Firefly Island
a novel by
Daniel Arenson
Copyright © 2007 by Daniel Arenson
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.
Prologue
Two Promises
The little girl huddled in the corner, weeping silently. Her hair covered her face, strewn with straw. Lice crawled in her kerchief. Her stockings were torn, and her toes peeked out of holes in her shoes, blue with cold. She was hugging a doll—a frayed, tattered thing that only her love made more than rags. Her teardrops soaked the toy as she rocked it, and her lips mumbled into its ears. “It’ll be all right, Stuffings, don’t be scared. I won’t let the monster hurt you....”
Joren, her older brother, sat watching her helplessly. He was only eleven years old, and already his heart ached. Like many boys his age, he had heard poems about wounded hearts and thought those only words. Yet now his heart actually hurt, a physical pain in his chest, as if all his tears had gathered there and lay swollen, pulsing. Hesitantly he reached forward and touched his sister’s hair.
“Aeolia,” he said.
She drew away, huddling deeper into the corner under the slanting roofbeams. She began to tremble, which made the straw on the floor crackle. The walls also shivered, jostled by the wind. The roof also shed tears, leaking raindrops through its thatch. The entire attic was weeping, Joren thought. All but him. He could not weep, though he wanted to, also.
“Aeoly,” he tried again, softer this time, using her favorite diminutive. “I brought you something. A gift.”
She said nothing, but her mumbling stopped. It was nighttime, and only a small lantern lit the attic. Shadows cloaked the girl. Joren could see only the whites of her eyes, glistening in the lamplight, watching him, peeking from her sodden hair.
“Here,” he said, handing her a cloth bundle. He held it extended for a long time, while she only watched him. Then, finally, the straw crackled closer, and the girl’s hand protruded from the shadows. She snatched the bundle and retreated back into the corner. Joren could see her moving, unfolding the cloth. The tangy, earthy smell of goat cheese filled the attic, mingling with the smells of mold and wet wood.
“I got it from Old Monny, down at Chalk Corner,” Joren said, trying to hide that aching heart. “So you and Stuffings will have something to eat on the way.”
Still she did not answer. The only sounds were the dripping raindrops, the rattling walls, and the crackling straw. Finally, when Joren was about to speak again, came a shaky whisper from the shadows.
“But I can’t go now. It’s raining.”
That ache again, stronger. Gingerly, Joren crept into the corner, under the rafters and onto the straw pile. He knelt beside his sister. She cowered like a wounded animal, hugging her doll, shivering. Joren plucked the straw from her hair and parted the almond-brown strands, revealing her round, white face. Tears blurred her honey eyes and spiked her lashes. Her lips quivered. So little, Joren thought. She was so little. Better one child with food than two without, their father had said, but how could something so little possibly understand?
“Daddy says you must,” he said.
“Stuffings is scared. She doesn’t want the monster to take us.” Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell into her lap. Joren felt her shivering beneath his palm.
“Then you must be brave,” he said. “Let Stuffings see how brave you can be.”
“She can’t see, Joren, remember? You never brought me buttons for her eyes.”
He smiled sadly. He had been saving copperdrops for buttons, but bought the cheese instead. Perhaps that had been wrong. The ache returned, sharp and twisting, erasing his smile. If it were only her being sold, he thought, only good-bye. But it was more. Joren would make her lose more than just freedom. He touched her cheek. Her tears wet his hand.
“Don’t cry, Aeoly,” he whispered. “You’re six years old. You’re a big girl now.” He knew how she loved to hear that.
“Really?” she asked, raising her red-rimmed eyes with hope.
Joren nodded with all the solemnity of his older years. “You must be like King Sinther now—strong as stone.”
A soft smile touched her lips. She loved to hear stories of the stone king, who felt no pain. “Strong as stone,” she mumbled.
Joren forced himself to smile back. He had never done anything more difficult. “You’re a big girl, and I want you to make a big girl’s promise. Can you do that, Aeoly? Can you make me a promise?”
