Albin Boar-boy

In an age of the world there was a young man whose brother was a Special Child.

The young man's name was Albin, and he had the double misfortune to be born as the fourth son of a poor farmer. Third sons were as popular as ever, but Albin missed out on that to his brother Ivan; and in any case the fashion that year was seven sons, and most of the villagers and farmsteaders in the neighborhood were pushing for that magical number of offspring. Seven daughters would do, of course, in a pinch, for no one knew when a witch might hobble along to turn them into a bevy of swans; but the rage was boys, and any farmwife with five sons already under her skirtstrings knew she was in the running for the major prize. Albin's father was himself the youngest of seven boys, and Albin's whole family did whatever they could to promote the birth of more male heirs.

The whole community celebrated when Albin's sixth brother —the family's seventh boy —was born, and Albin's father nearly bankrupted himself in a huge celebration feast for his little boy Godfrey, the true seventh son of a seventh son. Albin, who was four then, was as excited as anyone, and when the town's hedge witch tottered in on unsteady legs and announced, after peering at the pink bundle held up proudly by Albin's mother, that Godfrey was a Special Child, Albin clapped and cheered as loudly as the others. It was, as he said when he got old enough to think of it, the best day of his life.

But as Godfrey grew from a sweet-faced baby to an even sweeter-faced toddler, and from there to an elfin child, Albin was surprised to discover that he didn't actually like the Special Child very much. Godfrey was insufferably sure of himself for someone so young, and his Special Child status meant that even the village elders capitulated to his opinions. Most of his brothers and sisters would laugh proudly about it, but to Albin it was maddening.

"He told Elder Pruitt that she was wrong to beat her cow for kicking over the milkpan," he grumbled to his bed-mate Ivan after they had worn themselves out wrestling for the non-scratchy side of the straw mattress they slept on.

"Elder Pruitt was wrong," said Ivan, yawning. "That poor cow."

"I know," said Albin. "But Pa would have tarred you or me for saying that to Elder Pruitt, true or no. And she's the head of the Elders, too. But she was all niceness to Godfrey, asking if he really thought so, and maybe she never thought of the old cow's feelings."

"So it's a good thing he did. Ain't that what he's for, Godfrey, to bring about good things?"

"Guess so," said Albin. "But, still —Pa would have beat us raw."

If Godfrey had a sin, it was the sin of laziness, and this even his awed parents admitted to. "Special Child or no, you have to help bring in the hay before the rains come!" cried Albin's mother in exasperation every year in the hay season when she caught Godfrey idling in the shadow of one of the great wains, and Godfrey would grumblingly assent, though often commenting that his time would be better spent in planning the improvement of the world.

One year Albin's mother put him upon the wain to catch the cut hay, and told Albin, who was already there, to keep an eye on him, which Albin frowned at. At nineteen, he felt that he was old enough to help harvest, and being on the wain was irksome enough without his least favorite brother helping him.

"Why do I gotta mark him?" was all he asked, though. "He's almost of age, let him keep an eye on himself."

"Shouldn't let him get buried," she said, and went to get her scythe to help Albin's father and older brothers with the harvesting.

It was a hot summer day and the loads of hay were relentless; falling in thick golden sheaves onto Albin and Godfrey as they scrambled to keep up with the pace of the others and pack the hay carefully and compactly into the unsteady wooden wagon. Albin worked steadily and fiercely — by this point he was a solid and industrious and worked well —but Godfrey was sporadic and sloppy, and paused often to pick irritably at the straw in his tunic or gaze at the sun inching its way across the cloudless sky.

"Gorgeous blue, isn't it?" he said to Albin after about an hour had passed.

"Suppose it is, for those who have time to look," said Albin pointedly. "Your side's uneven, you gotta pack faster."

"But—why?" sighed Godfrey, "when it doesn't really matter? I mean, really really. The wide world doesn't care if we get the hay in."

"I don't care much about the wide world," gruffed Albin. "But if Ma and the girls go hungry next winter 'cause the cattle starved I will care very much, and you should too."

This shut Godfrey up for a moment, and got his side of the hay evened out in the bargain, but pretty soon Godfrey was mooning again. "Someday, I want to meet the Queen," he said as Ivan dumped a forkful of hay onto Albin's back.

"Fancy," snarled Albin through a mouthful of straw.

"No, it's not—you'll see," said Godfrey. "I'll meet the Queen and talk with her too, just like you and I are talking, and I'll save her—if she needs saving." Godfrey was unclear on this point; after considering it, he passed it by as inconsequential. "I'm going to be a great man, with servants and great deeds and songs about me, too."

"Good for you," said Albin, stacking hay.

"And I'll make a good life for all of you, too. You'll live in a castle and have people waiting on you all day long."

This was too much for Albin. "Keep your sotted castle," he growled. "I'd rather you stack hay today than give me a whole princedom tomorrow."

"It doesn't matter, though—don't you see, Albin? I can leave it alone, and things will work themselves out." And with that Godfrey swung himself off the wain, and walked away, whistling.

"Godfrey! Get your spotty corpse back here!" bellowed Albin, working into a dangerous rage.

Godfrey turned around. "I can't hear you, big brother! You're still in the world of tiny farms—hay and harvests and who knows what else? I'm going on to the big things of the world, and I don't have time to stop for the small."

In an instant Albin was on the ground and after him, and in moments they were rolling on the newly shorn field, pummeling each other. Godfrey was thin and wiry, but Albin was strong from working hard and soon had the upper hand. He shot out a well-placed punch at Godfrey's face and realized almost before he'd done it that he'd broken his brother's nose and that there was blood everywhere. For a second, the two just stared at each other.

"You hit a Special Child," said Godfrey, more surprised than anything, his eyes wide.

Albin, in one of those instantaneous decisions that turn lives around but are never quite made, was up and running away into the woods before he could even think, before he could even register anything beyond the pounding in his ears. He ran and ran, until he no longer knew where he was. He had some vague idea that he could throw himself over a cliff or into a river, so when he came across a rushing gorge he assumed it was God’s way of letting giving him a way out. He had no illusions, he knew that those who opposed a Special Child usually had short lives and messy deaths. Best, perhaps, to get it over with quickly.

But he had been running and he was out of breath, which seemed the wrong moment to throw himself away, and so he stood there for a moment, considering whether he should jump or not, and just at the moment that he had decided that he had better go back to his family and take whatever punishment was there, an enormous boar came crashing through the brush behind him, and he had to suddenly throw himself into a sticky holly-bush on the riverbank to keep from being caught in the hog’s enormous slavering tusks. The boar, however, was more interested in him getting out of the way than catching him, and went blundering on through the scrub, bellowing.

Albin had just managed to extract himself from the holly when suddenly he was surrounded by red and white dogs, baying, and then a lean mustachioed man on a heavyset, hairy horse, who was baying almost as loudly as his hounds.

“Ho, there! Ho, there!” cried the man. “Idiot! Idiot! Why didn’t you detain him?”

“What, that bloody great boar?” said Albin, as the dogs pawed at him. “Not likely!”

The horse danced, its hooves pounding the ground dangerously close to the dogs. “Which way did he go, then?” bellowed the man, looking around at his eye level, as if the boar might be crawling around in the midst of the tree branches.

“Off to the meadows,” said Albin.

“Ha! Not far?” cried the man.

“Not so far,” said Albin. “Toward the sun, there.”

“Don’t point, show!” boomed the man, giving him his hand, and much to Albin’s surprise he took it, and the next moment he was astride the horse behind the howling man, hanging on for dear life to the man’s waist. The horse was not excited about the sudden extra weight, and bucked twice, but the man managed to wrestle her down again, and when Albin managed to say weakly into the man’s ear, “It’s a bit off toward the left,” they went forward at a bone-jarring run.

“The dogs are useless, they haven’t got the skill of scent God gave a fish,” bellowed the man as the dogs began to howl again and pad alongside the horse. “They’re too old. Only let them along because they like to run, you see. My name’s Lance, by the way, though everyone calls me the Mad Mercenary.”

“Albin!” gasped Albin as the horse pounded across a rocky scree.

“Where are you from, my boy?” cried the Mad Mercenary, and then just as Albin was going to answer, the Mad Mercenary cried, “There he is!” and the dogs took up the call with huge deep voices.

They had exploded onto a small meadow. At the other side, a fallen trunk formed a slivery barrier, and the boar had turned to face the Mad Mercenary’s ragtag troop.

“Off now, then,” said the Mad Mercenary to Albin with a clever, twisting shove, and before he could even think Albin was tumbling unhurt into the soft meadow grasses while the Mad Mercenary charged hoof over leather to take on the boar.

The boar was steaming from its run, and red-eyed raging, and he set upon the dogs with a fury, charging at them and flinging them up over his head whenever they got too close. The dogs, though many were bleeding from the boars tusks, were still baying in stupid excitement over the boar, goaded on by their master. For his part, the Mad Mercenary seemed to feel his entire contribution to the episode was calling out encouragement and abuse to the dogs: “Good show, Tully! Idiot, Starbuck! Away from the fangs, Rafe!”

Albin had just picked himself and was wondering if it were completely safe to stay to watch the fight when the Mad Mercenary tumbled himself from off of his horse’s back and pulled out a short, snub-nosed sword. The boar was beginning to tire from the activity of the dogs, and it met this new challenge with a renewed burst of energy, tossing the dogs which flew left and right in a strangled chorus of yelps.

Albin, almost not understanding what he was doing, jogged closer. The boar was bleeding freely, backing up against the tree trunk that separated it from the woods beyond, and feinting this way and that in a desperate bid to break the line of encroaching dogs. The Mad Mercenary raised his sword.

“Hey, wait,” said Albin.

“Stay back, idiot boy,” said the Mad Mercenary, not looking at him.

Albin, thinking to himself even as he did it how stupid he was, threw himself at the Mad Mercenary in a flying tackle that knocked them both through the ring of dogs and broke the circle. With a great squealing scream, the boar broke through the group and went sprinting across the meadow to smash into the underbrush beyond and out of sight.

The Mad Mercenary, under Albin, was so upset he couldn’t speak correctly. When he finally righted his tongue and pushed Albin off of him, he nearly screamed, “What maggot-brained body sired you, boy? That boar’s been slaying sheep in the county all around, and we’ve been chasing it for three days!”

