"That's so much better," the tree sighed as she worked. "You're almost as good at this as my mistress."
The apples were big and fragrant, smelling as rich as spiced wine. Ida's stomach rumbled and her mouth watered, but she'd told too many fairy tales to little Linza to be tempted to eat them. That way almost always led to a grisly end.
"And who is your mistress?" Ida asked, curious and hoping to distract herself.
"The Nixie, of course," the tree answered. "You are in her kingdom. How did you get here without knowing where you are?"
"I fell down the well." Ida's tone was shorter than the tree likely deserved.
"Ah, poor thing," the tree said, sympathetically. It lowered its last apple into Ida's reach. "You can eat this one, for your help," it offered.
"That's very kind," Ida said, and put the apple in the bucket with all the others. She was thirstier than ever and a juicy apple sounded wonderful, but she didn't want to risk the Nixie's wrath.
"You'd better take the apples to my mistress' house," the tree suggested. "She'll know what to do with a lost traveler like you."
"How do I find the Nixie's house?" Ida asked. The bucket was surprisingly light when she lifted it, despite all the apples she'd put in.
"How am I supposed to know that? I'm a well-rooted tree! I don't go faffing about like a fish!" The tree seemed practically affronted. "All I know is that my mistress comes from the direction you were headed, and goes back that way once she's harvested the apples."
"Thank you for your help, apple tree," Ida said, and continued on.
After the apple tree, the scenery began to change. There began to be short stone walls here or there. The fields began to be cultivated instead of wild. There were stands of wheat and oats and barley that were tasseling and nearly ready for harvest, beside fields that were half-grown, beside fields freshly-planted, beside fields lying fallow. There were fruit trees in full bloom beside fruit trees with hard green fruits beside trees standing bare, as though it were winter.
None of them spoke to Ida, at least, and it did seem like she was going the right direction. Soon, she went around a corner in the path, and came in sight of a house. It was a squat stone cottage: simple, but well-tended, with large, open windows and a slate roof and hops vines growing over it. A little curl of smoke came out of the chimney, and the smell of fresh bread was stronger than ever.
If this was the Nixie's cottage, maybe she could send Ida home. If not, maybe whoever lived there could help her, anyway. Ida hurried toward it, hopeful, but there was a white nanny goat in the field beside the cottage and she began crying piteously as soon as she spotted Ida.
Ida stopped and plucked a few blades of grass, offering them over the stone fence to the goat. "What's wrong, little goat?"
"My mistress is late!" the goat answered, and Ida stumbled back so fast she very nearly dropped the bucket of apples.
"You talk!" Ida gasped. She probably shouldn't be surprised, after the apple tree.
"Mehehehe." The goat laughed. "The look on your face! It would almost be worth it if this weren't so cursed uncomfortable." The goat stamped her hooves, and now Ida could see that the goat's udder was swollen tight with milk.
"You're late for milking, poor thing!" Ida sympathized. "Is there anything I could do to help?"
"That's kind of you, girl, but I should wait for my mistress, the Nixie..." The goat stood up on her hind legs briefly to look further down the road Ida had come from. "She should have been back by now."
"My name is 'Ida', not 'girl'," Ida corrected. "I already picked a bucket of apples to bring to the Nixie. I'm sure I could bring a pail of milk, too. If I could borrow a pail."
The goat tipped her head to the side, eying Ida for a long moment, before she bobbed her head in a nod. "Very well. The gate's this way!" The goat led, and Ida followed.
The gate was set beneath a stone arch, and a copper pail was hanging on a hook beside it. Ida took the pail and let herself into the field, leaving the bucket of apples outside in the shade.
"Do you have a stanchion?" Ida looked around, but there did not seem to be a shed for milking the goat, or anything to tie her to. The goat wasn't even wearing a halter to lead her with.
"Of course not," the goat said. "You only need to clean my hooves—starting with my left front and going around clockwise—and give me something sweet to eat, and I will stand still until you're done milking."
"Will an apple do?" Ida asked. She didn't have anything else to offer. She didn't dare eat the apple that the tree had offered her. If she gave one of the Nixie's apples to the Nixie's goat, it wasn't like she'd taken one for herself.
