Jake told me that the captain, after a short while, saw the old couple looking on. The captain immediately called for them to come. But they didn’t move. Jake said they were not only not moving, but they seemed harder to see, for some reason. “It was as if the light was passing through them,” Jake described it. “They faded, sort of. And I kept blinking because I thought I might be seeing things. You know, like you do sometimes late in the evening when you can’t see things clearly. But this was bright sunlight. And they faded. Even got wavy like heat makes the road wavy sometimes and makes it look like water.”
The captain kept shouting for them to come to him. Then he sent two soldiers after the old couple but Jake said the soldiers went down the path to fetch them, and when they got to the old couple, the fading got more and more until the two old people simply disappeared at the edge of the woods.
The captain stomped his foot in anger. He yelled at his men to chase the old people into the woods, but the soldiers just looked confused and then slowly went into the woods to get away from the shouting captain who was getting madder and madder by the second. He then tried to go into the garden himself. He clomped in with his shiny boots and stood in the middle with the same confused look on his face, but his feet kept on stomping up and down, up and down like a toy soldier going nowhere. Jake stomped his feet up and down joyfully in telling me this part.
Here Jake took a big breath. He said, “It was like everything had stopped except for the captain stomping his feet and not going anywhere. It was funny, like someone was telling a joke and then just stopped and left everyone in the joke…”
Jake pondered the rest of his sentence, thought hard about what should come after the word “joke.” Then he sighed and looked up at the top of the big maple. Maybe the rest of the sentence was there. I smiled and waited. Jake began again.
“So, they all stopped, but I couldn’t see why. The garden was still there. The soldiers and the captain and the people waiting with baskets were there, but nothing was happening. Stuck. That’s what it was. Stuck.”
And that seemed to settle it for him. He was satisfied with the word “stuck.” He was quiet again, checking the treetops for whatever it was he thought was there. Well, he would know, of course. The treetops were his home. I always thought he only visited us here on the ground and then went back to the trees as easy as we might go home. He seemed now to be staying here with me just to be friendly. I know he’d scoot up the nearest tree if I turned to go. But his story about the captain and the old couple wasn’t finished. At least for me it wasn’t. And then we heard a loud noise. Maybe it was a cannon. It came from the woods near the old people’s house.
Jake jumped straight up like a rabbit does in the spring. I should say he hopped. And before I knew it, he skittered up the tallest tree and looked out toward the woods.
“What do you see?” I called out to him. “Is it the King’s men?” But my voice got lost in the wind, in the rustle of the leaves. I waited, knowing he’d come down when he was ready. And then the cannon boomed again. And again.
I heard Jake’s voice through the rustle of the leaves. “They’re shooting the garden.”
And that was all the information he was going to give me. Maybe there was nothing more to tell. How do you shoot a garden? I could hear the answer to that echoing through the woods: over and over and over.
My parents came out and stood near the patch of stalks that had been our garden. I asked if I could go to the old people’s house to see what was happening. I said I wouldn’t go too close. I said I would be careful. I said I’d take Jake. My mother said, “Absolutely not. We have no idea what awful thing is going on there. And we will just have to wait to find out.
My father stood with his hands on his hips inspecting the ruin of our garden. It looked as if someone had tragically planted the wrong seeds and instead of flowers, only sticks had come up. I thought for a second that it was weirdly funny now that it was done. But I also knew enough not to share that with my family. Or with Eugenie when I would see her. She would not think there was one funny thing about this mess. After all, it was her flowers, her work, her care that had been taken from the garden and hauled off for the wedding of Arbuckle Beauregard the Third. The cannon sounded again and then was silent for a long time.
We went about our chores, my father with one eye on the direction of the soldiers, my mother making sure she could see me at all times. Jake kept to himself in the top of the tree. And soon, except for the garden of sticks, our life hummed right back to where it had been. But I knew the wedding final preparations were now in full swing. Soldiers and captains and servants were ranging through the kingdom collecting as many flowers as they could carry. Wagons full passed on the road, all headed for the castle. And soon the road itself was strewn with fallen flowers gathering dust with some crushed under the wheels of the next wagon in line, a sad train that seemed to never stop all day. All the spring color was flowing toward the wedding at the castle.
And the next day—the day before the wedding—the same sad train filled the road. And that afternoon, Eugenie appeared at the window in the barn where we lifted the hay into the loft. She pssted. Then again.
I pretended not to hear, of course. Then after pushing my hair back and adding a little wave to her, I slowly worked my way toward the barn.
The barn was cool inside with specks of light through every crevice and hole. Everything in there was serious and playful at the same time. The oiled leather, the order to the tools hanging on the wall, the sparrows cheeping in the rafters. Quiet cats appeared and disappeared while a slight rustling in the loft told me where Eugenie was. The playful part was how much the whole barn reminded me of a giant toy ready for fun. We had learned where it was safe to jump into the hay, where you could hide and pop out, where the most amazing tiny nests were hidden. Even the mice, the great joy of all the cats, had their place in the toy—at least until they ended up in the mouth of a cat, tail out one side, whiskers out the other.