She gave a small shrug, with only one shoulder, like she always did. A “rug,” he would call it, which always made her laugh. He wondered if he would ever see her do it again.
“What promise?” Her voice was small, trying not to tremble.
Joren took her hand, struggling to keep his face from showing his pain. But when he opened his mouth to speak, it was suddenly all too much. The words caught in his throat. He had to look away for fear he’d cry. How could he do this? To ask her to give up her talent, the only power she might have where she went....
But if anyone ever knew....
Joren managed to recompose his face. He held her little hand tight.
“Promise to keep your magic secret, Aeoly. Promise never to link again.”
Her voice was confused. “But I like linking.”
Her words tweaked Joren’s heart, so hard he winced. If King Sinther ever discovered her magic, ever discovered that Aeolia, by linking, could hurt him past his impenetrable skin....
Sinther, his heart stony like his skin, would do anything to kill the one who could defeat him.
Joren shut his eyes. Tears swam behind his lids. His voice shook. “I know, Aeoly, I know, Dewdrop, I know.... But some people don’t, Aeoly, some people would hurt you if they knew. You must keep it secret. Never link to anyone again. Never ever. Promise me, Aeoly.”
She opened her mouth, but before words could leave her throat, a tinkling sound came from downstairs. Coins bouncing against a table. Aeolia huddled deeper into the corner, hugging her doll tight. Her fingers dug into the frayed cloth so hard her knuckles whitened. She was shivering again.
“I’ll promise,” she whispered. “But only if you promise something, too.”
The stairs began to creak with a slow, heavy pace, heavier than a man’s. The walls moaned and bent, and thatch fell from the roofbeams. The lantern swung on its chain, swirling shadows like bad dreams. Joren found himself clutching straw in his fists.
“What is it? What do you want me to promise?”
Aeolia flung herself forward, out of the shadows, and wrapped her arms around him. Her grip was so tight he could hardly breathe.
“That you’ll save me, Joren!” she sobbed. “Promise you’ll save me from the monster.”
From the stairway came ragged wheezing, loud as bellows and coarse as sand. A stench like sweat and rot and bad breath filtered into the loft, so sickening it churned Joren’s stomach. Aeolia’s fingers dug into his back. She panted into his shirt.
“How can I save you?” he whispered. “I’m only a child.”
“I’ll wait till you’re bigger!”
The footsteps paused outside. Joren could see, in the crack beneath the door, the shadows of huge feet. Keys rattled in the lock, struggling against the rust. An impossibly deep voice grumbled foreign, guttural curses.
>
“Aeoly, I won’t come of age for ten years.”
“I’ll wait for you! Promise me, Joren, promise you’ll do it!”
Lightning flashed, bright and blinding. Thunder shook the floor. The wind slammed open the window, and the lantern guttered out. Darkness and storm filled the room. The straw flurried. The thatch flew from the roofbeams. Rain and hail buffeted Joren’s face, sharp and stinging. Wind flapped his shirt, bit his eyes, roared in his ears. He could hardly see or hear. He tried to rise, to go close the shutters, but Aeolia’s hand held him fast. He turned his head and glimpsed her in the flickering lightning. Her skin was flushed, her hair billowed, her doll had been blown from her grasp. As the storm raged around her she sat unmoving, holding his arm, staring at him steadily even as the door creaked open.
Joren nodded, sorrow swelling in his throat.
“I promise, Aeoly. I promise.”
Chapter One
The Beastlands, Ten Years Later
The well was deep and the bucket heavy. Aeolia grimaced as she heaved. The rope chafed her palms and her muscles ached. Her heels dug into the soil. The smell of moss filled her nostrils, and the dripping water laughed like pixies in her ears. When the bucket finally reached the top, she wrapped her arms around it. It was so wide her fingers did not meet. She pulled, tilting the wet wood, and spilled the water into the second bucket at her feet.