"Oh, yes!" The goat pranced in place in excitement. "I like apples!"
Ida picked an apple out of the bucket, careful to choose the one the tree said she could have, and tucked it into her pocket. She plucked a handful of grass and twisted it together to clean the goat's hooves with. The goat lifted her hooves one at a time for Ida to wipe down, and they weren't very dirty to begin with. Ida set the goat's hooves down sparkling clean, and split the apple in half between her hands.
The apple smelled even sweeter when it was broken open, and it dripped with juice, but Ida resisted taking a bite of it herself and gave both halves to the goat to nibble on. True to her word, the goat stood still until Ida was done milking. Ida filled the copper pail clear to the top with rich, foaming milk, and patted the goat's shoulder when she was done.
"Thank you, that's much better," the goat said, chomping down the last of the apple core. "You did nearly as well as my mistress. You can have a drink of the milk if you like. You look thirsty."
Ida was thirsty. Her throat was dry and her cheeks felt flushed, but she still didn't dare. "That's very kind," she said, instead. "I take it the milk goes into the cottage?"
"Yes, but once my mistress goes through the door, I don't know where she takes it," the goat said. "I've never been inside."
Ida nodded and let herself out the gate to carry both the milk and apples to the cottage. Little fish darted away from her and peered at her out of bushes, and frogs hopped out of her way. The door of the cottage was standing ajar, but before Ida reached it, a figure she'd taken for a shadow uncoiled itself from beside the door and darted out to bar her path. It was a pike, at least as long as Ida was tall, with burning eyes and vicious teeth. Ida bit her tongue to keep from screaming in surprise as she stepped smartly back. She didn't spill the apples or milk, but it was a close thing.
"Who would pass?" the pike growled. "Who would dare approach the Nixie's home?"
Ida took a deep breath and bobbed a slight curtsy. "A lost traveler, bringing the Nixie apples and milk."
"Hmm." The pike looked Ida up and down. "The apples and milk are supposed to go inside, but strangers are not." The pike thrashed his tail, shaking his long, dished face as though he could force a compromise between both ideas.
"I'm Ida," Ida said. "Now that we're introduced, I'm not a stranger any more. I'm sure the Nixie wouldn't be happy if her milk went sour because I couldn't take it in."
The pike hummed again thoughtfully, sniffing deep as it eyed the milk bucket. It licked its lips hungrily—Ida had not known that a fish could do that. Though maybe it went along with being able to talk.
"I'm sure the Nixie wouldn't mind if I gave you the skimmed foam off the top of the milk," Ida mused. It was less milk than the goat had said Ida could drink herself.
"Yes, yes!" The pike practically wagged his tail, darting over to circle a bowl beside the step. Ida carefully scooped the foam into the bowl, and the pike buried his long nose in it to slurp it up. "You're such a nice person, Miss Ida," the pike said, utterly heartfelt with foam dripping from his nose. "I'm sure my mistress didn't mean to keep you out of the house."
Ida nearly laughed, but instead she nodded to the pike and stepped past him. Inside, the cottage kitchen was bright and airy. There were clean mats of rushes on the floor, and a small stream of water running around the room in
a trough along the wall and pooling in a wide sink. That was unusual, but considering it was a nixie's home, probably to be expected.
The trickling of the water was torment to Ida's dry mouth. The Nixie wouldn't mind if she took just a mouthful, would she?
"The bread is done!" the oven exclaimed loudly, jolting Ida away from temptation. "Take the bread out before it burns!"
"I'll get it!" Ida promised. She put the milk pail in the sink to cool, left the apples on a chair, and wrapped her hands in her apron to pull the bread out. It was gorgeous bread: two big, brown loaves, and Ida set them on the table to cool. While the oven was open, the meat that was roasting in the back needed to be turned over, and there was a long fork nearby to turn it with.
It was a rich cut of meat, fat and juicy and near to falling apart with its slow roasting. Ida could have taken a little sliver of it to taste easily, but she resisted. She closed the oven firmly and began looking for the cellar to store the apples. A trap door in the corner of the kitchen proved to have a short stone staircase in it, and Ida took the apples down.
