood. It came out of a wound. She needed to find a broken branch.

  An owl hooted again. There seemed to be noises everywhere. Each of her footsteps sounded loud in the crunchy leaves. She didn’t like the dark, and as she walked, she felt like something was following close behind her waiting to grab her. She thought about the Grendel coming at night to eat people.

  She shuddered. She needed to find her brother quickly. She didn’t want to be alone in the woods, and she didn’t want him to be alone either. At least the moon was big and bright, rising in a deep-blue sky, but a strange shadow was creeping over it.

  As Wynn looked at the moon, she noticed a broken branch. It was up high in a tree. She would have to climb it.

  “Stay here, Mildred,” she whispered to the hen. “There are owls and foxes out.” She didn’t want to mention the Grendel to the hen as she looped the sack over a short branch of a tree. He was too scary.

  Wynn reached as high as she could and grabbed on tight to a low limb. She struggled to pull herself onto the branch. The bark scratched her palms and raked over the bare skin of her calf when her leggings fell back.

  The tree shook as she climbed, and Wynn held on tight. Her stomach wobbled as she hesitated. She’d have to reach her leg out over the open air to step up on the next branch.

  She trembled as she hugged the trunk of the tree and reached with the tip of her toe.

  She felt as if she were falling, even though she still clung to the tree. Finally her toe perched on the branch. She didn’t fall down, but now she couldn’t move either. If she let go, she would fall.

  Mildred clucked, and a breeze rustled the new spring leaves around her. “Elric,” she called, but her voice muffled against her shoulder as she held tight to the tree.

  She waited, shaking. Somehow her brother would know that she was in trouble. He always did.

  But he didn’t come.

  She had to do this on her own.

  Wynn shifted her weight, testing the branch with her toe as she pulled herself next to the broken limb. As she reached, her lower foot came away from the branch and she found herself standing on the toes of one foot. She didn’t want to think about that. If she stretched, she could reach the broken place. The thin branch beneath her foot shuddered as she reached inside the wounded tree and felt for the stickiest sap. Wynn scraped half-dried balls of goo with her fingers. The sap pushed under her nails and stuck to her sleeve. Once her hand was coated in it, she looked down.

  The ground seemed so far, and now she couldn’t use her hand. She didn’t want to lose the sap. Shifting her weight again, she scraped the side of her foot along the tree trunk, looking for the lower branch with her toe. The rough bark pressed against her cheek.

  She prodded with her toe, but she couldn’t see the branch and she couldn’t turn her head to look. Her grip slipped on the trunk and she clawed at the bark. It didn’t do any good. She touched the lower branch with her toe, but as she leaned her weight on it, she tipped backward. Her foot slipped, and she dropped, catching the limb under her arm, as her chin slammed down hard against it.

  Wynn screamed, dangling from the branch, her legs kicking in the air. “Elric!”

  Her heart pounded. It beat so hard it was painful. She couldn’t hold on. The branch slipped out of her grip, the bark scraping across her palms. Then there was nothing around her at all but a swooping sensation as she fell.

  She landed in a crumpled heap in a pile of leaves. Her mind spun, trying to sort through what happened. Her hands and arms stiffened, then shook so hard she couldn’t control them. At first she couldn’t breathe in. All the air had left her chest.

  Then finally her throat opened enough that she could gasp, and she coughed. Her head ached, and her body hurt all over. Her arm and leg throbbed from hitting the branches and slowing her fall, and her skin burned from her scratches. The muscles in her arm relaxed, and her thoughts finally knew she was on the ground.

  She carefully moved her arms and legs. In spite of her fall, she didn’t think she broke any bones.

  Wynn sat up. Her sappy hand was coated in leaves, and her sleeve had stuck to it. Groaning, she got to her feet and retrieved the spoon.

  She used the broken end of the spoon to scrape the sap off her palm, then fit the two pieces together. The edge of her sleeve stuck to it, so she ripped the sticky bit of fabric off and wrapped it around the handle.

  There!

  The handle had a slight crook in it, but it was one piece again. Wynn waved it around like it was a magic wand.

  Elric would be happy. Now she needed to find him. She still didn’t like that he was cranky and bossy. She still hated her hair. But he was the only brother she had. Maybe now he would be sorry.

  Wynn struggled to her feet. Her knees wobbled as she ignored her aches and pains and lifted her sack off the low branch.

  She could smell smoke in the clear night air and shivered. It was cold and a fire would be nice. She couldn’t start one on her own without the flint. Wynn looped the sack over her shoulder and started walking as Mildred clucked sleepily.

  Elric didn’t listen to her. That was the problem. Sometimes he talked to her like she was Mildred. Wynn liked to talk to Mildred, but Mildred was a chicken. She didn’t talk back, not really. Wynn wasn’t certain if the chicken understood or not, and in the end it didn’t matter. She liked Mildred anyway.

  That was how being with Elric felt—like even if she said something, it didn’t matter to him. She didn’t really understand him. He said things to her, and asked her things, but he didn’t really want her answer. She had answers. She understood lots of things. He just didn’t know it.

  Wynn rubbed her chest.

