What filled the rooms of Grete’s cottage so decidedly were woven baskets and wooden boxes and clay pots glazed in red and blue, each with its own mishmash of this and that. Roots and leaves still redolent of dirt. Balls of scratchy wool in variegated strands—purple twining into pink easing into periwinkle fading into gray. At least three boxes held squares and strips of fabrics, all colors, and eight pots overflowed with apples.
The walls were lined with shelves, the shelves were lined with books. Wordless spines peered out. As soon as Isabelle saw them, she itched to open one up and read it from cover to cover.
“You girls sit, and I’ll bring you something to drink before I set to work on that ankle,” Grete instructed as she opened the stove door and livened up the fire with a few pokes of a stick.
“Tea?” Hen asked hopefully, taking a seat at the round table.
“Of a sort,” Grete replied. “And some bread, if you’re hungry. I made salt bread this morning.”
Isabelle thought of the salt and flour clay she’d made when she was little, the way it tasted like the ocean when she’d put a pinch of it in her mouth. But Grete’s bread had sweet notes beneath the salty ones, as though the ocean had chewed on sugar cubes for breakfast. The tea, however, was bitter, and Isabelle and Hen had to stir spoonfuls of honey into their cups before they could take a single sip.
“It will make you sleepy,” Grete said, pulling a rocking chair to the table and lifting Isabelle’s ankle onto her lap. “You look like a girl who needs a rest. You as well, Hen.”
Already Isabelle felt drowsy, but she still couldn’t help wondering, had Hen told Grete her name? They hadn’t introduced themselves as they’d walked through the woods to the cottage, no How do you do’s or a single Pleased to meet you, my name’s ———. But when they’d arrived at the doorstep, a package wrapped in rough brown paper and tied with twine was waiting, Grete of the Woods scrawled on it in ink so wet that it had branched out from every letter like veins. The address looked like something a spider might have written.
“That’s me,” Grete had said, picking up the package. “Though any more than one name is too many. The more names upon your head, the more they think they know about you.”
“Who’s they?” Hen had asked, but Grete just shook her head and said nothing more about it.
Now she carefully wrapped Isabelle’s ankle with a long piece of soft fabric that smelled like cedar chips and peppermint. Isabelle felt her eyes grow heavy as Grete explained to Hen how she’d prepared the poultice, boiling eucalyptus leaves into a syrup, mixing it with wax to make a salve, then spreading the salve onto the strips of cloth.
“We’ll put her in the bed, then,” Isabelle heard Grete say to Hen when she’d finished, and then had the sensation of being lifted and carried through the air. Suddenly she was on something soft, an ocean maybe, a loaf of salt bread for her pillow, a bluebird singing to her across the water.
16
As I write this, there’s a spider on my wall, and it’s tempting to reach out and smash it. But there are things to be learned from spending time with Grete. Spiders, it turns out, are beneficial creatures in more ways than you might imagine. They capture insects you want nothing to do with, sowbugs and locusts, black flies, aphids. But more than that. Spiders are the brilliant artists of the morning. They are known to be thinkers and philosophers of the highest order. It was a spider who first understood the moon and its dance with the tides, who whispered the truth of gravity’s secrets to anyone who would listen.
And that plain brown spider the size of a button on my wall? A teller of jokes, perhaps. One of the famous farmer spiders who grow tiny strawberries beneath the ferns by the side of the house. If I smashed him, what would I gain? And what might the world lose?
You could think about that the next time you’re tempted to stomp an ant on the sidewalk (ants, Grete would tell you, are the noblest of creatures, loyal to their families, hard workers, and also quite funny if you catch them in that moment just before sunset, their hauling and building done for the day, their frantic pace finally slowed) or are motivated to capture a butterfly and pin it to a piece of card-board.
What stories might go untold in the aftermath of our smashings and pinnings? What jokes demolished? What songs unsung?
Go in peace, little brown spider. You’re welcome here.
17
Isabelle limped from the bedroom cupping a spider in her hand. It was black and small and had been crawling across the top of the quilt when she woke up from her nap.
