Enchanted (11 page)

Trix jumped and snatched his finger back. “Why not?”

“It might be cursed,” said Sunday.

Trix played along. “Do you think so?”

“One can’t be too careful,” warned Sunday. “There is a cursed spinning wheel somewhere in Arilland, but there’s no way to know for sure if it’s this one.” She leaned in to Trix as if telling him a secret, much the same way Papa did. “No one can.”

“What happened to make it cursed?”

Sunday looked into the sky dreamily as she spun, telling the story as if she were reading it off the clouds. “Long ago there lived a young girl who hated spinning more than anything else in the whole wide world.”

“Like you,” Trix interjected.

“Very like me,” Sunday agreed, “only more so, if you can believe it. She hated it so much that one day she declared she would rather sleep her life away than ever touch a spinning wheel again.”

“Silly girl.”

“Indeed. For in saying so she charmed the spinning wheel. And when she pricked her finger on the spindle, her blood sealed the charm forever.”

“And she fell asleep?”

“She did! She slept for a hundred years. When she finally woke again, she was a frail, brittle old woman with no friends or family left in the world. Realizing her folly, she demanded that the spinning wheel be brought to her and destroyed.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No. When she fell asleep, they thought she was very, very sick or under a spell. They had no idea that the spinning wheel was the cause, so it was lost.”

“What happened to it?”

Sunday absent-mindedly pulled more wool out of the bag as she spoke. “It fell into the hands of a vengeful fairy who had been wronged by a selfish king. On the king’s granddaughter’s nameday, the fairy gave the child the gift of humility, along with the spinning wheel. The parents could not refuse such a gift in front of their subjects.”

“Clever fairy.”

“Clever and mean and powerful. She altered the charm on the spinning wheel so that it would not only put the granddaughter to sleep for a hundred years, it would put the whole castle to sleep as well. The kingdom would be an easy thing to conquer; the fairy had only to trust the curiosity of little girls and pray she eventually pricked her finger on the spindle.”

“Did she?”

“The night before her sixteenth birthday.”

Trix gasped.

“The whole castle instantly fell asleep. The king and the queen, the cooks and the serving girls, the guards and the errand boys, the horses in the stables and the hens in the henhouse. When the spell was complete, the fairy surrounded the castle with a wall of thorns and set a basilisk to guard the gate so the castle would remain untouched, ready for her to inhabit in a hundred years’ time.”

“But someone got in.”

“For some heroes, nothing is impossible. A young prince hacked through the wall of thorns and slew the basilisk. He made his way to the topmost tower of the castle, where the sleeping princess lay, and he woke her with a kiss of true love.” If true love couldn’t work the way it was supposed to in her own life, she could at least make it work for someone else. “The princess awoke and then the entire castle. The fairy was never seen again.”

“What about the spinning wheel?”

“When the princess was well again, she ordered the spinning wheel brought before her to be destroyed.”

“Just like the girl before her.”

“And just as had happened to the girl before her, the spinning wheel was nowhere to be found. It remains intact, somewhere in Arilland, to this very day.”

“Do you think it will ever be found again?”

“Oh, it gets found from time to time. You’ll hear of a girl struck down with a sleeping sickness from which she will not wake. When her friends and family are questioned, they’ll find she was spinning at the time she fell ill. They will look at the pad of her finger and see the mark of the spindle that stole her life. They will seek out the spinning wheel and try to destroy it, but it will be too late.”

“Could this really be that spinning wheel?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Before Trix could protest, Sunday reached out and pricked her finger on the spindle.

“No!” Trix cried, and immediately lanced his finger on the spindle as well.

Sunday watched the blood well up on Trix’s fingertip. Shed meant to scare her brother with her story, but shed never meant him harm. “Why did you do that?”

“If you fall asleep for a hundred years, then so will I. When we wake up, we can hunt down the spinning wheel together and make sure it’s destroyed.”

Trix was never one to question love or loyalty. If more people like him existed in the world, it would be a much nicer place. “Oh, Trixie. You’re the best brother ever.”

His face fell. The magic they’d woven between them blew away on the wind. “But I’m not your brother.”

Sunday looked down at her fingertip with the bright red pearl of blood on it. She took Trix’s hand in hers and pressed their two wounded fingers together. “You have always been family. In my heart, you have always been my brother. Now our blood is shared again. You have mine, and I have yours. You are my brother and I am your sister. Don’t ever let anyone say otherwise.”

“As it was, so it will be forever,” he said solemnly.

Sunday’s body tingled. She was working some small magic with her words, but she didn’t care if she got in trouble. She wasn’t changing anything major, just reinforcing a bond that had always been between them. If it made Trix feel better, it was worth it.

Trix pulled his finger away and wrapped it tightly in the hem of his dirty shirt. “So what are you going to do now that you’ve completed your task?”

Sunday looked down. The strands of gray wool she’d started with were now covered in a thick layer of fine golden yarn. She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d learned, but she must have learned it all the same. Perhaps Aunt Joy wasn’t as lazy as Sunday had originally thought.

