The Halfling

Chapter 7

There was a soft-quiet stirring near the river. A boy washed ashore, disturbing the dead leaves that kissed the forest floor.

A girl in a glowing white dress emerged from the contorted trees. She caressed the boy's mellow-bronze face, running her fingers through his spruce-brown hair. She touched the bruises on his skin and they disappeared as if they were naught but flecks of mud wiped away with cloth.

She was otherworldly, the girl, her skin pale as winter snow and her eyes radiating the sapphire of an inordinate gemstone. Her cheeks were a freshly-cut rose that shone in the derelict forest, hair flowing beside them in thickly-woven threads of gold.

She raised her hands, her fingers dancing to a tremulous song. The boy was lifted into the air. She set him beside her, entering the thickets and briars.

She passed by a mellow brook. She sneezed a quiet sneeze, as a cat would have. She smiled. "It seems that the curse of the Fey still writhes within me. I never can stay in this world as long as my name is Merena."

They proceeded into the woods, the boughs contorting and the canopies swishing as if to cover their tracks—it looked like the forest was dancing. At a certain point, however, this ceased to happen, as if a barrier separating areas of the forest was put up.

The whole scenery shifted. No longer were the trees bald and twisted entities staring at the two, their bark-skin peeled off to reveal gruesome features. They were now kindly old men who bent in greeting, offering gemlike fruits which dangled from the canopies. The ground changed from a mélange of dead leaves on dead rocks to a flowing expanse of shimmering green. The rot-licked roots, slumping flowers, pointy thorns, spindling branches, ivies, vines, critters—all of them now were sublimated.

They reached a small house then, a white-washed one, whose stature may have not passed for a castle, but whose magnificence outshone even the sun. They went inside.

Merena set the boy down on a floor of loam. She watched his forehead crease, his jaw clench, his body stir here and there. He had been through a lot, it seemed. Enough adventure and journey for a man; even more so for someone young as he.

When the moon hit the castle and produced a deep, serene purple, the Fairy stood up and prepared a meal. She worked her spells, moving this pot to pour, this plate to hold food, this to cook, that to hiss, this and that, that and this.

Her fingers once more moved that dance, that dalliance, which she used to lift the boy. And they pulled and tugged as if there were invisible threads that shivered to and fro to control the limbs of all these things.

The boy stirred. He woke, looked about. "Who are you? Where am I? My friends—where are they?" He looked at the girl. More than her sorcery, he was fascinated with her blue eyes and her golden hair. "Am I in a dream?"

"I'm Merena. I'm the one who took you from the shore you washed upon." She smiled a sweet smile. "But no, I didn't see your friends, dear stranger. And I'm afraid to disappoint you but this is no dream. And yet it seems that for you, reality is often stranger than a dream."

"Perhaps," the boy said. He laughed, recalling the journey from Aman. "It wasn't always like that, though. I was much the ordinary boy before I met my companions. And I'm Samuel."

He felt easy with the girl, as if they had already met some years ago under a balmy summer sun, with sweat-beaded backs sticking to their clothes.

"Oh no," said Merena, "you're anything but ordinary, Samuel." She set the food on a low table. "Here, let us eat while we talk."

On a tray of silver were porcelain teapots and fruits and pies and tarts and biscuits. There was no mush which greatly satisfied the boy.

He ate one of the biscuits. "What do you mean," he said, "that I'm anything but ordinary?"