The Door in the Hedge

by Robin McKinley

  “There will be tea by the time we go back,” said Alora, as if the four of them had been for a quiet walk before breakfast and were returning to the palace. “And there are plenty of sandwiches left.”

  Linadel thought of the fruit tree that had provided them their supper the night before, and she looked around for it; but it was not there. The rocks that parted the water of the stream lay in different places than she remembered them from the evening before; and the trees around her … were not the same trees. She shivered a little, and knew that she had come home. Then she remembered that it was no longer home, and she hung her head, pretending to gaze at a squirrel that was sitting at the foot of a tree very near them, debating within itself if it dared dash by them. But her parents saw the change of mood in her, and their happiness faltered without their knowing why; and then, before she opened her mouth to begin to explain, they did know why, and their sigh was the sigh of the people who had held the golden ribbons. Donathor stood a little apart from them, the parents and their only child, but she felt his awareness of her, and the strength he tried to offer her through the soft sweet air of that small clearing; and her courage returned, although her sorrow was not lessened by it.

  She raised her head and looked at her father and mother in turn, and she knew that they knew already what she was about to say; but that still they waited for her to say it. “I cannot stay here,” she said. “Donathor and I are going away—as far away as we can, till we find a country like neither of those we are leaving; and we know we may not find such a land, but we are doomed to the search. We cannot stay here, as we could not stay in his—his parents’ land.”

  As she spoke she looked beyond those she spoke to, at the strange tree that stood where the fruit-laden tree had been; and she wondered again how such things as boundaries were arranged, and she heard her own words: we cannot stay, and even as she said them she cringed away from them, although she knew she had no choice but to do as she had said they must. And she saw little glints of sunlight through the green leaves of that tree, and she seemed to see the branches bend a little lower, and phantom yellow globes of fruit hanging from them. The trees murmured together as friends will as they make room for one another, and are joined by those who have been absent; and through this shifting, swaying, half-seen wood she glimpsed something else: a tall hedge pierced with arches, arches so tall that the tallest king in his stateliest crown could pass through any without bending his head; and the arches were outlined with flowers. She was not sure of the hedge because she was not sure of the impossible trees and the transparent fruit; but then she noticed one arch in particular, and was certain that the flowers around it were violet, with stems of lapis lazuli; and she saw people approaching that arch, and passing through it, coming toward herself and Donathor and her parents; and of them she was sure beyond doubt. She and Donathor had left them only yesterday.

  Alora and Gilvan saw them too. Gilvan took his hands out of his pockets. The royal tailors needn’t really have worried, except for their own pride of craft; Gilvan looked like a king even when he should have looked like a woodcutter with baggy pants, as Alora could only be a queen, even in a partridge-colored dress and heavy boots. “Wait,” said the King who approached them, for he was no less obviously a king than Gilvan. “Wait. We shall not lose our children so—and you will help us.” His Queen had suddenly stopped, and stood staring, as humble and innocent as a lost child. Gilvan felt rather than saw Alora take a step forward, and he almost did not recognize her voice as she said:

  “Ellian.”

  And the Faerie Queen burst into tears and ran to put her arms around her long-lost sister.

  Those whom Alora and Gilvan had left behind at the palace spent a long, grim day, pecking at their work and at each other, and trying not to think about anything. The royal party had left quietly, winding its way through the palace gardens—which could go on forever if you did not know how to find your way—slipping out at last through a small ivy-rusted side door; and no one was conscious of having mentioned their departure to anyone else. It was as though the ban on speaking of their elusive neighbors had reached out and instantly engulfed those who dared not only to admit their existence openly but to go in search of them, apparently expecting to find them.

  But while the countrymen the King and Queen passed on their way to the Queen’s remembered meadow asked no question, and while those in the palace sent no messages, somehow by the time the sun set, there were few in that land who did not know that the King and Queen had followed their daughter into the unknown. It was a very quiet evening; no one could think of anything worth discussing, and everyone went to bed early. Even the retired King and Queen felt in their forest that something was not right, although they spoke to no one but each other; and the flowers in their garden drooped, and the shadows that the petals cast were dusty grey instead of black.

  The next morning was dull with heavy clouds, and the farmers went grudgingly to tend dull grey fields, and the craftsman unshuttered their dull grey shops; and the wives in their kitchens were cross, because the dough they had set out the night before had failed to rise.

  But the sun broke through as the morning lengthened, and the clouds lost their stranglehold on the sky, and even the people’s hearts lightened, although they would have been ashamed to admit it; and they watched the clouds break into pieces and drift across the sky till they were mere wisps. People blinked and smiled at one another again, tentatively, because they still preferred not to think about anything too closely.

