A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Grandmem continued her study of Heloise’s strange outfit. “I hope, dear child,” she said, interrupting the tumble of Heloise’s thoughts, “that what I’m seeing does not mean you have turned into a thief.”
Her father forgotten, Heloise blushed hotly. “No!” she protested, and tossed her damp garments down at her grandmother’s feet. “I got wet, and Benedict—that is, Master Benedict de Cœur—that is, well, he loaned these to me.”
Grandmem rolled the carrot to the other side of her mouth and gummed it thoughtfully. Her tired eyes traveled up and down her granddaughter’s fine raiment and took note of her clenched fists. “Hmmmm,” she said, which wasn’t really saying anything but was merely a sound to fill the silence between them. “Hmmmm.”
“I’m not lying, you know,” Heloise growled. “He’s helping me. Master Benedict, that is. He’s been loaning me his mirror.”
“Ah,” said Grandmem, again without communicating anything she might be thinking. “Ehh.”
Heloise felt irked. Irritation being her natural state, she didn’t notice it at first. But as she watched her grandmother sitting there in the rising morning light, she suddenly found that she was indeed quite irate and ready to focus all her ire upon the frail old soul before her. After all, hadn’t she done what her grandmother asked? Hadn’t she risked her neck (and continued to risk it, since Grandmem wasn’t the only person who would cry thief if Heloise was spotted in Master Benedict’s clothes) to fulfill this fool’s errand that she didn’t half begin to understand?
Silly child, said the voice in her head. At this distance from Centrecœur the words were faint, few, and strained, as though whoever spoke must struggle to speak them.
But they were sharp. Sharp enough to bring Heloise up short, mid-sulk, and force her to look both at herself and at her grandmother again. And she thought, after all, what did she expect from the old woman? A pat on the head and a “Who’s a good girl then?” Grandmem wasn’t the head-patting sort, thank the Lights Above. Besides, what adulation did she think she deserved? Was there any special honor in doing the only thing she could possibly do?
After all, she was the strong one. If she didn’t act strong, what was the use of her?
As she stood staring at her grandmother with these varied thoughts sifting through her brain, Heloise frowned suddenly. She frowned as she noticed something she had not been able to see even a moment before.
Her grandmother was angry. Angrier than Heloise had ever seen her. Angrier than Heloise had ever been.
This anger manifested itself in neither word nor deed. Grandmem sat gnawing on her carrot with her one good tooth, studying Heloise’s odd garments, and the new sun illuminated her face in gentle softness. But there was no softness to be seen in the core of her eye. The anger rose up from inside of her and strengthened with each passing moment until Heloise feared she would be knocked flat with the force of it.
Grandmem drew a deep breath. She let it out in a long, long gust. As she did so, it seemed that some of the anger (not all of it, for there was far too much) blew from her body. She spoke then in the same quiet, easy tone she always used:
“I had no one to help me.”
Heloise felt as though she’d been struck in the face. At first she couldn’t understand why her heart heaved in her breast so, why she felt that sudden rush of tears prickling in her eyes. But it came to her within three painful heartbeats.
Grandmem had been alone. She had been all alone. No friend at the Great House to assist her, no grandmother to believe her, no support. Just herself and her reflection in a mirror glass—not the bright, clear mirror Heloise had been using, but just that old, dingy thing. She’d had no help, no one to tell her what to do or even what to try.
She had me, the voice whispered faintly in the back of Heloise’s head. But she forgot.
And she failed.
Heloise knew then that whatever else happened, she dared not fail. Not when she had Grandmem helping her on one hand and Benedict on the other. If she failed . . . Oh, the shame would be too much! Too much to bear! And the anger, the same anger she saw simmering in Grandmem’s stone-still face even now, the anger would be destructive. She would not survive it.
She did not know if she could even survive the pressure now weighing on her shoulders.