The cellar itself was small, but clean and neat and well-organized, with buckets holding fruits and vegetables. Ida set the apples beside a nearly-empty bucket of red apples. She was just emerging from the cellar when she heard a voice like the screeching of a rusty hinge.
"Has anyone passed my door, my loyal River Wolf?"
"Only the maiden bearing apples and milk, my Mistress," the pike answered.
"You let her in?" The Nixie—it must be the Nixie—pushed into the cottage. She was a tall woman, at least as tall as Linza, with skin as gray and knobbled as a toad, her hands webbed and her long silvered-black hair as snarled as though it had not been brushed in a year.
Ida was caught halfway out of the cellar door. It was far too late to try to run or hide, so she stepped quickly through and shut it behind her, dropping a smart curtsy.
"Madam Nixie, a lost traveler at your mercy."
The Nixie tossed her heavy, moss-covered cloak aside and pulled a gleaming, sharp knife out of her ribs. She hissed at it and it rusted, pitted, crumbled into red dust to sweep out of the window on a current of air—before she turned her boggling, green eyes toward Ida. She blinked once, a film flicking over her eyes from the side like a reptile or a bird. Ida's palms prickled with sweat.
"I have taken nothing of yours," Ida promised, the words falling over themselves in a nervous tumble. "I helped where I was asked. I meant no harm or insult."
"I know that," the Nixie answered. Her voice was still rough and shrill, but gentler than it had been. "You have set all you touched to right. But how did you come here?"
"My stepsister and I were spinning beside the well." Ida could feel her lip trembling. It could have been a moment or a lifetime ago that she was happily tending to little Linza. "But the spindle fell in and I..." Ida pulled Linza's beautiful little spindle out of her pocket, still marked with her own blood.
"Ah, kind stepdaughter." The Nixie nodded to herself. She was suddenly very close, and it was all Ida could do not to flinch away when she reached up to touch Ida's cheek. Her hand was strange, but her touch was gentle and warm on Ida's cheek, and the aching bruise there faded immediately at the touch. "I have one last task for you. Come. Brush my hair without pulling, and we will see what is to be done with you."
The Nixie spun away into another room, pulling Ida along in her wake. It was a bedroom, with a wide bed nearly obscured by the waving reeds that grew around it. The Nixie sat herself before a fancier vanity than any Ida had ever seen, gesturing Ida imperiously toward the combs and brushes with one webbed hand.
The table top was littered with rings and necklaces made of silver and gold, gems and pearls. There were a dozen combs and brushes, most jeweled and decorated, and Ida hesitated. Which of these would actually work for the Nixie's tangled hair?
There was one comb, simpler than most, carved of gleaming mother-of-pearl. That seemed like a water spirit's comb, and there was a black hair tangled around its teeth. Ida picked it up, careful to touch nothing else, and turned toward the Nixie's waiting back.
"Don't fail me, little comb," she whispered, and began from the bottom. Her own hair had always been easy to tend, but Ida had more than enough experience brushing little Linza's hair. Linza had beautiful flaxen hair, but it had been terribly wispy and tangly when Linza was a baby. Only Ida had been able to comb it without making her cry, and she was still Linza's favorite for brushing her hair.
Even Linza's hair had never been tangled this badly, but maybe there was a magic on the comb. It was still delicate work, but the Nixie's thick hair fell into smooth, silver-shot black sheets and did not re-tangle. Ida found herself humming a tune the way she might to Linza. When she finally reached the top of the Nixie's hair, Ida pulled a little back from both temples to braid it behind the Nixie's head, to keep it all contained now that it was brushed.
"There," Ida stepped back, satisfied, and the Nixie turned around.
Only she did not look like the same Nixie at all. Her eyes were still wide and green, but no longer boggling like a frog, and set in an oval, brown face with smile wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She looked nearly human, except for the webbing on her fingers. She looked like a respectable matron, though far more elegant than any Ida had ever seen. The Nixie smiled, beautiful as the sunrise, and Ida's heart stopped somewhere in her throat.
"Well done, stepdaughter." The Nixie's voice was different too: smooth and mellow. "Your kindness is matched by your patience."