  Then the first and fleetest of the children from the outlying villages came breathless to the palace, but no one believed them at first; even the brightness of their eyes, the irrepressible joy that stared out from their rumpled hair and the folds of their clothing did not convince the cautious city-dwellers of the truth of the story they told. Not even the crowns and necklaces of blue and yellow and white and lavender flowers they wore were convincing. But their parents came soon behind them, jogging on foot or riding on shaggy plough horses with flowers tangled in their thick manes; and these horses seemed to have forgotten their ploughs, for they lifted their feet like the daintiest of carriage ponies and flicked their tails like foals. The road to the palace was soon crowded with laughing shouting people, and the white dust hung so thick in the air that flower petals tossed overhead hung suspended in it; and it smelled as sweet as the fruit-seller’s stall the morning of market day.

  The news these flower-mad mortals carried was lost in the tumult; but all those people who had heard nothing the night before, and had gone to bed early and grudged the morning, all of them found themselves washing their hands and changing their shirts, putting on their hats, and making their way to the palace, where something was happening, something splendid; and they went, and they were caught up in the sudden holiday. Not a store could boast its proprietor still within doors; not only the schoolchildren crawled through the windows to join the throng, but their teachers tucked up their skirts and their trouser-cuffs and followed them, not remembering the existence of doors at all.

  The old King and Queen found all their flowers nodding firmly in the same direction; and they sighed, but not very much, for something had crept into their hearts too that made them eager to go; and so they began the long walk back to the palace where they had spent so much of their lives, for the second time since their retirement.

  And at last into the city came its King and Queen, and its Princess; but the Queen held by the hand another Queen, who smiled a smile brighter than the flowers that hung in the air, and a smile that many found strangely familiar, but they could not pause long enough to wonder at it. Alora held Gilvan’s hand on her other side, and the dark Queen held the hand of her King. When the people waiting for them saw them, a shout went up even louder than before, and no one felt the least hoarse, although they had already been shouting most of the morning. How handsome the four of them looked, walking side by side, their own beloved King and Queen, and the strange pair too:
you need only look into the eyes of the dark Queen and know at once that she was to be trusted, as the eyes and the mouth of the strange King told the same story of him.

  Only Gilvan waved; Alora’s hands were full, and the other King, who also had a hand free, felt that some introduction was necessary before he acknowledged the cheers of a people who didn’t know yet what they were cheering at. There was no one in that crowd who had the least inclination to find fault with anybody just then, and they loved him for his smiles, and thought nothing of his not waving, just as no one thought of Gilvan as dressed like a woodcutter, with flints and bits of twigs making lumps in his pockets, or of Alora’s scuffed boots.

  Behind them came the twenty who had accompanied Alora and Gilvan on their fools’ quest only the day before; and with them a hundred more, strangers, who carried flowers, yellow, white, blue, and violet, and wove them in chains and tossed them to the crowd. They felt no shyness about their anonymity; they waved and smiled and called back to the people who called to them, although no one knew what words were exchanged. The twenty of the court were the most flower-bedecked of anyone, and they linked arms and walked four abreast like an honor guard, except their grins gave them away.

  Then at the end of this train was a space that none of the crowd seemed inclined to fill; and you could see underfoot a carpet of flowers and white dust, and green leaves and sifted pollen. Then, behind this, came Linadel and a strange young man whose beauty and presence were perhaps even equal to that of the Princess; and the crowd gasped and for a moment was silent, and then a new shout went up, but this time, for the first time, there was no question what the people cried:

  “Long live the new Queen and her King!”

  Even triumphal marches end, and the dust settles and becomes gritty between the teeth, and down the back of the neck, and inside the shoes, where it is discovered to have produced blisters.

  Gilvan and Alora led their new-found friends and relatives, and their reclaimed daughter and her young man, and the now-exhausted escort of twenty, dripping flowers, and those from beyond the border who had followed their King and Queen, into the palace gardens, and shut the door firmly behind them. The people outside still cheered, but it was observed that the crowds broke up fairly quickly, and rushed around to the front of the palace, where they might expect a speech from the Balcony of Public Appearances and Addresses that would explain everything to them. They did not have to wait long; Gilvan motioned aside the ladies-and-gentlemen-in-waiting—and all the fascinated onlookers who had arranged themselves in the halls and courtyards—and said, “It’s hardly fair to make them out there wait for their wash and brush-up while we have ours—but for heaven’s sake go stir up the kitchen, we’re as hungry as bears.”

  It was Alora who did the introducing, as the six of them stood on the balcony and strained their eyes to see the end of the crowd, and as the members of the crowd jostled for position and strained their eyes to see the six on the balcony. “This is my sister, Ellian, whom we have not seen for so many long years; she is now Queen Ellian, consort of King Thold, and they rule together that country next to ours”—here there was a pause, but it could be explained that Alora was shouting as loudly as she could and at this point needed a deep breath—“the Land Beyond the Trees.”

  Everybody cheered, and nobody minded, even those who knew what was going on, and those too far away to hear, who tried to wait patiently till they could tackle someone who had secured a better position and could tell them what had been said.

