Excerpted from: A Book of Prudent Stories: For the growing of young children
There are no shadows on the plains. There are no places to hide until you meet the hills on either side. Children should always be able to find their way home. They don’t stray too far from the fields, with the corn and the vine walls that cover the horizon. Children belong within their village, not at the outskirts; that is how they stay safe.
The Fae, neighbors, stay within their conclaves as well. They have no children like humans have children. Their children are older in mind, reckless in ways the human child cannot afford. They are dangerous. They are different. They are wild.
~.~
Once upon an age, on the east side of the fertile plains, lay two villages. One village sprawled, its thatched houses built from the earth, as if their inhabitants had struggled to raise the very earth itself. Flung out from their doors, lay wreaths of corn, vegetables, grains. The soil there was plentiful, and they were careful to respect its growth.
Aside it, not too far to the north, lay a very different assembly. Instead of houses made of mud, born of the labor of men and women, small trees grew outward in their trunks, as if concealing secrets. Small hills, so low to the ground that one would not see them unless searching boiled from the ground, their softly rounded tops moving with the land instead of sprouting from it. The grass grew a little greener, the leaves sighed a little heavier. This unusual grouping of small gardens adjacent to farmland, was the small village of several fairy clans. These families had lived on the plains for as long as any of their memories could stretch, which was a very long time, as rarely did Fae pass into memory themselves.
While these two rather different villages could be considered neighboring, their inhabitants would have stretched the definition of neighbors. Rarely did either human or fairy make the effort to meet with each other; neither really felt the need. This questionable peace lasted for many years.
One year, a boy was born. Named Garreth after his mother’s father, the boy was a little more adventurous than most of his peers, and often enjoyed the outskirts of the village’s farmland than his peers. Garreth observed things, small things, but as he was rarely in the eyes of any adults, was not used to being observed himself.
“Hello.” A melodic voice surprised him, the day after his ninth birthday. “You’re new.”
Garreth, who had whirled around at the sound, sought the voice’s owner. A small fairy flitted down from a tall stalk of corn. Eyes the brightest gold Garreth had ever seen and hair whiter than the most flaxen of his village, the fairy cocked his head, and smiled softly.
Garreth, who had been instructed not to speak to the Fae, and if he must, be very polite, did not know quite what to do.
“I am Sarot.” The fairy said, making an odd gesture with his hands.
“I’m Garreth.” The boy introduced himself hesitantly. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Why not?” A look of genuine surprise crossed Sarot’s face.
Garreth, unable to answer the question, did what most 9 year olds do in the face of absent parental guidance. He shrugged and smiled.
“Why are you over here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the north?”
“I am north of you.” Sarot raised his white eyebrows, as if he were confused by Garreth’s misconstrual of direction.
“Yes, but…” Garreth chewed on his words, momentarily stymied by his companions logic. “You’re not supposed to be in a human village.”
“That’s silly.” Sarot, whom Garreth had come to guess was a child, laughed. “There’s no place anyone isn’t supposed to go.”
Garreth shook his head vehemently. “We stay here.”
“Why?” Sarot’s wings flickered as he flew closer to Garreth. “I don’t understand. If you are lost, you simply ask the land to find your way home for you.”
Unable to follow this logic, Garreth fell silent. “Show me.” He commanded in his 9-year old curiosity.
Sarot raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. “To ask the land to find you, you must first become lost. You don’t even want to leave your village.”
“I’ll leave.” Garreth said stubbornly. “I can do this.”
“Well alright then.” Sarot, excited by the challenge, flitted upwards, his beige tunic moving with the air. “Let’s go east.”
And so they did. Little Garreth with nothing in his stomach but a small breakfast set out eastward, with the sun high overhead. He did not think of his mother or father or baby sisters. He did not think at all. Perhaps it was the temptation of majik, though he did not know what that word meant yet, that drew him onward. Perhaps it was Sarot himself, looking to see how far he could push a human child to go before something terrible happened. Fae are a curious wilding; they don’t understand experience like humans, for they cannot die.