Grandmem raised a quivering hand and passed it over her eyes, gently swiping wisps of white hair back behind her ears. She blinked once or twice, and now, though the anger was not gone, it was at least better hidden. “So, Heloise,” she said, stretching one stiff leg out before her and gently shifting on the doorstep. “So you tried to climb the stairway, did you?”
Heloise drew a long breath of her own and let it out in little shuddering puffs. But when she spoke, she too tried to make her voice as natural as possible. “Yes. It was slippery. And the pool didn’t stay put! That is, it was shallow one moment and—”
“—and deep the next. I remember,” said Grandmem. “You shouldn’t try to climb the stair again, not on the mirror side. I attempted it three nights running and nearly drowned myself each night for my efforts. You’ll not follow your sister to the top, no matter how you try.”
Heloise felt her knees betray her. She felt them giving way before she fell, and she even made a paltry effort to prevent them from buckling entirely. But it was no use. She was so tired and damp, and her knees simply could not support the heaviness in her heart. She sank to the dirt, little caring just then how she dirtied Benedict’s tunic. “Then it’s hopeless,” she whispered.
Grandmem gave her a sharp look. Then she took the carrot from her mouth, leaned over, and bopped Heloise’s head with it. She wasn’t one for head-patting, but head-bopping suited her rather nicely.
“Sit up straight, girl,” she said, as imperious in that moment as any dowager queen. “I’ll not have you despair in front of me. That’s my lot, and I’ve a right to it after what I’ve been through. But you—you haven’t failed. Not yet. And you have help that I had not, so we’ll see to it you don’t fail, won’t we?”
“But how can I succeed?” Heloise wailed. Then, reinforcing that wail with a louder one, she added, “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to succeed at! I don’t know what I’m doing or why. Some curse? That’s what the Lion-Prince said, but he won’t tell me what the curse is or why we’re cursed or anything useful!”
“So you’ve met the Son, have you?” said Grandmem, leaning her head sideways against the doorpost. A funny twist tugged at her mouth. “He’s a pretty one, isn’t he?” At Heloise’s subsequent blush, the old woman uttered a disdainful “Ha!” and gripped the carrot tighter.
She said no more, so Heloise, rubbing at her cheek as though she could rub the blush away, asked, “Who is the Lion-Prince? That is, whose son is he?”
“He’s Mother’s Son,” said Grandmem.
“All right.” Heloise wanted to spit, but knew she’d end up with her ears boxed if she dared. “Who is Mother then?”
“I don’t know,” Grandmem replied. “I never met her. I never made it up the stairs.” She closed her eyes then. The sun was brighter now, and perhaps its warmth comforted her. All the many gathered wrinkles of her face smoothed under its rays, and Heloise, for the first time she could remember, thought she might almost glimpse the young woman Grandmem must have been at one time. A young woman not all that different from herself.
“I tried three nights to climb those stairs,” Grandmem said. “Each time I knew it was impossible, but I tried anyway. Because I didn’t want to face the truth. Son told me what I had to do. But I couldn’t accept it. Not at first.
“On the fourth night, however, I knew that I must do as he said. I must run the Night Hunt with Uncle and Aunt. If I wanted to find answers, I must join them. And I tried. Oh, believe me, Cateline, I did try!”
Heloise, sitting with her knees up, her elbows propped on them, and her hands, one clenched in a fist, hanging limply from the wrists, frowned at this. Had her grandmother lost her head? D
“I told myself there are things worse than death,” said Grandmem. “I told myself that it would be better to die than to fail. So I made my way to the forest of diamond, and I prepared myself for the Hunt to follow. I prepared myself to die. For I believed that I must be the prey they hunted.
“I was wrong. And I could not join them. Not when I saw who it was they pursued. Not when I saw what they did to him.”
Grandmem shuddered then and hunched over. She was motionless for a moment. Then her body heaved, as though trying to cough up a sickness in the gut. It heaved again and a third time. But the spasms passed, and Grandmem sat up slowly, both hands covering her face. She rubbed her eyes, rubbed her cheeks, and at last settled her hands down along her jaw, supporting her face.
