And then he looked past me, and I turned to see what he did. Nora had entered the room.
She wore a long gown of white. Blue threads, royal like her eyes, embroidered her neckline and the hem of the skirt that flowed over her bare feet. Her hair was long, with strands of blue flowers braided through it. She was a swan coming across the water: faerie queen, entering the world of mortals. How my heart welled up as she came. My sister, my wife. We had worked side by side in quiet times; been companions in arms in times of war. She was to me the daughter of peace, promise of beauty, earnest of life. She was the reward I had once thought to earn, but now knew to be far too precious for the earning. She could only be what she was—a gift of grace. With her to stand beside me I could stand against any nightmare; bear any loss; defeat any foe.
Though I trembled within, when I held out my hands to her they were steady. She took them and looked up at me. We were lost in each other’s eyes. I could hardly hear the words the Giant spoke. We pledged to each other our faithfulness, our care, our love; she obedience, I that, were it in my power, she would never regret that she had me to obey. The little girls around us leaned forward and drank in every word. The Giant, the Pixie, and the Poet cried.
The moment came. I folded her in my arms and kissed her.
I had never imagined how sweetly paradise could deepen.
Chapter 37
the gentle falling of winter
The Giant did rise from the sickbed after Nora and I were married at his feet. He lived to wander the woods he so loved again. But the end could not be staved off forever. Two years later, in the dawn of a blue-white winter, our Angel left us.
We buried him wrapped in furs and laid to rest in a great pine box, which the Poet and I had made together and Sarah had helped to sand. His going had not been unexpected—at least, he seemed to expect it. A man ever of few words, he yet found time to pull each of us aside and speak words of love and of wisdom. Though most of us never told any other soul what he had said, I think that even little Kate has never forgotten what she heard from his mouth.
Evening fell on the day of his burial, and I had not yet left the graveside. I stayed by it, under the trees at the bottom of the lawn, all through the night. Moon and stars shone down on me through the bare branches, recalling nights of training in the forest, and other nights, of fear, of humiliation, of growth. Since I had gone to settle his affairs for him, I alone knew what he had sacrificed to follow the narrow path he had chosen through life—but perhaps, as I had taken his position as father and guardian, I alone knew what he had gained. Through the cold chill of the night I sat and promised him, with words, tears, and stillness, that I would not fail in the charge he had given me. Nora came at dawn and curled up beside me with her head on my shoulder, and together we sat until morning was well on its way. Then we arose and went to our duties.
How word of the Giant’s death reached the nearby towns I do not know, but it did; and before long a slow trickle of visitors began. They came, laid tokens on the grave, and told us with solemn faces how sorry they were. It was the beginning of a new day for us. The long coldness between us and the outside world was beginning to thaw, and while I intended that we would always remain apart, I saw in the faces of the townspeople the faces of those who might become friends.
The wainwright came and shed tears by the grave. He shook my hand and Nora’s, and looked over the little ones who had gathered around us. He seemed so drawn to stay that Nora invited him to dinner, and he came—not for the last time. The children surrounded him at dinner, plied him with questions, and made him smile beneath his weary brow. Nora and I looked at each other when we saw the smile. We understood one another perfectly. We meant to make the wainwright quite at home in the Castle.
Of all who mourned the Angel’s passing, none did so more deeply or with more quietude than Nora. His first child—his co-rescuer—heart that understood his perfectly. She faced his passing with a courage I could only admire, but when she grew weak and childlike in her memories and grief, it was mine to hold her and give her comfort—and by some miracle, she was comforted.
In that same winter, Sarah and I turned the old cellar into a woodshop, and as I was not so busy in the woods in the season of snow, we at last finished the boat. It would wait for the river to run again before it sailed, but it stood to us, brave little ship, like a symbol of the future.
Chapter 38
all things well
The Angel’s death left us all with an emptiness inside, a poverty that made us feel how fragile our lives were. But life grew rich again: rich beyond my imagining. It grew richer in every child added to the Castle’s treasure-store—children who called me “Father” and nursed at Nora’s breast; other children who sat on the Poet’s knee and grew to know the virtue of an overflowing silence as they knew it in their mother. Children who came, as they had in the past, from broken carriages and empty hearths, from danger and poverty and illness, to pour upon us their laughter and their love. It grew richer in the forest, as it grew older and greener, and yielded more of its secrets to us with every passing year. It grew richer in the children who grew up, in the girls who became women: in Sarah who went back to our old home by the sea and started an orphanage there—a Castle all her own, full of her spunk and courage and love; in Isabelle who married a young nephew of the old wainwright and made him the dearest wife who ever lived; in Kate who became a beauty and learned how to tell stories. It grew richer: rich beyond all imagining or desire.
