The Seven Tales of Trinket

by Shelley Moore Thomas

  “This is Thomas,” I said, wishing his hair looked a bit tidier, not sticking out in all directions. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grunted a greeting. Obviously I had not chosen him for his manners. “He is the pig boy in our village. He agreed to accompany me on my quest…”

  Her delicate black brows rose.

  “I seek my father; he is a bard. I was hoping I might find word of him here.”

  She said nothing, so I continued. “A bard is a storyteller who travels from place to place, trading songs and stories for coin.”

  “I know what a bard is.” There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. I had not yet given her the information she wanted. “What is your name?”

  “I am called Trinket,” I said.

  “Well met, Trinket,” Feather said. “We have not encountered a storyteller on our travels since I was younger than you are now, most likely. Mayhap the tales of my father’s temper keep them away or perhaps it is his unwillingness to pay. Whatever the reason, none have stopped at our camp for a long, long while.” Thomas and I were quiet except for the sounds of chewing and swallowing, so Feather continued. “But I remember the last one’s voice, clear as a cloudless night.”

  “Do you remember his name?” I asked. She shrugged.

  “My father was called James the Bard. They say I have his eyes.” I opened my gray eyes wide, unblinking.

  She returned my gaze for a moment, then shook her head. “I was far too short to look into the eyes of the last storyteller that came our way. Perhaps if you had his knees.” She laughed. “Maybe you would be bard for us one night?” she asked.

  “Nay,” I answered. “I do not think so.”

  “What is the matter? It is only the repeating of a story. Are you afraid?” she asked.

  It was my turn to shrug. ’Twas not that I feared telling a tale. The fear was that I would be horrible at it.

  “Well, perhaps soon you will change your mind,” Feather said. “Now, are you going to ask me about the lying or not?” She rose and stretched like a cat, the bracelets around her wrists tinkling.

  It was obvious she wanted me to. And she had saved us from being tied up, so I politely inquired, “You are a liar?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I lie all the time.”

  What do you do when someone tells you they lie all the time? Do you believe it? Or could they be lying when they tell you that they lie?

  And why does any of this matter? ’Twas what I asked myself. Why should I care if a Gypsy princess tells lies or not? It’s none of my affair at all.

  Except that I felt a shiver down low on my spine. And I was most curious.

  “Why do you lie?” I asked.

  “Because if I don’t, I surely will die.”

  Thomas choked a bit on his soup. I patted him on the back and offered him water. Feather smiled. Her dramatic words had had the desired shocking effect.

  “You will die?” I whispered. “Truly die?”

  “Well, I won’t be struck with lightning and fall to the ground in agony. But my father will kill me and I would be just as dead.”

  “Surely your own father wouldn’t kill you,” I said.

  “I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, Trinket. I am a seer. With but a touch I can see the path a life will take. With but a dream I can see when death is coming. And I know without a doubt that if I stop lying, my life will be over.”

  And with those words, she rose and left Thomas and me sitting with our soup, wondering which of the nearby trees would make the best shelter.

  Or if the smartest thing to do would be to leave altogether.

  * * *

  “What’s it like, to see what is to come?” I asked Feather as we went to the stream in the morning to fetch fresh water. Thomas was helping with the chickens. He preferred his pigs to chickens, naturally, but he preferred chickens to people. And since we had decided to stay a few days with the Gypsies, we hoped to work a bit for food and information. Maybe one of the Gypsies might remember my father. I had the secret intent of asking each and every one of them.

  “Imagine the worst feeling in the world.” Feather knelt to fill her bucket. “Then imagine a feeling even worse than that. That is what it feels like when a vision comes. ’Tis the curse of a seer.”

  “But can’t you use your sight to help others? I would think having the sight would be a gift.”

  “You would think that, of course,” she said, “but seeing the future is no gift. For I cannot undo what is to come and it only frightens people to know the truth.”

  “You cannot warn people of danger?”

  “Of course I can!” she reproved. She rose, her hands on her hips. “You do not understand at all.”

  She stomped off, leaving me four buckets to carry, instead of my two. It took me until the sun was high to return to the camp with the pails. Indeed, my arms were sore.

  Feather was waiting for me, sitting on a crooked wooden bench near the silver-haired woman in charge of the water. The woman’s soft purple skirt swayed as if underneath she tapped an impatient foot. She looked at all the pails I carried, then back at Feather’s empty arms. But she said nothing and merely pointed to where she wanted the buckets placed. Apparently, one did not question the Gypsy King’s daughter.

  “I am sorry,” Feather said. “I foresaw that you would be carrying the buckets alone, but I could not understand why I would leave you. Now I know why. I was angry with you.”

  I rubbed my elbow and my wrists, not responding.

  “You see, that is what it is like for me. I see things, but I do not understand them. I do not know what to tell people…”

  “So you lie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you not just tell them the truth?” I asked.

  Feather led me to a small tree near a beautiful tent made of dark ruby and golden silks. We sat in the shade of its branches. Feather glanced from side to side, then whispered, “Because I don’t understand what I see. How can I explain what I don’t understand?”

