Page 5

Strangers

“A treasure map!” exclaimed Jack, sitting bolt upright.

“Let me see it,” I said eagerly.

Rose ceased knitting and leaned forward. Mother’s eyes narrowed.

“That is to say,” said Jory, “I know where a map is to be found. And I shall find it.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

Jory just waved a hand and got to his feet. “Come, Jacko,” he said, putting on his travelling cloak and taking up his bow, quiver, and pack. “We must leave our kind hosts for the night. You say you have a good camping spot to sleep in? Is it far?”

“A stone’s throw,” said Jack, obediently rising. “ ’Tis a grand place to sleep—a treehouse! You can see stars through the leaves.”

“A treehouse?” Jory looked dubious.

“A wondrous treehouse!” Jack assured him, as Jory thrust his quiver and bow into his arms.

Jory bowed to Mother, then to Rose. He nodded at me .

“Thank you for supper,” Rose called after him.

“Show us the map if you find it,” I said in parting.

He grinned and shouldered his pack. “Lead on, Jack-a-napes.”

“Is there a map?” I asked Mother once the door was shut behind them. The cottage seemed quiet and empty. I regained my chair, which was still warm from Jory’s occupation.

“Time will tell,” said Mother, tapping out the ash from her pipe onto the hearth.

“What a pleasant young man he is,” said Rose, folding up her knitting and giving a delicate yawn.

Night had fallen, and it was our custom to retire early and rise at first light. As I moved to go to bed, Mother said, “Aren’t you forgetting something, Lily?”

“What?”

Mother nodded at the blackened cooking pot. “We don’t leave dishes for morning. That’s a sure way to attract mice.”

I sighed but did not argue.

“I’ll help you,” said Rose unexpectedly.

I knew she must want to talk. We took the dishes and pot out to the back garden where a pail of water waited.

“Why do you think the roses let them in?” asked Rose, drying the bowls so slowly that I might as well have wiped them myself.

“Because they knew they were harmless.”

“There are plenty of harmless people they won’t let past the front gate.”

This was true.

“Perhaps I was meant to meet him,” continued Rose in a dreamy voice .

“Jory?”

“Who else?”

I stared at her incredulously, but I was in shadow, and she could not see me.

“Keep scrubbing,” she said. “I cannot make breakfast in the morning with a dirty pot.”

I bent over the bucket, flicking my hair out of the way.

“Why should you be meant to meet him? He’s just some penniless adventurer like all the others.”

“Oh, I don’t know. In truth, he has some charm and good looks, but I only like him because he admires me. But don’t you ever wonder about the future, Lily? About where we will live out our lives?”

“Here, of course!” I said in surprise. “Where else would we live?”

“I don’t know that I want to live all my life hidden away in a woodland cottage, foraging for mushrooms and berries and chopping firewood. Don’t you ever wish for life to be different?”

“No. I don’t! And you don’t do the foraging and chopping, or take care of the animals, or the garden. All you do is keep house and knit things with holes in them that Mother has to unpick and start over.”

“Well, I call that very ungrateful,” said Rose. “You have no idea how much work it takes to keep a house clean and nice when one lives with a half-feral girl and an indifferent mother. If it were not for me, you would live like hogs!”

“Half-feral? I cook and scrub pots and do all the dirty work while you sit around like a lady of the manor overseeing all the servants doing the real work!”

“I, a lady of the manor! Ouch ! Did you scratch me? ”

“ Ouch ! No, I did not! It was that thorn!”

This put an end to our little bicker; it was not the first time the roses had disciplined us.

“So where would you want to live?” I asked, resuming my scrubbing.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not that I want to leave you and Mother or our cottage, or our beautiful roses.” She put out a hand to mollify a red rose whose petals looked black in the shadows. “But I should like something more.”

“What more is there?”

I felt rather than saw her little shrug.

“Marriage,” she said quietly. “Don’t you ever feel lonely? Wouldn’t you like to go among people and have friends and neighbours? Wouldn’t you like to have something important to do?”

It was my turn to shrug. I had never given it much thought.

“I cannot imagine living anywhere else,” I said. “I certainly don’t want to live in a town, with all the poky houses crushed up together, and all the noise and smell and confinement.”

I shuddered. An alarming thought struck me, and I dropped the bundle of short twigs I was scouring with.

“You’re not going to marry and bring some man into our house, are you?”

“Would it be so very bad? To have someone to chop wood and hunt game and make things easier?”

“It would be terrible. A man getting in the way, eating everything and making everything uncomfortable.”