"Ida," Ida managed to stutter out. "My name's Ida."
"Have a care who you share that with," the Nixie warned. "You are stronger than you know, and great harm could be done to you if it reached the wrong ears." But then she softened with a faint smile, leaning in close and confidential. Her skin smelled like summer rain after a dry spell, her eyes with their diamond-shaped pupils were as endless as whirlpools, as though Ida could fall in and drown there, too. "I am Elfreda—which name will never pass your lips outside the walls of my cottage."
One of Elfreda's long webbed fingers tapped Ida's lips. They tingled as if she'd taken a mouthful of snow, and Ida gasped.
"It is decided!" Elfreda spun away, her dress and hair flowing behind her and Ida was pulled helpless in her wake again as she returned to the kitchen. "I have been too busy recently. You will live with me and help me care for my house and lands, and everything is solved!"
"I have to go back to my family!" Ida protested. "They're all I have, and there's so much work to be done." There was always so much to do, she hated to think how much harder it would be for her family without her hands to help.
"No, you don't," Elfreda contradicted lightly, laughing. "You are in my lands now, and you need never go back to them again."
"But I..." Ida tried, at a loss for words, especially when Elfreda turned back toward her.
"You have worked so hard, but you have refused your rewards to remain hungry and thirsty." Elfreda dipped a cup in the streamlet of water that ran around the kitchen and held it out toward Ida. Drops of cool water dripped down the cup, and Ida licked her dry lips instinctively. She was so thirsty, but Ida still hesitated. "Why will you take nothing?" Elfreda asked.
"None of it has been mine to take," Ida protested. "I didn't want to steal anything, or... or be trapped? I don't know the rules of this place."
"Oh, drowned stepdaughter," Elfreda sighed, expression softening in sadness. She placed the cup of water in Ida's hands, wrapped her own hands around Ida's. "You are wise, but nothing in my lands will harm you. Here you will be treasured, protected, and given all the finest of everything I have. You will live as a princess in my home."
"I'd rather be useful," Ida answered. She'd rather go home than live in a fairy story.
"You will be that," Elfreda promised, eyes inescapable as she gently smoothed a strand of hair out of Ida's face. "Your help has already meant more to me than you can dream. Now drink, Ida." Elfreda nudged Ida's hand u
pward, and she drank as though she was under a spell.
The water was cold and sweet, more perfectly quenching than anything Ida had ever drunk before. She drank, and drank, and the cup was not empty until she'd had her fill.
Elfreda had removed the roast from the oven while Ida drank, and was now cutting it and laying hearty pieces and slices of bread on plates. "Eat with me!" Elfreda smiled, and Ida was hungrier than ever. The food smelled amazing, and Ida hardly hesitated to sit at the table. If she'd already risked drinking, she might as well risk eating. And she'd been explicitly invited by the mistress of the house.
The meat was perfect: well-spiced, rich and fat and perfectly crisp on the outside, and the bread was warm and chewy. Ida cleaned her plate and accepted seconds gladly. She'd always been blessed with a healthy appetite, but Elfreda far outmatched her in food eaten. Maybe all magical creatures ate so much to sustain their magic, or all nixies. Between the two of them, they finished a whole loaf of bread and stripped the roast to the bone.
When they were done, Elfreda showed Ida the small room adjoining the kitchen, cold as a springhouse with water flowing down the walls, where milk and butter were stored. Ida skimmed the cream from the morning's milk carefully, and then found herself agreeing to help make a honey cake with slices of the apples she'd harvested baked into it.
Ida washed the dishes while the cake baked, with Elfreda at her side, rinsing and drying everything as easily as if they'd been working together for years. Elfreda served up the cake when they were done, carefully choosing the best piece for Ida and topping it with plenty of cream.
It might be the most delicious thing Ida had ever tasted. The cake was sweet and tender, the apple slices baked to melting-softness within, and the cream the perfect compliment. Ida savored her slice slowly—it was far too rich to gobble down, and she didn't have room for more than just the one piece. Ida was yawning by the time she was done, and the light outside had dimmed to night. Small lamps like blown-glass spheres floated up from the corners of the room to fill the cottage with soft light.
Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8 Page 16