  I did not have an answer.

  “I see flashes when I touch a hand or search into a palm. But then again, maybe they are just thoughts, the same as you have a thousand times a day. Sometimes, I see nothing at all. And people won’t pay gold coins for nothing at all. There is an expectation, you see. Seventh daughters of seventh daughters have the sight. Everyone knows that.” Feather cut her eyes to where a line was beginning to form outside of the tent and lowered her voice even further. “Perhaps I have no gift at all … but…”

  “But?”

  “But there are things that I know will come to pass, but I have no words to explain them and then…”

  “You started lying.”

  “Well yes, to keep my father happy, though even he cannot tell whether my words are truthful or not. I like to think of it this way. I can either foretell the future—or I can create it.” Her face turned smug and there was something in her eyes that made the hairs on my arms stand straight up. “Whatever I predict, well, it happens simply because I say it will.”

  “That makes you very powerful.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Feather smiled. She had found a way to become an even more imposing figure than her father, the Gypsy King.

  Was even he bound by her prophecies, true or false?

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, not to be impolite, but out of curiosity. I had just met the girl the night before and now she was confiding her secrets.

  “Why indeed,” Feather said, as if to herself. “I do not know. But for some reason, it feels good to be truthful at least to one person.”

  I nodded. I understood about truth. Wasn’t I searching for truth myself?

  At that moment, the very figure of the Gypsy King loomed over Feather’s head.

  “Do not neglect your duties, daughter,” he scolded. “Do you not see the line? There is gold to be made. Leave the chores to the girl.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Go. And let the see
r do her work.”

  He dragged Feather by the arm until she shook him off and walked of her own accord to the lovely tent with dark silks covering the entryway. Winding through the camp was a line of Gypsies and folks who must have traveled from nearby villages we’d not yet encountered. The procession trailed past the bushes and into the forest. Feather turned toward me before she entered the tent, her dark eyes sad. She glanced up at her father, who was not looking, and made a face.

  THE STORYTELLER’S LULLABY

  “You should have heard the lies I told today,” Feather whispered to me a few nights later as we huddled under a quilt by the small fire Thomas had built near our campsite by an old tree. It was just far enough away from the Gypsies’ caravans that Thomas felt it safe to sleep. He’d not forgotten how quickly they could pull out their knives. He had already fallen asleep, his snores gentle and rhythmic. “I told a man he would marry a woman far better for him than the selfish one he pines for,” she continued. “And I told an old woman her young grandson would get more work done if he were fed well rather than beaten with a stick.”

  “And what will happen now?”

  “Well, I might have just changed the future. But I am not certain. I will know next week, when they come back, of course.”

  “What if they are angry because your fortune did not come to pass?”

  “Oh, I shall place the failure of the fortune back upon them. Oh, you must do more to earn such a future, I will say. The fates are fair. Sometimes gold payment isn’t enough.”

  “So truly, you just stall for a while,” I said.

  “Of course. Sometimes up to three times. Or I think of tasks for them to do to keep them busy. Then they come back with more gold to hear their new fate. It is good business, really, to keep them wanting more.” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Oh, but I do grow tired of it all sometimes. Especially thinking of new lies. It makes my head ache.”

  We were quiet then. There was comfort in the hush of the night. Was this what it had been like for my father? Meeting strangers, sharing meals, becoming friends? Had he become so intertwined with life in a town or village that he stayed there and never came back?

  Perhaps he had. However, I would not be so easily distracted from my quest. And I was finding out nothing from the Gypsies about a storyteller who might have visited them five years ago. Each time I asked about James the Bard, I was met with shrugs or shaking heads. Even if they did know anything about him, I had a feeling that they’d not tell. Though the Gypsies fed Thomas and me for our work, and tolerated our presence, none of them had offered us a sleeping place inside their caravans. Thomas thought that was fine enough, for he claimed he’d always have to sleep with one eye open.

  Only Feather had offered friendship. However, I was not following my father’s map in order to make friends.

  “I think we shall leave soon,” I confessed. “Thomas was eavesdropping on the people waiting in line for their fortunes. He heard that an old bard is telling stories but a day or two from here. Maybe he knew my father. I am thinking that bards likely know of other bards; perhaps they are even friends.”

  “Ah yes, you and your precious quest.” There was no emotion in Feather’s voice. I could not tell if she foresaw our leaving or if it surprised her. Either way, she was not pleased.

  “He is called Fergal the Bald and he is quite famous,” I said. I wanted to say, And I do not want to stay here much longer lest it become too hard to leave, but I had better manners than that. “And there is another teller, the Old Burned Man, who is but a few days in the other direction.”

  “Ew. Bald and burned? They sound so unsightly. I myself would like a handsome bard.” Feather sighed. “I wager that your father was a handsome bard. What was his name again?”

  “James,” I said. “James the Bard. And yes, he was handsome.” When I closed my eyes, I could still see his dark wavy hair. I could feel the smoothness of his cheek against mine as he hugged me before I slept. And I could see his clear gray eyes. The same as my own.