  Then Linadel and Donathor were brought forward, and Gilvan announced, “And this is Prince Donathor, eldest son of King Thold and Queen Ellian, and the betrothed of our daughter, the Princess Linadel: and the wedding will be celebrated in a fortnight’s time.”

  Everybody cheered again, but hushed very quickly as Queen Ellian stepped forward: and some of those who recognized her from her youth found their eyes growing dim as they saw how much lovelier she had become.

  “And we have all agreed that we are proud and happy that our children should reign jointly over our two kingdoms after we retire, and the celebration of this wedding will also be a celebration of the unity of our two countries in a new understanding and fellowship. For too long our two countries have turned their faces from each other, as if they were separate planets and the air each breathed was inimical to the other. Henceforward we shall be neighbors, good neighbors and friends, in all things.”

  And this time the cheering went on for so very long that people did begin to feel hoarse, and then everybody went home for dinner, and Alora, Gilvan, Ellian, Thold, Linadel, and Donathor were very glad to descend from the balcony to the baths and dinner awaiting them.

  EPILOGUE

  THE TWO WEEKS passed, and the wedding was performed, and everyone from both sides of the border came to Alora’s and Gilvan’s palace for the ceremony, and stayed for the week’s feasting after; and all were happy. But, of course, it did not end there.

  The door in the hedge had remained open for those two weeks of preparation; for Ellian, having recovered her sister, would not let her go; nor would Alora think of parting with her. And then too the parents of the betrothed pair had many things to plan and discuss to-together; and they found not only that they could work cheerfully together, but that they were friends almost at once; not only the two sisters, but also the two Kings. Within a few days so many old wounds had healed over that Gilvan remembered how Ellian had teased him, long ago, about being besotted with her sister, while Ellian herself had managed to remain free of such entanglements. Gilvan reminded her of it, and she laughed, and teased him all over again, saying that the years hadn’t changed him in the least, and that furthermore she was glad of it.

  Perhaps they did not think of what that open door in the hedge would bring about, or perhaps they put it deliberately out of their minds, or perhaps they recognized that the time of choice had passed with the end of that first meeting in the strange forest, where briefly they had stood on ground that existed as two places at once; and so they resigned themselves to the inevitable. If any of the mortals had any consciousness of what was happening, beyond anyone’s power now to halt, it was Gilvan; for Alora was too caught up in the tumultuous delight of having not only a daughter, but an excellent husband for that daughter, and a sister besides.

  It was Gilvan who woke up one night and found himself thinking before he was awake enough to realize where his thoughts were taking him and deflect them in time. And his thoughts said to him: “When was the time of choice? When did you stand at the crossroads and say this way—not that? Could any of us, in that uncanny wood, have said, ‘No—I condemn my child to eternal wandering—I know for certain what will come of it else, and know for certain that it would be evil’?” He lay staring at the starlight, turning his life, and his wife’s, and his daughter’s, over in his mind as best he could; and then, because he was a king, he considered the lives of his country and his people; and at the end he could still only reply, “I don’t know.”

  He turned to look at Alora and, as if even in her sleep she sensed some anxiety in her husband, she crept nearer him and laid her head on his shoulder. Perhaps it was the rosy smile on her lips that cured him, but eventually he fell asleep again.

  For while the door in the hedge remained open, any could pass through, again and again if they chose, and for any reason; for the door was now always there, near the tree with the yellow fruit, and the thin stream broken by rocks that no longer moved in their places. And the mothers and fathers of long-lost infants, and the forlorn sweethearts of young ladies who had disappeared behind that hedge, went through that door: and many found what they sought. No mortal can remain unchanged after meeting again with a loved one who has been touched by the faeries; and the change is all the more profound for its being little realized. There were some, too, from the far side of the border who came to the near side, to seek what they had lost: for it is only purblind mortals who suppose that they have a monopoly on bereavement.
But it was a lesson to the immortals that creatures of so short a life span can sincerely grieve: for only immortals can disregard time.

  And so families met again, faerie as well as human; and too much knowledge exchanged hands, though little of it was spoken aloud. No mortal should understand why the babies stolen are always boys, while the girls who are taken have first gained some number of years; no faerie should comprehend what can call a fellow immortal back over the border, once crossed by one originally human, who became a grandmother or grandfather of immortals, and yet passed on some almost mortal restlessness to their descendants. None should: but some ties are too strong for such division, and the families spoke blood to blood, and the lovers heart to heart, and understanding came, and with it, change.

  So it was that even after the first fortnight, during the wedding, and the brilliant, giddy, overfed week that followed it, Gilvan could smell a change in the air, a tone in the pitch of the people’s cheers that was different from that which had first rung over the heads of the returning Linadel and her Donathor. If he had been willing to face this sense of change squarely, he could have argued with himself that this was because there were as many faeries present for the celebration as there were of his own people, and they had perhaps different-sounding lungs. But since he did not face it squarely, he did not have to argue speciously with himself, and he was left with the accurate if unspecific sense that something—something—had shifted.