She was just a child, but in the dream she was a woman, beautiful, in a bridal gown, walking down a long aisle on the arm of a man she couldn't quite see.
But the dream was split-screen, and the other part showed the great globe of the world. That was her, too, in the strange way the dream had of making it seem real. But the world was mostly dead; no human beings remained on it.
Somehow she knew that these were two aspects of her future, and that one of them would come to pass. Marriage, or destruction. But which one? Why? It wasn't frightening, just mysterious.
Then music swelled. It was a lovely, mysterious melody. She woke, afraid it would fade away along with the rest of the dream, but it remained, coming from outside.
She scrambled out of bed, leaving her sister Luna sleeping. Well, Luna wasn't exactly her sister, but it was complicated to fathom, so that was good enough. Let her sleep for the moment; this shouldn't take long.
She shoved her toes into her slippers and scurried across the floor in her nightie. Lured by the melody, she scrambled down the stairs, along the hall, and reached the door. She put both hands up on the solid knob and turned it, and after a brief struggle got the door open.
The summer dawn was cool but not cold. Orb hurried out, intent on the melody, not caring what time or temperature it was. The landscape seemed preternaturally bright, better than real life; this was fun!
She paused before the house, reorienting on the sound. The farm backed onto a forest, and the sound was from the forest. She ran across the field, scattering chickens, and reached the edge of the wood, panting. She was four years old, and this was a good-sized trek for her to accomplish alone. She wasn't supposed to come here without an adult, and that gave her a bad twinge of unease, but the music was fading, and she knew she had to catch it right away.
The forest loomed thick and dark, and it was girt with monstrous spider webs and mean brambles and other awful things, so she scouted along the edge, hoping for a way through. The music was becoming quite faint, making her desperate.
She found a path! She ran down it, into the depths of the wood. But the music was now fading out entirely, to her horror. She stopped to listen for it, but it was gone.
Except—there was another sound, not the same, but possessed of its own melody. Maybe that would do. It was ahead and, as she continued along the path, it grew louder.
The path debouched at the river. Orb had encountered the river before, but not at this spot. Here it was crippling merrily over rocks, making its music. She strained to hear the tune of it behind the rushing noise of water, and it came clearer, but imperfect.
She made her way along its irregular bank, guided more by her ears than her eyes. Now she heard another sound, neither the first melody nor the second, but a kind of tittering laughter. It was coming from a swirling pool a little downstream.
Then she spied the source of the mirth. Girls were playing in the pool! Lovely, lithe, bare girls with long tresses. They were swimming and splashing and diving and having a terrific amount of fun, and their trilling laughter made the last melody she had heard.
One of the nymphs spied Orb and called out to her. "Hello, child of man! Come join us!" The others laughed anew at this.
Orb pondered briefly, then decided to do it. She drew off her nightie and stepped out of her slippers. Naked, she went down to the pool.
"She heard me!" the nymph exclaimed, astonished.
Orb paused. "Did I do something wrong?"
The nymphs looked at each other. "You see us, child of man?"
"Yes. Don't you want me to splash with you?"
Again they exchanged glances. "Of course we do!" the first nymph said. "But do you know how to swim?"
"No."
"But then you might drown!"
Orb hadn't thought of that. She was sure that drowning would be very uncomfortable. "Then why did you ask me to join you?"
"We didn't think you would hear us," the nymph explained.
"Or see us," another added. "We were only teasing, the way we do."
"Why?"
"Because we are water sprites," a third said. "The children of men aren't usually aware of us."
Orb was perplexed. "Why?"
Several sprites shrugged. "We don't exactly know. It just is so."
There was an instant flowering of laughter. "Oh, you rhymed!" another cried.
The others splashed wildly at the one who had rhymed, giggling. Orb really wanted to join in, but she realized that she would have to learn to swim first.
"Why didn't I hear you or see you when I saw the river before?" she asked.
The sprites looked at each other, perplexed. "Why didn't she?" one repeated. "We have seen her before, and she was oblivious."
Orb didn't know what the big word meant, but judged that it meant what it was supposed to. "Yes, why?"