  She didn’t know very many people. Growing up, she had to stay hidden away, and so she only really knew Mother. Father scared her, and Elric was her only friend.

  Or she was his chicken.

  She straightened Osmund’s hat. Osmund listened to her. He gave her a lot of time to speak and let her form her words without guessing what she was going to say before she could say it. That was nice.

  She wished Elric could listen to her the same way.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” Wynn said out loud to hear her words. She knew they didn’t sound right, but they were her words.

  Mildred let out a soft, trilling coo, as if she understood.

  The woods were so quiet. Wynn sang under her breath so she wouldn’t feel so alone.

  “My queen, my queen, show me the way.

  The moon held in your hands.

  In dark of night, the skies rain stars,

  And lead me to your lands.

  Please grant to me your silver branch,

  And through the gate I’ll find you.”

  The trees thinned until Wynn came upon an enormous clearing on the swell of a small hill. At the top, an old oak had long ago been split by lightning, and yet it still lived. The branches on either side reached up like the fingers of two enormous hands that had not yet grown their spring leaves.

  The full moon seemed to rest in their palms, but the strange shadow covered it completely now, turning it reddish orange. The shadow covered almost all of the brightness, and the stars woke, shining beneath the shrouded moon.

  This was it. This was from the song. She had found it. They were on the right path to find the Silver Gate. She would meet the Fairy Queen, and they could sing together. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so sad and her magic would come back.

  Wynn twirled and danced around the ancient tree, laughing to the moon. As she stopped, she looked down the opposite side of the hill at a small patch of bluebells.

  A fire glowed in the heart of them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Elric

  THE BREEZE PICKED UP, AND Elric hunched over. It was dark, even though the
full moon had risen. That was strange. He looked up; the moon was shrouded in shadow, turning it into a rare blood moon. The warmth from his little fire spread into his hands and face, but did little for the rest of his body. Or the ill feeling in the pit of his stomach. Wynn was probably huddled in the grove where he left her, curled under her cloak, alone and afraid. He’d have to go back for her. He couldn’t leave her alone all night.

  It didn’t matter how angry he was at her. She was his only sister, and he missed her. No matter how miserable things got, she was always happy, and he didn’t realize how much he needed that sometimes. He didn’t like to see her upset.

  And it was his fault.

  Footsteps clambered down the hill behind him. He whipped around just in time to have Wynn crash into his chest. They both tumbled into the bluebells.

  “Elric!” she squealed. “Hurry, hurry!”

  “Careful, the fire is right there.” He pushed her off him and struggled to his feet. She bounced up and offered him a hand. At least he didn’t have to go searching for her again, though she was a mess, with leaves and twigs stuck all over her.

  “Come look,” she said, her eyes large, and expression urgent. She grabbed his hand and pulled with all her strength until he followed.

  The top of the hill was crowned with an old tree that had been split by lightning sometime when it still was young. Now it had grown in two halves.

  “It’s a tree,” he said to her.

  “No, look here.” She tugged him around to the far side of the hill, and from where they stood, the blood moon looked like it was balanced in the branches of the tree. “Like the song,” she said.

  It took a minute for Elric to realize what she was talking about. He had to sing her song in his head until he came to the verse about the Fairy Queen holding the moon. The branches of the old tree did resemble hands. But the song was just a song.

  “It’s very pretty, but it can’t be from the song. The song doesn’t say anything about a tree, and the stars aren’t about to rain down on us.” Elric took a step back toward his little fire, but Wynn grabbed him again.

  “Look!” she insisted, pointing at the sky.

  Elric gazed up, and in the deep indigo of the night sky, tiny streaks of light fell through the darkness before disappearing back into it. The stars around them floated in a pale and distant cloud of light, washed by the shaded moonlight, but no less amazing in its beauty.

  In his life, Elric had never seen anything like it. He rarely looked at the stars. At night he kept his attention focused on the edges of dark thickets that hid dangerous wild creatures, or on his flock. If he did look skyward, it always seemed to be clouded and gray. As he watched the night sky, hundreds of falling stars flashed through the darkness like tiny drops of rain.

  Overcome, Elric sat. He couldn’t say anything. He watched the falling stars, trying to take in the whole sky at once. In every moment when the sky remained still, he anticipated a new flash of light. When it came, he still was surprised by it.

  Wynn crossed her legs and plopped down next to him. She swung her sack off her shoulder and let Mildred struggle out. The hen jumped onto Elric’s lap and nestled down there, fluffing her soft feathers. Elric stroked her wings, glad that they were friends again, and she’d stopped trying to peck him. In that moment it was as if the three of them were a small piece of something vast and magical. Peace settled over the night. The shadow slowly left the moon, and Elric felt fate as if it were a thing he could touch hanging in the starlit sky.

  “Will we find the gate?” Wynn asked.

  Elric couldn’t tear his gaze from the stars above. “I don’t know,” he admitted. Osmund’s words passed through is mind. What matters is what you believe.

  The Silver Gate was nothing but a fairy tale, but when he saw something as wondrous as this, the boy in him—the one who still loved to hear his mother’s stories and imagined a life of glory and adventure—wondered.

  Wynn held something out to him. “I made it better.”