When her bucket was full, she straightened, knuckled her back and loosened her limbs. Splashing water had dampened her skirt, and she shivered. It was a cold morning, one for dozing by a fire or snuggling under down. For a moment Aeolia let her mind drift and remember mugs of hot milk, dog-eared picture books, clay tops, and a shabby rag doll. Those comforts were far away now, and her current companions were the broom and the duster, the shackles and the cane.
A sudden gust flurried dry leaves round her bare feet. Her hair blew over her eyes. She tucked the almond strands back into her kerchief and glanced at the sky. The clouds were as dark as the bruises on her back. It would soon rain. A skein of geese glided across the livid canopy, and Aeolia followed them with her eyes, fingering the tattoo on her hand. Perhaps this year I will fly away too, she thought. It was her tenth year from home. She was sixteen.
She gazed over the surrounding land, trying to imagine how it would feel seeing it for the last time. Hills rolled into the distance, patched with copses of birch and maple with leaves turning orange and gold. Boulders jutted like teeth from valleys of bindweed and thyme. Woodsmoke plumed in the distance, but the town that held its hearths was hidden in the folds of the land. Aeolia sighed. The landscape had become as familiar as her own round face. She wondered if she would ever see a different horizon.
She turned away and lifted her bucket with a wince. The weight tugged at her arms, and the iron handle dug into her palms. Fetters jingling, she began hobbling up the cobbled path. With every step the bucket tilted, and water splashed to feed the weeds pushing from under the cobblestones. The old oak’s branches creaked in the breeze. Dry leaves landed in Aeolia’s hair or hit the ground to scuttle along like beetles. A raven fluttered off a swaying branch and perched on a cobwebbed plow. A lizard, startled by the bird, crossed the path and disappeared under a bramble.
The tall, brooding cottage sat at the end of the path like a neglected tombstone. Its unpainted walls were decaying, and its roof lacked half its tiles. The chimney looked ready to collapse. Beanstalks climbed the walls and ruptured the windows, like a great, green fist clutching the house. As the ogre aged and his sight dimmed he cared less about such matters, and railed about the broken shutters only if his joints ached that day. Secretly, Aeolia suspected he liked his house rotting and old, for he himself was so.
The front steps were as tall as Aeolia’s knees. She sat down on the first, holding the bucket so it dangled between her legs. She pushed herself up step by step—the only way to climb in her shackles—and stood up on the porch. Spiders fled from her feet to disappear between the floor planks. Two crows fluttered off the old spinning wheel into the air. With a sigh of relief, Aeolia dropped her bucket beside the front door. After wiping her sore hands on her apron, she stood on tiptoe, reached overhead, and grabbed the doorknob. The door creaked open, and Aeolia dragged her bucket inside.
The living room smelled of decay—a faint, constant odor Aeolia attributed to the rotting wood. Objects crowded every corner: animal heads hung on the walls, rare stones perched on the mantel, a bearskin lay on the floor. Dried roses, a tobacco box, and a pipe sat on a cherry table. Beside the table stood an old sofa, fleece pushing out of tatters in its green upholstery. Everything in the room was twice too large for Aeolia. The tabletop reached her shoulder. The sofa towered over her head. She could have stood in the fireplace. She always felt dwarfed and insignificant beside this giant furniture, like a fluff of dust.
She could hear the ogre snoring upstairs, a sound like chains dragging over stone. Creaks accompanied the snores—the ogre’s daughter pacing her room. A shiver ran down Aeolia’s spine. The attic was a strange place. It always chilled her to think of it. She went upstairs only to change the linens and empty the chamber pots, and always worked quickly and rushed back down, glad to escape the soupy air and sickly ogress.
The house had a basement, too. Aeolia had never been in it, and the ogres never spoke of it, but she had seen the trapdoor hidden beneath the sofa. When she had once asked where the trapdoor led, the ogre caned her so hard he broke her arm. She never asked again, but once, when the ogre and his daughter slept, she had crawled under the sofa and tried the trapdoor. It had been locked, and so Aeolia was left to guess what lay below.
