Angel in the Woods

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  Raising her chin in the air, she once again gathered her skirts and made her way down the steps. I looked up at the Giant. “Will you come?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly, a faint smile playing at his mouth. “No,” he said. “You can do this without me.”

  I took Nora’s arm as I passed her. Somehow it seemed that she should be with me. Together we followed the Widow through the door of the gaol, and I turned and gently latched it behind me.

  The Widow wasted no time. “What do you know of Thomas Breward?” she demanded.

  “That he has paid you over two thousand pounds in tribute in the last four years,” I said. “And that lately, as your people have suffered famine and hardship, your coffers have only grown deeper.”

  Nora folded her arms and leaned back against the door. The deep satisfaction on her face was evident.

  The Widow gathered the folds of her shawl around her. “What if they have?” she asked. “There is no law against tribute.”

  “There is,” I said, “when it comes of money stolen from your people. Thomas Breward oversees the bands of robbers who so unfortunately plague your country.”

  She pursed her lips. “You cannot prove that.”

  “Can’t we?” I asked. “We know it. How do we know it, if we have no proof?”

  Her face twisted. “Your leader is a demon.”

  “You once told me,” I said, “that this province was haunted by legendary villains. I now know that there is only one such ghost. Shall we reveal her to the people?”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” the Widow said.

  Nora pushed herself away from the wall and stepped forward. She looked the Widow steadfastly in the eye. “You have money,” she said. “And your people need help. Help them. Be the ruler you ought to be. For the sake of your daughter, who you have used so shamelessly. For the sake of your future. Do away with the villain yourself, and we will not have to.”

  “You little minx,” the Widow spat. Nora only continued to look steadily at her until the Widow turned her back.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “Banish the thieves,” I said. “If they strike again, and what they take is not repaid within the week, we will come to you for it.”

  She nodded—still not looking at us.

  “Do not think that you can save yourself by striking against us again,” I continued. “We have proof. We will distribute it well enough.”

  She turned icily. “Have you any more demands?”

  Nora shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Then I will take my leave,” the Widow said. She went to the door and yanked it open. A huge frame blocked her way.

  The Giant ducked inside and smiled at us. “Are you finished, children?” he asked.

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “Then I have a threat of my own to make,” the Giant said. He looked down at the Widow. His eyes narrowed. There in the door of the gaol I saw again the powerful man who had confronted me in the woods long ago, half-hidden in shadow, terrifying in his strength. “You saw what I held out to you?” he asked.

  “I did,” she answered. She seemed hardly able to get the words out. Anger gripped her tongue.

  “Then you know the power I hold over you,” he said. “I do not now choose to use it. Keep the terms set for you by my son and by my daughter. Keep them, or know that I will remove from you everything you now hold dear.”

  In answer, the Widow stormed past him, entered her coach, and drove away in a cloud of dust.

  The door swung open behind her. Beyond it, the wainwright approached with his hat in his hand. He looked a sad and defeated man. The Pixie and the others had made their way to the door as well. They now stood waiting for us, and watching.

  “I’m sorry,” the wainwright began.

  The Giant laid a hand on his shoulder. “As am I,” he said. “What you have lost no one can repay.”

  One of the children slipped away from the Pixie and took the wainwright’s hand. She looked up at him with big eyes, and he smiled down at her. His own eyes were full of tears.

  At a nod from me, Nora took the papers from my hand and gave them to the wainwright. We alone knew what they were—contracts, correspondence, records of financial transactions for the past ten years. Every one condemned the Widow. She had been leeching off of her own people by way of robbery and terror for a long time, hidden behind the masks of bandits and the faces of thieves. But we also knew that to depose the Widow would mean trouble for the province: legal trouble, greater impoverishment. And it would destroy Genevieve.

  “These are not to be read,” Nora said. “Take them, and distribute them among men you trust.”

  “If ever you find yourselves under the heel of thieves again, read them,” I said. “Only then.”

  The wainwright nodded. “I understand, young man. And I thank you.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat and looked up at the Giant. Suddenly relief was flooding every part of me. I smiled up at him as I had never, never smiled before. He looked down at me and smiled in return.

  “Lead the way, Hawk,” he said. “It is time to go home.”

  Chapter 35

  home

  Happy endings, I am told, are not really to be expected in the world. Indeed, it seemed against all the laws of nature that we should have won out over the Widow Brawnlyn. But there was a higher law watching over us: a happy, merciful law, a law invoked in births and spring and resurrections. Even now, I can’t describe how I felt as we broke out of the woods, all of us together, hand-in-hand with the whole tribe of little ones, to see the white walls of the Castle cheerfully sparkling in the sun—just for us. I could hear the creek running, and I felt the anticipation of pulling the boat back out of its hiding place in the old cellar. A breeze was playing in the treetops. It was singing the same song that leaped up over and over again in my heart: Saved!