  He glanced down at the spoon in her hand.

  His chest tightened as he reached out and took it from her. Sap stuck to his fingers as he touched the awkward bandage she had patched together. He looked at his sister in the brightening moonlight and saw the dirt and leaves clinging to her. She must have been covered in sap. A scrape marred her cheek. “What did you do?”

  “I climbed up a tree. Then I fell down.” She picked at the sap clinging to her palm and pulled off her hat to scratch her head.

  “Wynn!” How in the world did she get herself up a tree? “Are you hurt? Why would you do such a thing?” He reached over and pulled one of the leaves from her hair.

  “It is Mother’s spoon, and you were sad, so I found sap to mend it.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry I broke it.”

  A twinge of guilt gnawed at him. “You weren’t the only one who broke it. But thank you for mending it. Mother used to let me play with it while she was cooking. When I hold it, it feels like she’s not really gone.”

  “Mother brushed my hair every night.” Wynn paused, and her eyebrows came together as if she were concentrating really hard on something. Elric waited for her words. They took a long time to come. He wanted to say something, anything, to prompt her to speak, but he had no idea what she was going to say, and her silence stretched until it became uncomfortable. “I felt—”

  “Like she cared for you,” he finished.

  She glared at him. “No. Listen.”

  Elric leaned back, stunned. Both words came out so clear that they didn’t sound like her. They sounded like the girl she would have been, the one who had been stolen as a baby.

  A silence fell over them again. Elric waited for her words to come again.

  “I felt . . .” Her gaze dropped and her hands pulled into fists. “Normal.”

  It was Elric’s turn not to speak. He didn’t know what to say. Guilt ate at him as ferociously as the Grendel. He’d hurt her. He’d really hurt her, and he’d taken something precious away from her without understanding what it meant to her. It was wrong. A deep sadness tightened around his heart.

  He turned the spoon over in his hands. The tacky sap clung to his fingers. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I shouldn’t have cut your hair, and I hurt you. I haven’t been a very good brother.” He’d been acting more like a shepherd with her, pushing her around, even shearing her. He drew the severed braid from his belt. “I promise I’ll do better.”

  She touched it, and the sap on her fingers stuck to the fine hairs. She carefully tucked it in her belt, the way he carried his spoon. He placed an arm over her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said, her eyes glassy in the dim light.

  He stood, and Mildred hopped to the ground, flipping her wings with an irritated flick. He reached out a hand to his sister, and she took it, the sap sealing their palms together. The shadow passed the moon, and the full brightness of the moon’s face revealed itself as the shadow slowly waned. The stars dimmed, and it became harder and harder to see the ones that fell.

  Together they walked to the fire. For the rest of the night, Elric made up a story of a brave knight and a fearsome dragon off on adventures together while he carefully pulled the leaves and twigs out of Wynn’s hair and combed it until all the tangles came free.

  The next morning, the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. The sound of Wynn singing greeted Elric upon waking, and he smiled. He picked up an acorn and flicked it at her. It hit her on the shoulder and she spun around. She picked up a fairly hefty oak branch and pointed it at him like a sword.

  The curly wood wouldn’t make a very useful weapon, but that didn’t matter to his sister. Elric searched the ground for another acorn and tossed it at her. She swung the branch and managed to knock the acorn in a different direction.

  Wynn jumped up and down in delight and fell into a laughter that came from every part of her body at once in gasping, hiccuping bursts. He had been making her laugh like that his whole
life. He didn’t realize how much he had missed it. It was good to have his Wynn back. He was determined not to chase her away ever again.

  “Get this one,” he said, and flung another acorn at her. She swung, but missed, spinning around entirely. Elric laughed too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something simply for fun.

  “You do it.” Wynn handed him the branch. He used it to push himself to his feet.

  She picked up an acorn and threw it at him, but she flung it straight at the ground between them. Mildred chased after it and pecked it. She grabbed the acorn in her beak and trotted away with it. Wynn giggled as she watched the hen run. “Try again,” he said, stepping forward.

  Wynn picked up another and threw it better this time. He swung the branch as hard as he could, but missed the nut completely.

  A red squirrel chattered at him from a tree, and Wynn giggled. Elric smiled. “You’re pretty good.”

  She beamed and crossed her arms. “I am good.”

  Elric chased her down to ruffle her hair. The sun rose high on the horizon, so they packed up their things and threw dust on the fire. It didn’t take long to hike up the hill until they stood beneath the enormous branches of the split oak.

  In the light of day, the magic had left it. It was just an old tree.

  “Where do we go?” Wynn asked, feeding Mildred some new spring grass.

  “We’ll keep heading north. The farther we get from the village, the safer we’ll be.” Elric looked at the vast wilderness stretching out before them.

  “How will we cross the clouds?” Wynn asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Elric shouldered his sack and set off.

  Wynn caught up to him and let Mildred down on the ground. “The song. We found hands holding the moon. Now we have to cross the clouds.”

  To prove her point she sang until she came to the verse,

  “My queen, my queen, I’ll follow true,

  The path so hard to find.

  Across the clouds, a lake of air,

  Will lead me to your kind.

  Please grant to me your silver branch,