As soon as I had climbed into the loft, carefully checking to see that father and mother were nowhere around, Eugenie popped out of the hay like a doll with stalks poking out of her hair, her eyes big as moons.
“I got away,” she announced. “I saw what they did—what they tried to do—at the old couple’s garden.” And then in a rush, the whole story came out. “They shot a cannon into the garden and the cannon ball just slowly got smaller and thinner and then was gone. So they did it again. And again. And each time the same thing happened like there really wasn’t a cannon ball in the first place. And even better, they never could find the old people, not in the woods or in the fields or anywhere!”
“But won’t you get in trouble leaving the castle?” I asked.
She laughed. “No, no. Nobody in the castle is doing anything or watching anything except the wedding. People are everywhere and everybody is in a tizzy, running around and clucking to themselves like a thousand hens.” She was delighted, I think, to be free again. She took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of the barn. “Oh, I missed this. It smells like heaven to me.”
“Also smells like manure,” I added. “But I understand what you mean. Tell me what’s happening at the castle.”
Eugenie paused and thought. “Well, first of all, there is the wedding—the flowers, the food, the silly bowing and eye-rolling and scheming about who sits next to whom. But after that, the new buzzing is all about one old couple who live in the woods—our old couple! How their flower garden has some powerful magic and even the strongest cannons could not break through that magic. The army generals want to know what it is so they can use it for the army. The priests want to know if it is from heaven or hell. And the poor King and Queen are worried that it could be the beginning of rebellion among the people. The wedding is taking a kind of second place to all these ways to be afraid. I laughed when I heard the first reports. The old couple, of course, were nothing to fear. But somehow everyone has managed to become more and more afraid a
nyway. I wanted to jump up and tell them how foolish they all were. But after the punishment for talking up at the Council meeting, I thought it better to keep my mouth shut this time. Be ignored for a while so I could get out of the castle.”
She paused. We both listened for any stirrings in the barn below—Jake, my father or mother. We heard only the horses shifting feet and munching hay. The resident barn owl gave two hoots, and we both laughed. The two hoots were for us.
I asked, “But what will they do with the old couple?”
“Nothing! That’s just it. They can’t do anything because they can’t find them. The soldiers left people at their house, but they didn’t come back at night. Soldiers in the woods, all around the countryside, and they couldn’t find a sign of the old ones. It was as if they rose up into the air and disappeared. Of course, there are sightings. I’d have been surprised if no one had thought they saw the old man limping through the market with his cane. Thought they saw the old woman for a second down an alleyway in town.” Eugenie pulled a straw from her hair and looked at it. “I think they won’t show up until after the wedding has taken place.”
“Well, already the people are talking here in the village about how important it was that the flower garden couldn’t be taken by the King’s men,” I added.
“I think I know where the old people are hiding,” Eugenie announced grandly. “The soldiers can search the woods all they want and they will never see where they went. But I spent many hours in the woods collecting seed to grow in my garden. And I saw them one time, across a clearing, moving slowly in the sunlight at the edge of the woods. There was a giant oak tree there, one of the old ones left over from before they cut any trees in that forest. You know, one of those trees that look like an old face is hidden in the bark because of all the bumps and growths on it. Well, the old people were right next to it, I looked down at something running across my path, and when I looked up again, they were gone. Like they just melted into that tree. They were moving so slowly they couldn’t have gone anywhere else. At the time, I thought they just stepped behind the giant tree, so I waited. And waited. Then finally, I walked across the clearing and then around the tree twice, all the time carefully watching for them, looking for the trail they would have made in the long grass. There was none.”
“Could there have been a door in the tree,” I asked. And then I felt a little foolish. She would have seen a door, of course. And I had been in those woods many time times with my father, looking for firewood. I had seen a number of the old trees Eugenie was talking about.
“Just the tree,” she said, finally. “One big tree.”
“And now what should we do?” I had some ideas, but I thought I’d let her go first.
“Alyssa, I have a feeling that the old couple have taken care of everything. But I think we should make sure. I have been thinking about this for a long time while locked in my room. And now I think we should both go to the wedding, both be there. Because whatever the old people have planned, it will occur at the wedding. You go as you, I’ll go as me and meet all the important guests.”
“But they won’t let a farm girl in, will they? I won’t be able to sneak in again while the wedding is going on. They’ll be watching. And watching even more if they are worried about the old people’s magic.”
“It’s not a problem,” Eugenie said confidently. “Everyone is invited: villagers, farmers, even strangers passing through. I like to think my little speech changed their minds about the wedding being just for important people. Maybe not. But whatever changed their minds, the King pronounced that everyone would be invited: famous and noble, gardeners, everyone. Then no one could be unhappy.” She lay back on the hay and chewed on a straw. “This is going to be good. Oh, yes. This is going to be excellent.”
