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The Cuckoo

“Where have you been?” said my sister when I returned home. “Look at the state of your gown and hair! You look as though you’ve been crawling under thorn bushes. Where is Tansy?”

“Under a thorn bush and refusing to come out. Probably trying to hatch pinecones again. If she gets eaten by a fox, it will be her own fault. I had no choice but to leave her.”

“ Coming home ! Coming home !” called the jackdaw outside our gate.

“Here is Mother,” my sister said, breaking off from scolding me.

Through the small front window, with its fretwork and shutters, we saw Mother’s solid figure marching up the path, leading our equally stout donkey. A small cloud of butterflies fluttered around her in welcome. I darted to the door and pulled it open.

“What have you got?” I asked eagerly, peering at the sacks draped over Jenny’s crude saddle. “ Oats ,” I said, disappointed that Mother’s jars of berry jam and honey had been traded for something so ordinary. I lifted a sack and bore it inside.

“Lily has seen an adventurer,” my sister announced.

“I thought as much,” said Mother, bringing the other sack in and depositing it in our pantry. “A youth, is he not? I saw him pass through town.”

“Yes,” I said. “I met him in the woods.”

Mother raised her eyebrows. “That was careless, Lily.”

“I know. He caught me off guard. I was under a bush trying to get Tansy.”

“Don’t let it happen again. It may not be a harmless youth next time. At least you had sense not to go out without a rose.”

“I made her wear it,” my sister said.

“Put the kettle on, Rose,” said Mother, pulling a package from one of her pockets.

“Liquorice root tea!” cried my sister. “You did bring a treat! I knew you would.”

Another pocket yielded a second package.

“Sweetmeats!” I crowed.

“Put Jenny away,” said Mother, shooing out a fat bumblebee, then lifting a ladybird from her shoulder, placing it gently on the windowsill. “Then we shall have a brew, and you shall tell me all about this youth.”

“And you shall tell us all the news from town,” said my sister eagerly, hanging the kettle on its hook.

As we sat over tea I told them about my conversation with Jack, son of Jago. Rose thought it clever of me to deter him from our cottage by claiming a dangerous sorceress lived in it. But she was glad I had advised him not to risk sleeping in the woods.

“He was little more than a boy,” I said. “I feel sorry for him, risking his life on a pointless treasure quest. ”

Rose and I shared the sweets made of almonds and honey. Mother had brought a treat of her own in the form of a twist of tobacco. She sat smoking her pipe thoughtfully. My sister pressed for news from town. She liked hearing about the world beyond our woodland cottage. I did not care as much.

“I anticipate there will be more adventurers than usual this year,” said Mother. “The king has declared that whoever finds the treasure and restores the crown may now keep all the treasure, as well as a reward of land, property, and a place at court.”

“The king is desperate, is he not?” my sister mused, taking a tiny nibble of her sweet.

I had eaten mine already and looked longingly at the two remaining on her wooden plate.

She saw me looking and whisked them out of reach.

“He is desperate,” agreed Mother, murmuring around the pipe in her mouth. She took it out and examined it. “He’s not in good health. If the crown is not found, there will be a violent scramble for the throne.”

“A war?” my sister asked, her eyes wide.

“Very likely. These are trying times. Many factions vying for power.” Mother tucked her pipe back between her lips. “As in Faerie, so it is here,” she murmured.

Mother wouldn’t let me go back for Tansy, but went herself to fetch the wayward hen. She wanted Rose and me to keep close to home, to keep the shutters closed, and not so much as step into the garden without at least two roses each in our hair.

My sister accepted this without complaint, but I chafed against restriction.

“I don’t know why you make such a fuss every year,” Rose said, settling down to her knitting.

“ I do not wish to be ogled at by horrid adventurers. It would be different if they were gentlemen of high rank, but they’re always so dirty and unkempt.

” She gave a delicate little shudder. “Like smelly bears.”

“You would be dirty and unkempt if you had travelled far and wide to get to the border, encamping in the open for weeks or months,” I countered. “And Beran is not smelly.”