“I’m sorry,” said Albin. “I just—I just—”

“You just undid three days of hunting, is what you did! And slew the sheep of all the farmsteads around, most likely,” roared the Mad Mercenary.

“I’m sorry,” said Albin, miserably. “I get everything wrong, I guess. I couldn’t let you kill it, though, it had no chance—”

“What, now we give the dragons chances!” crowed the Mad Mercenary, red-faced. He turned away kicking at the dirt, while his dogs stopped their baying and began licking their wounds. Albin sat there, wondering if the Mad Mercenary were going to kill him, and if this were his punishment for hitting his brother.

But after the Mad Mercenary had vented his spleen he came and sat down next to Albin, sighing. After a moment he said, “I’m sorry, lad. You’re right—it wasn’t a fair fight. It was noble of you to save the beast.”

“I should have listened,” said Albin shrugged. “But my brother, his name’s Godfrey, and he’s a Special Child—and he says that the old ways of the strong against the weak have got to change.”

“Special Child, bah,” said the Mad Mercenary, spitting into the dirt. “The children of prophesy never do much. It’s regular folk like you and me that end up changing things, mark if it’s not true.” He sighed again. “I don’t understand you, Albin Boar-boy, but you’re a brave man.”

“I guess I’m more of Godfrey than I like,” said Albin.

“Families are deep roots and short stalks,” said the Mad Mercenary enigmatically. He pulled out a skin of water, offered some to Albin, who after a moment’s hesitation took it gratefully.

They sat there for a moment, not talking, in the cool quiet of the meadow. At last, the Mad Mercenary put his arm around Albin, kissed him roughly, and said, “Well, my friend, will you travel with me?”

“Travel with you? Where to?” said Albin.

The Mad Mercenary laughed. “Along the south wind, Albin, where there are greater wrongs to right than saving a little pig from a madman’s spit.” He stood and pulled Albin to his feet. “We’re like creatures you and I—though you have something I lack and prize, and I have something you need.”

“What’s that?” asked Albin.

“Food supplies,” said the Mad Mercenary, going to his horse to unsaddle her. “And a blanket for the nights. Great deeds aren’t done by men dead of chill.” Albin laughed and the Mad Mercenary smiled, surprised. “If you don’t mind sharing with me, I don’t mind sharing with you.”

Albin was going to reply when the dogs suddenly stood as one and began barking at the distant trees in great round voices. Albin and the Mad Mercenary turned, and Albin gasped.

The boar was standing under the trees, still bleeding, looking at the resting party. Ducking its snout it snorted at them and seemed to make for the forest, but then it turned and looked at them again, undecided.

“What—what do we do?” asked Albin.

The Mad Mercenary’s voice was hushed. “Go to it, I think,” he said. “It looks like it’s waiting for you.”

Albin’s throat went dry. “But—”

“Go on, try your courage, lad,” said the Mad Mercenary, pushing him forward.

Timidly, Albin crept toward the boar, who seemed almost as wary of him as he felt of it. When he had nearly approached it, however, the boar seemed to make up its mind and trotted forward slowly. Albin, trembling, put out his hand and the boar stuck his great snout under it. Hesitantly, Albin patted its nose and then, more carefully, it’s head. The boar, which had been stiff with something like terror, began to relax as Albin stroked its bristly head and then scratched its ears. And when he carefully turned to return to where the Mad Mercenary stood, the boar trotted alongside him, as docile as the dogs of the Mad Mercenary.

“What am I supposed to do now?” asked Albin as he came back up to the Mad Mercenary, who was carefully keeping himself on the other side of Albin from the boar.

The Mad Mercenary laughed, though, for all that he was afraid of the boar’s great tusks, and said, “Become Albin Boar-boy, I suppose, the greatest hero the land has known in a great long while.”

And, Alvin had to admit, thinking about it later as he lay next to the great boar under the twinkling stars, with the Mad Mercenary snoring beside him, that it was a pretty good name, after all.

“I think I’d like to tell Godfrey about how it all started, some day,” he said to himself, and then turned his back against the warm bulk of the sleeping boar and fell into a deep sleep.

The Giantess and the Shiverbird

In an age of the world, there lived a giantess who was so huge and who lived so high in the mountains that she would frequently hit her head upon the support beam of Heaven, which rattled the silverware of the king of the sky and knocked the hail from its huge cauldrons and sent it whistling down upon the plain below. And sometimes, when she had knocked her head, the giantess would curse and stamp her foot until the very ground shook and the trees splintered. She was, in the end, a very emotional giantess and somewhat given to anger, but all her family agreed she was the most beautiful giantess in creation.

For the queen whose kingdom lay directly below the mountain, and for her people, however, the giantess was something of a nuisance. The hail that fell at least twice a day from the sky-king’s cauldrons ruined the crops, and when the giantess stamped her foot houses tumbled, goats went wild and broke through their fences, and the expensive aqueduct that the queen had taxed the people for ten years to pay for grew cracks and leaked. And so the queen was faced with a dilemma, for the giantess was good to have in the mountains, as she frightened the Northern barbarians, but if she continued to send the hail and the earthquakes, soon there would be no kingdom to defend.

“Bad situation, all round,” said the queen, stroking her chin and staring out of her bedroom window at the giantess’s mountain. “Something’s got to be done, and fast.” And so, because it was what she did whenever something needed to be done, the queen called for her husbands to come and consult with her.

The husbands talked often and wisely among the three of them, and they were as concerned about the giantess as the queen was. The eldest husband, who held the keys to the queen’s three palaces of sun-baked brick, the tanneries, the stables, the jewelry huts, the great vats of the wineries, and the gates to the gardens, was the first one who spoke.

“Exalted ruler of earth and sky,” he said, which was the polite way to address a queen in that country, even if she was your wife, “when a bird speaks to another bird who has wronged him, at first he sings sweetly. You must send your cleverest orators to convince the giantess that she must show more care.”

And the queen pondered this advice, and it seemed to her good, and so she kissed her eldest husband’s forehead and cheeks, which was the way in that country of showing approval. And so the eldest husband of the queen gathered to himself the kingdom’s finest speakers and orators, from the slyest courtier to the most glib swineherd. And he sent them to the giantess’s mountain, with instruction to arouse the sympathies of the behemoth.

The orators traveled for many days up the steep side of the mountain, going slowly so as to spare their voices. When at last they reached the tall house of the giantess, they began at once to implore her with every gift of their art. The hundreds of orators, each making the most persuasive speech they could, made such a racket that the giantess was woken from a deep nap and stood up so suddenly that she rapped her skull more sharply on Heaven’s support beam than she ever had before, sending icy stones the size of a man’s fist down upon the land below.

Raging, the giantess went to her doorstep and found, to her surprise, hundreds of small men and women chanting at her. They looked so comical with their little bodies and their large, open mouths that the giantess sat down to laugh.

“Well, here’s a pretty nest of baby chicks!” she said. “Go home, little birds, or I’ll make you into a birdling pie.”

The most respected of the orators, a grandmother with her steel-grey hair caught under a headscarf, stepped forward. “Most lofty of giantesses, may your height never grow less,” she said, which was the polite way of saying hello to a giant. “We are from the kingdom directly south of your esteemed home, and we are here to request–”

“There’s a kingdom to the south?” asked the giantess without much interest, for her head still pained her greatly.

“Aye, a great kingdom,” said the orator, “but with your banging, and your stamping, and your esteemed cursing of heaven and earth, the hail comes down upon our lands and ruins our crops, our houses grow cracks from floors to roofs, and our great queen is at her wit’s end.”

“Well, ho, then,” said the giantess. “An entire country of midgets! I’ve never heard of such a thing. How do you have crops at all? Do you grow clover for corn, and herd grasshoppers?”

“We would raise our own sized corn, and our goats, if the hail and the earthquakes didn’t keep us from our daily rounds,” said the grandmother.

The giantess was beginning to feel picked on, and her throbbing head didn’t help matters. “I can’t help my size,” she said. “I’ve been banging my head for twenty-six years now, and there seems to be plenty of you still. Perhaps you should spend more time making umbrellas and hailstands than bothering people.” She stood up, brushing off her knees.

“If you could just show more care,” said the grandmother hastily, realizing she was losing her audience.

“Care makes poor neighbors and poor soup,” said the giantess in a well-known giant proverb, already at her doorstep.

“Wait!” cried the orators.

But the giantess had unfortunately banged her head again on the doorway, and this put her back into her temper, and she slammed the door on them, which sent the orators tumbling down the hillside. The orators picked themselves up as best they could and limped back to the queen, explaining to each other in ever-louder voices why, exactly, they had failed in their quest.

“It just goes from bad to worse,” said the queen to her husbands after they had thanked the orators and sent them to their homes again. “She won’t listen to reason. And now, what’s to do? If this continues we’ll have to move the entire kingdom.”

The second-eldest husband, who kept the armies of the queen, and her great battle-horses, and her navies, and who met with the leaders of many other lands and discussed many great and important things with them, said to her, “Exalted ruler of heaven and land, when a bird’s sweet song to another falls on deaf ears, he will treat the other as a foe. We must take our armies to contend with the giantess.”

And the queen pondered this advice, and it seemed to her good, and so she kissed her second-eldest husband’s forehead and cheeks, and pronounced him the leader of her armies, with full right as general. And so the second-eldest husband led the queen’s mighty armies to the house of the giantess, astride a great black horse, and his sounders beat their drums and blew their curled trumpets. And at all the noise the giantess came out, blinking at them.

“What—ho!” she said, surprised at the vast throng. “Have you come again, then, to bandy words about hailstorms and tiny crops? I send you away, and yet you come again—for a tiny people, you are persistent.”

The second-eldest husband did not answer the giantess, but gave the signal for his people’s arrows to fly.

“Waow—waow,” cried the giantess as the tiny barbs stung her. “What is all this?” And, in rage and pain, she stamped her great feet upon the ground until the earth shook as it had never shaken in that land before, and the great palace so many miles away cracked its mighty walls, and the army tumbled over and over itself down the mountain, for the land had become as unstable as the sea. The giantess, seeing her enemies quelled, sniffed at them and went back into her home.

