The Perilous Crossing

by L. R. Patton

  Greyson could not even find relief in the friendship of Cora, for she continued to pay him no mind. He was fast becoming a man, but she did not watch him as he watched her. They hardly spoke. He left his mother’s candies at her door, for he could not bear to see them on his family’s table, in the familiar bowl, waiting for his father’s return. Sometimes, he would slip a slice of apple pie to Cora’s windowsill when the sun had gone to sleep.

  One day, she stopped him in the streets. “Why are you leaving me sweets?” she said. “I will grow too large for my dresses.”

  “Then you can use magic to make them larger,” Greyson said, filling, momentarily, with his old, customary merriment.

  “A woman cannot simply make her garments larger,” Cora said. “It is not becoming.”

  “You are lovely no matter how large you become,” Greyson said.

  Cora’s eyes turned tender, as if she might cry. He had never seen a look such as this one, from a girl such as she. Might she be falling in love with him? But the moment passed, and they carried on in the same silent way as they had done before.

  And then there came the day when Cora kissed him on the cheek. There came the day when her eye turned the vivid color of a springtime field, when she said, “Perhaps there is more to you than I thought,” and then she disappeared, her staff tapping the ground in a rhythm that felt right and true to Greyson, who could scarcely move.

  That was a day his feet did not even touch the ground, for he was a man in love.

  But he would soon forget that feeling of weightlessness, the feeling of warmth, the feeling of hope. For when he returned home, he found his mother on the stone floor.

  She had fallen while preparing his dinner, and so smoke gathered in the corners of their cottage. She had burned the soup, for when she fell, she found she could not rise. Greyson lifted his mother and carried her to her bed, opening all the windows in the cottage so the smoke could find escape. He ran as fast as he could to the village apothecary. The apothecary could not move quickly anymore, for he was growing older by the minute, and so it seemed to Greyson that it took hours and hours to reach his mother’s bedside again.

  The apothecary, Sir Tomas, who had been knighted in his youth for his wonders of medicine, not his wonders of battle, as one might expect, was known as a disagreeable man, having grown ever more disagreeable in his old age. “Perhaps you should make sure she does not fall,” he said to Greyson, as if it were the boy’s fault that his mother had taken to her bed.

  “She has never fallen before,” Greyson said. He looked at his mother. Her eyes were closed. Her ankles, crossed on the bed, were swollen. The apothecary uncrossed them, and her eyelids fluttered open.

  “Stu?” she said.

  Stu was Greyson’s father. Greyson felt an ache wrap around his chest, as if someone had hugged him but squeezed far too tightly.

  “No, Mother,” Greyson said. “I have brought the apothecary to examine you.”

  “Very well,” she said, her voice becoming more breath than voice. “The apothecary.” And her eyelids closed again.

  The apothecary examined Greyson’s mother, poking and prodding, lifting her arms and listening to her heart. Her breath rattled in her chest.

  How was it that Greyson had not heard this before? How could it be that he had not noticed she was sick?

  “It is the sugar sickness,” Sir Tomas said, as if it were something he saw every day. “She will need special medicine.”

  “But where will I get medicine?” Greyson said. He looked at his mother, at her pale cheeks and the silver hair spread on her pillow. Her eyes opened once more. They were tired and, mostly, sad. Greyson could not bear to look at them.

  He knew the answer to his own question, of course. The only place anyone in the kingdom could get medicine was from the palace. It was from the king. Would King Willis give him medicine to cure his mother? His father was the king’s captain. Perhaps that would matter.

  “Do not ask me, boy,” the apothecary said. “I only tell you what is wrong.” And then he turned and walked out the door.

  As you can see, it is true what I said before: the apothecary was not a very agreeable man. Can you imagine, dear reader, having a healer such as this one?

  Greyson held his mother’s hand, listening to her labored breathing. “Mother,” he finally said. “I must visit the castle.”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she collapsed into a cough so violent it shook the whole bed and Greyson with it. Blood spatters fell from her mouth. “Yes,” she said, when she had calmed. A spot of blood remained on her chin.

  “Mother,” Greyson said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing her chin. “You are bleeding.”

  She coughed again, this time into the handkerchief. “Yes,” she said. She looked at her son, her blue eyes wide and glassy. “I did not want to tell you. We have enough trouble.”

  “You mean with Father gone?” Greyson said.

  “Yes,” his mother said.

  “But he will return,” he said. He kissed the top of his mother’s hand. “You should have told me. What if it is too late?”

  His mother laughed softly, but it ended in another violent cough. “I fear it may very well be.”

  “No,” Greyson said. He stood. “I shall go now. I will ask the king to help. Father has done his duty. Now the king can do his.”

  “I am afraid it is not so simple as that,” his mother said. “The sugar sickness does not give up so very easily. And neither does our king.”

  “I will do whatever it takes,” Greyson said, for, you see, he loved his mother very much.

  “Very well,” his mother said. “If you must.”

  “I will return soon,” he said. He bent to kiss his mother, and then he ran as fast as he had ever run in all his life, down the dirt road and over the bridge, past the calling mermaids, and all the way to the door of the castle. He used the bronze knocker, molded into a bear’s growling face with a ring held between its teeth, and listened to its echo inside the castle walls. A servant opened the door. Greyson bowed, though he knew this was not the king.