“What do you do with spiders around here?” she asked Grete, who had been discussing with Hen the finer points of collecting echinacea flowers from the roadside, both of them rocking in chairs on the front porch. Grete was knitting something on wooden needles, but Isabelle couldn’t tell what. It didn’t have sleeves. Could be a shawl, or maybe a parachute. Something interesting, Isabelle was positive. Grete didn’t strike her as a knitter of the same old thing.
“We let them go on their way,” Grete said. “That particular spider is named Travis. He is a traveler, an explorer, a news gatherer for his tribe.”
“You know the name of each spider, miss?” Hen asked Grete, one eyebrow raised. “And what its job is?”
“Indeed I do, Hen. All you have to do is ask. Spiders are known to have loose lips. They can’t seem to stop talking once they open their mouths.”
“Didn’t know they had lips at all, miss.”
“A spider is a most complete creature.” Grete laid down her knitting and stood up, reaching a hand toward Isabelle. “I’ll put Travis back on his path. Isabelle, come have a seat. You shouldn’t be moving about too much.”
After Grete went inside, Hen pulled her chair closer to Isabelle’s. “She’s a strange one, don’t you think?”
Isabelle considered this. She herself had been called strange all her life. “Strange” was the least of what she’d been called, but called it she was, almost every day. Even her own mother said to her from time to time, “Izzy, you’re the strangest child,” usually in response to a question Isabelle had asked, about ice cubes, for example, whether or not they ever felt cold to themselves, or something as simple as a pencil. “Do pencils have dreams?” she’d wondered out loud in first grade, staring somewhat dreamily herself at the No. 2 in her hand, ISABELLE BEENE inscribed in gold on its side (printer’s error; happens all the time). “Where do you get such strange thoughts?” her mom asked in response. Isabelle didn’t mind so much, her mom calling her strange, but she did wish she’d answer her questions.
Teachers whispered it in the hallway as Isabelle walked past, girls giggled it in the cafeteria as they watched Isabelle open her lunch box to reveal sandwiches made of hot dog buns and lavender jelly. Boys yelled it on the playground, along with “weirdo,” “retard,” and “doofus.” Complete strangers called Isabelle strange.
But Isabelle never felt strange. She felt like herself. She felt like an Isabelle Bean. What was so strange about that?
“No,” Isabelle replied. “I don’t think she’s strange at all.”
For dinner they ate a soup made out of ingredients neither of the girls quite recognized—twigs, it looked like, and some sort of tiny flowers in a broth that sighed a little sigh of woodland mushrooms—but it was good. They ate more salt bread and drank tea, though this tea was made from honeysuckle flowers and didn’t make Isabelle sleepy.
It was a warm evening, and after dinner Isabelle, Hen, and Grete sat in the rockers on the front porch. Grete read to them from one of the books on her shelves, a story about a girl and boy who find a bird with a broken wing and bring it home. The story was filled with details about how one heals a bird (mashed marigolds, it turns out, and drops of clear springwater), and Isabelle didn’t think she would get drawn in—she liked stories about magic and fairies more than ones about everyday children—but it wasn’t long before she began cheering for the little bird’s recovery (and wished the girl had been more on the ball—who would try
to feed a bird moth wings to help it fly? Please!).
When the story was over, and Isabelle began to see what was around her again instead of the pictures the story had put in her mind, she found the porch was filled with birds—birds perched along the railing and the steps, birds sitting quietly at Grete’s feet. Mourning doves, bluebirds, cardinals, sparrows, and three dozen brown wrens, all listening with the greatest attention.
Isabelle hugged her knees and pulled them to her chest. It had been more than an hour since they’d eaten, but she still felt surprisingly full.
And then she realized it wasn’t so much that she felt full . . .
It was that she didn’t feel lonely.
18
“Up with ya, you layabouts! There’s work to be done!”
Isabelle struggled to sit up. She wasn’t sure where she was, only that her bed—bed? No, not a bed, but a cloud of blankets and quilts spread across the floor—was warm and entirely too comfortable to leave. Beside her, Hen sighed and rolled over. Isabelle nudged her.