Chapter Ten
Eugenie went back to the castle my old secret way—through the woods instead of the road, along the path that wove in and out of the grasslands full of birds.
The wedding was the next day, and the king’s men and lines of servants with baskets had collected every flower from every garden they could find. Not the old couple’s though. After bringing in religious people and cannons and that angry captain of the guard to try to pry their flowers out of their beautiful garden, nothing worked, and they gave up. No one could find the old couple though they searched the entire woods.
All the kingdom was invited but not everyone could come. The farms far away at the border of the realm were just too distant, and the farmers and families couldn’t leave their cows and other work too long. But our village and a few more nearby, all planned to go to the castle. As I was going home, a few families walked the road toward the wedding. I guess they planned to camp overnight and get good seats. But most of the travelling started early the next day.
I woke and looked out my window where clouds of dust hid the stream of travelers on the road. It looked like a long fuzzy snake with no head or tail winding toward the castle. My mother and father rounded up Jake, and I was given the job of making him presentable. I wasn’t sure how well he would behave if he had to stay on the ground very long. But I did my best to dust him off, clean his hands, and do some kind of combing to his wild hair. My mother asked only that I make him look like a human being rather than a wild tree creature.
I stood back and admired my work. He was clean and his hair would stay plastered to his head at least as long as my mother’s inspection. Then it would probably spring off in every direction as usual. I loved my brother, but he seemed made of different stuff than the rest of us: his need to be high in a tree, his strong nails for climbing like a squirrel, his delight in anything odd. I think the newness part is why he spent so much time in treetops, waving to and fro clinging to the thinnest branches. We all worried about him, but little by little we began to trust his antics. My mother just sighed and patted him on the head if he let her. My father believed that Jake would be a fine farmer after he grew big enough to work hard and love the land. And there was no question that Jake was brave, my father said about Jake’s tree tricks. And you had to be brave to be a farmer. So it was settled.
My mother and father carried baskets with food (my mother said, in case there wasn’t enough to eat at the wedding). “Okay, let’s go,” she said. “Bring the old blanket in case there are not enough chairs there. And water. We’ll all need water to spend the day in the sun.”
She seemed, like the rest of the village, excited about the wedding even though all had lost their flowers to decorate the tables. My father had said we would make up the money somehow. He didn’t know exactly how. “Maybe pickles,” he said, laughing. “Lots and lots of pickles. After all, the King’s men didn’t take the cucumbers.”
My mother added, “They didn’t take the cucumbers because they were too small to amount to anything when they came raiding.” My mother, like Eugenie, was still mad about the flowers, and she wasn’t going to stop being mad for a long time.
My father wagged a finger in the air as we set out. “But just for today, we’re going to be happy to be part of this historic wedding that brings together two important families and keeps us peaceful. That’s what I’m thinking about. All the important families coming together so there will be no war for a long, long time. If the cost of that peace is all the flowers in the world, well then, it’s a small price to pay.” Another finger wag and the subject of the stolen flowers was closed. But I knew that my mother and Eugenie still seethed inside. Flowers meant more to both of them than just plants. They both saw flowers as something delightful the earth gave us just for being alive. I understood their joy even if I found my own happiness elsewhere.
We made our way out our path toward the road to join in the dust and chatter headed toward the castle. As we passed the old couple’s cottage and still beautiful flower garden, I stopped to take a stone from my shoe. “I’ll catch up,” I told my family.
But when I pulled my shoe off, there was no stone, though it certainly had felt like a stone. I pok
ed around inside my shoe, but nothing was there. And then I heard a psst.
“Over here,” came a small voice, so thin I thought at first it was the wind. “Psst. I have something for you. Listen carefully.” The old woman was kneeling at the edge of her garden and in her hand was a small watering can, a smaller version of the big, empty one we had seen her using on her plants.
The little can had nothing in it. I shook it. She said quickly, “Don’t worry. It’s full. Take this with you and—now listen carefully—water only the flowers that will be on the tables for the villagers. Don’t water any others. Just tip the can for a few seconds into the vases of all the flowers around the outside edge of the wedding. Do you understand?” Her voice was even more like the wind than when she had begun. “Now put your shoe on and catch up. Hide the watering can.”
I bent to put my shoe on and when I looked up, she was gone. Maybe she went into the garden, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I hurried to catch up to my family after I tucked the small watering can away in my dress-up apron.
As we walked along I kept thinking: what just happened? Should I tell my mother and father? Should I ask Jake if he saw anything? He was always seeing what I couldn’t. Should I tell Eugenie what the old woman had asked me to do? I decided that if I could, I would tell Eugenie, but that might be very difficult.
She would be greeting every ancient aunt and uncle and every famous family and friend of the castle. Her job would be to make sure every family story got repeated, every cousin’s cheek kissed. Though I loved the castle life, the classes and duties, I was never really fond of the empty smiling and waving a princess had to do. I did it—would keep doing it—but just so I could get to the good part of being a princess.
The Alyssa Chronicle Page 9