Dragonfield: And Other Stories Read online

  Hand upon arm, they walked up the steps toward the Great Temple and left the dream behind.

  Hearing them go, the Dream Weaver shook her head. She finished off the dream and put it in the bag. The morning sun was warm on her face. She folded her hands before her and almost slept.

  “I want a dream!” The voice was a man’s, harsh and insistent. She had heard it many times before, but in her half-sleep his remembered footsteps had merged with the sounds of the day. “I have your money, old woman. Give me a good one.”

  “Just a penny,” said the Dream Weaver, rousing herself.

  “It is a five-penny piece,” said the man. “For that I expect something special.”

  The Weaver sighed. The man came nearly every week with the same request. Five pennies for a one-penny dream. Yet he was never happy with the result. She pulled new threads from her basket and began.

  In a village that sat well back in a quiet valley, there lived an old woman and the last of her seven sons. The others had gone to join the army as they came of age, and the only one left at home was a lad named Karl.

  Even if he had not been her last, his mother would have loved him best for he had a sweet disposition and a sweeter voice. It was because of that voice, pure and clear, that caroled like spring birds, that she had called him Karel. But his brothers, fearing the song name would unman him, had changed it to Karl. So Karl he had remained.

  ‘No,” said the man harshly. “I do not like it. I can see already it is not the dream for me. I am no singer, no minstrel. I am a man of consequence.”

  “But you must wait until it is done,” said the Dream Weaver. “Dreams are not finished until the very end. They change. They flow. They have undercurrents. Perhaps it is not a story about singing at all. How can you know?”

  “I know enough,” said the man. “I do not want to hear more.”

  The Dream Weaver felt the wool snarl under her fingers. She sighed.

  “I would have given five pennies for a good dream,” said the man. “But that is only the smallest part of a dream, and not a good dream at that. “He threw a small coin at the Dream Weaver’s feet.

  “It is enough,” said the old woman, finding the penny with her fingers. And then, to the man’s back as his footsteps hurried away from her, she added, “Enough for me. But what is enough for you?” She finished off the fragment with knowing fingers and put it with the others in her pack.

  She stretched then, carefully, but did not arise. It was a good place that she had, by the steps. People passed it all the time. She did not want someone else to take it.

  Raising her face to the sun, she would have fallen into that half sleep which age so easily granted her, when a sound down the walkway stopped her. She put her hand out again and took up her call: “A penny, a penny, a penny for a dream.”

  A young woman, tall and slim, dressed in black, came slowly toward the steps. She held a child by the hand. As they neared the Dream Weaver, the old woman called out again, “A penny for a dream.”

  The child, also in black, strained at his mother’s hand. At the Dream Weaver’s call, he turned in surprise to look up at his mother. “You said all the dreams were dead. How can they be if this granny can make a new one? And just for a penny.”

  “Child,” his mother began painfully. Her hand moved her black veil aside, and she looked at the Dream Weaver with swollen eyes. Dropping the veil again, she repeated, “Child.”

  “But I have a penny, Mother. Here.” The child’s hand dug into his pocket and emerged with a sticky coin. “Please.”

  The veiled head looked down, shook slowly once, twice; but still the woman took the coin. Handing it to the Dream Weaver cautiously, she said, “Weave us a dream, granny, for the boy and me. But I pray that it is a gentle one, full of loving.”

  The Dream Weaver took the coin, making it disappear in her robes. Then she settled herself to the task. Her hands flew over the loom, and she plucked the strings as if she were a musician, her fingers gentle yet strong. And this was the dream that she wove.

  The Tree’s Wife

  There was once a young woman named Drusilla who had been widowed longer than she was wed. She had been married at fifteen to a rich old man who beat her. She had flowered despite his ill treatment, and it was he who died, within the year, leaving her all alone in the great house.

  Once the old man was dead, his young widow was courted by many, for she was now quite wealthy. The young men came together, and all claimed that she needed a husband to help her.

  But Drusilla would have none of them. “When I was poor,” she said, “not one of you courted me. When I was ill treated, not one of you stood by me. I never asked for more than a gentle word, yet I never received one. So now that you ask, I will have none of you.”

  She turned her back on them, then stopped. She looked around at the grove of birch trees by her house. “Why, I would sooner wed this tree,” she said, touching a sturdy birch that stood to one side, “A tree would know when to bend and when to stand. I would sooner wed this tree than marry another man.”

  At that very moment, a passing wind caused the top branches of the birch to sway.

  The rejected suitors laughed at Drusilla. “See,” they jeered, “the tree has accepted your offer.”

  And so she was known from that day as the Tree’s Wife.

  To keep the jest from hurting, Drusilla entered into it with a will. If someone came to the house, she would put her arms around the birch, caressing its bark and stroking its limbs.

  “I have all I need or want with my tree,” she would say. And her laugh was a silent one back at the stares. She knew that nothing confounds jokers as much as madness, so she made herself seem very mad for them.

  But madness also makes folk uneasy; they fear contagion. And soon Drusilla found herself quite alone. Since it was not of her choosing, the aloneness began to gnaw at her. It was true that what she really wanted was just a kind word, but soon she was so lonely almost any word would have done.

  So it happened one night, when the moon hung in the sky like a ripe yellow apple, that a wind blew fiercely from the north. It made the trees bow and bend and knock their branches against Drusilla’s house. Hearing them knock, she looked out of the windows and saw the trees dancing wildly in the wind.

  They seemed to beckon and call, and she was suddenly caught up in their rhythm. She swayed with them, but it was not enough. She longed for the touch of the wind on her skin, so she ran outside, leaving the door ajar. She raised her hands above her head and danced with the trees.

  In the darkness, surrounded by the shadow of its brothers, one tree seemed to shine. It was her tree, the one she had chosen. It was touched with a phosphorescent glow, and the vein of each leaf was a streak of pale fire.

  Drusilla danced over to the tree and held her hands toward it. “Oh, if only you were a man, or I a tree,” she said out loud. “If you were a man tall and straight and gentle and strong then—yes—then I would be happy.”

  The wind died as suddenly as it had begun, and the trees stood still. Drusilla dropped her hands, feeling foolish and shamed, but a movement in the white birch stayed her. As she watched, it seemed to her that first two legs, then a body, then a head and arms emerged from the bark; a shadowy image pulling itself painfully free of the trunk. The image shimmered for a moment, trembled, and then became clear. Before her stood a man.

  He was tall and slim, with skin as white as the bark of the birch and hair as black as the birch bark patches. His legs were strong yet supple, and his feet were knotty and tapered like roots. His hands were thin and veined with green, and the second and third fingers grew together, slotted like a leaf. He smiled at her and held out his arms, an echo of her earlier plea, and his arms swayed up and down as if touched by a passing breeze.

  Drusilla stood without movement, without breath. Then he nodded his head, and she went into his arms. When his mouth came down on hers, she smelled the, damp woody odor of his breath.

&
nbsp; They lay together all night below his tree, cradled in its roots. But when the sun began its climb against the farthest hills, the man pulled himself reluctantly, from Drusilla’s arms and disappeared back into the tree.

  Call as she might, Drusilla could not bring him out again, but one of the tree branches reached down and stroked her arm in a lover’s farewell.

  She spent the next days under the tree, reading and weaving and playing her lute. And the tree itself seemed to listen and respond. The branches touched and turned the pages of her book. The whole tree moved to the beauty of her songs.

  Yet it was not until the next full moon that the man could pull himself from the tree and sleep away the dark in her arms.

  Still Drusilla was content. For as she grew in her love for the man of the tree, her love for all nature grew, a quiet pullulation. She felt kin to every flower and leaf. She heard the silent speech of the green world and, under the bark, the beating of each heart.

  One day, when she ventured into the village, Drusilla’s neighbors observed that she was growing more beautiful in her madness. The boldest of them, an old woman, asked, “If you have no man, how is it you bloom?”

  Drusilla turned to look at the old woman and smiled. It was a slow smile. “I am the tree’s wife,” she said, “in truth. And he is man enough for me.” It was all the answer she would return.

  But in the seventh month since the night of the apple moon, Drusilla knew she carried a child, the tree’s child, below her heart. And when she told the tree of it, its branches bent around her and touched her hair. And when she told the man of it, he smiled and held her gently.

  Drusilla wondered what the child would be that rooted in her. She wondered if it would burgeon into a human child or emerge some great wooden beast. Perhaps it would be both, with arms and legs as strong as the birch and leaves for hair. She feared her heart would burst with questions. But on the next full moon, the tree man held her and whispered in her ear such soft, caressing sounds, she grew calm. And at last she knew that however the child grew, she would love it. And with that knowledge she was once again content.

  Soon it was evident, even to the townsfolk, that she blossomed with child. They looked for the father among themselves—for where else could they look—but no one admitted to the deed. And Drusilla herself would name no one but the tree to the midwife, priest, or mayor.

  And so, where at first the villagers had jested at her and joked with her and felt themselves plagued by her madness, now they turned wicked and cruel. They could accept a widow’s madness but not a mother unwed.

  The young men, the late suitors, pressed on by the town elders, came to Drusilla one night. In the darkness, they would have pulled her from her house and beaten her. But Drusilla heard them come and climbed through the window and fled to the top of the birch.

  The wind raged so that night that the branches of the tree flailed like whips, and not one of the young men dared come close enough to climb the tree and take Drusilla down. All they could do was try and wound her with their words. They shouted up at her where she sat near the top of the birch, cradled in its branches. But she did not hear their shouts. She was lulled instead by the great rustling voices of the grove.

  In the morning the young men were gone. They did not return.

  And Drusilla did not go back into the town. As the days passed, she was fed by the forest and the field. Fruits and berries and sweet sap found their way to her doorstep. Each morning she had enough for the day. She did not ask where it all came from, but still she knew.

  At last it was time for the child to be born. On this night of a full moon, Drusilla’s pains began. Holding her sides with slender fingers, she went out to the base of the birch, sat down, and leaned her back against the tree, straining to let the child out. As she pushed, the birch man pulled himself silently from the tree, knelt by her, and breathed encouragements into her face. He stroked her hair and whispered her name to the wind.

  She did not smile up at him but said at last, “Go.” Her breath was ragged and her voice on the edge of despair. “I beg you. Get the midwife. This does not go well.”

  The tree man held her close, but he did not rise.

  “Go,” she begged. “Tell her my name. It is time.”

  He took her face in his hands and stared long into it with his woods-green eyes. He pursed his lips as if to speak, then stood up and was gone.

  He went down the path towards the town, though each step away from the tree drew his strength from him. Patches of skin peeled off as he moved, and the sores beneath were dark and viscous. His limbs grew more brittle with each step, and he moved haltingly. By the time he reached the midwife’s house, he looked an aged and broken thing. He knocked upon the door, yet he was so weak, it was only a light tapping, a scraping, the scratching of a branch across a window pane.

  As if she had been waiting for his call, the midwife came at once. She opened the door and stared at what stood before her. Tall and thin and naked and white, with black patches of scabrous skin and hair as dark as rotting leaves, the tree man held up his grotesque, slotted hand. The gash of his mouth was hollow and tongueless, a sap-filled wound. He made no sound, but the midwife screamed and screamed, and screaming still, slammed the door.

  She did not see him fall.

  In the morning the townsfolk came to Drusilla’s great house. They came armed with clubs and cudgels and forks. The old midwife was in the rear, calling the way.

  Beneath a dead white tree they found Drusilla, pale and barely moving, a child cradled in her arms. At the townsfolk’s coming, the child opened its eyes. They were the color of winter pine.

  “Poor thing,” said the midwife, stepping in front of the men. “I knew no good would come of this.” She bent to take the child from Drusilla’s arms but leaped up again with a cry. For the child had uncurled one tiny fist, and its hand was veined with green and the second and third fingers grew together, slotted like a leaf.

  At the midwife’s cry, the birches in the grove began to move and sway, though there was not a breath of breeze. And before any weapon could be raised, the nearest birch stretched its branches far out and lifted the child and Drusilla up, up towards the top of the tree.

  As the townsfolk watched, Drusilla disappeared. The child seemed to linger for a moment longer, its unclothed body gleaming in the sun. Then slowly the child faded, like melting snow on pine needles, like the last white star of morning, into the heart of the tree.

  There was a soughing as of wind through branches, a tremble of leaves, and one sharp cry of an unsuckled child. Then the trees in the grove were still.

  “Thank you,” said the widow softly. She patted the Dream Weaver’s shoulder. Then she spoke to her child, “Come. We will go to your father’s people. They will take us in, I know that now.” She held out her hand.

  The child took her hand, and as they began walking, he asked, “Did you like it? Was it a good dream? I thought it was sad. Was it sad?”

  But his mother did not answer him, and soon the child’s voice, like their footsteps, faded away.

  The Dream Weaver took the dream from the loom. “They, too, left without the dream. Such a small bit of weaving, yet they had no room for it. But it was not a sad dream. Not really. It had much loving in it. She should have taken it for the child—if not for herself.” And still mumbling, the Dream Weaver snipped the threads and finished off the weaving, stretching it a bit to make it more pliant. Then she put it, with the others, in her bag.

  “Dream Weaver,” came a chorus of voices. The Dream Weaver sorted out three. Three children. Girls, she thought.

  The boldest of the three, the middle child, stepped closer. All three were tawny-haired, though the oldest had curls with an orange tinge to them. “Dream Weaver, we have only one penny to spend. One for the three of us. Can you weave us one dream? To share?”

  “Share a dream?” The old woman laughed. “It is the best way. Of course you can share. Are you … “she hesitated, the
n guessed, “sisters?”

  “How can she tell?” whispered the youngest.

  “Hush,” cautioned the middle child. “Manners!”

  The oldest ignored them. On the edge of womanhood, she was aware of urges in herself she could not yet name. She gathered her skirts and her courage, and squatted down by the weaver. “Could you,” she began tentatively, “could you put true love in it?”

  The Dream Weaver smiled. She had heard such requests many times over. But she would never have convinced the girl of that. Better to let the child think she was the only one with such a dream.

  “Oh, true love!” said the middle child. “That’s all you ever think about—now. You used to be fun.”

  The youngest girl lisped. “A cat, please, granny. Please let there be a cat in it.”

  “A cat! True love! I only want it to be fun. For the penny we should have a good laugh,” the middle child said.

  The Dream Weaver smiled again as she pulled the threads from her basket. “Well, we shall see, little ones. A cat and true love and a laugh. I have had stranger demands. But one never knows about a dream until it is done. Still, I will try. And since it is your dream, you each must try as well.”

  “Try?” the three exclaimed as one. And the youngest added, “How shall we try, granny?”

  “Hold hands, and I shall weave. And as I weave, you must believe.”

  “Oh, we will,” said the youngest breathlessly. The other two laughed at her, but they held hands. The warp was strung. The weaver began.

  The Cat Bride

  There was once a noddy old woman who had only two things in the world that she loved—her son and a marmalade cat. She loved them both the same, which seemed strange to her neighbors but not to her son, Tom.

  “I bring home food, and the cat keeps it safe. Why should we not share equally in her affections?” he asked sensibly. Then he added, “Though I am not the best provider in the land, the cat is surely the best mouser. Ergo, it follows.”

  But of course it did not follow for the neighbors. To them such sense was nonsense. However, as it was none of their business, the old woman ignored their mischievous tongues and loved boy and cat the same.