The sun moved northward on its lazy spiral home, and Garreth began to see shadows on the plains. Garreth, for whom shadows were an unusual occurrence outside the lengthy greys cast by their hurts and corn and vine walls, grew uneasy.
“Where are we?” He asked Sarot.
“I don’t know.” Sarot responded cheerfully.
This frightened Garreth “What’s that?”
Sarot, from his vantage point flitting above Garreth’s head, squinted. “It’s one of your graveyards.”
“One of my graveyards?” Garreth asked, alarmed.
“Yes.” Uncaring, Sarot flew ahead, forcing Garreth to glance warily over his shoulder at the darkening plains behind him, and follow the fairy east.
Grey stones tilted up from the earth, a magnificent green in the golden light of evening. Faded names strew across their faces, members of families long since forgotten.
“Where are we?” Garreth breathed again.
“I just told you.” Sarot’s eyes rolled down to consider his companion. “We’re in a human graveyard.”
“Our graveyard is in the village, behind the house of the Elmas.” Garreth spoke quickly, almost babbling. “It’s behind the shrine to the Twins.”
“Maybe your recent dead.” Sarot said conversationally. “Not these.”
Sarot seemed perfectly at ease amongst the dulled stones, weathered from age and the rains upon the plains. Garreth felt a fear, a deep fear that seemed to emanate from the space between the graves. He stepped carefully through the plots, careful not to touch any.
“Why are you suddenly changed?” Sarot asked. He’d been watching Garreth from a bit ahead of the young boy.
“Because there are dead here.” Garreth whispered, as if his voice might wake the dead.
“You have dead in your village.” Sarot did not phrase this as a question. “Why are these any different?”
“They aren’t my dead.” Garreth tried to explain. He half expected the dead to rise, or some semblance of what they once were, some half flickering ghost exhumed by his presence, roused simply to shuffle him away.
“The dead are like the living, except they are still.” Sarot informed Garreth. “They can’t hurt you.”
“You don’t die.” Garreth said stubbornly. He wished his feet would move faster, but something held his walk in a half crouch.
“So it is death you fear?” Sarot, who had alit on a particularly old tombstone, cocked his head at his human companion. “The ending of things?”
“It’s a reminder that I will die.” The 9 year old said, surprising himself into standing up straight. “Plus, they’re just, spooky!” Garreth had trouble finding the appropriate adjective to describe his dread. Everyone feared the dead, especially if they didn’t know the dead when they were living. What if they were jealous of the living, and sought to take it back somehow?
Garreth voiced these concerns to Sarot.
“That is silly.” Sarot shook his head. “All the things that make a body move simply leave it. It goes into you and me. So we can continue.”
Unsure what to make of this turn, Garreth stomped his foot, frustrated. “Can we continue, please?”
And so they did.
Through the graveyard, under the ever darkenign sky. Garreth wondered briefly if his parents would miss him. Sometimes he came home late, but he always came home. He trusted that this time would be no different. Sarot had promised to show him how to ask the earth to return him home. Garreth would be back before breakfast.
Past the graveyard, stars signaled a short horizon in the east. It kissed the earth unevenly, as though the earth grew into waves where the sky fell down to meet it.
“Hills.” Garreth breathed. He’d never seen the hills. He knew that there were mountains in the west, water in the east, but he’d never seen the hills that stood between his village and the land’s bounding terrain.
Like gentle introductions to their harder centers, like the fruit along the vine walls, the hills flavored their surroundings and seemed gentle, inviting.
“We all have an end, you know.” Sarot said suddenly. “Ours is just quieter than yours.” He had clearly not forgotten the discussion that Garreth had so wished to escape.
“You can die?” Garreth asked, surprised. His breath clouded coolly in the damp air.
“Yes. We can be killed.” Sarot dropped slightly in the air as he shivered.
