The steward brought clean water. When all was ready Laerke stepped forward, rolling up her sleeves. Rune handed her the dripping shirt; they were avoiding each other’s eyes. Laerke moved up to the bowl and dipped in the shirt. She soaped it gently. She swirled it around. She touched the stain with her hand, then lifted the garment out.
It was snowy white. It was as white as the most beautiful bear in all the world. It was a garment fit for a prince. “There,” Laerke said, holding it up.
The folk standing close nodded and pointed and exclaimed how perfectly clean it was. There was no way Mother could pretend otherwise. There was no way out.
“This is my true bride,” Rune said quietly, and he took Laerke’s hand in his. “I’m sorry, Hulde. I honour and respect you, but I cannot marry you. It could never have been. A man cannot wed a troll.”
A troll. I had barely time to take the word in when my mother let out an unearthly shriek. The sound made the whole hall rattle and shake. The torches flared; the benches wobbled; folk gasped and clutched on to one another.
She screamed again and the floor shuddered. There were words in her cry, ugly, terrible words, some for Rune, some for Laerke, and some for me. Things I had never thought I would hear, even from her. Things I wished I could un-hear. If I had ever thought my mother loved me, even the tiniest bit, I knew now that for her I was only a means to an end, a commodity she could use to gain herself a fortune. Vile things tumbled and gushed and spewed out of her. Even the folk from the Realm Beneath blocked their ears. Rune had his arm around Laerke; they had backed away from the platform. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Instead I stood motionless as the foul wave of insults crashed over me.
The third scream was her undoing. She filled her lungs, tipped her head back and gave a mighty bellow. There was a popping sound, a change in the air, and suddenly I was teetering on the brink of a great hole in the floor, a hole so deep it seemed to have no bottom. I threw myself backwards and fell sprawling on the tiles.
She was gone. My mother, the Queen of the Mountain, was gone. Her anger had destroyed her. I sucked in a breath. Staggered to my feet. Shucked off my silver shoes. Now I was queen, and there could be no running away.
I held up my hands. The crowd fell silent.
“Please leave the hall,” I said. “There will be no wedding.”
Things happened. I made them happen. Rune and Laerke helped me. There was a search for what remained of my mother, conducted by the wild kinsfolk, who were good at doing things underground. They found very little. I asked them, in passing, if there were others of our kind living elsewhere, and they said there were, though they could be hard to find. Everywhere there were mountains, there were trolls, they said. Everywhere there were bridges, there were trolls. Some friendly, some not so friendly. Troll was a name other folk gave them; they preferred to be known as hill folk. It was a good idea to take gifts, they said. They drew me a map, with likely spots marked on it. Then they left.
I despatched the other guests homeward. They went all too gladly.
Rune and Laerke offered to take me with them. Or, at least, he did. I was not so sure Laerke liked the idea, though she smiled and agreed when he said it.
“Thank you, but no,” I said. “I wish you a happy life.”
So they left, and I watched them go from my window, with my kitten in my arms and my puppy at my feet. My friends needed no winding up now; they were just like real ones. I watched until the most beautiful man in the world and the brave girl from the story vanished down the mountain on their long journey to the Far Isles and that lovely, light-filled castle I had once dreamed might be mine. I wondered for a little if I had been stupid to say no. But not for long.
I made a count of what was in the treasure room. I gave the servants three silver pieces each and told them they could stay or go, whatever they chose. The steward said he would stay. I put him in charge of the castle.
I packed a bag with a few clothes and all my treasures: the wax tablet and stylus, the books, the silken kerchief with the remains of my bird. Maybe, somewhere in the world, there was someone clever enough to mend her. I took a small bag of silver. I took some bread and cheese wrapped up in a red and white cloth, because that was what folk did in stories. I told the steward I would be back some time.
Then I set out, with my kitten on my shoulder and my puppy at my heels, to make my own story.
Dayenu
James Sallis
Dayenu. A song that’s part of the Jewish celebration of Passover:
“It would have been enough for us.”
At 10:36 as I’m listening to accounts on the radio of a plane lost over the Arctic Sea, the noise from within the trunk gets to be so annoying that I stop the car, open up, and whack the guy with the cut-down baseball bat I stowed under the front seat. The ride’s a lot better after that. They never find the plane.
Where I’ve pulled off is this little rise from which you can see the highway rolling on for miles in both directions, my very own wee grassy knoll. The trees off the road are at that half-and-half stage, leaves gone brown closer to the ground, those above stubbornly hanging on. Because of Union Day there’s little traffic, two semis, a couple of vans and a pickup during the time I’m there, which is the only reason I’m risking everything to be out here and on the road taking care of one last piece of business. Even the government’s mostly on hold.
What they never understood, I’m thinking as I get back in the car, what it took me so long to understand, is that after rehab I became a different person. Not as in some idiotic this-changed-my-life blather, or that last two minutes of screen drama with light shining in the guy’s eyes and throbs of music. Everything changed. How the sky looks in early morning, the taste of foods, longings you can’t put a name to. Time itself, the way it comes and goes. Learning all over how to do the most basic things, walk, hold onto a glass, open doors, brush teeth, tie shoes, put your belt on from the right direction—all this reconfigures the world around you. A new person settles in. You introduce yourself to the new guy and start getting acquainted. It can take a while.
An hour later I make the delivery and go about my business, not that there is any. They’d got too close this time and I’d gone deeper to ground, pretty much as deep as one can burrow. The gig was a hold-over from before, timing rendered it possible, so I took the chance. Messages left in various dropboxes now would grow up orphans.
I was staying on the raw inner edge of the city, a gaza strip where old parts of town hang on by their fingernails to the new, in a house with rooms the size of shipping crates. Tattoo-and-piercing parlor nearby, four boarded-up houses like ghosts of mine, an art gallery through whose windows you can see paintings heavy on huge red lips, portions of iridescent automobiles, and imaginary animals.
Nostalgia, dreamland, history in a nutshell.
The house owner supposedly (this gleaned from old correspondence and visa applications) was away “hunting down his ancestry,” driven by the belief that once he knows about his great-great grandfather, his own blurry life will drift into focus. So here I am, with every item on the successful lurker’s shopping list in place: semi-abandoned neighborhood, evidence of high turnover, no one on the streets, irregular or nonexistent patrols, no deliveries, few signs of curiosity idle or otherwise.
A week or so in, it occurred to me that the neighborhood had this fairy tale thing going. Grumpy old man half a block south, bighead ogre seen peering out windows of the house covered with vines, guy with cornrows who resided at the covered bus stop and could pass for a genie, even a little girl who lived down the lane.