"Maybe she changed," one suggested. "Did you change recently, little girl?"
"This morning I heard a song I never heard before. It woke me up. I was looking for it."
Again the sprites exchanged glances. "She changed," they agreed. "Now she can join us."
"How?" Orb asked, eager to participate.
"There's an inner tube someone's forgotten," one of the sprites informed her, perceiving her dilemma.
"Oh, I can float in that!" Orb agreed. "Bring it to me!"
The nymph shook her head. "Alas, we can not," she said sadly.
"Why?"
"We can not touch the things of the children of man. At least, not to affect them. Only mortal creatures can do that."
Orb accepted that. "Then tell me where it is, and I'll fetch it myself."
"Gladly!" The sprite led her downstream a short distance. There, hung up on a dead branch, was an inflated inner tube.
Orb waded into the shallow water, her legs tingling with the chill of it, and hauled on the tube. "Oh, it's heavy," she complained. "Can't you help me?"
"I don't think so," the sprite said sadly. "I really can't touch you or it." She demonstrated by reaching out to touch Orb, and her hand passed through Orb's arm without sensation.
"Oh, you're a ghost!" Orb exclaimed, not certain whether to be pleased or frightened.
"No, just a sprite. I can touch natural things like water, but not unnatural things like the children of man."
Orb decided it was time for introductions. "I'm Orb," she announced. "Who are you?"
"I'm—" The sprite paused, concentrating. "Oh, I don't think I have a name! I never realized."
"Oh, that's very sad!" Orb said. "I must give you a name."
"Oh, would you?" the sprite asked, pleased.
Orb concentrated, trying to think of a name. Beads of water trailed down the tube as she continued to tug at it. "Waterbead!" she exclaimed.
The sprite clapped her little hands. She was not much larger than Orb, though formed as an adult or nearly adult woman. "Oh, thank you!" Then, focusing on the tube: "Maybe if you lifted it a little, instead of just pulling..."
Orb lifted—and abruptly the tube came free. She clambered into it, and in a moment was floating.
"If you paddle with your hands..." Waterbead suggested.
Orb paddled, and the tube began to move. Soon she was out in the pool, moving splashily. The sprites laughed and splashed back at her. The droplets of water did touch her; they were natural. This was indeed fun, despite the cold.
Waterbead swam out ahead, making little whirlpools in the water. Then the other sprites joined in, fashioning a larger whirlpool. Orb's tube spun around in it, making her laugh giddily. Oh, yes, this was fun!
They were now at the lower side of the pool, and the current was picking up, carrying Orb on down the river. "Maybe you should paddle upstream," Waterbead said.
"Why?" Orb was enjoying the ride.
The sprites suffered one of their little pauses. "We can't go too far that way," one explained. "The water goes bad."
Orb didn't like bad water, so she paddled. But now the current was too strong for her. She made no headway, and soon her arms were tired, and the tube picked up speed downstream.
"We can't follow!" a sprite cried. One by one they dropped back, returning to the quieter pool, until only Waterbead remained.
"Maybe you should go to shore," Waterbead suggested.
"Why?"
"Because the bad sprites are downstream. If you go to the shore, you can stop before you reach them."
Orb tried to paddle for shore, but the current fought her, and she could not reach it.
"Oh, I must go back!" Waterbead cried. Indeed, she looked distressed, her hair turning lank and her skin clouding up. "Get out of the bad water as soon as you can, Orb!" Then she stroked swiftly upstream, leaving Orb alone.
The tube spun about, bouncing through the rapids, and Orb had to cling on for dear life. Then the river smoothed out in a kind of lake, with a factory beside it. A huge pipe poured dark fluid into the water.
Indeed, the water was bad here; it was discolored and cloudy, so that she could no longer see to the bottom, and it stank of something rotten. Orb did as Waterbead had advised and paddled for the shore away from the factory.
But now more sprites appeared. These were of similar size to the first ones, but their bodies were twisted and their hair tangled. "What's this? A child of man!" one cried.
"Drown her!" the others chorused.
"But aren't you sprites?" Orb asked, alarmed.
