When Spring Died

Chapter Nineteen

When Mathias's underling returned to Marseille, everyone knew about it.

Ivette sat in an armchair near a window in the library, resting her chin in her hand. The book Faerie Tales and Other Folklore sat in her lap, opened to a page that she'd read and re-read without comprehending it. It may as well have been written in a language she did not know. 

Her mind was on the sheer number of letters she'd received from her courts, pleas for her to send the embassies away, calls for action because Norvége should never have been allowed to leave Marseille. Her court felt threatened, and, she supposed, rightly so. But she could not explain that Mathias had been granted the Sceau de Tournesel. Her people would assume she'd foolishly wasted it for no reason, and she could not say that Étienne had granted it for he had a reputation too and it would solve nothing, no matter how much he might deserve to be punished for his transgression.

She'd avoided the Spring Courts for a while now. She didn't hold audiences, she didn't host galas. It branded her a recluse, guilty of something. She'd be lying if she didn't admit that in some sense, she was frightened.

She glanced back down at her book. The story she read was rather dark, but it started the way most of those fairy tales did.

A farmer, his wife, and their two children, a son and a daughter, all lived together in the countryside.

A happy enough start. But it never stayed happy.

The mother found her son to be stupid and incompetent, and she wished that her daughter would inherit everything when the time came, not her son. So she prayed to Vesna that the merciful goddess would take pity on her plight and rid her of her son. One day, the mother asked her son to reach into a chest filled with yew boughs to bring her some of the berries. He reached in, and then she slammed the lid of the chest down, decapitating the poor boy.

For whatever reason, when Ivette used to read this story with Étienne as children, they always giggled at tha part. Perhaps because of the complete lunacy of the idea. Or maybe it made them feel a little ill and they simply laughed to dispel the discomfort.

At any rate, the wife fooled her husband into thinking their son went to stay with his aunt the next town over, but her daughter was not so easily deceived. She suspected her mother of being the reason her brother was gone, and sure enough, she found her brother's head and body hidden beneath a pile of yew boughs out front beneath the yew tree where she was often told to stay away from due to the poisonous nature of the tree's berries.

The daughter buried her brother and then said a prayer to Vesna to right the wrong committed. The next day, the daughter saw a magnificent red bird in the yew tree, and she felt certain it was the spirit of her brother.

The bird swooped into the air, and then dropped a pair of beautiful red shoes, just her size, into the daughter's hands. She ran inside to tell her father and he too went to see the marvelous bird in the yew tree. The bird soared into the air again and this time dropped a gold watch and chain into the father's hands. He ran back inside and told his wife, who took one look at the red shoes and the gold watch and felt sure that she'd be given an even better gift.

Driven by greed, she hurried outside to see the bird. Sure enough, it took to the air and flew overhead. But instead of gifting her gemstones or finery, the bird dropped a millstone right onto her head, killing her instantly.

That was where the tale ended. Ivette blankly marveled at the fact that this material was intended for children. She'd never really liked this particular story. It felt vaguely like her own life--a mother hating her son, exalting her daughter, all for nothing in the end. She closed the book. It had been much more fun reading it with Étienne anyway, and it wasn't enough to distract her.