The Pixie never married. She lived always in the Castle with us, until Kate entered womanhood and I began scaring suitors away, and even after Kate went away on the arm of one who loved her as I loved Nora. Still, though years passed, the Pixie seemed haunted by a memory of girlhood: splendid in mystery and innocence. She who had so wished for independence from the Castle seemed least able to leave it. But I would not have you think her a sad or tragic figure. While the Pixie lived, yesterday lived still—joyous, beautiful yesterday, weaving itself into the present with every word, every touch, every radiant smile the Pixie bestowed. She was the personification of all we had once had, and while we had her, we could lose nothing.
Four months after the Giant’s passing, Genevieve Brawnlyn came to us, dressed in black. Her mother had taken ill suddenly and died with a curse on her lips. Genevieve had wept for the first time in her life, for everything that was broken in her, and then she came to us for healing. Nora loved her and covered her with affection, and the children made her laugh and put new joy into her eyes. The strange and stormy young woman I had once imagined I might love slowly melted into someone capable of loving in return.
She ruled over the province alone. More than one man came to seek her hand, but she turned every one away. When she needed advice, she came to us for it, and sometimes to the wainwright, who was often at our table. I never told Genevieve what I knew of the Giant’s past, and of my own position in her land, but I somehow knew that she knew. I could see it in her eyes. Sometimes she hinted at it. She knew that her mother had not been the rightful ruler of the province at all: that her father’s brother had fathered a son who inherited the family treasure and disappeared with it. The Widow Brawnlyn had tried desperately to track the man down and kill him, lest he come back to oust her and take his rightful place. Only when the Giant paid Illyrica’s ransom did she finally understand that her rival was living within her own borders, and when she grew bold enough, she tried to kill him by the hand of an incensed group of ignorant villagers. She failed—as has been recounted here. And the Giant showed her a coin from the treasure, nestled unmistakably in the palm of his hand, with its unspoken threat.
Genevieve knew all this. She suspected the truth: that the Giant had passed his title on to me, with the understanding that if the province ever needed rescuing, I was to rescue it. But while the land was under Genevieve, there was no need for me to leave my Castle for a civil throne.
I never knew why the Giant had done what he did: dis
appeared, taken up the life of a commoner, traded riches for a forest full of furs and a Castle full of innocents. Most puzzling to me was why he had never opposed the Widow when she so wickedly ruled over his people. Perhaps he did not know the truth of what she was—perhaps he felt that the people would not have him. Whatever the case, I have often looked over the legacy he left me and blessed him for making the choices he did. Though he denied his people rulership, what he gave to his adopted children was worth more than life. He gave them himself, and all of the love in his giant’s heart.
For that, I will ever be grateful.
The End
# # #
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Stan Lee always said it best: Higher!
Rachel Starr Thomson
Reap the Whirlwind
Chapter 1
A preview
Morning. The sun cast a red hue over the chimneys and rooftops of Beren. It did its best to get into the alleys and dark, narrow streets, but they seemed to push it back. Light wasn’t allowed here. Not in the tenements, in the docks. In another part of town, the wide, clean streets welcomed the morning. But in the tenements, the rising sun was just a bitter reminder that life would go on.
Juster stared out the small window at the sunrise. “A red sun,” he told his wife. “We’ll be havin’ an evil day.”
“Oh, come,” Matilda said. “You don’t believe superstitions like that now, do you?”
“Didn’t,” the man said, clenching his pipe in his teeth. “But now I’m not so sure.”
“It’s the rebels, isn’t it?” Matilda asked. “That’s what’s worryin’ you?”
There was a pause, then Juster nodded. “They’re right, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re right,” he repeated. “The aristocracy’s all wrong. It ain’t right that they should have every advantage in the world while we sit here and starve. I don’t begrudge them that they have advantages, o’ course, they’ve got as much a right to them as any man. The problem is that they won’t give us any. Every man’s got a right to ’em, I say, but they don’t think so, and as long as they’ve got all the power, they decide who gets ’em and who doesn’t. It’s all wrong.”
“Well then,” Matilda said in a comforting tone of voice, “if the rebels are right, why are they worryin’ you?”
“Not sure,” Juster admitted. “I think—well, what they want is right. But I can’t help thinkin’ that they’re goin’ about it the wrong way. They want to overthrow the government, and kill all the upper classes, and dispense justice right an’ left. The trouble is, they’re awfully bloody when it comes to justice. And I think it won’t be gettin’ no better as the time goes by.”
“The rebels say things won’t ever change without blood. They say that unless we all get real forceful, nothin’ will get done, and the police’ll ride through and kill a lot o’ people, and that’ll be the end o’ that.”
“They hung a man down in Dorley the other day,” Juster said, not talking to anyone in particular. “Said he was a spy, workin’ for the aristocracy. Strung ’im up high and let him die, way up there in the air. Come to find out, he was innocent. But they found out to late to save ’im. It isn’t justice I mind. I think the rebels are too quick with it, that’s all.”