“What’s to do, what’s to do?” asked the queen when the army had limped back to her, badly injured for tumbling down the hills in their armor. “And now my husband is hurt, and my great army too, and still she sends down the hail.” For the giantess had rapped her head again, and raged, the more so for the stings she had still smarting in her arms and legs.

The youngest husband of the queen had no respect, for he was clever but irreverent, and he laughed often for he had no responsibilities placed on him. When the queen looked to him for answers, he grinned and said, “It's obvious. We must send her a shiverbird.”

And the queen pondered this, and it seemed to her an unusual plan, but she had no alternate, and she had a small aerie of shiverbirds in the royal aviary. And so she commissioned four strong men to carry a shiverbird to the giantess’s home, and she went in a litter herself to see what would happen.

The shiverbird was as large as two men, and fat and gray, and in the manner of its species slow and sleepy. But as soon as the men set the shiverbird on the giantess’s doorstep and ran to where the queen and her escorts stood hidden in the woods, the shiverbird, finding itself alone, ruffled it’s feathers and began to sing. And so lovely was its voice and its song that the giantess came out of her house with a smile on her face, and when her head brushed the dome of heaven she didn’t even curse or cry out. The shiverbird stopped singing the moment it saw her.

“Oh, don’t stop, pretty bird,” said the giantess, crouching down to it. This was obvious flattery, for the shiverbirds are plain birds, but it brought a short snippet of song from the shiverbird. Cooing, the giantess bent to pat the bird, which to her was barely two handfuls, and the shiverbird at once began to shiver, looking up at the giantess with a miserable expression.

“Oh, dear!” cried the giantess in distress. “Are you hungry? Are you cold?” And she ran back into the house and brought out a great loaf of bread, which she tore into crumbs for the shiverbird. The bird pecked at the crumbs and sang again—but soon she was shivering again, looking more miserable and ill than ever. Hardly daring to breathe, the giantess lifted the shiverbird and warmed it against her heart, but though the bird sang, it was short, and soon it looked as if it would shiver until it died. And so shiverbirds always do, for that is how they get their name.

For the poor giantess, though, the shivering bird made her feel sick with concern. She had loved the sound of the bird’s voice and wished for it to sing again, but her best efforts only brought short snatches of song and then more shivering misery from her new pet. She tried everything to bring happiness to the poor bird, but with each thing she tried the bird sang less and shivered more. For days she fed, petted, and comforted it, to no avail. At last, exhausted and frustrated, she sat down on her steps and wept great tears, giantess though she was.

The queen, who had been watching the giantess’s failed attempts to comfort the shiverbird, felt inside her a great swelling of concern for the giantess. And so, though her people warned her against it and called after her, she went to where the giantess sat weeping and awkwardly clambered upon the giantess’s knee so that she might pat her hand.

“You little folk are everywhere,” said the giantess, blowing her nose on the hem of her dress. “It’s an infestation. Have you come to laugh at me?”

“Never,” said the queen. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time of it.”

“I just wanted to hear it sing,” said the giantess. “It sang beautifully before. Do you think—do you think it doesn’t like me?”

“Of course it likes you,” said the queen.

“But why—why doesn’t it sing anymore? It sang before, and I did all I could to make it happy.” The giantess stared off into space.

“Sometimes,” said the queen carefully, watching the giantess’s face, “sometimes even the things we love do better if we don’t try to make them happy.”

The giantess looked at the queen, startled. “What do you mean?”

The queen smiled. “I will show you. Will you bring the shiverbird to a place I show you?”

And, because she was tired and could think of no other option, the giantess hesitated, then nodded. And so the giantess brought the shiverbird, who by now was shaking violently, to a small clearing near her home where an enormous tree stood, large enough to dwarf even the giantess.

“What you must do is put the shiverbird in the tree,” said the queen. Hesitating again, the giantess stretched her hands up into the tree and gently placed the shiverbird onto a low branch.

“Now what?” she asked the queen in a whisper.

“Now we must leave,” said the queen.

“Oh—but I couldn’t. What if a fox comes, or it flies away?”

“It may fly away,” said the queen. “But come away, and see!”

With an anguished look at the shivering bird, the giantess allowed herself to be led away by the tiny queen. When they had left the clearing, the queen stopped and told the giantess, “Now, watch!”

And the giantess watched in wonder, for as soon as they were gone the shiverbird looked around, and seeing no one about, stretched its neck and wings and began to sing, a sweeter song that it had even sung before. The giantess gasped in wonder, for without any help from anyone the shiverbird sang a song wilder and sweeter than she had ever coaxed from it by bread crumbs.

“How beautiful!” she cried.

And with that, still singing, the shiverbird spread its wings and began to fly away.

“Oh!” cried the giantess sharply, grasping the small hand of the queen in fear. But it turned out that the shiverbird was merely stretching its wings, for soon it flew back to the tree, always singing.

“How beautiful she sings,” said the giantess again. “Will it always be so?”

“If you keep your distance,” said the queen. “Though I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you brought her bread crumbs now and again.” And with that the queen kissed the giantess’s hand and stole away to her own people.

“I do not think that the giantess will bother our people again,” she said to her escorts and husbands when she returned. And she was right, for the song of the shiverbird, and the careful care of its song, made the giantess mindful of other small creatures, and she took to ducking at the right moment to avoid the great beam of heaven, and she ranted less and stamped her feet never, for fear she might startle the shiverbird. And so the queen kissed the forehead and cheeks of her youngest husband, and called him a true counselor, which made him laugh. He was irresponsible and lighthearted in his ways, and on the way home sang his own version of the shiverbird’s song to the other husbands, who called him a true counselor to tease him.

“No one is more blessed than the queen who has harmonious husbands,” said the queen over their merriment. “Now, do be quiet, please.” And so they passed down the mountain in silence.

The Cheerful Dove

In an age of the world there lived a dove who found he had little cause to mourn.

The dove's name was Keet, and he lived in a great democratic clan of doves who lived in a large city between Robertson Avenue and Cherry Blossom Lane. For all their democratic ideals, the doves were fiercely territorial, for they had to defend their narrow country from a fierce clan of squabbling crows in the north, and a monarchy of robins in the south. For the most peace prevailed among the doves, but every so often an errant robin or crow would make its presence felt and then the entire flock would rise to meet the challenge, crying out woe, woe, woe, woe, woe.

The doves were a mournful lot, when it came down to it, and spent a great deal of their time crying out woe, even when they were not at war. Every dove had his or her separate pain, and each dove made sure that their neighbor knew exactly how painful life was. They would crowd the high wires, each dove competing with each other to see who could be the most sorrowful.

Each dove, that is, but Keet. He would sit on the swaying wire, listening to the other doves' complaints but saying nothing. Some days, if the din of the others' were loud enough, he would whistle softly to himself.

"I don't mean to interfere, but it's just not dovish," said his father as they were preparing to roost. "You should have something you're sad about."

"I know, Dad," said Keet. "It just--it just hasn't happened yet."

"Hasn't happened yet?" his father thundered. "It happened when you were born! You can't be a dove without mourning."

"Your father makes a good point," said his mother. "Being sad is just part of being a dove."

"I'm sure I'll find something to be sad about, someday," said Keet. "I just don't right now, you see?"

"I do not see," said his father.

"Have you truly tried yet, do you think?" asked his mother. "There's plenty to be sad about, if you know where to look. Why, just last week the birdbaths at the Anderson's dried out and we went about dusty and dirty for days."

"That is sad," said Keet. "But I don't think I could get truly mournful about it."

"Well, I give up," said his father. "He isn't even going to try."

"I'll be sad one day," said Keet, more to himself than to them. "I just want to feel it for real."

Because he didn't feel sad, Keet found the other doves difficult to understand and--when he was honest with himself--a little bit boring. His closest friend was a pudgy dove named Kheril whose main sorrow was that there was never enough to eat. They would sit on the wire and Keet would politely listen to Kheril's complaints and sorrows.

One day, Keet said, out of the blue, "What would happen if you had enough to eat?"

Kheril paused, a little confused. "Why, it would be wonderful," he said. "There's never enough now. Case in point: there was a poppyseed bagel on the Simmons's picnic table last week, but of course the squirrels had gotten to it first, so there--"

"Yes, but what would you talk about? If you got enough to eat, that is?"

Kheril's eyes widened. "Well--I suppose I would--well. Hmmm. I'm not sure."

"Don't you ever think about anything else?"

"Sometimes," said Kheril slowly.

"Yes?" said Keet eagerly.

"Sometimes, I think about how few sweet things there are to eat," said Kheril.

"Never mind," sighed Keet, and flew away.

He spent a lot of time alone after that, flying around the small territory of his clan, avoiding the constant sound of woe, woe, woe, woe that came from his kinsmen. The longer he spent away from the other doves, the more he discovered that there was more to the lives of other birds than constant sorrow.

He flew to the large maple on Cherry Blossom Lane, where a brown robin kept a cheerful sentry over the Kennington's lawn. The robins were industrious and optimistic, and they spoke mainly of their families and their queen. The robin was happy to talk to a fellow bird, and they grew close enough for Keet to ask her one day, "Aren't you sad?"

The robin laughed; she had a piping, clear voice. "Who has time to be sad, mourning dove? I must watch the Kennington's cats and sound the alarm if there is danger. It's nest-building month, and everyone must do her part."

The dove liked the robin's voice; she seemed to laugh no mater what she said. Growing bold from knowing her, he flew to the park on Robertson Avenue and talked with the crows.

The crows made fun of his small size and grey coloring, not unkindly, and pulled him into their arguments. With their grating voices, they attempted to win him to their various points of view.

A large glossy black crow cried at him from the great planked picnic table, "Mourning dove! Tell my sister that the smaller birds can think as well as we do."

"Don't be silly," said her sister to her. "Everyone knows that the smaller birds do not make war as we do; they cannot be wise enough to even understand the question."

"Is it so?" grated the first crow. "Mourning dove, is it so?"

He said, hesitantly, "I think I could plan a war, if I wanted to."