  Feather shrugged. The name meant nothing to her. “Why do you seek a father who doesn’t even want you? After all, ’twas his choice to leave and not return.”

  Her words were harsh, though I did not think she meant to be so cruel. And it was a question I had asked myself again and again.

  “Of course, mayhap he has not returned because he is dead,” she added.

  Yes. I had considered that as well.

  “I am looking for the truth,” I confided, at last trying to put into words the longings of my heart. “I must know.”

  Feather took my hand in hers, placed her other hand over it, and closed her eyes.

  “I have to find out,” I said. “Why would a man who loved his wife and child leave and never come back?”

  When she opened her eyes, she spoke in a whisper.

  “Trinket, why do you seek only that story? There are many out there, you know. And you, with the blood of a bard! Were you to collect several tales, say seven, why you could trade for food and shelter for a whole week. Maybe even coin. It must be better than hauling buckets of water. You are a teller, Trinket, whether you believe it now or not.”

  Her words froze my blood. I’d never spoken the words to anyone, but it was my secret dream to become a storyteller myself someday, though I feared I’d never be good enough. True, I told stories to Thomas as we walked, but that was just to pass the time. Wasn’t it?

  The idea of becoming a bard galloped around in my head for a moment like a wild horse I was trying to coax back into its pen. If you have a dream and you hold it close to your heart, then you always get to have it. But if you let it out into the world then you discover, one way or another, if it will come true or not.

  “Perhaps your father was the storyteller that came long ago. The women all said he was comely. I only remember that he sang the most beautiful lullaby,” Feather said, interrupting my thoughts. She hummed a bit of a tune that stirred the hairs on my arms. “I loved that song, for I heard him practice it in the forest every morning as I woke. But he would not sing it for me. He said he would sing other lullabies if I had trouble sleeping, but he would sing this song for only one girl. Only one girl.” She let the words hang in the air between us. “My own father was angry, of course. Told him that if he would not sing the song for me, the Gypsy King’s daughter, he would be banished from the camp. Or perhaps my father threatened to slit his throat. I do not remember. The bard packed up and left the next day.”

  “The lullaby. Do you remember it?” My voice shook slightly.

  “I do not remember the words—only the tune. I so loved the tune.”

  Feather hummed again. Alongside her soft, low voice, I heard another. Deeper, but smooth like butter and honey on a slice of warm bread. A voice from long, long ago.

  But Feather did not hear this voice, since it traveled from somewhere deep in my heart and sang in only my own head.

  “’Twas something about baubles, pearls, and small night birds,” she said.

  Yes, I remembered the birds.

  Feather tilted her head to the side, watching me.

  “You look odd, Trinket. Have you heard this lullaby before?”

  For the first time in longer than I could remember, no words would come.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t about pearls after all. ’Tis possible it was about domineering fathers with fat eyebrows. You are not laughing, Trinket.”

  I knew the lullaby. Not the words, precisely. But my heart knew the tune.

  It was his lullaby.

  He had been here.

  I rose and began to walk. My stomach fluttered, and my palms started to sweat just a little. I had found the first footprint my father had left behind. James the Bard really had been here.

  And I was not sure how I felt about it.

  Feather caught up to me, clasping my hand again within her own, and swung me as if to dance. “If only I could find a man to sing to me like that…”

  “Fe
ather, you are far too young to be thinking of men singing to you!” I scolded lightly, rubbing the goose bumps off my arms, hoping she would tell me more about the storyteller of long ago, yet fearful at the same time.

  “Trinket, are you not aware that I will be sixteen soon? For some, that is marrying age.” A breeze blew Feather’s curls around her shoulders as she looked past the wagons and the trees, into the starlit night. “Do you not think of marriage, Trinket? You will be pretty someday, you know. If you wore your hair loose and brushed it until it shone instead of braiding it, it would be quite lovely. So many shades of gold and brown. Mayhap someday a young man will see you and fall in love.”

  “Ha!” I snorted. “We were not speaking of my marriage. We were speaking of yours.” I was glad Thomas was not awake to witness this conversation. The teasing would be endless.

  “My father will make the match—sell me, more likely, to whoever offers the most. Of course, I have a plan for dealing with it…” Feather’s voice trailed off.

  “Did you foresee something?” I smiled.

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  * * *

  The next day and the day after that, Feather was again dragged away from chores once a line formed at the dark silk tent. “Your value grows steadily, daughter,” her father mumbled to her as his pockets jingled with coins.

  Thomas and I had decided to stay only for the rest of the week, to store up as much food as we could before we ventured off. So, for the third day in a row, I drew the water from the stream alone and hauled the buckets back to the silver-haired woman. It was not the worst chore, indeed, and everyone did a job or two to pitch in. But as I rubbed my aching arms and raced over to Thomas, I could see he was becoming restless working among the chickens. “It’s too feathery here,” he complained.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I muttered as we split a boiled egg for lunch and stuffed the extra bread in our packs.

  “Drawing the water doesn’t involve birds,” Thomas said, obviously confused. I reminded myself that I hadn’t chosen Thomas the Pig Boy to accompany me for his talent at finding hidden meanings in cryptic phrases.