  “I need some medicine,” he said. “For my mother. My father is the captain of the king’s guard, and, as such, his family should have access to whatever they need. It is the king’s duty.” The words came out in a rush, and he had no way of knowing whether the servant understood him or whether it was all nonsense.

  The servant held up a hand. “One moment, please,” he said. He shut the door. Greyson waited outside, terrified, trying not to think about every second passing, every second his mother lay on her bed, dying. Then the door opened once more. “Please,” the servant said. “Follow me. The king does not wish to see anyone right now, but he has made an exception for you.”

  Greyson followed the servant to a wide door, which opened onto a large room with ceilings painted in extravagant scenes. A red carpet waited for him, leading the way to the king’s throne. King Willis sat on the throne, a large man then, but not overly large as he is today. When Greyson drew close, he saw that the king was eating a sweet roll. King Willis did not offer Greyson refreshment.

  “Hello, boy,” the king said. “You come here late. I was just about to retire for the eve.”

  “My mother is sick,” Greyson said. “I come on behalf of her.” He bowed to the floor. He had never spoken with the king before. He wished he did not need to this moment.

  “And your father?” the king said. He did not seem to know that Greyson was the son of the captain.

  “He is the captain of your guard,” Greyson said. “They are away in Ashvale. You sent them.” He tried to keep the accusation out of his voice, but we cannot blame him, can we, dear reader? His beloved father did not make it home for the Year’s Last Day, nor did he show up for the Year’s First Day, though the king had promised his men they would have, at the very least, these days with their family. Is it so very easy for a king to forget the words he has vowed? Is it so very easy to deny men what the
y so deserve?

  “And what is it about your mother?” King Willis said.

  “She collapsed,” Greyson said. “She cannot rise from her bed as yet. The apothecary said she has the sugar sickness. He said she needs medicine to live.” His words, again, came out in a great rush of emotion, though he tried to control them in front of this man who was his king. The king stared at him, as if uncomprehending. Greyson did not know whether he should say it all again or whether he should remain silent. He had never spoken to a king, remember.

  Say something, Your Majesty. Say something to this boy who is worried about his mother and terrified for his father.

  The king rose from his throne. He paced before the boy on a plain wooden platform that looked nothing like the king’s platform looks today. It was merely an ugly slab of wood. King Willis stopped and held up a finger.

  “Let me tell you, boy,” the king said. “Let me tell you what has happened. We have not heard a single word from your father since the day his journey began.” The king turned his dark eyes upon the boy. “He is a traitor. He has left without a trace.”

  No. His father would never desert. He would never leave his family. He was an honorable man, a strong man, a man who loved peace and kindness and courage.

  “No,” Greyson said. “You are wrong.”

  What words they are to say to a king, would you not agree? To point out a king’s error, when you are a boy of seventeen, is not so very wise, one might suppose. But such is the nature of love. Greyson knew his father. He knew he would never do what it was the king said he had done.

  “Do not argue with me, boy,” King Willis said. His eyes narrowed, and his face grew dark. “He has deserted me.” He took a step closer to Greyson, though he was still safe on his platform, feet away from the boy. “He has deserted you.”

  “No,” Greyson said. It was involuntary, creeping out the sides of his mouth. He knew very well that it was quite dangerous to argue with a king. But they were speaking of his father. A boy knew his father, did he not?

  Grief stole silently up into Greyson’s heart. His father, gone. What would they do? What would they do now? The kingdom was not known to be kind to those who were traitors or those who found themselves connected to traitors. The kingdom was not known to be kind to those who needed kindness most.

  “So what is it you desire, boy?” King Willis said.

  Greyson sucked in a long breath. Perhaps he could still acquire what it was he needed. “Medicine,” he said. He hated the way his voice cracked right down the middle. “For my mother.”

  “And why should I give you medicine when your father is a traitor?” King Willis turned his shining eyes upon Greyson. They gleamed with disgust or malice or something darker indeed.

  “My father is not a traitor!” Greyson said. And he meant it. He meant it like he had meant nothing else in his life.

  “Oh, but he is,” the king said. His voice grew low and cruel. “He is a traitor of the worst kind, and you will get nothing from me. NOTHING.” He gestured to his page, an old man by now, for he had been King Sebastien’s unfortunate page. “Get him out of my court.”

  The page did as he was told. He was still surprisingly strong for an old man. But Greyson patted his hands away, for he did not want to cause any trouble. He would leave easily. So the man took his hands off Greyson as soon as they were out of the king’s sight.

  The page, who was a kind man in an unfortunate situation, asked the boy to wait at the door. He disappeared for only moments before he returned with a vial. “Here is something that may help with the sugar sickness,” he said. “Perhaps this will last until you might figure out what is next.”

  Greyson nodded, so overcome with emotion he could not speak. But the man seemed to know what he might say, for he smiled and pushed Greyson out the front doors of the castle.

  Greyson ran all the way back home, his eyes streaming as he stumbled through the darkness. Not even the moon shone on a night such as this one.