"My point," cried both of the crows at once, and fell back into their bickering. He liked the rough sound of their voices, and the easy way in which each crow could hold a different point of view from the others. He thought of how little the doves discussed things, and felt sorry for them.

"The other doves live such small lives," he thought to himself. "I should let them know what the other birds think." But when he tried to tell them about the families of the robins or the battles of the crows, the other doves just replied with their sorrows and would not listen. So Keet spent more time on his own, trying to capture the beautiful voices of the robins and the crows with his own small dove's voice.

Because he traveled so often, it was inevitable that eventually Keet would run into the sparrows. The sparrows were barbarians because they had no borders, and they flew nomadically about the city, here and there, in their chatty and breezy way. Because they saw everything, they talked about everything, though Keet found quickly that it was difficult to keep them on topic. For their part, the sparrows were surprised that such a large bird (to their eyes) would care about the life of a sparrows, which even Scripture spoke lowly of, and it wasn't long before Keet was a celebrity among the little birds. They would listen to him for hours as he tried to capture the sounds of the robins, the crows, and their own chattering speech, and they would praise him when he sounded right and correct him when his voice went sour. They were very proud of him, and when they saw him winging they would call to him, "Keet! Keet! Keet! Keet!"

It wasn't long before the other doves began to notice that wherever Keet went, the sparrows flocked with him, and it wasn't long after that they began interspersing their cries of woe, woe, woe, woe, woe with concerned discussions of Keet's undove-like behavior.

"It isn't natural," said a salmon-colored dove. "Birds of a feather, and all that."

"It's dangerous, is what it is," said another with grey in her wings. "What if he were to bring that mob to the wires? It'd attract cats and hawks and who knows what else."

"It comes from not being sad enough," said a third, and there was general sorrowful consent.

If the other doves gave him a cold shoulder, however, Keet didn't much care, for he found his friendships among the sparrows were more rewarding than his friendships among the doves had been. When they weren't shy at him for being larger than they were, they would talk to him about anything, and they never thought long enough to be sad about the things they saw and imagined. He made friends quickly and easily, which had never happened with the doves.

"It'll end in sorrow, mark me," said his father.

"Dad, everything ends in sorrow for you," said Keet breezily, already flapping away. "I'll be late getting home tonight; don't wait up for me."

That day the talk of the sparrows was about the jays who were migrating; they made fun of the jays' rattling cries, and the dove was kept laughing until the sun had started downward in the sky. And then, suddenly, there were sparrows and doves too flying from his home and crying, "Keet! Keet! Come quickly!"

"What's going on?" asked Keet, already flying with them.

"Your father was caught by the cat," said a sparrow to him.

When he arrived at his home he found his family and friends gathered about, all of them comforting his mother with their plaintive cry of woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. Seeing her, for the first time he felt he truly knew what sadness was, and he joined in the cry, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. And then, because his heart felt as if it were coming to pieces, he sang his woes with the voice of the robins, and the crows, and the sparrows, and the doves, and even the jays. And when he finished the great crowd of birds that gathered were silent until his mother burst into tears and cried, "Thank you, Keet. Thank you."

"It wasn't quite sad," said one dove to another a month later, talking about the incident. "At least, not in the way I understand it."

"No, it wasn't, at that," said her friend. "But, then--for not being sad, I think it was the saddest thing I've ever heard, don't you?"

"You may be right," said the first, and together they went back to crying woe, woe, woe, woe, woe.

The Practical Nymph

In an age of the world there lived a nymph who was too practical for love.

The nymph lived under the linden tree in a large, sunlit wood, which was broken here and there by large meadows and deep blue-green lakes. Like the tree she guarded, the nymph was tall and straight, and her hair was the color of the linden’s leaves in autumn. In the manner of her people, the other nymphs called her Linden, after her tree.

Linden spent her days making her tree and its environs the most beautiful linden-yard she could. The other nymphs, who found her stolid and just a bit strange, couldn’t understand her desire to work all the time.

“The satyrs are coming,” her nearest neighbor would say, a short dark vivid nymph who was called Holly. “You should come with me. We can let them chase us.”

“No, thank you,” said Linden. “Satyrs leave, that’s how they are. There’s no sense in letting them chase you, catch you, and then run away. The whole business is a waste of effort.”

“It’s fun,” said Holly, but Linden only smiled and wished her well, and returned to her task of planting attractive clumps of the soft green grass among the roots of her linden tree while Holly went off to run with the other nymphs in the nearby meadow.

This went on for many years, and every year Linden’s home grew more beautiful and more pleasant. At times she would relax and enjoy the quiet of her home, and feel slightly sorry for herself that she weren’t with the other nymphs, being chased by the satyrs. But whenever the other nymphs returned, flushed and chattering, she was instantly grateful she had used her time in productive, solitary efforts.

One day, Holly came to Linden’s tree, breathless with excitement. “There’s a new group of satyrs at the meadow, all as red as foxes! They say they’re from the river valley.”

“What are they doing here?” asked Linden. She was laying down long strips of cool moss around the trunk of her tree, hoping it would grow there. The moss was tricky, and had to be pieced together carefully, and her hair was getting in the way.

“I heard that the river is flooding,” said Holly, not much interested. “But there here, and they’re leaping out of the grass like antelope—some of them ten feet high!”

“They must have very remarkable legs,” said Linden, expertly cutting a wet wedge of moss and placing it in its place at the trunk. “I imagine that comes in handy.”

“Will you come? You’ll like these satyrs, I promise. Even if you don’t want them to chase you, it’s such fun to watch them.”

“I’m a bit busy, Holly.” Linden cut another piece of moss. “Why don’t you go, then you can come back and tell me about it.”

“Well—all right.” Holly shifted back and forth on her feet. “It would be more fun if you would come, though.”

Linden was startled enough to look up at her. Holly was embarrassed and didn’t look at her. “I mean, you don’t have to. I was just thinking we could run together.”

Linden smiled. “It really is nice of you, Holly. Really. But, I need to get this done before the sun fails, and I’m going to be rushing it as it is.” Then, because Holly seemed unhappy, she said, “If I get done, I’ll come to the meadow, all right?”

“All right,” said Holly, gratified, and ran off to join the other nymphs.

Linden smiled a little at Holly’s kindness and turned back to her work. Laying moss was really a difficult activity, and she was so deep into her work that she didn’t realize that she had company until she stood up to move another stack of moss. She was so startled by her visitor that she nearly dropped the moss.

A reddish satyr was sitting on his goat-haunches near her linden-yard, staring morosely at the meadow beyond. He didn’t move when she gasped, so she cleared her throat a little more loudly, and he turned around and looked at her vaguely.

“Oh, hello,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.” He looked at the moss in her hands and the new growth on the ground, and said, suddenly concerned, “I’m not in your way, am I? This seemed like the quietest place in the wood, so I thought I’d—I’m sorry.” He jumped to his feet. “I’ll go, if you like.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, looking at him with a puzzled look on her face. He was easily the least confident-looking satyr she had ever met. Most satyrs swaggered, but this particular satyr seemed mostly to cringe, and he didn’t stand up quite straight.

“Why aren’t you out there with the other satyrs?” she asked, sitting down with her moss again and laying out another row.

“Oh, you know—nymphs,” he said. “The grass is crawling with them.”

Linden almost laughed. “I thought that’s what satyrs liked.”

“It is—I mean, I do. Really,” he said. “But they’re scary, too. What do you do with them when you catch one?”

“Whatever you want, I suppose,” said Linden dryly.

“That’s the problem,” said the satyr. “If it’s up to me, I’m sure to get it wrong. I’m always getting things wrong. I can’t leap worth anything, and I’m not even that mischievous. Have you ever met a satyr that wasn’t mischievous?”

“I can’t say that I have,” said Linden.

“There you have it,” said the satyr. “I’m kind of a failure as far as satyrs go. That’s why I’m trying to stay out of the way, but it looks like I messed that up, too.” The satyr sighed, and looked at Linden again. “Good heavens—what are you doing?”

“Laying down moss. It makes a good bed, and it will keep the tree warm in the cooler months.” Linden glanced up at the satyr. “Sorry I don’t stop to entertain you, but I’m on a schedule.”

“No, I understand,” said the satyr. “It looks like hard work. May I—may I help you?”

Linden raised her eyebrows at him. “Help me?”

The satyr shrugged. “It gives me an excuse to miss all the chasing.”

Linden snorted. “Can you do a good job?”

“Of course,” said the satyr, almost pulling himself up straight. “I may be a failure as a satyr but I can plant things.”

“All right, then,” said Linden, moving to the side to let him in. “Just do exactly as I tell you.”

The two of them worked in silence for many hours as the sun went from high in the sky to low in the west, only speaking to coordinate their efforts. Despite his lack of confidence, the satyr was a steady worker, and didn’t interrupt Linden’s thoughts with constant chatter. She found herself enjoying his company, enough so that when they finally stopped planting near the evening, she leaned back on her tree trunk and said to him, “Well, muddy-paws, did I keep you out too late? Will all the satyrs have gone back to the river?”

The satyr looked at his dirt-stained hands and smiled. “That’s my first naming moment,” he said. “Muddy-paws.”

“It’s not too distinguished,” said Linden.

“It’s enough,” said Muddy-paws, and with a smile ran off back to the meadow.

Holly came back later that day to let her know about the satyrs. “They’re each of them stronger than the other,” she said, a bit confused. “And they’re not all red. The leader is as black as night, and twice as big as the others. He’s got horns like a longhorn.”

“Did he chase you?” asked Linden.

Holly blushed and giggled. “A little. He was chasing a lot of people though.” She looked so happy that Linden smiled with her and invited her to lie down on the moss.

“Oh, that feels wonderful,” said Holly as she settled on the ground. “No wonder you took the time. I still think you should have come with us, though.”

“Well, perhaps some other day,” said Linden, running her hand over the smooth moss. “Perhaps.”

The next morning, she wasn’t too surprised to see Muddy-paws coming cheerfully down the path to her linden tree from the meadow, whistling to himself.

“I came to see if you have any work for me,” he said. “The meadow’s more of the same, nymphs everywhere.”

“There’s a nymph here,” she pointed out.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, suddenly awkward and blushing. “I only meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she said, “and I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been meaning to move this boulder for a long time, but I’ve never been able to do it myself.”