“Grandmem,” Heloise urged, “who did they hunt? Please tell me.”
“Marcel Millerman,” her grandmother replied softly. “He still lives about these parts, runs the east-end wheat mill. He was just a miller-boy back then, nothing much to look at, nothing much to mind. But Cateline . . . well, she smiled a certain sweet smile for him. When she was taken, he forgot her and was left despairing without knowing why.”
“But . . . but they didn’t kill him,” Heloise persisted. “In this Night Hunt, I mean. He’s still alive.”
Grandmem shook her head. “No, child. No, they did not kill him. Much worse than that.”
Heloise face twisted into something between a frown and an incredulous smile. “What’s worse than death?”
Grandmem did not meet her eye. She only shook her head and whispered so that Heloise had to lean in to hear her: “I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t join them. I couldn’t watch what they did to him. They promised they would cease their evil games if I left. So I walked away, I left the forest of diamond, and I never once returned.”
A single tear rolled down Grandmem’s faded cheek. “Did you face the silver forest and its crushing, Heloise?”
“Yes, Grandmem,” Heloise said.
“And you passed through the golden forest to the waterfall staircase, I know.”
“Yes, Grandmem.”
“Did you retrieve the two branches, the one of silver and the other of gold?”
In answer, Heloise sat up straighter and held out her hand. She turned it palm-up, uncurling her fingers. Even in the brightness of morning, the two little branches gleamed with magical brilliance.
“I think something’s missing,” Heloise said as she displayed her find. When her grandmother reached out to take it, she almost snatched it back. This impulse she suppressed, and Grandmem took up the two branches, holding them so that the morning sunlight played on the little twists and curling leaves. Were it not for the distinct gold and silver glimmerings, it would be easy to think the two had always been one, so naturally did they fit together.
“Beautiful,” said Grandmem. “It is very like the one I had. But see here?” She pointed with one gnarled finger at a space beneath one of the two curled gold leaves. When Heloise leaned in to look more closely, she saw a small cut in the stem, so small as to be unnoticeable if one didn’t know to look for it.
“What is it?” Heloise asked.
“It’s for the diamond branch,” her grandmother replied. “The one you must gather. The one I failed to gather. For I could not finish the Night Hunt. When I returned to our world, failure burning inside me, I told myself I would go back the next day to try again. But the next day dawned, and I did not go. Nor the day after, nor the day after. It was a year or more before I finally dared try again. But by then . . . it was too late.”
“Too late?” Heloise asked fearfully.
Grandmem’s eyes, which once were blue, were almost gray now as they gazed down upon the dirty, frightened, angry face staring up at her. She feared her bitterness might pour from her tongue and poison the child.
But no. If the child was poisoned, the poisoning itself had taken place long ago. Ages ago. Back when this curse was set in place as payment for a sin Grandmem could not guess. What a vile sin it must have been to merit so great a price!
“When I looked again,” Grandmem said, “gazing into my little dark glass, I saw only my face looking back at me. Everything else was gone. Whatever power I once possessed over the mirror had fled me. Perhaps because I was too afraid. Perhaps because I was too old.
“But know this and know it well, Heloise, daughter of my son: The powers you now possess will not last forever. They will forsake you in the end.”
“Grandmem,” said Heloise, “why could you not finish the Hunt?”
“If I were to tell you,” her grandmother replied, “you would never try.”
TWENTY-FOUR
In the depths of the Wood . . . beyond the golden forest and the silver . . . beyond the edges of imagination . . . in the vaulting chamber of green growth and solid stone ever changing, always true . . .
. . . the Dame of the Haven slouched in the middle of an enormous pile of scrolls and growled, “Dragon’s aching teeth!”
“Where?” said the sylph, and wafted about her with interest, looking without eyes into the various corners of the library. It could see the Dame’s invisible helpers. Having no eyes can be a great advantage when it comes to spying invisible beings. They ducked away from the sylph’s gaze or made faces at it, but it wasn’t particularly interested in them. “I don’t see any dragon teeth.”
