Remembrance Read online

  “I shall give you something hard,” Talis said, his face screwed up in a way that made him look about thirty years old.

  Callie’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, please,” she said. “Make it very hard.”

  Talis’s eyes lit up with his idea. “Make him a yellow butterfly.”

  “And her?”

  “Ugly and mean. Long thin face. Long, thin body. And she has a horrible character.”

  Meg almost laughed aloud at that. The children had been bickering all day because Talis had said his chores were much more difficult than hers, so Callie had offered to trade with him. Talis had an inflated opinion of what he did and he was so very sure of himself that he never exerted his full effort. But Callie had a plain girl’s knowledge that she was always going to have to work for what she had, so she’d scurried around and done all Talis’s chores in half the time it took him to do them. So now his reference to “long, thin body” and “horrible character” had to refer to the way Callie had taunted him after she’d beaten him in the chores.

  “And what else?” Callie asked, smiling knowingly at him.

  “Mmmm. Three wishes. I like the three wishes and…And I want fighting. Not so much kissing this time.”

  Callie looked into the fire for a moment, then began to give a slow, secret smile. After a glance at Meg to make sure she was still asleep, she began to tell a story about a mean little boy who had been turned into a yellow butterfly after he insulted a wicked witch. His quest was to find a girl who liked him for himself. This was difficult, since he’d never said a kind word to anyone and actually didn’t even know how to be nice.

  It took Meg some time to realize what Callie was doing, that she was making up this fascinating story. It wasn’t something the child had heard in the village—Meg had never heard such a story—but she was creating it as she went along. At some point Meg opened her eyes and leaned forward to hear the story, no longer pretending she was asleep, and began to listen.

  When Callie saw that Meg was awake and listening, she stopped her story. Her stories were for Talis and him alone; no one else had ever heard them or knew anything about them. They were a secret between the two of them, and she thought that he liked her stories because, well, because he loved her. Surely no one else would want to hear her stories. Surely other people had their own stories running through their heads as stories constantly ran through Callie’s head.

  But when she stopped, Talis nudged her crossly in the ribs, motioning for her to go on. Also, Meg was frowning, as though she too wanted to hear the rest of what Callie was telling.

  Tentatively at first, but growing stronger by the minute, Callie kept on with her story, and she found that an audience of one was nice, but an audience of more than one was even better.

  After the story was finished, Meg didn’t say a word. She just picked up her knitting from the floor and told the children it was time for bed.

  Callie was very disappointed that Meg said nothing about her story. Did she like it or not? Maybe it was too silly for her, what with yellow butterflies who were actually boys.

  All the next day Callie moped about, poking at her food, feeding her rabbits, feeding the chickens, but not enjoying the animals as she usually did. The only thing she showed any enthusiasm for was making lots of hints to Meg to give her compliments about her story.

  But Meg, usually so smart where the children were concerned, didn’t seem to understand what Callie was hinting at. She just did her daily chores as usual and said nothing about the night before.

  That night as they sat around the fire, Talis nudged Callie. “Go on,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  “No,” Callie said sullenly, by now truly hurt by Meg for all day saying absolutely nothing about her story.

  A few minutes later, when Will was beginning to nod off, the never-to-be-repaired harness in his lap, Meg said so loudly, he nearly fell out of his chair, “I should like a horse, a white horse that…that flies.”

  Will looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “You’re going daft, old woman,” he said. “Horses can’t fly. And if one was for sale I couldn’t afford it.”

  Meg, her hands full of clothing to be mended, was pretending to look down but, actually, all her attention was on Callie. It had been half-humorous, half-heartbreaking to watch her sulk all day. And Meg had quite vainly enjoyed the way the child had practically begged her for praise.

  While Will was still looking at his wife, waiting for her to explain what she’d meant by horses that fly, Talis jumped up, his arms extended. “Yes, a white horse that flies and a boy who leaps on him and rides to the stars.”

  Will’s eyes and mouth were agape.

  “You like that, Callie?” Talis said encouragingly.

  Callie was sitting with her knees drawn up, hugging them to her body, a smile of great satisfaction on her face. She now understood that Meg had been teasing her all day, just as Talis teased her. Actually, Meg had liked her story very, very much. She had given Callie the highest compliment a storyteller could be given: She was asking for more.

  “No,” Callie said softly. “The horse hates boys. Hates them very much. A boy hurt her once.”

  Will stopped trying to figure out what was going on. Both Meg and Talis were dead silent, leaning toward Callie and waiting. He did the same.

  “Before the boy can ride he must win her trust, for she is a filly, a filly with a beautiful, long, golden mane.”

  When Callie paused, Talis knew that was his cue to ask a question. “How does he win her trust?”

  Everyone listened as Callie began to spin a story of mischief and magic.

  19

  Why do I have to pick berries?” Talis whined. “That’s women’s work. I’m a man.”

  Before Meg could speak, Callie gave a snort of laughter. “You’re no more a man than I am,” she laughed. “You’re a vain rooster of a boy and you are good for nothing but picking berries.”

  Her words were harsh, but over the winter Talis had grown at least three inches while the only thing that seemed to grow on Callie was her hair. It annoyed her that in the village he sometimes ran off with boys twice his age and left her alone for as long as an hour at a time. She would have loved to run off with girls her own age, but—she would have died before admitting it to Talis—the girls bored her. So she ended up staying with Will while Talis ran around the village.

  But yesterday Talis had stepped on two honeybees and today his foot was so swollen he couldn’t do his chores, the chores that, in spite of what Callie had done to prove otherwise, he considered something only a “man” could do. But Meg said Talis was well enough to hobble up the hill with her and Callie to fill buckets with fat, juicy berries. So Talis was protesting this great imposition, saying it was too unmanly for him to do.

  But Callie knew the truth. Talis liked to pretend that he was very tough, that he was fierce and strong, but she knew what not even Meg did, that Talis had very, very delicate skin. Stinging nettles hurt him so much that at night, silently, tears ran down his face. It wasn’t that he couldn’t stand pain; he hadn’t been nearly as hurt by the blows from Will’s belt that Talis had felt more than once for his carelessness. But anything that affected only his skin hurt him terribly. He hated that his skin blistered easily; the chafing of a leather jerkin could raise a great welt on him, so in secret Callie often sewed patches over rough places on his clothing.

  Now, today, because of his bee-stung foot he was going to have to hobble up the hill and traipse through nettle-laden berry vines that would sting his sensitive skin.

  Usually Callie would have cared about him but she was angry that he had been stung yesterday while running with some village louts and leaving her behind. When Will teased Talis, saying he could later bake the berries into pies, Callie laughed extraordinarily loudly, making Talis look at her with narrowed eyes that said he’d pay her back later.

  There is nothing as inept as a male doing something he doesn’t want to do, Meg thought as s