Embers still glowed in the hearth from last night. Aeolia stirred them with the poker. An earthenware mug hung over the embers from a wire, and she filled it from her bucket; the ogre liked hot water with his breakfast. For a moment she stood gazing into the fire, warming her hands and remembering their own small hearth in Stonemark where she and her brother would play. She thought how they would never be young again, and a lump filled her throat. But he would come this year, she told herself. He had promised.
She left the water to boil and dragged her shackles into the pantry. Shelves lined the small room, bulging with sacks and jars and bundles and kegs. Strings of garlic, ham sausages, and sheaves of oats hung from the roofbeams. Sundry smells of spices tickled the nose: paprika, cumin, curry, and sage. Aeolia took a plate from a cupboard and filled it with the ogre’s favorite foods: a chunk of licorice, some figs stuffed with peanuts, a stick of rhubarb, and a clump of honeyed seaweed. She stepped back into the living room and placed the food and boiling water on the table.
It was not long before the snoring upstairs died. Aeolia heard the springs in his bed creak, a thump as his feet hit the floor, the dim trickle of him filling his chamber pot. Soon the stairs began to moan, his cane tapped, his breath wheezed loud and coarse. Aeolia clutched a handful of her skirt and took a step back as the sounds grew closer. The staircase first revealed large, bare feet and the hard, wooden butt of a cane. Then, as the ogre continued descending, came bandy legs, a potbelly, and finally a hunchback and a fleshy, yellow face.
Aeolia curtsied. “Good morning, Master.”
The ogre bunched his tufted eyebrows and brushed past her wordlessly. Even with his stoop he stood twice her height, and his cane was wide as her arm. The floor creaked mournfully under his weight; he had fattened with age, and his woolen vest looked ready to pop its buttons. A stench like congealed blood clung to him, and his beard rustled with lice. He reached his chair, sat down with a groan, and laid his cane across his lap.
Aeolia frowned. Something was wrong with the ogre today. He did not run his finger along the armrest, checking for dust as always, only twiddled his thumbs and stared into his lap. He did not wolf down his food as was his wont, but seemed scarcely to notice the plate. Usually grumpy, this morning he seemed positively pensive.
“Is something wrong, Master?” Aeolia asked.
; The ogre’s beady, close-set eyes flicked up in surprise, as if he had just noticed Aeolia. He wiped his bulbous nose with his sleeve and spoke in his deep, guttural voice. “I am worried about my daughter.”
“Is she melancholy again?”
The ogre nodded. “Worse than ever, yes indeed. She sleeps all day and night.”
“I can hear her pacing upstairs, Master.”
The ogre gripped his cane, and Aeolia winced, cursing herself for contradicting him. But the ogre soon loosened his grasp, his ire gone so quickly only Aeolia’s pounding heart testified it had existed.
“Her eyes are open,” the ogre said, “but they see only dreams. Her mouth speaks, but reports only the sight of her eyes.”
“Truly, Master? I’ve not noticed.”
The ogre scratched himself. “She appears lucid, yes indeed. But listen to her talk and it is all fantasy. She is delusional with glumness, I fear. You must remember never to believe her words. Whatever fiddlesticks she speaks, know it is her madness speaking.”
“I will remember, Master.”
The ogre grunted and lifted his plate. His red nose—large and round like a human head—twitched over the food. He thrust out his jaw and tilted the plate over his rotting fangs, letting the food slide into his mouth. He chewed the lot slowly, gazing into the fire as if lost in thought. Aeolia helped push back what food dripped down his chin.
After swallowing his breakfast he began sipping his water. Aeolia stepped into the pantry and packed him a fresh leg of goat for his lunch. She filled his wineskin with cider. When she returned to the living room the ogre had drained his mug, and she helped him rise from his chair. He limped toward the wall, where his coat and hat hung on pegs, and Aeolia climbed her ladder and helped him dress. She opened the door and bid him good-bye. The ogre grunted and limped outside, where the wind flapped his coat and drowned the tapping of his hard, hard cane.
Firefly Island, an Epic Fantasy Page 1