"She sees us!" the twisted creatures cried as if horrified.
"Of course I see you and hear you, too," Orb said.
The hostile sprites ringed her, staring. "We can still drown her," one said, scowling. Her eyes were cloudy, as if there was disturbed weather inside her head.
"Not while she's in that tube!" another pointed out.
"Then get her out of the tube!"
They splashed at her, not playfully as the others had, but roughly, so that the water stung her face. "Hey, stop that!" she cried.
They did not. One rushed at her, making a horrible face. "Out! Out! Out!" the mean sprite screamed.
Orb got angry. "Yah!" she screamed back and struck at the sprite with her fist. She missed, but made a bad splash of her own. Then she whipped her arm back and forth, throwing up water so that it flew all over, and screamed so hard that her face heated.
The nymphs were daunted. Evidently they had never seen a temper tantrum before. It was a thing Orb was good at; sometimes she even frothed at the mouth, alarming everyone. Luna almost never got mad, but Orb made up for both of them when something set her off.
The sprites withdrew to a safe distance, "We can't touch her," one said.
"We don't have to," another answered. "There's more than one way to drown a mortal. Start a swirl."
"A swirl!" the others agreed.
They swam in a circle, stirring up the water, forming a great whirlpool. The nice sprites upriver had made fun swirls, but this was an ugly maw. Orb's tube was sucked into it. Faster she moved, as the sprites accelerated the water. The tube tilted as the center of the whirlpool dropped low. Orb was afraid she would topple over. Then she would have to let go, because her head would be under the foul water. Her anger was replaced by fright. What could she do now?
"A boat!" a sprite screamed angrily.
"It can't see us," another said.
"Yes it can!"
Abruptly the sprites left the whirlpool and dived under the murky water. The swirl eased, and Orb was able to see the boat. "Daddy!" she cried.
In a moment her father Pace was there, lifting her out of the tube and into the canoe and wrapping a blanket around her shivering body. She hugged him, crying, her relief causing her to let go of all the anger and fear.
But she was young, and in a moment the siege of emotion passed. Now her curiosity returned. "Daddy, I saw the sprites!" she exclaimed.
"You saw them?" he asked, repeating her statement in the way that adults tended to do. He seemed pleased.
"Nice ones in the pool, but mean ones here. Why is that, Daddy?"
"Because this water is polluted," he said. "The factory pours its wastes into the water, and that ruins it, and the sprites who live here become twisted. It is a sad thing."
"Why?"
He did not chide her for her "Why's." Daddy understood her. "Because the factory can make more money if it dumps its wastes out instead of paying someone to haul them away. We have tried to get the factory to stop, but it has a lot of money and it uses it to prevent us from stopping it."
"But the sprites—"
"It is sad about them," Pace agreed. "But very few people can see them, so there is no clientele." He paused, realizing that he had gone beyond her vocabulary. "No one to try to help the sprites."
"Oh. That's very sad, Daddy. Even if they are real mean."
"Yes, it is. Perhaps when you grow up, you can do something about it. Then this colony of sprites won't be mean anymore."
That was too complicated to grasp fully, because Orb wasn't sure how anything could be other than it was now, so she asked another question. "How come nobody can see the sprites?"
Pace shook his head. "Some folk just seem to have more magic than others," he said. "Just as some are taller than others, or more mischievous. Or have worse tempers." He gave her a little squeeze. He didn't even mind her tantrums, which was one of the perplexing things about him. "Magic has run in my family, and that's part of it."
"What's the other part?" They were at the shore now, and he was lifting her out.
"Why, you know that, Eyeball," he said with mock reproval.
Orb considered. Then she smiled. "Your music, Daddy!"
He nodded. "My uncle had it. My cousin had it. I have it. And maybe you do, too, pumpkin."
"I heard a song," Orb confessed, knowing that her father would soon get around to inquiring why she was out in the lake. "When I woke up, I just had to find it. And I couldn't. It just went. Then I heard the river, and it was singing, too, only not the same, and the sprites called, and—are you going to tell Mommy?"
"Will you promise me not to do it again?"