The two of them worked the boulder away from the roots of the linden tree. This time, as they worked, they talked from time to time about different things in their lives.

“Oh, Bane-horn,” said Muddy-paws when Linden asked him about the large, black satyr. “He’s not one of our clan, but he’s been our leader ever since he arrived. He’s just so big, you know.”

“That’s what I hear,” said Linden, grunting as she pushed against the boulder.

“He makes fun of me.” Muddy-paws braced his hooves on the ground. “Push with me, now.” They grunted together. “Bane-horn likes to point out how scared I am to be a satyr,” he said as the boulder finally started sliding through the dirt. “I think he wouldn’t mind it if I were to leave the clan.”

“Where would you go?”

“There’s not many places to go as a lone satyr,” said Muddy-paws. “The bottom of a lake, I’d suppose.”

“Lachrymist,” she smiled at him.

Later, Muddy-paws asked her why she didn’t go to the meadow with the other nymphs.

“The purpose of life is not getting chased by satyrs,” said Linden. They were sitting on top of the now-moved boulder, taking a breather. “The whole system is pointless. We run, we scream in mock terror, we get caught, and then the next morning it’s just the same thing all over again. There’s nothing to show for it, even.”

“I have to agree with you,” said Muddy-paws, leaning back over the rock. “Maybe we satyrs should chase all the nymphs into a net and carry them with us. That would save some time in chasing and catching.”

“Imperialist,” she said, laughing.

For the next few weeks, Muddy-paws and Linden spent each day working to make her linden-yard pleasant and beautiful. After three days of taking instruction from Linden, Muddy-paws began to show up with his own ideas for making things beautiful. On the fourth day, he came with a makeshift shovel and they dug a pool that they filled from the nearby stream and filled it with fish which swam in multicolored waves and made ambiguous statements in the manner of fish. One day he took her through the woods, singing in her high clear voice, and they invited the black-and-blue birds that lived deep in the shadows to come to the linden tree and sing to them. And one day he came to her tree in the middle of a buzzing storm of gold, with an enormous queen bee caught carefully in his hand. He let the queen free in the linden-yard, and with a little curtsey to Linden, the queen flew up into the branches to instruct her people to build an amber hive.

As the weeks passed, Linden began to be get used to Muddy-paws’s company. He had many thoughts about the different things that went to and fro in the woods, and he could catch her off-guard with some pleasant thought just at the moment she was being her most serious. And, with the two of them working together, the linden-yard became such a wonderful place that the other nymphs and their satyrs often came to retire there after they were through chasing each other. And sometimes the nymphs would sing, and after the nymphs had sung for hours the satyrs would join in with their goatish voices until everyone started laughing. And, to Linden’s surprise, not only was Muddy-paws a good companion. The other nymphs and even the satyrs could be good company. She began, even though she knew it was impractical, to wish that her moment of community could last.

Holly had been caught by the enormous Bane-horn, and it was only a matter of time before she brought him to the linden-yard. He was a massive, coal-black satyr with a bushy beard and dark, piercing eyes. He jumped a bit at Linden when he first met her, but when she didn’t flinch or run away he seemed to decide she wasn’t worth his interest.

Muddy-paws, however, bore the brunt of Bane-horn’s presence. “There’s the lily-satyr,” Bane-horn would say, his head in Holly’s lap. “Picking dead leaves from the linden’s leafy head. Say, sissy-satyr, what’s your song?”

Muddy-paws would reply, miserably, “I don’t have a song, Bane-horn.”

“Speak up?” Bane-horn would bellow, and when Muddy-paws repeated himself, louder, Bane-horn would bray loudly in falsetto over his reply while the others laughed.

“Just ignore him,” Linden told Muddy-paws, but he would reply, “You don’t know how it is with satyrs. If I ignore him, it gets worse.”

Finally, it got to where Linden couldn’t stand it any more. One nearly-autumn afternoon, when Bane-horn began picking at Muddy-paws, she snapped at him, “Leave him alone.”

Bane-horn blinked at her. She was easily four feet smaller than he was. “What did you say?”

“Linden, just leave it be,” said Muddy-paws quietly.

“I said,” said Linden loudly and clearly, “that unless you’re going to be civil to Muddy-paws, I want to you leave my linden-yard and never come back.”

Bane-horn looked back and forth between Muddy-paws and Linden and began to laugh. “Ho, then, Grubby-paws! The linden tree is shaking in the wind! Better dig some more in the dirt, secure the roots.”

“I mean it,” said Linden fiercely.

“Well, then, we’re not one to wear out our welcome, are we, then?” roared Bane-horn. “Satyrs, the nymphs have spoken! Who knew that they could find their voices?” And with that, the satyrs left the linden-yard, with Muddy-paws trailing behind them, casting sorrowful glances back at Linden from time to time.

The nymphs were very upset that Linden had spoiled the evening, but they weren’t angry at her until the next morning, when it was clear that the satyr clan had left for good. Then, they all came clamoring to Linden’s yard to complain.

“They were ever so nice satyrs,” said the nymph of an ash tree. “They knew the old songs.”

“They might have stayed. We could have had them chase us every day,” said the nymph of a maple tree.

Only Holly stayed by Linden. “Linden has lost too,” she said to them. “There will be more satyrs later. Perhaps, if we all kept our trees as well-kept as Linden does, then more satyrs would want to come to our woods.”

When the other angry nymphs had gone home, slightly mollified by Holly’s words, Linden thanked her friend. “But what did you mean, I’ve lost too?” she asked.

“Muddy-paws,” said Holly with a smile.

“Oh, that’s—not a loss,” said Linden weakly. “Satyrs go. That’s what they do. I—always knew he’d go.”

“I know,” said Holly, giving her a hug, “and I’m sorry.”

Linden stayed up late that night, thinking about what Holly had said, and wondering why she felt so tight in her chest when she realized that Muddy-paws wouldn’t be coming back. It wasn’t until late at night that she realized that Holly had also lost Bane-horn.

“It’s all right,” said Holly the next day when Linden said she was sorry that Bane-horn had left. “It’s like you said—there will be more satyrs. I don’t feel things as deeply as you do, I don’t think.”

“I think you do,” said Linden.

“Well, he wasn’t that great of a satyr, actually,” said Holly, smiling. “He could be patronizing, and he would talk forever without letting me say anything. Not anything like Muddy-paws.”

“Muddy-paws was a terrible satyr,” said Linden, with the sudden, strange need to blow her nose.

“Muddy-paws was the best satyr that ever came to our meadow,” said Holly. “You were lucky that he liked you the best, is all.”

“You’re being silly,” said Linden, but without heat. “He was shy and self-conscious.”

“All right, Linden,” said Holly with a smile. “Can I help you clear the fallen leaves from your yard?”

Just as Holly had predicted, a new group of satyrs moved into the meadow and the other nymphs quickly forgot about Linden ordering Bane-horn and the other satyrs away. But Linden didn’t forget. She missed Muddy-paws terribly. She even went with Holly to the meadow once to see if that would help her forget him. But, after half-heartedly running around for a bit, she eventually slipped away and went back to her linden-yard. Holly eventually found her there, staring off into space.

“This is so stupid,” said Linden. “Not practical at all.”

“No, it isn’t,” agreed Holly, sitting next to her and putting her arm around her. “But it’s not stupid, either.”

“I just need to forget him,” said Linden.

“Well,” said Holly, giving her a little extra squeeze, “that’s one of your options.”

After thinking about it for a while, Linden decided that Holly was right—she had more options than just waiting to forget Muddy-paws. So, though she cursed herself for her impracticality, she started off on a journey to the river valley to find Muddy-paws and tell him she was sorry that he had gone away.

When she finally arrived at the valley, she found the great clan of the satyrs there, getting ready for winter. It was late autumn, and the woods were shadowed and russet. Bane-horn was there in his winter coat, thicker and larger than he had been in the summer. She went up to him and asked for Muddy-paws.

“Oh, ho! The nymph from the meadow, who thinks herself too good for satyrs!” cried Bane-horn.

“I just want to talk to Muddy-paws,” she said. “Let me know where he is, please.”

Bane-horn laughed, a ringing sound. “He ran away, tree-thing. Couldn’t handle being a satyr. We all thought he’d went back to you, but I guess he’s gone indeed!”

Linden went cold. “He’s not here?”

Bane-horn laughed again. “Last I saw, he was headed off into those hills,” he said, pointing to a mist-enshrouded row of hills. “Probably headed for the lake.”

Linden said nothing, but she turned and ran for the hills, Bane-horn’s laughter ringing in her ears. She raced through the paths, the branches of the trees lashing at her cheeks, until she arrived at the shores of a slate-grey lake, deep in the woods. Running around it, she asked the birds if they had seen a satyr there, but they were all migrating and had nothing to tell her. She had just given up and had fallen to the foot of a tree, weeping a little, when she heard a familiar voice say, “Linden?” and she looked up to see Muddy-paws standing there awkwardly.

“I thought it was you,” he said. “Gosh—I’m glad to see you.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

He grinned lopsidedly. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I thought you’d jumped into the lake,” she said. “When you left the other satyrs. Like you said you might.”

He shrugged. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I couldn’t go without seeing you again.”

“So why didn’t you come back?”

He blushed. “I was embarrassed to.”

Linden sighed. “Someday, Muddy-paws, you’re going to have to do something about that…”

He scuffed his hoof in the dirt. “You’re not mad?”

Linden snorted. “Mad? I was terrified. I—thought I wouldn’t see you again.” She took a breath. “It bothered me enough that I came.”

Muddy-paws smiled at her.

“It was,” she said carefully, “very impractical.”

“Yeah,” said Muddy-paws. “Are you sorry?”

“No,” said Linden. “Now that I’m here I’m not sorry at all.” She reached out and took Muddy-paws’s hand.

“Well, then,” said Muddy-paws, his grin looking like it would break his face, “should we go home, then?”

Linden smiled back. “I’d like that.”

The Egotistical Deer

In an age of the world there lived a buck deer who was proud of his situation in life.

