Enchanted Page 4
Sunday had stopped breathing. She was a dead woman. A stupid, stupid dead woman. What had she been thinking? Trix had been her responsibility, and she had let him go off alone and trade their best cow for ... for...
“Sunday?” Trix was suddenly worried.
“Mama will kill me,” she whispered. “We needed that money, Trixie. How will we eat?”
“You’ll see.” His voice was all childish wonder and infinite hope. “My magic beans will grow big, big as you’ve ever seen, and we will have food forever.”
His innocence was as beautiful as it was frustrating. “Beans take time to grow,” Sunday explained. “What will we eat tomorrow? And the next day?”
The severity of the situation seemed to sink in. “I’m sorry, Sunday,” he said quietly. He put his thin arms around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly. “I don’t want you to die.”
“If I may be so bold.”
In her misery, Sunday had completely forgotten about Grumble. The frog sat patiently beside a perfectly round, slime-covered rock. Trix left his sister to sit beside Grumble. “Whatcha got there?” He picked up the spherical stone.
“Something to save your sister’s life,” he said. “That life’s become uncommonly important to me over the last few days.”
Sunday shook her head. It was a sweet gesture. To Grumble, the ball must have looked like a precious gem or a fairy trinket or—
“Gold!” cried Trix.
“What?” Sunday snatched the ball out of her brother’s hand; she was unprepared for its weight and almost dropped it. She scraped at the scum with her fingernail to reveal the smooth, hard surface beneath. “It is!” She laughed, jumped up and down, and hugged the bauble to her. And then she remembered that she wasn’t a hoarding kobold. Sunday held the ball out to Grumble. “We can’t take this.”
“Sunday, I’m a frog. What use have I for such a pretty?”
“But its worth alone...”
“That and a hundred more like it wouldn’t get me what I want most in the world,” he reminded her. “But if it buys even a second of your family’s happiness, then to me it is worth more than any moneylender could possibly exchange for it.”
Her conscience still wouldn’t let her take the bauble. Sunday’s eyes moved from her brother to her friend, her mind weighing her needs against her morals. They both weighed about two pounds of solid gold.
“Please,” said Grumble. “Consider it a gift.”
A gift. He had not refused her gift, so she should not refuse his ... though she had given him a bucket, and he had given her a family’s happiness. Sunday wondered if Grumble had any idea how much power he had over her. She closed her eyes, nodded, and slipped the bauble into her pocket. She needed to leave before she changed her mind. But first, she crouched, scooped Grumble up in her hands, and kissed him heartily. “Thank you, my dear friend, more than you will ever know.” He politely said nothing to her exuberance. “Trix and I must be going now, but church or not, I will find a way back tomorrow so that I can tell you everything! I promise!”
She did not hear him say goodbye. Excited, Sunday skipped beside Trix through the brush. They raced each other to the edge of the Wood until they spotted the towerhouse on the horizon. Their energy spent, they slowed to a walk. The weight of the golden ball knocked reassuringly between Sunday’s book and her leg, reminding her how painful and how glorious life could be, all at the same time.
“He loves you.”
The declaration startled her. Trix was like that. Full of snails and puppy dogs’ tails one minute and unnaturally wise the next. What he said might have been true, but Grumble was a frog and Sunday was a girl, and between them lay a curse that might as well have been the ocean. Grumble might love her, but it did not change the painful and glorious way of the world.
“And you love him,” Trix added.
Nor did that.
4. Godspat
WHEN YOU FIRST WAKE UP, you’ll think you’ve just been boiled in oil and tossed on ice, in the midst of being flayed alive. You will vomit, though your stomach has long been empty, and it will feel like someone is shoving the world through a pinhole in the top of your skull. You’ll wonder if every bone in your body was crushed beneath a giant’s boot and then put back together in the wrong place. You won’t remember how to talk. Gods, you almost won’t remember how to think.”