“No, no,” said the Dame, rubbing her forehead. Realizing how bad her posture had become while sitting cross-legged on the floor, she drew herself up straight. Her back clicked painfully. Just like a mortal’s.
Heaving a sigh, she pulled her feet under her and stood. They had, of course, gone to sleep while she sat, and she swallowed a few more curses as the blood rushed down through her veins, tingling uncomfortably. While waiting for both numbness and tingling to subside, she cast her gaze upon the mess littering the floor around her. Scrolls and volumes and missives galore.
But not a single written word about the Family of Night.
That was the problem with Faeries, she thought. Or one of the many problems. Because they did not die, they felt no need to write things down. Anything important they would either remember or get someone to remember for them. All the rest . . . well, what did they care? If they forgot it, it couldn’t have been that interesting. Thus there were few scribes to be found among Faerie folk, few who would bother themselves to learn the difficult language of pen and ink and parchment.
She frowned suddenly. Pen and ink and parchment . . . or perhaps . . .
Stepping carefully over her various piles, narrowly avoiding crushing priceless documents beneath her heel, the Dame hastened to a far corner of her massive library. She climbed a staircase that spiraled up a tall, proud elm, pushing aside branches as necessary and peering into the grooves and crevices of the trunk. But not until she neared the top did she find what she was looking for.
Tucked away in a deep hole in the elm’s trunk was a stash of wax tablets. They were bound in wood and closed to protect the delicate wax inside. They contained some of the oldest writing to be found in all the worlds, Near, Far, or Between.
The Dame selected one bound with a cord of blackest midnight. Indeed, the cord itself might have been spun from strands of the Black Dogs’ own hair, so absolute was its blackness. She carefully slipped the cord free and, hefting the heavy tablet to support it on one arm, used her free hand to open it.
The wax slab inside was covered in writing, Faerie writing set down with a sharp stylus in precision that could only come from a Faerie hand. The words themselves were so old that at first the Dame could not understand them. She frowned and narrowed her eyes, as though she could somehow scare the wax into submission.
Slowly, resentfully, the letters took the shape of understanding. They formed new ideas, vivid ideas, playing them out before her mind. She read them with difficulty, but they offered up their secrets at last.
As she came to the end of w
The sylph stirred up scrolls and wafted the pages of open books, gently, for it did not wish to inspire the Dame’s wrath. Seeing her face as she descended the stairs, it gave a glad little cry. “Did you find something?” it asked. It was a flighty creature and couldn’t quite remember what it was they had been looking for. But it loved the Dame and wanted her to be happy, and it thought it saw, if not happiness, at least satisfaction in her eye.
“I did,” said the Dame, sitting down at her desk and drawing a fresh sheaf of parchment to her. She did not open the tablet but kept it at her elbow in case she needed to reference it again. With a dip of her pen she set to work, drafting Faerie letters with the care a royal artist might employ while painting the king’s own portrait. Every line was meticulously drawn, graceful, and purposeful.
When she had finished and the ink was drying, she turned on her seat to address the sylph, who was chasing invisibles up among the branches of the ceiling. “Dear sylph,” she said, “do you recall the Time in which you left the mortal girl?”
“Yes,” said the sylph, wafting down to her at once. Then, “No.” Then, “Maybe?”
“You must find her. In her own Time,” said the Dame, putting into her voice all the sternness she could muster, which was considerable, despite her lovely face. “You must bear this message to her, and it must reach her where she was when you left her, not a year before, not a year later. If you return to the wrong Time, it may be that you return too late. Do you understand?”
It didn’t. But it wanted to. The Dame, even as she rolled up the scroll and tucked a shining starflower into the securing cord, prayed that it would want to hard enough. “Away with you then,” she said, “and help the mortal girl if you can.”
So the sylph planted a breezy kiss upon her face and darted to the open window. It vanished into the vastness of the Wood Between, and the Dame heard it laughing as it went. She could only hope it would remember the errand on which she had sent it.