“Five more minutes, Mam,” Hen mumbled. “Jacob can milk the cow.”
Isabelle giggled. “I’m not your mam,” she said, poking Hen in the side with her finger.
Hen sat up on her elbows and squinted at Isabelle. “Oh, good morning, miss. Forgot where I was, I reckon.”
Isabelle reached out and punched Hen lightly on the shoulder. She had no idea why she was feeling so punchy and poky this morning; usually when she felt this way she was irritated about something, but this morning it was the opposite—as if she found everything so pleasing she just needed to give it a squeeze. Here she was in her bed of clouds, the light piling up against the windows, in a cottage in the middle of the forest—or was it the middle of the woods? What was the difference? she wondered.
(The difference, she decided, had to do with what sort of story you were in—or in her case, what sort of story she had fallen into. You found forests in stories of enchantment and fantasy. Forests were homes to elves and fairies. Were humans even allowed in an enchanted forest? Good question. Isabelle would have to look it up later, but it seemed to her that forests were so magical that only the most special of humans—say, a changeling sort of a human—would be allowed in.
Woods, on the other hand, were earthier, populated by trolls and witches and woodsmen. Woods crept up to the edges of villages and offered enticements to their children. Spotted toadstools. Babbling brooks. Could there be buried treasure in the woods? No, Isabelle didn’t think that sounded right. A wizard? Probably not. A wicked queen in exile? Yes, Isabelle decided. That was a distinct possibility.
As for changelings, well, they could show up anywhere, woods or forest, city or suburb. Changelings, to the best of Isabelle’s knowledge, were versatile and at home in a variety of settings.)
She leaned over and punched Hen again. “You should stop calling me ’miss.’ It’s too fancy for”—Isabelle had to push the word from her mouth, and it came out more like a question—“friends?”
“Yes,” Hen replied, yawning. “I suppose it is. Are we friends then, miss? I mean, Isabelle?”
“Of course we are, Hen,” Isabelle insisted, feeling more sure of herself now. “We’ve been on a journey together. That naturally makes us friends.”
“Friends or no, you two lazy birds need to get out of bed! I’m not running an inn here, now, am I?” Grete stood over them, her hands on her hips. “’Tis a business, and if you’re going to stay here, you’d best do your part to keep it running.”
So Hen scrambled out of bed and Isabelle almost scrambled out of bed, but remembered her ankle at the last second and sat back down to examine it. The swelling was gone but for a small bump. When Isabelle stood and put her weight on it, she felt the barest pinch of pain. So, not 100 percent healed; more like 96 percent. Isabelle shrugged. Close enough. She quickly dressed in the clothes Grete had laid out for her, a soft cotton shirt and a loose skirt.
“Come eat!” Grete called to the girls from the kitchen. “Then I’ll put you to work.”
Bowls of oatmeal sat steaming on the table alongside plates of thick toast spread with jam and butter. The girls ate quickly, then washed and dried their dishes, Isabelle dipping them into a soapy bucket of water, Hen drying with a flannel cloth.
“To the woods, then, for your first lesson.” Grete stood in the doorway with a basket in her hand. “You’re not scared of critters or creepy and crawly things, are ya? The woods here are wild woods.”
Hen laughed, as though the very idea of her being afraid of insects or animals was too preposterous to take seriously. “Only things that scare me are inside a house—clothes that need mending, babes that need bathing.” She turned to Isabelle. “Anything outside a house scare you?”
Isabelle shook her head no, but it was not the most convincing shake of the head ever shook in this world. Spiders, she could handle. Squirrels, not a problem. Snakes?
The little hairs on her arms stood at attention. Please, she thought, don’t let there be snakes in these woods.
“For the kind of work I do, you’ve got to use your eyes and your nose, and sometimes you’ve got to use your teeth and tongue as well,” Grete said, crouching beside a patch of unruly-looking weeds twenty yards past the cottage gate. Well, they looked like weeds to Isabelle. But the way Grete was so careful to pluck one of the plants by its roots and hold it almost lovingly up for Isabelle and Hen to examine made her think perhaps one girl’s weeds were another woman’s roses.
