Oakwood Grange

Chapter 4

        

The girl was sitting on the tree stump of the fallen oak. She sat there with her head down and her arms around her knees—sobbing, it seemed to Mae—her face veiled underneath a mess of long and wildly tousled hair.

Mae thrust her lantern forward. "Hello?" she said, shining light over the little stranger. "Are you . . . all right?"

The girl gasped, startled, and quickly ducked behind the tree stump. Mae craned her neck to look for her. Who . . . ? she wondered, stepping closer.

A pair of fearful eyes peeked shyly from the axe-hewn wood.

"Hey, easy there," said Mae gently, as if talking to a skittish foal. "Sorry . . . I didn't mean to spook you. It's just that Pa and I ain't had any visitors out here, and I was feeling pretty spooked m'self—walking through the dark, I mean." She set her bucket down and smiled. "Guess we sort of gave each other a fright, eh?"

Green eyes sparkled in the lantern light. Curious, Mae moved to get a better look, drawn into those eyes the way a sinking stone is drawn into the leaf-tinged waters of a pond. She had never seen anything so beautiful before, so otherworldly, and for a moment she felt absolutely spellbound, like her heart had just plunged someplace deep and wild and enveloping.

The girl blinked and swept a tendril of brown hair out of her face, and Mae recovered herself like someone stirring from a daydream.

"Seems mighty late to be out a-strollin'," she said. "Is your home nearby?"

"Yes," whispered the girl, her voice a sigh of wind among the oak leaves.

"Why, we must be neighbors then! I prob'ly should've made your 'quaintance sooner, but Pa and I have only just moved in and we ain't yet had the chance to meet too many other folk. We've been fixing up the place, you see—trying to get this farm in order so that Pa can make some money with it. But my sakes! I sure am glad to know another gal lives close." Mae paused to take in the nighttime landscape. Aside from her own cabin, no lit windows could be seen, no smoking chimneys nor any other signs of people living near. All was black and lonely darkness. "Say . . . ," she continued, "whereabouts is your home?"

"Here," said the girl.

"Here . . . ?"

The girl nodded and placed a hand palm-down on the tree stump. "My home is here."

Mae's brow knotted. "But—" she began uncertainly, "you can't live here. This is my home—this land belongs to my pa and me. You must mean that you live somewhere else nearby—down the road, maybe, or over yonder knolls?"

"No," replied the girl, narrowing her eyes at Mae. "That is not what I mean, nor do I say what is not meant. This is my home and here is where I live. But now"—her voice shrank sullenly—"now my home is dying, and I must leave it, or else stay and wither and not live at all."

"Oh."

None of this talk made any sense to Mae. She thought the girl had probably lost her way somehow, and maybe roaming through the night alone had put her mind a little out of kilter.

She picked up the water bucket. "Listen . . . I've got a couple chores to finish up. You're welcome to come with me if you want. Afterward I'll see if maybe Pa can take you home—wherever that might be. We don't want your folks to worry none."

The girl watched her coolly from her hiding place. "You would help me . . . return?"

Mae shrugged. "Of course I'll help—if you don't mind walking, that is. Our horse got hurt today, and I'm afraid he won't be any good for saddling or pulling on a wagon anymore. He's in the barn if you'd like to meet him."

"Swear upon it first."

"Huh?"

"Swear that you will help me return home. Swear upon your blood, and on the tides of stardust from which your kind emerged."

"You mean like 'cross my heart and hope to die'?"

The girl nodded.

"Sure, okay. I swear. Now c'mon, let's hurry to the barn. This air is colder than a bear's nose in a January honey tree."

She raised the lantern to give the girl some light.

A slender wisp of a child stepped out shyly from behind the tree stump. The yellow lamp flame danced and cast its glow on skin so fair it shined like fragile moonlight in the shadows of the oak.

Then Mae gasped, fumbled the lantern, and dropped it with a heavy clank upon the ground.

The girl was naked!

"My!" said Mae. She slipped off her sheepskin coat and tried to wrap the girl's small body in its folds.

The girl balked.

"Hurry, put this on," said Mae bashfully. Somewhere in her blood a tiny rose had bloomed and kissed her cheeks with blush.

"Why?"

"Why? Because it's clothing—and in case you haven't noticed, you ain't wearing none."

"It is a dead thing," said the girl, sniffing at the woolly collar with disgust.

"It's a coat," said Mae, "and you'd better take it before somebody sees you. Here"—she fastened up the buttons in the front—"isn't that better?"

"It is warm."

"Well I should say so! Warmer than that birthday suit of yours, at least. I mean . . . heck! What're you doing out here without a stitch on anyway? Did you fall into a creek or something?"

A frown wrinkled the girl's forehead. "I did fall, but it was not my fault. Someone felled my home."

"Someone felled your home?"

"Yes." The girl sighed. She looked like she was going to cry again.

Mae did not know what to say. Secretly she thought her new companion was a little crazy. Her words and manners were peculiar, to say the least, and there were leaves caught in the long brown tangles of her hair, as if she'd spent a few nights sleeping outdoors in the woodlands.

Still, she felt sorry for her—protective, too. Sometimes bad things happened to young girls, things nobody liked to talk about. And yet . . . this girl seemed untouchable, somehow, her bearing dignified and prideful, even—a small and stately princess who'd just sprouted from the soil underneath her.

Who was she?