Again Orb considered. "Daddy, I've just got to reach that song!"
"Dumpling, you just can't reach that song."
"Why?"
"Because it is the Song of the Morning. It fades out when dawn ends."
"But—"
"It will return tomorrow at dawn. I'll take you out to listen to it. Now will you promise?"
"Okay, Daddy."
"Then I won't have to tell your mother."
"Okay, Daddy!" she repeated, hugging him. Then: "But why aren't you mad?"
"Daddies don't get mad at little girls—"
"Oh, Daddy, you fibbed!"
"When they turn up with magic talents," he concluded.
Orb sobered. "I don't think I can make music like you."
"You heard the Song of the Morning. And the Song of the River. You saw the sprites. Those are signals of our family magic. It is just manifesting now. I was older than you are now when I first heard the music, and older yet when I learned to make it. Give it time, peanut."
"Okay, Daddy." She could tell how pleased he was about her hearing the Song. That was her luck, for she knew she had gotten herself into a lot of trouble, almost drowning in the river. Then, just in case he might reconsider, she changed the subject. "How am I related to Luna?"
She knew by his reaction that she wasn't deceiving him, but he answered anyway. "You are her aunt, technically."
"But I'm the same age!"
"Age doesn't matter. Niobe and I are your parents together and Luna's grandparents separately, and you are the half sister of each of her parents."
"I know!" she exclaimed. "A half and a half is a whole! I'm a whole sister!"
But he shook his head. "Half sister to her father the Magician, and half sister to her mother Blenda. Because you share one parent with each. Two halves. But either qualifies you as Luna's aunt."
Orb shook her head. "That's too mixed up for me, Daddy."
They were approaching the house. "I could draw you a chart, but I don't think you could read the names."
"I'll learn. Daddy!" she exclaimed.
So when they got inside, and Orb had been washed and cleaned by her mother, who did not ask questions after receiving a warning look from her father, Pace made a chart for her.
Cedric = Niobe = Pacian = Blanche
| | |
| Orb |
Magician ========= Blenda
|
Luna
Then he went over it with the two girls, because by this time Luna was up and curious, too. "My cousin Cedric Kaftan married Niobe, back way long, long ago," he explained. "Their son became the Magician. Meanwhile, I married Blanche, and our daughter was Blenda. The Magician married Blenda, who was his second cousin, and they had you, Luna." He tweaked a strand of her clover-honey hair, and she smiled. The two girls had been born only days apart and had trouble remembering who had been first.
"Cedric died young," Pacian continued, "and later Blanche died. That was when Niobe and I got together, and had you, Orb. So you are the Magician's half sister through Niobe, and Blenda's half sister through me. The two of you are of different generations, even though you are the same age and look like twins."
"Why are you so much older than Niobe?" Luna asked.
Pace smiled. "I'm actually eleven years younger than Niobe," he said. "She was the most beautiful woman of her generation, and she kept her youth."
The two girls looked at each other, the clover-honey blonde and the buckwheat-honey blonde, and shook their heads. They suspected they were being teased. It was obvious that Pace was much older than Niobe!
"Which relates to the prophecy concerning the two of you," Pace continued.
"What?" Orb asked.
"A prediction, a divination, a telling of the future," he explained. "What will happen. I think it is time for you to know it."
"Yes!" they agreed together, for this had the smell of mystery.
"It was a complex prophecy and it caused the Magician to lay a geis on you both, that no further prophecy can be made for you. It started with your fathers, when we were young, before we ever married. It was that each of us would marry the most beautiful woman of her generation and have a daughter."
"And you did!" Luna exclaimed. "Our mothers are—"
"Yes. That is part of it. But the rest of it is this: that one daughter might marry Death, and the other might marry Evil."
"But we're too young to marry anyone!" Orb protested.
"So you are—at the moment. But when you both grow up and are as beautiful as your mothers, remember that prophecy and be careful. No one knows exactly what it means."
"We will!" they chorused, not taking it seriously, for they never really expected to be other than they were right now. In later years, however, they were to remember, and Orb would wonder: did this relate to her vision? A wedding and a dead world?