“Maybe so, maybe so,” Matilda said. “But just think, Juster. Just imagine what it’d be like, if we was all to be equal. Just think. The world would be a better place, Juster.”
“Yes,” Juster grunted. “Well, maybe.”
“Maybe!” Matilda cried, growing more and more sure. “Of course it would be! I don’t suppose it’ll do us much good; we’re gettin’ old, and we won’t be around long enough to enjoy it. But think what it would be like for the boys, and for Kyara! They would maybe be able to get a grand house somewhere, away from the docks and the tenements. And they’d be able to bring up their own children away from all this. Just imagine it, Juster!”
Juster gave a rueful smile. “I suppose,” he said. It was something worth imagining, that much he had to admit. A life away from here—that would truly be a wonder. The docks had long been the home of the common people. It hadn’t always been that way: there was a time, a long time ago, when Beren had been a busy port town, with one of the most wealthy harbours in the world. But that day had passed long ago, when the sea had turned on those who depended on it by becoming suddenly and mysteriously devoid of fish. Without the fish, the trade stopped, and before long the docks were nothing more than a lot of rotting wood, a shade of better days gone by.
A small voice from across the room interrupted the discussion. “Imagine what, Mama?”
The two parents turned, their faces lighting up. Kyara was sitting up in her small bed, her red hair tangled and sticking out in all directions. She was wearing her only nightdress, a coarse shift that Matilda had sewn and resewn half a dozen times, but of which Kyara was proud. The other girls who shared their tenement had to sleep in their clothes.
“Imagine what?” the girl repeated, hopping out of bed. The floor was cold on her bare feet, and she pulled on her worn shoes as quickly as she could while waiting for her mother to answer.
“Nothin’, dear,” Matilda said.
“You were talkin’ about the rebels again, weren’t you?”
The parents exchanged an uneasy look. Though they did support, at least to an extent, what the rebels were doing, they wished to keep their daughter from getting involved. The rebels would think nothing of getting a seven-year-old girl to work for them, of putting a child’s life in danger, for “the cause.” The less Kyara knew about the rebels the better.
They were spared an answer as Kyara continued to talk. “Is the Uncle coming today?” she asked. “I heard you tell Mama that he might.”
Juster and Matilda exchanged a look again. “The Uncle,” a big man by the name of Bernhard, was Juster’s second cousin, from the countryside. He was a great favourite of Kyara’s. He was also a rebel.
In the old days, Bernhard had spent his time in the country, tending the family farm. His visits to Beren were few and far between. Now he was in the city quite frequently. On business, he said. Juster and Matilda knew what that meant. They normally kept their distance when he was around. On the odd occasion, though, when Bernhard was desperate for a place to stay, they let him come. If the police got suspicious, they could simply say that Bernhard was a relative who needed a place to sleep. It was true, after all. No one had to know that Juster and Matilda were well aware of Bernhard’s business.
Kyara didn’t know anything about Bernhard’s reasons for being in the city; at least, her parents didn’t think so. If she discovered he was a rebel, they would no longer allow him in their house. They had made that much clear to him. He had promised not to tell the little girl anything.
“Yes,” Juster said shortly. “He’s coming.”
Kyara made a delighted little noise, then asked eagerly, “When?”
“Tonight,” Juster said.
Kyara sensed that her father didn’t want to discuss Bernhard. She cleared her throat and stared at the rickety table in the middle of the room.
“Breakfast?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m afraid not,” Matilda said, trying to be cheerful
. “Why don’t you run along and play, Kyara?”
“All right,” Kyara said. She pulled her clothes on and ran outside, calling for her playmates to come join her. Matilda shook her head sadly.
“Maybe the rebels don’t always go about things the right way,” she said. “But I wish them luck, even so.”
* * *
Kyara picked up a stone from the street and threw it into the air once, catching it again. Satisfied that its weight and size were sufficient for the task at hand, she headed down the street, stopping at a tenement house that was virtually identical to her own. It was dirty and tumbledown, crammed in the middle of a row of equally ramshackle buildings. The windows were filthy, and a long crack split one where it had been assaulted by a group of restless young men. A deep-throated dog barked from somewhere behind the house, and Kyara swallowed nervously.
She took the stone out of her pocket and hurled it through the air. It hit the door of the tenement house with a resounding thud. Kyara waited impatiently for someone to emerge. The door opened at last, and a dirty boy came down the steps to the street. He looked at Kyara somewhat scornfully.
“Why don’t you just knock?” he asked.
“None of your business, Tommy.” Kyara said, sticking her nose in the air.
“Ah, don’t you get lookin’ all high and mighty with me, Kyara. Actin’ like you got some good reason to throw stones at the door ’stead of knockin’. Well, ya can’t fool me. You’re still afraid of ol’ Chase.”
“I’m not either,” Kyara said.
“Are too!” Tommy insisted. “You’re so afraid of that ol’ dog you won’t even come close to the house.”
Angel in the Woods Page 17