“A good run of it, I’ve had,” he told his harem of does from time to time, in his booming way. “Strong, well-antlered—eight points!—and the loveliest collection of docile does that ever were seen.”

“Docile does?” shouted the youngest doe, a high-jumper. “Blow-hard, big antlers. You’re the lucky accident of genetics.”

The buck shook his antlers at her. “It’s no accident, dark-eyes. I’m blessed by the Great Deer himself.”

“Genetics, and millions of years of errant religious thought,” said the next-youngest doe. “Who says that the Great Deer is a buck, anyway?”

“The Great Deer himself, of course,” said the buck, unperturbed. “Frequently.”

“What, in your last conversation with him?” asked the eldest doe.

“What a very inspiring thought!” said the buck, flattered. “Thank you, grey-shanks.” The does were a fractious lot, but he loved them in his possessive way.

Wherever he went, the buck was quick to point out the excellence of his life to the creatures he encountered. As his small herd wandered through the woodland, he made sure the squirrels knew of the stamina of his speed. “I can bolt across the meadow in minutes,” he told them proudly as the does sought out tender grasses underneath the spreading trees.

“Nuts,” said the squirrels, who were chatty but self-centered, and gray as ash. “Why would you run if there is no fox or eagle? And what do we care how fast you are? It does not help us elude the slithering snakes.”

“I am the fastest deer in the woods,” said the deer, throwing back his head and brandishing his antlers.

“It doesn’t matter how fast of a deer you are, if the wolf is faster,” chattered the squirrels sententiously, and went back to their nutmaking.

When the herd moved from the safety of the trees into the great golden plains, the buck told the rabbits about his home life. “Orderly, they are,” he said of his does. “Keep in line, and are so good with children. It’s nice to know where your family is at all times.”

The rabbits, none of whom knew or cared where their families were at any times, found him very funny. “Old Master Lack-a-leap,” they jeered at him. “What is the point of having six wives if you have to watch them all the time and guard them from the other bucks? Why worry about who belongs to whom, when the cougar is cunning and life is short? Your family does not make us less merry in our burrows.”

“Dreadfully common, rabbits are,” said the buck cheerily to his second wife, who nuzzled him pleasantly on his neck and said, “You’d be common too, sharp-antler, if you always kept your nose to the ground.” The second doe loved her buck, despite his ridiculous attitudes and posing nature, though she found him very frustrating at times.

When they went to the lake to drink, the buck shouted to the pelicans, who rode the choppy waves just beyond the shoreline and stared at him stonily.

“Hey, dun-feathers,” he said to them, “how is it there on the wet? Have you ever seen a finer coat on any beast in your vantage from the air? Red and brown, hey?” And he kicked up his heels so that the deep shine of his shoulder-coat could be seen across the waves.

The pelicans were ascetics, and they responded to him gravely. “The Great Pelican sends to all as they need,” they said sanctimoniously. “To some, wings to fly; to others, coats to hide in the long grasses and the woodland shadows. What good is your coat of red and brown otherwise? What glory is given to the Great Pelican if it does not hide you from the wily coyotes? Your glossy coat is part of these plains, this lake, this world. It is not a thing complete in itself.”

“Have you ever noticed how pelicans always speak in riddles?” the buck asked his eldest wife.

“You think anything that isn’t praise is a riddle,” said the eldest doe.

“It’s a pity that they insist on ignoring the Great Deer in their worship,” said the buck, and the eldest doe rolled her brown eyes and went back to foraging.

Now it happened that the rains didn’t come that year, and the grasses became sharp and brittle and the buck had to lead his family deeper into the plains than they had been before in order to find adequate food for them all. And because of it they saw, as they came over a particularly tall grass-covered hill, a sight that the buck had never seen before. Along the banks of a large river, now dwindled to half its former strength, a herd of buffalo were traveling. But, what a herd! The buck had never seen so many animals in one place before, and never before had he seen such magnificent animals. For the first time in his short existence, he admired something that wasn’t himself.

“Look at that!” he told the does. “Each of them is three times again the size of us! And the colors! And the coats! See how dark they are, and how shaggy! They must be made in the very likeness of the Great Deer himself!”

“They’re not deer, I don’t think,” said the second-to-youngest doe hesitantly. The does were very nervous of the large creatures. “They look far too big.”

“Of course they’re deer,” scoffed the buck. “What else could they be? They’re magnificent!”

“If we go south, we can still eat without having to bother them,” said the eldest doe. There was general assent among the does.

“Avoid them? Not hardly!” said the buck. “We must join their herd.”

“Join them!” cried the does, sounding mutinous. “Why would we join them?”

“Because they’re the most wonderful, beautiful, and powerful deer on the planet,” said the buck with great certainty. “And because we want to be like them.”

“Madness!” sputtered the eldest doe.

“Perhaps!” said the buck, but in the same breath cried, “Come, then, wives!” and charged headlong toward the great herd that was sending huge plumes of dust into the sky.

His wives complained the whole way, of course, but what could they do? Years of evolution kept them following him, no matter what. So it was that the deer eventually arrived to the buffalo herd, where they fell into step with the larger creatures.

“We are here to join your herd,” shouted the buck breathlessly at the matriarch, an enormous graying buffalo who set her enormous hooves one in front of the other with the same dogged determination of the river she was pacing beside.

The matriarch buffalo was hard of hearing, so she shouted at the buck, “You’re here to what my herd??”

“Join you,” bellowed the buck.

“Loin us? My dear young man, I—”

“JOIN you!” screamed the buck.

“He means to join us, mother,” said one of the cows in the group surrounding the leader. “It looks as if he wants to be part of our herd.”

“And my family,” said the buck. “Yes.”

“Well, that’s all quite right,” said the matriarch. “As long as you keep out from underfoot. You seem very small.”

The buck drew himself up. “I’m the largest deer of the woods.”

“Yes, yes, lovely,” said the matriarch, not hearing, and pressed on, lowing over her shoulder, “Best stay to the middle with the children.”

For a second the buck just watched her as she walked away, leading the massive herd behind her.

“I don’t think she was much impressed,” he said to his second wife.

“No, I don’t think so,” said the doe. “They are, of course, very large.”

“Well,” said the buck, drawing himself up, “we’ll just have to show them how much we belong. But first we’d better take her advice and get more into the middle.” For, now that the buffalo were close he found that their huge heads and great heavy footfalls were a little frightening.

Navigating the dangerous journey of carrying all of his family through the masses of buffalo to the middle of the herd was frightening for the buck, for the buffalo ignored them and continued their forward movement, and they very nearly lost a few of the fawns to the surging tide of animals. But finally they were all in the inside, and the buck did his best to ingratiate himself.

He tried to talk to the larger buffalo, but he found they were not much for conversation. “I can run very fast,” he said conspiratorially to a large bull whose knees were frighteningly close to his head.

“Good for you, fast-legs” rumbled the buffalo. “Speed’s no good in a herd like this, though. Go faster than the rest of the herd, and the wild wolves will chase you first. Keep in step, that’s the key.”

“All—right,” said the buck, though it didn’t seem right to him at all. He tried to keep step with the buffalo, but soon he found himself wanting to run and jump. The press was so bad in the middle of the herd, though, that he soon found it was taking his life in his hands to do anything more than plod, plod, plod with the rhythm of the herd.

Eventually he found himself wandered over to another buffalo, a young cow. “I have a very pretty coat,” he said.

“Do you, now,” said the cow pleasantly, without looking.

“Don’t you think it’s pretty?” said the buck, a bit desperately.

The cow did glance, at that, but didn’t seem very interested. “I suppose so. Does it keep you very warm?”

“Warm enough, I guess,” said the buck.

“I think that’s the only judge of a coat, you know,” said the cow. “It doesn’t matter how it looks, as long as it keeps you warm. I can’t tell you how attractive a bull is with a heavy wollen coat.”

“I see,” said the buck coldly.

“Not that I’m criticizing,” said the cow, “but your hair’s rather short and fine, isn’t it?”

Eventually, the buck took to talking with the children, who at least showed a little more interest in life than their elders. They, however, were also disappointing. “You are very strange,” they said to him. “You’re not built right at all.”

“I have my own family,” said the buck. “Six does of my own.”

This was uninteresting to the baby buffaloes, however. “There are twelve thousand of us, give or take,” they said.

Under this continual attack to his ego, it was not long before the deer began to dislike the mindless plodding of the buffalo. Besides the uncaring attitude of the other beasts, he found that the grass was eaten by the larger buffalo and he and his family had a hard time finding enough to eat. At last, he admitted defeat, and he and his family straggled out of the herd and set off on their own.

“I guess I really got us into it that time,” said the buck as they wearily climbed up a hill away from the herd. “I guess I’m really not that good of a deer, after all.”

“You got us out of it again,” said his second wife before any of the others could speak. “And I think you were the best-looking deer there, even if the others were larger than all of us combined.”

“So did I,” said the eldest one unexpectedly. The other does all murmured assent.

“Really?” said the buck.

“Really,” smiled his second wife.

“Well, then,” said the buck, shaking the weariness from his shoulders, “what say you that we return to the woodland? I bet that the grass has grown back there.” And he started on his way back, his wives in a line behind him.

The Little Engine That Could, But Thought Better Of It

In an age of the world there was a steam engine whose cousin was the famous steam engine who once made it through a difficult trial by reciting to himself, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." Though his story is famous, it is not generally well-known that that particular steam engine had a large extended family with many cousins, and that not all of them were as happy for his success as his parents and uncles and aunts were.

Our steam engine, whose name was Whistle, tried to feel happy for her cousin, she really did. She was, of course, happy that he had succeeded in his duties as a train and that he had brought such fame and honor to the family. But most of the time she just found him aggravating, for his new-found stardom had gone to his head. He dominated all the attention at family gatherings, fascinating everyone with the tales of his heroic exploits.

"It's just the same story, over and over," said Whistle to her mother, a sleek red liner used for hauling cattle. “He doesn’t even tell it that well.” This, she admitted to herself, was simply sour grapes, as her cousin had a way with words and could make the story seem exciting even when most of his audience knew it by heart. Still, however, it was just one story, and she felt it was ridiculous for everyone to be agog over her cousin year after year when he wasn’t doing anything new.

“How long is he going to ride that rail?” she asked one of her friends at the stockyards, a lean red boxcar named Max. “Every year it’s the same old thing: ‘I thought I could, I thought I could…’ I’d like to show him what I think I can do. To him, on a dark night with no coal in sight.”

“He’ll probably stick with it as long as people are going to congratulate him about it,” said Max.
“And it’s not just that he has a good story, you know. He’s also not that bad to look at. Did you know that Steam Weekly wanted his picture? And not just a cover—a centerfold.” Max paused, then added. “They show his boiler and everything.”

Whistle ground her wheels. “When I think of how he’s got everyone fooled, I—oh, grr!” And she took off at a terrible pace, chugging steam, in a crazy circle around the stockyards. Max watched her go around, wincing. She always put terrible stress on the track when she was angry.

The next month, the little engine that could announced that he would soon be touring the country to promote his new book and 12-step program, both entitled “Thinking You Can.” The book featured on the cover the engine’s smiling face, and it was such a popular gift item that year that Whistle got no fewer than five copies for Christmas.

Max found her knocking the books around the snowy grounds with her smokestack, a furious look on her face. “They should put an emphasis on the little in his name,” she growled at him as he approached. “He’s the tiniest, most grasping little handcar ever imagined!”

“You’re littering,” said Max.

“I’ll pick it up when I’m done,” said Whistle through a clenched grille.

“Have I ever mentioned that you have a lot of anger?” asked Max.

Whistle grunted as she shot one of the little engine that could’s books, sending it flapping through the cold, misty air.

Max cleared his throat. “You know, Whistle, maybe you wouldn’t hate your cousin so much if you took a look at his program. It’s supposed to be really helpful. Who knows? It might even help you resolve your issues with him, instead of making them worse.” Whistle growled at him, and he said, “It’s just an idea.”

“I’ll think about it,” muttered Whistle. The truth was that her continued spleen was bothering her as well—she found herself feeling genuinely hateful towards her cousin, and she was realizing that if she kept it up, she would become bitter and twisted. So, a few days later, she swallowed her pride and her bad feelings and went meekly with Max to one of her cousin’s rally meetings.

Max was excited to be there among the crowd, and after a few minutes of feeling skeptical and out-of-sorts, Whistle found herself being drawn into what her cousin was saying. It really did seem that thinking you could would make a significant difference in your life. When her cousin shouted through is enormous grin at the crowd, “I want you to think about the many times you tell yourself you can’t do something! Think about it hard!” Whistle saw that most of her life was telling herself that she couldn’t do the things she needed to, and when her cousin hollered, “You’ve got to stop lying to yourself! All you’ve got to do is THINK YOU CAN!!” and the crowd started cheering and applauding, something settled deep inside her and she realized she was cheering and applauding with all the rest, convinced that thinking she could was the answer to whatever problem she had in her life. She was so overcome with joy at this realization that after the rally she gave her cousin a huge hug and burst into tears while Max stood by, looking happy and uncomfortable at the same time.

For months, Whistle was a avid follower of her cousin’s 12-step program, eagerly pressing “think-you-canism” on all of her friends and those relatives who remained resistant to her cousin’s philosophical charm. When there was trouble in her life, she would close her eyes and recite to herself, “I think I can, I think I can.” Her cousin even had her tour with him on his fifth month of book tours, and she charmed the crowds with her humility and passion. “I was once like you, a critic of the ‘think-you-can’ system,” she told wowed audiences in public confessionals. “But thanks to my cousin’s remarkable system, I’m more empowered than ever!” Her moment in her cousin’s program always brought thunderous applause.

“I’m happier than ever,” she said to Max one summer day as they chugged lazily around the stockyard. “I’m content with myself, I don’t have anger for anyone anymore, and it really seems like I’ve got it figured out.”

Max, who had lost his crush on the little engine who could before the winter was over, said, “Mmm.”

“But…can I tell you something?” Whistle took a breath. “There’s something that bothers me about his philosophy. Something that’s not quite right. It’s helping people believe in themselves more, yes, but it seems like it’s not everything it needs to be.”

“Sounds like you need to think you can believe again,” said Max, stifling a yawn. “Race you to the water tower?”

Over the next few months, Whistle’s nagging concern grew and grew. Her confessions became less and less heartfelt, and eventually she left her cousin’s following, telling reporters that she “loved her cousin’s system but needed some time apart to consider her own beliefs.” There was a slight media furor over her departure—Steam Weekly ran the somewhat inflated title “Scism In Think-You-Canism Family” –but soon most people forgot and went back to thinking they could, as hard as they could. Whistle, for her part, researched the effect that think-you-canism had on trains far and wide. What she discovered disturbed her.

Her first article, entitled “You Think You Can, But Maybe You Shouldn’t” addressed the problem that many followers of “you-think-you-canism” were attempting tasks far beyond their abilities with the excuse that they “thought they could.” The article suggested that people reexamine their faith in thinking they could and bring it closer to reality. Although Whistle tried to keep the tone of her article neutral, her cousin accused her of criticizing him and expunged all of her former confessions from his promotional literature. The media interest in their argument generated a small but loyal following of Whistle’s work, and soon she was churning out essay after essay, each one more revolutionary against “think-you-canism” than the last. Soon, Steam Magazine was calling for her to collect her essays into a book, which she did under the title Think You Should?

Whistle rarely had time for Max with her busy schedule lecturing and writing, but she managed to meet with him for a hurried lunch of fine Ordovician coal.

“It’s amazing, Max,” she gushed. “We’re looking to do a book tour next year. A book tour—me! Can you imagine it?”

“That’s really great, Whistle,” said Max. “It’s amazing how you’ve been able to focus your passion.”

“It’s more than passion, it’s—life! I expect ‘think-you-shouldism’ will be the next big thing, I really do.”

And Whistle was right. “Think-you-shouldism” was soon more popular than “think-you-canism,” especially with the younger generation, which identified with Whistle. Eventually, Whistle and the little-engine-that-could were appearing across from each other in televised interviews, snapping at each other and seeking to undermine the other’s philosophy.

“Whistle’s logic is necessarily limiting,” said her cousin. “She doesn’t allow for individual capability.”

“What my cousin means,” snarked Whistle, “is that I’m not in favor of people participating in suicidal acts because they believe they can. Just last week, a little old chugger nearly died on a mountain pass because she ‘thought she could!’ Is this the kind of attitude that responsible people foster? I think not!”

"So you would have people do nothing? Just sit around, telling themselves they can’t?”

“How many wars would we have if people told themselves they couldn’t?” crowed Whistle.

Eventually, the vitriolic argument between the two got so personal and cutting that the public grew tired of the two, and within two months both “think-you-canism” and “think-you-shouldism” were a thing of the past. The cousins were left with nothing but a huge backstock of their own books and bitter feelings for each other.

“I was right all along,” Whistle told Max, as they took a lap under the slowly-turning autumn leaves. “He’s a handcar. I’m never going to talk to him again.”

Max smiled. “Think you should?”

“Shut up,” groaned Whistle, but she couldn’t deny that he’d made a good point. So, after she had given herself a couple of days to depressurize and cleanse the anger from her steam, she chugged slowly over to the stockyard where the little engine that could had set up a small bookshop of his books. When he saw her coming, he steamed over to her.

“Come to gloat?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’ve come to say I’m sorry. I acted badly, and made things worse. Will you forgive me?”

“I guess,” said the little engine that could after a moment’s thought. “That is, if you can forgive me, too.”

Whistle smiled. “I think I can,” she said.

The Angel in the Attic

In an age of the world there lived a witch who once had an angel in her attic.

It was, of course, an accident that the angel came to be there at all--the witch lived next to a worthy woman and her farmer husband, and the angel had made a slight trajectory error in her descent, coming down, hard, on the witch's roof, and leaving an angel-shaped hole in one of the eaves of the house. She was a young angel, just barely into her halo, and was prone to many small mistakes like these, though everyone in Heaven agreed she meant well, and couldn't be censured if many of her good deeds went awry.

The witch's name was Molly, uncomfortably enough, and she was also just beginning her career as a wicked witch. After only a year in the profession she was nowhere near being truly wicked, but she told herself that she was much more disagreeable than she had been the year before, and that she was well on her way to success. She was not the most talented of witches, but she had ambition and drive and a good attitude. She spent most of her time baking gingerbread, which she stored on the dining room table in huge slabs towards the time she'd have enough raw materials to build a proper witch's cottage. Her familiar was an enormous fat salamander named Sunny who slept in the heavy cast-iron stove and made sarcastic remarks.

On the day the angel came down Molly was drinking tea with her feet up on the stove, arguing easily with Sunny about whether the new cottage should have a trim of gumdrop or licorice, When there came a great whump from upstairs and the whole house shook.

"Trouble in the attic," said Sunny, who on occasion could see more than what was immediately present. "Looks like someone fell through the roof."

"Fell?" asked Molly, already pulling down the attic ladder. "How could someone fall in? There isn't a tree anywhere near the roof. Did they just come right down out of the sky?"

"Your guess," said Sunny with deep indifference. Being able to sense more than his surroundings made him stonily placid about new events. "It's trouble, though," he called to Molly as her skirts swished up the ladder.

The angel lay in a mess of her own feathers--in the sheaf of light that fell from the hole in the roof she seemed to glow with a near-blinding luminescence. Despite the glow, however, she did not have a commanding presence--her halo was askew and she was flat on her wings on the dusty floor. She looked as if she had twisted her ankle badly.

"Goodness, are you all right?" cried Molly before she could even think of being nasty. She went to the angel and helped her sit up, saying, "How on earth did you ever fall through the roof?"

"Ouchie," was the angelic reply, as she struggled to sit upright. The angel had a sweet, slightly vacant face, and a long stream of golden hair that cascaded down her back. "I didn't mean to fall. It just--happened." She glanced at the hole in the roof and made a pouting face. "Do you think I'm a fallen angel now?"

"Not as long as you can stand back up," said Molly stoutly, huffing as she helped her up. The angel's wings were very heavy, and kept getting in the way. "Can you walk?"