  Light

  THE children stare about them, still trying to find their friend, though she has disappeared without a trace. Only a scrap of cloth remains, a dirty hem from the dress she wore, the portal she restored that has brought them out from their trap beneath the ground.

  “We knew,” Arthur says. “We knew this could happen.” And they are not so much words of comfort as they are words of despair.

  “We are saved,” Maude says. She wraps an arm around her husband, pulls him close. Hazel weeps behind her. “We will find her. But first we must find safety.”

  “We cannot leave Mercy!” says the girl called Ursula. Her sea-blue eyes flash. “We must find her.

  “No,” Maude says. “We must go. She has given herself so that we might be safe.”

  The ultimate sacrifice, you see. Mercy has disappeared, perhaps given her very life so that twenty-three children and Arthur, like a father to the girl, and Maude, like a kindly aunt, might live. So that they might run.

  Arthur pulls in a ragged breath. “Yes,” he says. “We must go.”

  “We cannot,” Hazel says. Her eyes, her lips, her hands, her voice, everything about her shakes as if a violent wind blows within. It is the wind of grief. “We cannot leave Mercy.” Mercy is her dearest friend. How does one leave one’s dearest friend to danger and, possibly, death?

  “We must,” Arthur says. “We must go. We must run.” He looks around, as if expecting the king’s men to emerge from the wood’s shifting shadows. The woods appear darker now than he remembers. The trees sway, as if their branches are reaching toward the children. “The king’s men will return soon.” He looks up at the gray sky, peeking in patches through the tops of the trees. “It will grow dark soon.”

  The children look around, too, behind trees, up into the leaves, behind them, before them, everywhere. There are dangers in these woods that they do not wish to meet with the sun’s setting.

  “Let us go,” Maude says.

  “But where?” Hazel says. Her voice is like a tiny mirror, dropping before them and shattering. “Where can we go?”

  The children know as well as Arthur and Maude that the only way to the other kingdoms is back toward Fairendale, and treading back toward Fairendale is much too dangerous now. They would never make it without discovery, not without magic. Where was it, in fact, that Arthur and Maude had thought to hide the children? Was there such a place at all?

  Maude and Arthur look at one another. The wind curls through the trees, bending their leaves toward the ground, as if the wood, too, is weeping. In the distance, though they cannot be seen, the king’s men are wondering what has happened to the green ball of light. They are turning around. They are searching for the place they have left, for the place the tiny shoe marked.

  “We must travel through the lands of Morad,” Arthur says. “It is the only way.”

  The children stare at him. Maude’s mouth drops open, and before she can even say a single word, her head gives a small shake. “No,” she says. “No. Never. Absolutely not. It is far too dangerous. We would never make it.”

  The children have never seen the dragon lands. Once upon a time, the dragons and the people of Fairendale were on friendly terms with one another. They were companions, helping one another in the ways that only companions can help one another, which is to say the people provided friendship and love, and the dragons provided backs for travel, and, of course, love in return. But King Sebastien changed all of that the day he marched with two thousand men through the forest, which was not known as the Weeping Woods then but bore only a fraction of the name: The Woods. He stole the castle, slaying far too many dragons to ever hope for reconciliation. To this day, the people and the dragons stay far from each other, following their after-battle agreement to never venture onto one another’s land.

  So, you see, it could very well be dangerous for the children and Maude and Arthur to travel into the dragon lands. It could very well mean their death, and is it not life they are trying to preserve
? Is that not what Mercy intended when she disappeared and did not reappear?

  “It is the only way,” Arthur says.

  “But they will never let us cross,” Maude says.

  “We do not know for sure,” Arthur says.

  “We do,” Maude says. “It is written in the stories. It is written in our history.”

  “There are other stories and histories written as well,” Arthur says. “About kind hearts and love between humans and dragons.”

  “Not since the days before King Sebastien,” Maude says. “The days of The Good King Brendon.”

  The children watch Arthur and Maude, turning their heads from one face to another. They notice that Arthur’s eyes have a gleam in them, a gleam that looks similar to hope, perhaps. They notice that Maude’s eyes have darkened in what can only be fear. They do not know which to follow. Hope or fear?

  “We must try,” Arthur says. “No one knows what happens when we cross into dragon territory.”

  “The dragons will destroy us,” Maude says.

  “We do not know for sure,” Arthur says, and if one knew him well enough, as Maude knows her husband, one might be able to see something else in the gleam of his eyes. Something secret. Something of memory. Something of love. And perhaps this is what moves Maude, what changes her mind just in time, before the king’s men have stumbled, again, upon the very clearing where Maude and Arthur and the children stand. She nods her head once.

  “Very well,” she says. “We shall try.”

  “Come children,” Arthur says, looking at the faces already turned to him. “Let us run.”

  And they begin their second flight.

  ALEEN lies awake. Everyone else is sleeping, or so she believes. Until she whispers, “They are going. They are truly going,” in typical prophetess fashion, with vague meaning and unknown predictions, though this is not a prediction at all. If you will remember, Aleen has lost her prophet Sight. She cannot see what lies ahead, only what is happening now, out in the realm.