Rumbold would not cry. He would be six years old this summer. His father had told him he was not a boy; he was a man. Men did not cry. Princes definitely did not cry.
Jack plucked his thoughts right out of the air. “And you will cry, long and hard, like a pathetic little baby. You will cry because in that moment your mind will be full of nothing but how amazing it is to be a man again. That’s the most painful part of all.” His voice got softer, and his head turned away. “Coming back is part of the price.”
The young prince nodded silently. He had been bold enough to brave Jack’s sickroom after the older boy’s transformation back from a dog; Rumbold could not miss the opportunity to learn about the fate that would similarly befall him. Rumbold’s fairy godmother had cursed Jack into a dog as penance for killing her godson’s beloved pup. Jack’s fairy godmother had shortened Jack’s sentence to a year and cursed Rumbold to his own transformation on his eighteenth birthday. She had forbidden them all to speak of this countercurse. The king had actually agreed.
It wasn’t fair. Rumbold hadn’t cursed Jack, and certainly hadn’t asked to have his birthday gift murdered. It had all been an accident. He’d seen his pup nip at Jack’s heel for scraps. The swat Jack instinctively gave it with his foot wouldn’t have harmed any of the other dogs in the guards’ dining hall. Their godmothers had gone and overreacted for no reason. It just wasn’t fair. But the deed was done: in twelve years’ time, Rumbold would spend twelve months as a frog.
“To learn humility,” Jack’s brilliantly shining godmother had said. She’d said a lot of things that night, but Rumbold hadn’t listened until shed started talking about him. Losing his puppy had left a hollow place inside him that hadn’t been full since his mother died. He hadn’t even named it yet.
Jack scared Rumbold. Jack was a Great Hero. He went on Grand Adventures and did Amazing Things. Witches trembled at his feet. Demons quaked in their boots (if they wore boots). Jack was now the same age Rumbold would be when his own curse hit. The young prince hoped he would be half as strong. Half as stubborn. Half as brave. At the moment, he was just scared. He had a long way to go.
Jack bit off a small piece of dry toast. The nurse had said Jack could have solid food and would be “back on his feet in no time.” The minute those feet hit the ground, they would walk right out the doors of the castle, and Rumbold would never see Jack again. This was his only chance.
“If you’re smart,” Jack said, “you’ll keep this memory of us in a safe place. Think about it all the time: every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed and every time you take a bite to eat and every time you empty your bowels. If you can train yourself to do that, then in however many years’ time, when you’re waking up to the world again, this will be the first thing—the only thing—in your mind. Are you listening?”
Rumbold listened with his whole body. He heard the bedclothes rustle under Jack’s legs. He heard the toast crush between his teeth. He heard the spoon stir the steamy broth on the tray. He heard the air Jack took in through his nose before he spoke. He even heard the gold medallion slide along the ribbon around Jack’s neck as he straightened.
“There are two very important things. Number one: You must remember to breathe. Just like in swordfighting. Open mouth. Lungs. Air in, air out. Get your tongue out of the way. If you forget how to breathe, everything else won’t matter. Got it?”
Rumbold nodded silently again.
“Number two: Stay still. Don’t try to stand up.” Jack flashed Rumbold a crooked grin. “Trust me, you don’t want to be standing up when your mind comes back.”
***
He wanted to die, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Open mouth.
Lungs.
Air in, air out.
Nothing was happening.
Get your tongue out of the way.
Life burned into his lungs. On the exhale, he cried so loud and so long that the birds fled the trees above, leaving him naked and alone in the wild silence of spring.
He shook, his skin covered in cold, primordial slime. Skin. He retched again, and thought to move his head this time. Head. Stomach. Face. Skin. Pain washed in waves up and down his body. Body. He wiggled his fingers and toes, excruciating and wrong.
But not wrong.
Right.
So incredibly right.
He opened his mouth to laugh before he realized he’d forgotten how. It would come back, in time. He would heal. He would be himself again. He would stand on his own two feet, like the man he had been, like the man he was.