"I don't think so," said the angel petulantly, putting out a tentative foot and hobbling a bit on it. After only the slightest bit of pressure to her injured ankle she collapsed into Molly's arm, crying, "Oh, St. Peter will be so angry when he hears I've gone wrong again!"

"St. Peter will have to carry on, then," said Molly dryly through a faceful of wing. The more dramatic the angel got, the less she liked her. If the angel hadn't leaned against her with obvious need of support, she would have been greatly tempted to simply turn her out. But, seeing that it just wouldn't do, she said, "Let's get you downstairs where we can put that foot up."

"Oh, it's so, so kind of you," gushed the angel. "I am so grateful."

She may have been so grateful, but she wasn't very helpful, thought Molly as she tried to help the angel down the narrow attic stairs. The angel went limp at all the wrong times and stiff at all the other times, and the result was that Molly had to half-carry, half drag her the whole way, while all the while the angel protested that she was being too much of a bother. When she finally got to the ground floor, huffing, and set the angel down on the kitchen stool she'd been drinking her tea on, Molly was hot and irritated, and trying to think of a good spell to send her visitor quickly on her way.

Molly had just gone to get the angel some tea when she gave a little shriek and cried, "There's a lizard in the fire!"

"That's Sunny," said Molly, measuring out tea. "He's harmless."

Sunny climbed out of the stove and looked at the angel balefully. Flicking his long purple tongue out twice, he observed, "You've got straw in your hair."

The angel squealed again, this time sharply. "Oh," she said, "a talking lizard! Have you ever heard of such a thing? What does he say?"

"Pretty much whatever he wants to," said Molly, shoving a teacup into the angel's hands. Kneeling at the angel's feet, she took the swollen ankle into her hands and squeezed it gently. The angel cried out.

"Well, it's badly sprained, but not broken," said Molly, standing up and brushing off her knees.

"More's the pity," said Sunny.

"You'll have you stay off it until it gets better." Molly shot Sunny a withering glance. "I don't suppose you can fly home, can you?"

"Oh, no," said the angel with wide eyes. "I just can't fly if even the smallest part of me has gone wrong. It isn't angelic."

"In that case, you'll have to rest up," said Molly. Together, they struggled to get the angel into Molly's small goose-feather bed--it took every pillow in the house to prop up the angel's wings on the bed, but finally the angel was comfortable and Molly turned to get back to the business of the day, cursing the interruption of her schedule.

She had just barely gotten the gingerbread mixed, and was stoking the fire in the oven when she heard the angel singing. The angel had a fine voice but no sense of melody--her song was tuneless and repetitive, like a six-year-old's. After five minutes of her crooning, Molly said as reasonably as she could, "Do you mind? I'm a bit busy."

"Oh! I'm sorry!" said the angel. "I suppose I'm just bored."

"Talk to Sunny," said Molly.

The angel looked hopefully at Sunny, who burrowed deep into the coals of the stove, hissing, "Not interested." The angel sighed, an affected, sorrowful sound.

Molly snorted but couldn't ignore how wistful the angel looked, so eventually she came and sat by the angel and said, kindly, "I suppose I can wait to cook the gingerbread till later."

"Oh, you are so good," cried the angel, grabbing Molly's hand. "You will be blessed for your goodness."

Molly scowled at the insult to her chosen profession, but sat and listened while the angel told her about Heaven and how wonderful its people were. The angel was practiced at enthusiasm but had difficulty with detail, so even after two hours of having it explained to her, Molly found she still had very little idea what Heaven was, exactly.

"Well, that was wonderful," said Molly, standing, after she felt enough time had passed, "but I'd better get to work."

The angel sighed again.

"What?" asked Molly, a little shortly.

"It's just that...Heaven is so much cleaner than it is here." The angel's voice quavered. "I suppose it's just me being homesick."

Molly was fiercely proud of the orderliness of her home, and so she snapped, "It's very clean here."

"I suppose so," said the angel, leaning into the pillow as if she were an invalid approaching death.

Molly cursed under her breath and went back to her gingerbread. It wasn't long before she began to realize that there was, after all, a little more dust in her home than should be. Furious, she left her gingerbread again and pulled out the bucket, brush, and mop, and set to cleaning the house until it gleamed.

She was throwing out her final bucket of dirty water at the fence of her property and thinking of horrible spells to cast on the angel when she saw the farmer woman next door slopping her pigs. The two women liked and respected each other, no matter how much they disagreed with the other's lifestyle choices, and so when the farmer woman waved Molly leaned over the fence and shouted hello to her.

"Hello, Molly," said the farmer woman as she came up to the fence. She was plump and red-faced, with a pleasant grin. "Doing a little late cleaning?"

Molly smiled and rolled her eyes. "I have something of an unexpected house guest," she said. "It's turning out to be more work than I thought it would be."

"Well, that's nice of you, then," said the farmer woman. "What is it they say--'in such a way many have entertained angels, unawares'?"

"I wish it were unawares," said Molly darkly. "How do you get rid of an angel?"

"My dear!" The farmer woman was shocked. "You should never get rid of an angel."

"Well, just say, for argument's sake," said Molly. "How could I convince an angel to hurry on her way?"

The farmer woman rested her round chin in her ample hand and thought about it. "They say that the best way to chase off an angel is to invite a devil in," she said musingly.

"Thank you!" said Molly cheerfully, and went back into the house to write a letter to the devil, inviting him to have tea with her the next afternoon.

The next morning Molly greeted the angel with a less-than-cheery "Good morning," which was partly due to the fact that she had spent an uncomfortable night on a chair while the angel had slept peacefully in her bed.

"Good morning," said the angel.

"How's your ankle?"

"Still broken," sighed the angel. "But, it is not a totally bad thing. Last night, I thought of many ways I could bless your life. As soon as my powers are better, perhaps I can enlarge your fortunes--maybe bring you a husband?"

"No, thank you," said Molly with a little shudder. "I really think you should rest."

The angel, however, did not rest--though she stayed in bed the whole time, she prattled on about the many improvements that could be made to Molly's cottage--including a full cathedral ceiling. It wasn't until there was a sharp rap on the door that the angel stopped in her cheerful planning and said, "Who is that?"

"A friend of mine," said Molly. "I invited him for tea."

"A male friend," said the angel coyly. "Let him in! Let him in!"

Molly smiled and went to the door and pulled back the bolt. The devil was standing there, all in red, with his dark horns on his head and a small goatee on his chin. "Molly," he said, smiling and kissing her cheek. He smelled of cedar and brimstone. Pulling away from her, he asked, "How have you been? It seems like forever since I've seen you last."

"Very well," said Molly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Have you been playing around with that goatee? It looks shorter than I remember it." She laughed when he brushed the short hairs self-consciously. "I hope you don't mind, but I have a house guest here. She's turned her foot and is resting up."

"One of the witches? I didn't think there was anyone out this way but you," said the devil, peering around Molly's shoulder to the bed. When he caught sight of the angel, he gasped and pulled Molly back out the door. "There's an angel in there," he hissed at her.

"That's my house guest," said Molly. "I was sort of hoping that you could help me...encourage her to move along."

"Evict an angel?" The devil looked petrified. "I couldn't do that!"

"And why not?" asked Molly, feeling a bit frustrated.

"They make me so nervous!" The devil stole a glance through the window. "What are they always smiling about? And those wings--it's unnatural." The devil shuddered delicately. "This will put me right out. Look, my palms are sweating." He lay his hand on Molly's arm, which she shook off.

"Well, you'll have to conquer your fears and have some tea, at least." Molly took him by the arm and steered him back into the room. "I'm not about to have that one bless me out of house and home."

The angel, for her part, regarded the devil with large blue eyes. "You shouldn't let him into your home," she said gravely to Molly.

"He's my friend," said Molly.

"That's very wicked."

"Thank you. Will you have sugar in your tea?"

The devil sat on a chair next to the angel's bed, and Molly took the chair by the stove. Sunny climbed out of the stove and looked back and forth between each of them with stony interest.

At last, the devil broke the silence. "I--ah, it's a rather fine day."

"Very fine," said the angel, eyeing him over her cup. "It's heavenly."

"I hate it," said the devil.

"I love it," countered the angel.

The devil nodded and took a sip of his tea. The angel, after a moment's hesitation, drank from hers.

"So," said the devil after a moment, "What is it that you--er--do, exactly?"

The angel opened her eyes very wide. "I bless those who have been good. I help people find things that have been lost. Sometimes, I help little children from getting hurt."

"That sounds very--nice," said the devil.

"You, no doubt, lead innocent souls astray?"

"When I can," said the devil, nodding distractedly. "The innocent are the difficult ones. They usually are just making a mistake, which doesn't count as going astray, technically. We had a few innocent ones come into Hell a few weeks ago--you wouldn't believe the din they made. The paperwork to get them reassigned was a nightmare."

"Shame on you," said the angel without heat. She was watching the devil with fascination, as if a great blackbird had suddenly landed in front of her. "You should repent."

"I should, I should," said the devil, shooting Molly an agonized look. He half rose in his chair. "In fact, I should get on that right now."

"Leaving, so soon?" said the angel.

"Oh, yes," said the devil, "so much to be done. Tormenting souls, you know. It takes time."

"But you haven't heard about why you should repent yet!" cried the angel. "You need to know how much happiness you could have!"

"Some other time, perhaps," said the devil, backing towards the door. "Thank you, Molly, tea was lovely."

"Wait, now!" cried the angel, sitting up in the bed. "You could have so many blessings in your life!"

"Oh, I think I'm doing well enough, thank you," said the devil, his hand on the door-latch. "Goodbye, then, so nice to have met you."

"Wait," cried the angel, jumping out of the bed. "Ouch," she cried as she wobbled on her sore ankle, but before Molly could even stand up she was flapping her wings to keep off her ankle, and heading out the door after the devil, who by now was fairly running down the road to get away from her.

By the time Molly got to the door, they were almost out of sight, though the angel's voice could still be heard saying, "Please, let me bless you a little..." Molly waved to them and shut the door.

"That was very wicked," said Sunny approvingly from the stove.

Molly leaned against the closed door. "I think I should send some of the next gingerbread batch to Beth next door."

"It's less wicked," said Sunny.

"It's wicked enough," said Molly, and went into the kitchen, whistling to herself.