“Yes he is. You are too used to it to notice. Instead of scowling at the fireplace, why don’t you spend your time profitably? Fetch the workbasket and mend your dress. You’ve torn it ragged.”

Mother returned home with the recalcitrant Tansy under her arm. I wondered how she had managed to coax the stubborn bird out, and without so much as a single scratch or tear in her gown.

“I have been suggesting to Lily that she ought to make good use of her time at home,” said Rose, as Mother took her fireside chair. “There is plenty of mending to be done.”

I crossed my arms. “You know I detest sewing. Oh, Mother, do I really have to be cooped up for two weeks? A pox on that stripling for arriving a week early and doubling my confinement!”

Mother gave me a sympathetic look, but her tone was firm. “I am sorry for you,” she said. “But young women are not always safe around strangers. It’s my job to keep you from harm. You can still work in the garden. The time will soon pass.”

“Surely I may still go out while it’s only that silly boy camping somewhere about?” I begged.

She shook her head. “There will be more arriving any day. I will teach you something new to pass the time. ”

“A new stitch?” I said resentfully.

“A new book,” she replied.

I brightened, for I loved to learn new things.

I opened my mouth to ask how she could afford something so expensive as a book, but as soon as the words formed in my mind, they slipped away again, like melting snow.

I blinked. What was it about the book I had wanted to ask?

The thought drifted out of reach, dissolving into nothingness.

It was not the first time this had happened when speaking with Mother.

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful, and my resentment at being confined renewed.

I weeded around the berry canes, jabbing my hoe into the earth with more force than necessary.

A delightful breeze passed through the garden, whispering of nectar-rich flowers and the ferny glades.

I longed to follow it, but could only watch as our honeybees glided amiably away, eager to chase the scents they had heard of on the wind.

I was so used to the chatter of the local birds that I barely paid them any attention.

They trilled of the usual things—the sky was clear of hawks, the ground clear of foxes, there was a new berry crop and a good patch of grubs.

They bickered over territories, and one little gold-breast was always calling his fellow birds rude names before flitting away, laughing when they came after him.

But this morning, a new voice was in the air—a repetitive, high-pitched call, coming from above.

I paused in my hoeing. “That was no bird,” I told the hedgehog that had snuffled out from his den, hoping I had unearthed something tasty.

Abandoning my hoe, I plunged through the garden gate and strode toward the guardian tree.

“Where are you going?” Rose called through the window. “Mother said not to—”

I ignored her.

My skirts swished around my legs as I ran to the tree and shimmied up the ladder to my treetop den.

A voice greeted me cheerfully before my head emerged.

“You did see me!”

I hauled myself up, glaring at the intruder.

“How did you get up here?”

Jack, son of Jago, beamed at me as though I were the guest.

“Is it not the best spot in the world to make camp?” he said, gesturing around him. “ ’Tis very like a den! Had a mortal good night’s sleep, I was—”

“It is very like a den, because I made it!”

“Did you? How clever. But why are you so cross?”

“How did you find it?” I demanded. “No one has ever found my den.”

“Took heed of your advice not to sleep under the trees, so I thought to sleep in the trees.” He gestured at the ancient branches with a silly smile.

“It is my tree, Jack, son of Jago, and you are trespassing.”

At that moment, the branches creaked beneath us, and the whole tree swayed, unbalancing us both.

Jack staggered against the trunk, while I was thrown against the willow wall that formed the balcony of my den .

Jack laughed, having received no worse than a painless knock. “Methinks your tree is as cross as you, my lady,” he said. “There’s something very alive about this tree.” He patted the trunk fondly, and the leaves rustled in response, like the purr of a cat.

I glared at boy and branches alike, and rubbed my elbow. Overhead, the squirrels scolded me.

“Perhaps,” I said loudly, speaking to the leaves and branches and squirrels, “I should give up all my secret places to this wandering boy?”

The tree remained silent. Indifference was worse than temper.

“I am not a boy,” he protested.