Stand.
He braced one hand against the ground and began to lift himself up.
Stay still.
The man’s voice echoed sharply in his head. Was that his voice? He wondered what buried insistence could possibly want to stop him from jumping to his feet and running all the way home.
Home.
Memories surged and broke the dam the curse had built inside his mind. He didn’t have time to scream before the blackness consumed him.
***
His own soft tears woke him. They made him smile.
Strong men did not cry. But even if doing so made him a weak man, he was still a man nonetheless.
Somewhere a woodpecker rapped. The air on his skin made him shiver. The sky was so bright he could see red through his thin eyelids. He opened them.
Too bright.
He closed them again.
One thing at a time.
He listened to the Wood for a while: the birds and insects, the wind in the leaves, the rustle of small animals in the brush. He breathed deep, smelling the moss, the dirt, and then himself as the warm sun made him sweat. He spread his fingers wide and felt the breeze dance between them. He ran his fingertips over the jagged, moss-covered stones beneath him. He eased a stick out from under his back, thrilled that he once again had a back to lie on.
He touched his belly, his throat, his face, ran his hands over his eyebrows, his ears, his hair, his smile. His eyes were damp in the corners and his lips had teeth under them. His tongue was attached to the back of his palate now, not the front. His hair was longer than he remembered it.
Remember.
He stopped before his mind lost him again in the full-scale regurgitation of his life. He took another slow breath and returned to the comfort of the Wood. He would start from here and work his way backwards. It would be easier. Safer. Less painful.
Instantly she filled his mind so completely, his heart forgot to beat. In his thoughts, the sun shone in her hammered-gold hair as she stretched out on the ground beside him. She took off her shoes and her skirts pooled around her fair-skinned feet. She was as fresh and wild and innocent and mysterious as the Wood itself. She knew so little of the world and yet saw everything through eyes of uncommon wisdom. She spoke, and the bright crystal tones of her voice soothed him. She laughed with her whole body, and when she smiled, she glowed. She was startlingly beautiful, like a newborn fawn, even more so in her blissful unawareness of the fact. She was at the same time selfish and giving, ungrateful and kind. Her name was Sunday.
And she loved him.
Quickly he touched himself again to make sure that he had indeed come back as a man, whole and—despite the excruciating pain—unharmed. Thus reassured, he let his thoughts wander back to his girl. He would find her and bind her to him forever, as the gods willed it, and the world would be as it was meant to be.
He held a hand over his face and peeked at the color-saturated world through the spaces between his fingers. The air dried his eyes, and he tried to close an inner eyelid that no longer existed. The leaves in the canopy above were the brilliant green of new-birthed spring. A jay pecked about in the nearby grass, blue as a sliver of sky come down to visit.
A raspy sigh betrayed his thirst. Not yet ready for too-long legs, he crawled on hands and knees to the bucket beside the well. He raised the smooth, wooden edge to his lips with shaking arms and drank greedily from it, thrilling in the beads of water that ran down the sides of his face and onto his chest. He filled the bucket again and emptied it over his head, several times, washing the slime and sick from his body. He felt like a new man. He was a new man. The reflection wavering on the water examined him with its old and familiar face. The face of a prince. A prince her family would have nothing to do with.
In rage, he howled and smashed the bucket against the ruined well. He lifted some smallish rocks and hurled them a pitifully short distance into the Wood. It did little to appease him. Fate continued to be both mischievous and cruel, and life was still not fair.
He and Sunday were each victims of their history. She might have loved him truly, hopefully still loved him, but her love for her family was a bond he would never ask her to betray. Of all the women in the land, Fate had chosen Jack Woodcutter’s little sister. It was a cruel, cruel joke.
He had to find her.