“Who kills you?” Garreth asked.
“You do.” Sarot explained. “Or we die in some other way. We are harmed past when we can be saved. Our bodies give out.”
“But you don’t fear it.” Garreth said, almost to himself.
“Time does not kill us.” Sarot said softly. “It is time, I think, that you fear. Not death. Running out of time.”
Garreth turned to look at Sarot, whose white hair shone with the light of the stars. The plains lay silver in the moonlight. “I fear many things.” It was a time for honesty, confession.
“That is because your life is short, and you wish to be us.” Sarot said matter of factly.
Angry, and unsure why such a flame flared to light in his heart, Garreth snapped, “That isn’t true.”
Surprised at the change in his companion, Sarot blinked. “You want me to teach you majik.”
“I didn’t ask that.” Garreth made a face.
“That is the point of this whole adventure.” Sarot looked confused. “Asking the land to guide you home is what you call majik.”
Garreth remained silent for a moment. “You’re right then.” He finally said. “I do want that.”
“Well let’s get lost then.”
“Are we not well and truly lost already?” Garreth asked, a little desperately. “I don’t know where we are.”
“I do.” Sarot turned back. “And I think the land will take more pity on you if we go to the barrows.”
“What are the barrows?” Garreth asked. His spine felt cold. Something told him he should not venture into the barrows.
“They are where our dead sleep.” Sarot explained. “Like your graveyard.”
Garreth shook his head wildly. “I do not want to go to another cemetery. Especially a Fae yard. This was a bad idea. Let’s turn back.”
“The barrows will let you be lost.” Sarot, growing frustrated, flicked angrily at the boy. “You do not understand the reason for them, and you cannot find your way home. That is doubly lost.”
“But—”
“Being lost is about more than where you are physically.”
“I don’t understand,” said Garreth, finally succumbing to tears. He really wanted to be home with his family eating the stew he knew was for dinner that night. He wondered if they worried about him, and for the first time, he felt guilty for leaving home with this fairy.
“I will have trouble teaching you, I think.” Sarot said regretfully.
“Show me how to ask now.” Garreth commanded Sarot, his voice cracking from the fear and the longing. “I want to go home.”
Sarot sighed and flew a little higher. “You say things as if commanding them will make them so.”
“Tell me.”
“Close your eyes.” Sarot gave in. “And reach out with your mind. Feel the silence, feel the air around you. Ask the land its name. Ask it to show you the way home.” Sarot watched the young boy close his eyes, irritated.
Perhaps his parents were right. Perhaps humans asked questions because they felt as if they deserved the knowledge. Sarot was certain about one thing; some knowledge is best left ungiven. The difference, he had decided, between human sand Fae, was that the Fae were ok with knowing there were things they did not know. The humans were not.
As Garreth began to walk, attuned to his surroundings, Sarot understood that majik would not work for the boy the way it worked for him. He watched as Garreth began to step forward, putting one foot in front of the other. Sarot did not interfere. He did not ask the land to turn Garreth around.
Sadly, Sarot watched as Garreth marched towards the hills in the east, eyes closed, concentrating on what he thought he heard. Sarot flitted upwards in the sky, wondering what had gone wrong, but then again, not wondering either. Human lives were so short, like fire in the rain, snuffed by the bigness of the forces they tried to handle.
Sarot closed his eyes, listening to the echoes of the songs on the air. He heard the way Garreth’s mind called out and asked the land to guide him. Sarot sighed heavily. Garreth had asked the land to show him a different home than he thought.
Sarot shook his head, and, on a soft and melancholy breeze, began his wing westward.
No one would find the body of the boy, slumped against the wall of a barrow as if he had passed away in sleep. No one would find the bones until much later, when another Fae arrived to drop a body of their own. Garreth had walked out of life into death, hand in hand with majik, a force too large and dangerous for humans to touch, a force the Fae keep for themselves, wild, free.
~.~
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