“Well, you are not a man.”

He straightened to his full height, which was a good handspan taller than me.

I put my hands on my hips. “Do not light any fires,” I ordered. “And do not break so much as a single twig from this tree, nor pilfer one egg from any nest!”

Jack looked at me with disdain. “I’m not beetle-headed. Who would light a fire in a treehouse?”

I flounced away to the ladder.

“Don’t go!” His expression softened back into boyish eagerness. He nodded toward my cottage. “You were teasing when you said a dangerous sorceress lived there, for I looked out this morning and saw you! Tried to get your attention. Did you hear me?”

“How could I not? There is nothing like shrill screeching to get one’s attention.”

“Was trying to make a cuckoo call.” He squinted at me. “You’re as crusty as my brother.”

“You would be out of temper too if you found some noisy, irritating fellow spoiling your peaceful morning and stealing your den.”

Jack looked dejected. “You’re not a faerie, are you? And you’re not a sorceress, neither.”

“Who says so?”

“If you were, you wouldn’t only give me a tongue-lashing. You’d do something tricksy to punish me.”

“Perhaps I am exercising great patience out of pity for your excessive youth.”

I placed one foot on the ladder.

“I’ve got sweetcake!” he blurted.

I hesitated. “What kind of sweetcake?”

He darted to his pack and rummaged until he reached a wrapped bundle.

“Got currants and peel in it,” he said, unfolding a grubby piece of cloth to reveal a sorry-looking slab of cake. “Smell,” he urged, shoving it under my nose.

I smelled the warm scent of nutmeg and mace.

“ ’Tis a bit dry,” he admitted. “A goodwife gave it me for cleaning out her goat house. Made it last four days. Could have eaten every last crumb in one go.”

He was now close enough for me to see the pinched look of his face. I frowned. “What else have you got to eat?”

He shrugged. “Just this.”

I was not going to eat his last morsel. “I have to go,” I said brusquely, wanting to stifle the rush of pity I suddenly felt for him. After all, he was not my responsibility. He shouldn’t even be here, I told myself as I climbed down the tree.

And nor should I, I thought, as I ran home.

Fortune was with me, for Mother was not home yet. I told Rose of my conversation with the youth .

“I wonder why the tree has taken a liking to him,” she said.

“Probably feels sorry for him. He’s such a greenhorn, he hasn’t even packed provisions for himself. He’s been living on currant cake for the past four days.”

“There are worse things to live on,” said Rose. “Perhaps we should send him some dinner seeing as he’s a harmless youth.”

“And how shall I explain to Mother how I know about him needing dinner?”

Rose gave one of her graceful little shrugs, and we said no more on the matter. But the memory of the youth’s hungry face niggled at me for the rest of the day.

Mother came home in the late afternoon, her basket brimming with wild mushrooms and late allium bulbs. No one could find mushrooms like Mother. She seemed to winkle them out with her nose, like a truffle pig, we often jested.

“The border is unusually thin in places,” she said when I asked for news.

Rose brought water for Mother’s dusty feet. I peered into the basket, sorting through the foraged goods.

“I hope that boy you met took your advice,” continued Mother, drying her feet. “It would not be wise for him to camp in the woods when the fae begin coming through.”

I glanced at Rose. “I saw him again,” I admitted. “I was in the garden and heard him whistling. He could see me from the guardian tree. The brat stole my den.”

“Interesting,” said Mother, sitting in her chair by the hearth as Rose poured the dirty water out the window onto the rose bushes.

Evening drew near. We were preparing for our dinner when there came a knock at the door .

I sprang up immediately. “It must be Beran!”

I hurried to the door—it could be no one else, for the roses would have barred a stranger. I opened eagerly, and the smile of welcome slid from my face. “You!”

Jack, son of Jago, stood on the doorstep with a silly look on his face.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, peering past me. “What a snug little house.” He sniffed the air. “What a delicious smell. Hope I’m not intruding. Came to warn you—there’s a horde of ruffians coming this way.”