“I’m too tired to argue,” yawned Rose, and we went in and climbed the narrow ladder to our cosy bed under the eaves.

I woke with a cry, sitting up in bed, my heart racing.

“Did you have the dream?” asked Rose sleepily, sitting up beside me.

“Yes.”

“Which one? The bear or the man?”

“Both.”

“You’re just worrying about Beran,” Rose rubbed my back.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. There was nothing new. It was the same dream.”

Rose got up and stretched. “It’s my turn to make breakfast,” she said, exchanging her nightgown for her shift and day-gown. “He will come soon,” she added kindly. “He never comes when the gate is open, but there are a few days yet.”

I nodded and tried to smile, to show I appreciated her attempt to comfort me.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, trying to shake off the feeling of helplessness and grief the dream always left me with.

Always it was the same: a large black bear, howling in torment, bound and chained. And I knew it was Beran—I had to help him, but I could not reach him. Then the dream would shift. It was no longer Beran, but a man. A man I had never met in waking life.

He lay dying, his dark head in my lap. I held him, weeping, willing him to live, but he slipped away from me all the same .

Rose cooked eggs for breakfast, and we half expected a knock at the door from our new neighbours, but none came, so I did not have to share my eggs after all.

Later that day, a half-dozen fresh fish were found on our doorstep, neatly gutted and cleaned, and laid in a battered leather hat that I recognised as belonging to Jack.

As I worked in the garden I kept glancing at the guardian tree, but there was no movement on my willow balcony, and no sign of the brothers except for the hat full of fish.

Mother returned from her walk with word that the ruffians had camped, rather foolishly, in the old quarry next to the labyrinth cave.

They would have a good view of the gateway into Faerie from there, but only if they didn’t first fall prey to the unfriendly dwarves in the tunnels, or get chased off by the unpleasant shrieker bats that roosted in the cave recesses.

The sun began to set, casting lilac streaks across the sky—a strange, vivid light that only appeared when the border thinned.

I rinsed the earth from my hands, ready to go inside for dinner, when I heard the creak of the front gate I had re-hung that morning. Must those brothers only visit at mealtimes? I didn’t want to share my fish.

I rounded the front garden, and stopped short. It wasn’t a lanky youth or his swaggering brother approaching—it was a black, hulking figure lumbering up the path.

“ Bear! Bear! ” squawked the jackdaw.

“ Look ou t!” came another voice—Jory, appeared at the garden fence with his sling spinning above his head.

“ Run , Miss Lily ! Out the way! I’ll bring it down! ”

“Don’t you dare!” I cried, hurling myself between the bear and the gate. “Don’t hit him!”

The bear caught sight of Jory and let out a roar that brought Mother and Rose rushing to the door.

Confusion reigned—yelling, growling, shouting, clattering. It was some time before any of us could make ourselves understood.

“What do you mean it’s your friend ?” Jory demanded, lowering his sling in disbelief.

“His name is Beran,” I said, catching my breath. “And he’s been our friend since I was a girl and he a cub! Come in, Beran. We have fish for dinner.”

“The fish!” cried Mother, rushing back inside.

“ We caught the fish,” said Jack, standing warily in the lane.

“And we thank you,” said Rose sweetly.

Before I could give her a warning look, she added, “Would you like to join us for dinner?”

“Won’t the bear attack us?” Jack asked nervously, watching Beran lumber up the cottage steps.

Beran turned at the top step and gave the brothers a low growl.

“I couldn’t say,” I replied mischievously. “He might have taken a misliking to you, seeing as you tried to attack him.”

Jory was more curious than scared. He pushed open the gate. “Is it enchanted?” he asked, watching as Beran disappeared inside.

“ He is a Faerie bear,” I said. “Not an it .”

“But you said everything out of Faerie was dangerous,” said Jack.

“I said faeries were not to be meddled with. He is not a faerie. He is a bear out of Faerie. ”

Jack scratched his head, but Jory looked intrigued.

“Let’s not disturb the ladies,” suggested Jack.

“But I have news they will like to hear,” argued Jory, and strode toward the cottage. “Good thing for that bear I had only my sling with me, or he would have a quiver full of arrows in him by now.”

We each had a fish, and there was plenty of Mother’s salad and roasted sweetroots to go around. Whenever Mother cooked there was always more than enough.

Jack kept as far from Beran as he could, moving his stool close to the door, presumably so he could make a swift exit if our ursine guest proved unfriendly. Jory divided his attention between watching Beran and watching Rose; it would be hard to say which of the two he was most fascinated by.