“Rattle root,” Grete told them. “Listen.”
She shook the plant’s stalk, and the seed pods growing from its branches made a light, rattling noise. “For rheumatism and women’s problems,” Grete explained, standing. “You steep it in alcohol and water for fourteen days, shaking it every day, to make a tincture. A dose is maybe five or ten drops, no more than thirty drops a day.”
Grete took a few more steps, then reached down again to pull up another plant. “Snakeroot. You dry the roots, then pound them into a powder. It’ll cure an earache or a toothache in no time, but if too much is taken, it’ll make you ill.”
And so the lessons continued for the rest of the morning. Isabelle liked the names of the plants—bugwort, richweed, squawroot, dog rose—but quickly scrambled the various uses and doses and preparations. Did you dry pennyroyal or boil it? Prescribe drops of feverfew or brews? She didn’t much care, and after a while stopped paying attention.
“Are you hearing anything I’m saying, Isabelle?” Grete demanded after giving a lengthy lecture on something called a whig plant.
“My brain is full,” Isabelle told her. “It’s too stuffed to take in one more fact.”
Grete sighed. “You too, Hen?”
But Hen shook her head. “I think it’s fascinating, miss.”
“Well, I suppose it’s time for lunch, by the look of the sky,” Grete said, picking up her basket, now full of roots and stems and leaves and berries. “Hen, this afternoon we can work in the kitchen. I’ll show you how to go about drying the roots and leaves, and how to boil syrups. Isabelle—” Grete stared at Isabelle quizzically, as though she couldn’t think of one single thing for Isabelle to do. “Perhaps—perhaps this afternoon you should rest. There’ll be work you can help with later.”
Isabelle almost protested that she could help too, that her ankle was fine—she’d been on it all morning, hadn’t she?—and then decided against it. She could see herself on the front porch reading a book, rocking back and forth, maybe eating something chocolate. Did Grete have chocolate?
“There are some small cakes, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Grete said, and Isabelle took a step back. Yes, that was what she’d been thinking. But how could Grete know?
Grete had to shake Isabelle awake when she finally had work for her to do later that afternoon. Isabelle wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth and rubbed her eyes. She’d been reading one of Grete’s books. To her surprise, when she’d stood in front of the bookshelves a
nd began pulling books, she found they were all handwritten, each one in the same slippery blue cursive, the kind that looked pretty but turned out to be hard to decipher. So Grete was an author, Isabelle had thought, and grabbed several books at random to take with her to the porch.
The story she’d been reading was about a girl who wandered along a wooded path and made friends with all sorts of things—bluebirds, squirrels, butterflies, trees. Everything she met had a secret to tell. After a while, carrying all the different secrets made her sleepy, and just as the girl lay down beneath a butterfly bush to take a nap, Isabelle had felt her eyes grow heavy too.
Grete picked up the book from Isabelle’s lap. “Do you know it’s impossible to finish this book? I fell asleep three or four times while writing it, and I’ve never been able to read through it since the moment I jotted the last period.”
“Is it magic?” Isabelle asked, suddenly feeling more awake. “Maybe the book casts a spell on the person reading it.”
Grete looked away for a moment. “Couldn’t say.” Waving Isabelle toward the kitchen, she ordered, “Come along inside. Hen and I’ve been hard at work, and now here’s the part where you can help.”
In the kitchen, Grete pointed to a wide array of pots and jars on the counter. “As you can see, we have syrups and tinctures and powders and leaves. Hen and I have boiled and chopped and sorted and pounded, and now it is time to package things up and put them on the porch. Tonight, while we’re asleep, the folks will come, and in the morning there’ll be the fun of seeing what’s been left. The last of the fall’s apples and potatoes? A few jars of honey? A paper packet of sugar? If there’s sugar and honey, I’ll make Isabelle more sweets.”
“So they pay you for your medicine?” Hen asked, running a damp rag across the kitchen table.
“Meager pay it is, too, most of it, but it’s what folks can pay with, and money won’t help me out here in the woods, will it?”
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