  We were saved… rescued… so many threads had come together, against all odds, to form our homecoming. We were saved by Nora’s compassion, by the Pixie’s wits, by the human heart that against all odds dwelt in Genevieve Brawnlyn. Saved by the Giant’s innocence, his goodness. Saved by the Widow’s guilt. Saved by all the nights in the woods, long ago, when the Giant had taught me to fight and to persevere and to care about what was right. Without his training I could never have stood against the marauders when they came.

  I told Nora as much that night, as we sat by the open door of the kitchen, looking out at the stars. The only light in the room came from a candle on the table and the embers of supper that still burned in the belly of the cookstove and leaked out around the edges of the stove’s iron door. She smiled at me as I talked, all of my wonder overflowing in words.

  “And by you, Hawk,” she said, finishing my list. “You were a hero.”

  A cool wind blew in from the woods. I looked out into the darkness. I could feel the colour in my face. I hoped she couldn’t see it. The door of the kitchen was wide, and we sat opposite each other with our backs to the solid wooden frame. When I looked back at her, she had turned her eyes up to the stars. Her hair was long, flowing over her shoulders and stirring slightly in the breeze; its deep gold highlights called forth by the flickering of the candle. Her face was serene in the starlight. She smiled and looked down at me with a suddenness that took my breath away.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Early that fall, the Giant had his first attack.

  We didn’t understand quite what was happening to him, but he seemed almost to be expecting it. We made him a bed in the soft room. There he lay, ashen-faced and weak, while Nora and the Pixie tended him and I took his place in the woods. I had added furring to my list of duties. Though I knew the Giant to possess a great treasure, it was still his desire that we support ourselves from the land around the Castle. Whenever I could, I came in to see him. I would sit by him for half an hour here, an hour there.

  He regained some of his strength and returned to the woods, but he seemed t
o have aged ten years. I realized with a sinking feeling that though we had averted death in the town, it could not be kept at bay forever. He had a second spell in the winter, worse than the first, but once again he recovered and returned to his old ways.

  In the spring, he called me to his side. He was well then; almost as strong, it seemed, as he had been when first he came across me trespassing on his lands. I thought he wanted to speak to me about the furs, or some repairs that were needed on the Castle. I went to him as soon as he called and found him sitting on a fallen log in a mossy clearing that he had always loved. He looked up at me when I approached and smiled with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

  He reached for me and placed his hand on my shoulder. I placed mine on his. It was a tender gesture: father to son.

  “Hawk,” the Giant said, “I am going to send you away.”

  I tensed and nearly pulled my arm away. He chuckled. “Easy,” he said. “Not forever. I have some business I want you to attend to in another province.” He named the province and the city. I knew of it. He then named a lawyer, and I looked at him with a frown. I could not imagine what business he could have in a place as distant from his woodland realm as a lawyer’s office.

  “I told you, in the gaol, that I possess something of a fortune,” the Giant said. “It is mine legally.”

  I turned a little red. “I didn’t think it wasn’t…”

  “But you did not imagine that I might use lawyers to administer it?” He took his hand away and looked down at his deeply worn hands with a half-smile. “I have not always been the man I am now. I want you to go, Hawk, because I am giving the treasure away. I have written a will, and I want you to take it to the city.”

  I opened my mouth and searched for words, but he did not wait for me to find them. “I am giving the bulk of the treasure to you,” he said. “And all that goes with it. I am rich in daughters, but you are the only son I have ever had. I have given you all I can, and I am content that you have become a true man. If you’ll have them, I want to leave the Castle, and all its inhabitants, in your care when I go.”

  I nodded and found a few words at last, though I could hardly put them coherently together. “I would not have it any other way.”

  “Good,” the Giant said. He stood and clapped me on the shoulder again. “Leave as soon as you can.” He looked up at the sky, which was beautiful and clear: unusually so for spring. “Today, if possible.”

  He took a parchment from his shirt, and gave it to me. It was his will.

  In something of a daze, I returned to the Castle. Nora was nowhere to be found, nor was the Pixie, so I went to work packing up enough things to keep me clothed for the entire trip and fed for the first few days. When I was finished, I bound it all up in a bundle and hefted it up on my back. I made my way out the door and halfway across the lawn, looking everywhere for those to whom I had to say good-bye. Nora found me before I found her. I heard her calling across the lawn and saw her running toward me. She stopped close by me, out of breath.

  “Isabelle said you are leaving,” she said. I heard the question in her voice and a note of warning, but I did not entirely comprehend her tone. More the fool I. I was so wrapped up in my own questions that I failed to realize what Isabelle had actually told Nora.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Where will you go?” she asked. “I thought…”

  I told her the name of the town. She looked at me piercingly, her blue eyes searching my puzzled face.

  “I hope that whatever takes you there is well worth leaving us,” she said, quietly. All of a sudden I realized what she thought.

  “I should hope so,” I said, “as the Giant is sending me; but Nora, I will come back.”

  A change came over her face that altered her so greatly it made something inside me knot up. I saw relief in her face—joy— very great depth of feeling. And my stomach continued to knot, because there was something I had long wanted to ask her, and dreaded to—but now, for the first time, I knew that she loved me. I looked up to the walls of the Castle, gleaming behind her, and the green depths of the woods behind. Everything paled in comparison with her beauty. I swallowed hard.