He tentatively stood up and stumbled forward, forcing his muscles to remember motions that for almost twenty years had been second nature to him. Thorns and branches scraped the language of the Wood in raw lines on his tender reborn skin. To his relief, a thin blanket of clouds politely moved over the scorching sun. He scanned the ground for the path his true love’s feet had trod three days running.
He slammed straight into a memory: a vision of horses and hounds leapt before him. He’d done this before. He was a hunter. He had tracked the stag and wild boar and brought home the spoils for feasting and celebration. Food as far as the eye could see, song enough to fill the days and the nights unstopped, and women, such women ... pretty shadows now in the memory of another life. He focused on a new memory, the one thing he had worth living for. She was a tiny thing with a gleam in her eye and a smile that made his blood sing.
The layer of clouds in the sky grew thick. The path disappeared. He raised his head, straining to see the edge of the Wood through the trees. An abyss of barkened trunks stared back at him. He bowed his head and shuffled on, eyes flitting from one bright stone to the next in the ever-increasing darkness. Finally, he found himself at the edge of the world. Only a few trees separated him from the grassy meadow beyond the Wood. The towerhouse stood bold against the sky, calling him back to the world of men. His legs burned. His chest ached. Rivulets of blood wept from scratches in his skin and cracks in his desiccated lips. Without the trees to buffer the plain, the wind swept freely across it, bending the high grass in waves and whipping his long hair about his head.
He came upon the high rock wall surrounding the towerhouse, followed it back to where a woman hurriedly unpinned sheets from the drying lines. They flipped and snapped to the beat of the oncoming storm. With deft hands, she kept a firm grip on the laundry without letting it fall, tossing garments one by one into the large basket she carried at her side. Her hair and eyes were the same intense gray as the threatening clouds.
“It’s about time,” she called over the lines to where he stood. “Don’t just stand there. Come help your mother.”
Clearly she had mistaken him for someone else, but he opened the gate and walked up to aid her.
“Are you going to...” She looked at him then, finally, her storm-mirrored eyes taking him in from head to toe. In all his pain, it had not occurred to him to be ashamed of his nakedness, and he thanked the gods that it did not occur to her to scream. There was a measure of surprise in her countenance; pity, perhaps; a dash of confusion; and then a stern control washed them all away.
“Gave the gods a stomachache and they spat you back out, did they?” She ripped more fresh clothes off the line and pushed them at him. “
Put these on. My son’s about your age. Not quite so tall and scrawny as you, but they’ll do.”
He stared at the bundle she’d shoved into his arms: rough, homespun material either brown faded with too many washings or white darkened by too many wearings. “Thank you,” he meant to say, but his reattached tongue refused to get around the words, and he spouted only a single, wretched gasp.
“You look like a man, but you sound like a crow, what with all you’ve come begging on my doorstep. Go on, dress yourself, if you can manage it. I’ll fetch some water.”
The manner in which she barked her orders brooked no opposition. Awkwardly he tugged the shirt over his head and then pulled on the too-large trousers. The woman returned with a cup and a length of twine. She thrust the cup at him, and he lamented the few precious drops of liquid escaping down the sides. “Drink,” she ordered. The cool water stung his lips and froze his throat, but he welcomed it. She knotted the twine around his waist while he drained the cup, and then she fetched more water. “Now sit while I finish up.”
He shuffled to the bench she indicated while gently sipping the water. He watched as she worked, plucking the wild laundry out of the wind. Her gruff manners were curiously at odds with her kindness. There were animals in the Wood that acted this way when they were trying to protect themselves. Or their young. He wondered where her children were.
Something rustled on the bench. He looked down to see a familiar friend waving at him, its proud pages fluttering about. He picked it up, reveling at how small it now seemed, this little book that once had lain like a giant beside him. He wanted to hold it to his heart smell it and see if her scent lingered there. He wanted to keep it, but that would have made her sad, and he could not bear to cause her pain. The wind turned the pages to the last words penned there. He allowed himself to remember her joy as she’d read the brief passage to him. When the words echoed in his mind, they did so in her voice: