Young Writers Society

Father said the evening sky was the color of my eyes. Mother, turning back to my brother, said not to fill me with foolish fancies, that I’d learn the truth soon enough. She said, “Don’t tell the girl lies, Charles. She’s a plain girl, and her eyes are the same blue as anyone else’s. It won’t do her any good to make her think highly of herself,” and my eyes stung. I’d never known exactly why she hated me, but I felt it had something to do with my precious brother, and the way I’d never been, never would be, as good as him. Father thought I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and in his eyes, I might’ve been. But in his eyes only.

My mother had married below her station, not waiting for her own father’s consent, and had fallen hard. Married life, as she told me a thousand times, wasn’t a ball held in Elfland. There were children to be washed and fed, husbands to be pleased, a house to clean, meals to slave over, and so many other things. I like to think she did it all to protect me, to make sure my life was better than her own, but I’d’ve been lying to myself again.

Of course, on my thirteenth birthday I learned the truth pretty well. Mother, who said birthday’s were not to be celebrated, as all the pain she’d went through to bring my undersized, crippled body into the world was no joyous event to be commemorated, had sent me out to the woods. It was something I could always tell she was reluctant to do, no matter how we needed mushrooms or to check the traps. The only times Mother had ever kept me from work was when the work was going out into the woods. That was the one chore she saved for my handsome older brother, who was wholly human, wholly built.

It started out like any other day, perhaps, to stretch my tale a little, like any other birthday. I woke up, didn’t realize I was thirteen, then suddenly remembered as I stirred the ashes into flame. With no one else awake, no one else looking, I’d rushed outside, heedless of the rain, and danced a little, going in when the sheepishness caught up with me. Of course Mother was awake, and not happy that I was soaking wet. It meant that I had to- had to! - sit by the fire, while my brother shivered in the corner. Mother seemed to think that the same aberration that left me half-shriveled and with only half a voice made me also physically stronger, in some twisted way. I was always the one shivering, while my whole and healthy brother slurped porridge mixed with honey in front of the dancing flames.

The rain stopped around midmorning, when the roosters decided to add one last crow for good measure and then finally quit. As soon as the beams of light burst through their prison of grey gloom, Mother sent me out to gather firewood. It was punishment for getting wet, and I knew it.

“It’s my birthday, Mother,” I informed her as I pulled on the oiled leather boots by the door. It’d never made any difference in the past, but I took a special pleasure in annoying her when she deserved it.

“I know that, you foolish girl. How could I forget the day I brought your unthankful body into the world, the day the sky bled with me? But just because that day was thirteen years ago doesn’t mean you get to slack off! So get to it, you!” For a moment, I was torn. She’d not used my name in more than a year, and it was beginning to sound strange on people’s lips. In my heart, I wanted to make her so mad she’d use my name, my strange, unsettling name, but then I released that wish. Getting her that mad would be bad luck on a day like this.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Mother. It just seemed-… never mind.”

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The forest was dark and dripping wet, covered in cool mud. Somehow I didn’t mind. Any of the other girls in my village would have shirked, and gathered whatever they could as quickly as possible, but something possessed me to go deeper into the wood, deeper even than I’d been for my spirit-call ceremony, when they’d decided my protector was a sparrow. Mother had sighed, obviously disappointed in me. My brother’s protecting spirit was an impressive stag, and Mother herself was guarded by the eagle spirit. A sparrow, which was a rare spirit in any case, meant that I was as common as the natural form of the bird, and as small-destined.

As I ventured farther in, I realized that the air had changed. It was a sudden difference, like entering the smoking-shack from the fresh, crisp air of autumn, yet somehow I knew others wouldn’t have detected the change. They’d only have felt alarm and hurried back. But I was curious as a sparrow, and something drew me ever forward, towards the center of our dark wood. I knew that somehow, the Fates had aligned for me today, and to run now would be to become the girl my mother thought I was- a coward, a plain wench, a fool.

The air grew lighter, too, and not with sunbeams. All the leaves became greener, the mud slid off the ground as I passed over. And I felt- wonderful. Something deep, deep inside me was singing like a lark, and I felt like I was, well, coming home. Like I’d been away all day in the wet, and had finally staggered into the warm embrace of the cottage, surrounded by the smell of fresh baked bread. That was how the forest felt, welcoming. I knew then, strange as it sounds, why my mother hated me.

Voices called out from the trees themselves, happy and light, warm and friendly. They wanted me to stay, as no one ever had before, as no one ever could. A girl so misshapen as I was was surely cursed, and the safest thing to do was to keep away from me. But the people, thought they couldn’t be people, they were too beautiful, were dancing towards me, eyes sparkling with laughter.

Later that night, I returned home without any firewood. Mother was predictably furious, ranting that how could I be gone for hours in a forest and not have any wood for heaven’s sake?

“It’s too late, Mother. I know the secret, and I’m leaving tonight. They’ll fix me, don’t you see? The villagers are right, I am cursed! They want me back, think you stole me, and so they made me broken, hoping you’d cast me out. But you kept me, instead, and now I’m finally free of you, because I know what I am!” I’d never spoken so much at once, it always hurt too much. Yet these words didn’t have to be ripped from my raw throat, pushed into the air. They came smoothly, truer than the sky above the world.

“How? How, my child?” was all my mother, my strong, fierce, uncowed mother, could say. How? I wondered, How indeed?

“Now I know why you never sent me into the woods, because you were afraid I’d find my way home! But why, Mother? You hate me, I’m just a reminder that one night you went gathering and fell in love with some elf-man! Why keep me in this unequal world, where I’m doomed as the leaves of autumn?” I asked, meeting her eyes.

“Because I loved you,” my mother said, turning away. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. All I could do was run, run far and fast, deep into the woods. But someone followed behind, desperately trying to keep up with me.

I stopped just before I reached the Realm-Border, turning to face my mother, who I loved and hated, torn between instinct and reaction.

“I loved you, Linneya, I loved you, and I still do,” she said softly, her breath coming in ragged bursts.

“Mother, if you love me, you’ll let me go home. You’ll let me find my place in the world. I can visit, and you can visit me. I’m just leaving a few years early, Mother. But if I stay in this world, you know what’ll happen: I’ll fade away, and you’ll have to watch me die.” We were both crying by then, and, under light of the full moon, we embraced one last time. “Good-bye,” we whispered together, and I entered the Fay world.