  “I will return,” I said. “As quickly as I can, in about… about a month. I would not leave.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “Forgive me, Hawk: I feared…”

  “Don’t fear,” I said. “I love this place. I mean to stay forever. To take care of things when… when I’m needed.”

  “You’re needed now,” Nora said. She looked up at me and smiled. “I can’t imagine this place without you.”

  I drew in a deep breath and said, “Nora, will you marry me when I come back?”

  She blushed, but did not turn her eyes away. She held out her hand to me. I took it, and she rose up on her toes a little and kissed my cheek.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “And I you.”

  I grinned and turned to go, feeling a thousand feet taller and a thousand times stronger and a thousand years happier than I had a moment ago.

  “Hawk!” she called. I turned back. My heart thrilled to her smile… radiant, beautiful joy. “Come back soon,” she said.

  Chapter 36

  paradise deepens

  True to my estimation, my business in the city took about a month. Every step of the way there I longed to be already heading back, back to the forest and the children and the woman I loved, back to my heart’s father, back to the white walls of the best and dearest Castle in the world. Once I had arrived, my business with the lawyers absorbed me enough to alleviate some of my suffering. I found that the Giant had done more than simply leave me a fortune. Nor was he making idle talk when he called me “son.” He had adopted me. Me, Nora, the Pixie, and every last child in the Castle. To each of us he had left an inheritance. To Nora and me he gave the guardianship of the children—all except for little Kate, who was legally given to the Pixie’s care.

  Along with his fortune—and, I reflected, his real treasure—he passed along the mystery of his past to me. In the town I learned at last where the Giant had come from, where his gold had been obtained, why he held power over the Widow Brawnlyn. I had not imagined it for a moment, and once I had learned all there was to learn, I kept it close to myself.

  I returned to the Castle in the summer and found that the Giant had once again fallen ill. This time, he was very weak. The Pixie gave up shooing the children out of his room at the Giant’s request, and they spent all of their time clustered around him: reading to him, singing little made-up songs, petting his old weathered face and hands. Illyrica all but moved in to the Castle. She spent every moment at the foot of the bed, silently watching, memorizing his face. The Poet was there every moment he was not working, and Nora and I gave up most of our usual responsibilities to be there as well. He wanted us there. And somehow, the old threats that had kept one of us patrolling the woods every day for so long seemed far away—without power to touch us.

  The night after my return I went into the room. There was no fire in the hearth—the heat of summer made it unnecessary—but a lantern near the bed was lit. Illyrica was asleep at the foot of it. I passed her quietly and looked down on my old friend. I thought he was asleep, but he looked up after a moment and smiled.

  “Sit down, boy,” he said.

  There was a chair beside the bed, so I did.

  “You know more about me now than any living person,” the Giant said. “Except the lawyers, and I’m not sure they are living persons.”

  I laughed, quietly so as not to awaken Illyrica. “I don’t understand you,” I told him. “But I hope to… one day.”

  The Giant nodded. “Nora told me that you want to marry her.”

  “Very much,” I said.

  His voice was faint when he answered. “No delays, then,” he said. “There is no reason to heap up time in your way.”

 
; I heard what he meant. We hadn’t much time left. We both knew it. I had tried to say the same to Nora earlier, but she had not wanted to hear me. I understood.

  The very next morning I told Nora that we would wed as soon as she had a dress ready. She went to work immediately. The Pixie cast every window in the Castle open to air everything out. The children picked flowers of every colour imaginable— with a greater abundance of pinks and purples than I had known existed—and arranged them in every corner and on every surface in the place. The Castle seemed to have filled itself with the seasons and blossomed forth in glory. I went into town and traded an armload of fox-furs for a good set of clothes, and when I came home it was to the sight of a wooden chest that had just been delivered to the Castle: a gift from Genevieve Brawnlyn. Open, it yielded yards upon yards of sheer cloth, white flecked with gold. Illyrica snatched it up, and I saw no more of it.

  The day came. The Giant could not get out of his bed, so we held the wedding inside. I was shoved up the stairs the night before and not allowed to come down until the women and girls had arranged everything to their satisfaction. Then, dressed and groomed as best as I could, I came down the stairs and pushed open the doors to the soft room.

  I stepped into an elven hall. Genevieve’s cloth formed a canopy over the whole room and came down in an archway at the end of the aisle. The Pixie seemed to have moved half the forest into the room: the whole thing was green and growing. Mossy branches and green flowering vines seemed to have sprung spontaneously to joy over us. Vines twisted down the archway, blooming with small roses.

  We would say our vows at the foot of the Giant’s bed. The Giant himself was sitting up, smiling broadly, looking healthier and happier than I had seen him in some time. His clothes were simple buckskin dyed deep grey, trimmed with fur. They were also new. Illyrica had been at work. His eyes summoned me, and I went to his side. He looked up at me and nodded, satisfied with what he saw.