She smiled at her brother-once-before and her brother-again-and-forever. “I expect I’ll go find out what my next task is.”

The afternoon sun burned high in the sky, Sunday’s white pigeon cooed in the garden tree, and Aunt Joy made the beans grow. It was beyond strange to witness the beans they had planted only a few days earlier sprout and climb the sticks and strings that stretched down each row. The leaves uncurled and spread out in the sun; the vines wound around and around one another, flowered, and then sprouted fat velvety pods all over. Joy handed Sunday a basket. “Your next task.”

“Picking beans?”

“Every last one,” said Joy. “And while you are picking, think about how I just did that.”

Sunday stood, dumbstruck, as her aunt turned to leave. Trix tugged on Sunday’s sleeve, shaking her awake. “Can she have help?” he called to Joy.

Joy smiled benevolently and said, “Yes, she may,” before disappearing back into the house.

Trix ran for another basket and joined his sister in snapping beans off the vines.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

Trix picked beans with both hands. “I want to.”

“Thank you.” The sun warmed Sunday’s neck, and sweat trickled down her back. When her basket was mostly full, Trix emptied it into his and went to fetch another. He returned with a cup of water for her, and she gulped it down.

“Save some!” Trix said before she drained the cup.

Startled, she asked, “Why?”

“For your bird.”

From the row of vines beside her, the little white pigeon stared at her quizzically. Sunday stared back. A few hours earlier, it had been a piece of paper with a futile dream written inside it. Now it was flesh and blood and feathers and bone. Sunday hadn’t the faintest clue what to do with it.

“I’m not even sure it is a bird,” said Sunday. “Aunt Joy made it, but I never meant to keep it.” She flapped her hand. “Shoo! Go away, bird. You don’t belong to anyone, least of all me.”

Trix laughed at her.

“What?”

“If the bird was made, it chose to be made. It’s here because it chooses to be with you.”

“I don’t have any say in the matter?”

“You never did.”

“Spectacular. I can’t even take care of myself. What am I supposed to do with a bird?”

Trix put his palms together and cupped them. “Here. Pour what’s left of the water into my hands.” Sunday did. A few fat droplets escaped between his fingers. The bird hesitantly hopped forward and then fluttered to Trix’s finger, where it perched itself to drink. Sunday studied its tiny eyes, its beak, its perfect, smooth feathers. They were impossibly white, like Sunday imagined an angel’s might be.

“You should give her a purpose,” said Trix.

“She’s a
bird,”
Sunday said. “Her purpose is to be a bird. I’m guessing she knows how to do that a heck of a lot better than I do.”

“You should ask her for help.”

“I am not talking to a bird.”

“But you just did,” said Trix. “When you told her to go away.”

“I was being silly.”

“You talk to Grumble.”

And there it was. Sunday forgot all about the bird. Her eyes got misty, and her heart was suddenly too heavy for one person to hold. “I miss him, Trixie.”

“Then go see him.”

She had lessons to learn, a life’s worth of magic to control, and an entire field of beans to pick. From here on out, her life would be one never-ending series of tasks after another. She was caught in a prison forged at her birth. “I
can’t.”

Trix pulled his hands slowly apart and the water rained to the ground. He moved the finger where the bird was perched carefully toward Sunday. Despite wanting nothing to do with the animal, Sunday raised her hand and held out her fingers. The plump little bird hopped into them. It weighed so little, she almost couldn’t tell it was there at all. Its tiny feet tickled slightly.

“Ask her,” said Trix.

Sunday exhaled. She could do this. Trix asked worms and moles for help, didn’t he? Sunday finally spoke as if addressing a letter. “Dear bird, I would really appreciate it if you would help us pick all the beans out of this field.” Had the bird bobbed its head? Sunday looked to Trix for guidance.

“Ask if its friends would like to help, too.”

“And if you have any friends, we would be very grateful for their help, too.” She whispered an aside to Trix. “Shouldn’t we offer them something as payment?”

“Tell them they can have a basket of beans for themselves when they are done.”

“Did you hear that?” Sunday asked. The bird bobbed its head again. “All right,” she said, but the bird didn’t leave. “Thank you very much.” The bird flew away into the trees.

Sunday felt a fool. Talking to birds indeed. Enchanted men were one thing; wild animals were completely another. Trix was going to laugh himself silly. Sunday moved back to her row and started pulling more beans.

Trix put a hand on her arm. “Wait,” he said softly. “Just wait.”

So Sunday waited. The sun beat down on them as they stood in silence.

The small white pigeon flew back to them, alone. She landed on the row beside Sunday and Trix, snapped a fat pod off the vine, and dropped it into the basket on the ground.

“Thank you for helping us,” Sunday said to the bird, “even if your friends didn’t want to. More beans for you.”

“Sunday, look.” Trix pointed to a fluttering in the leaves three rows over. A starling poked its head out, flew straight for them, and dropped a bean in the basket on his way past. Everywhere Sunday looked, there were busy vines and shuffling wings. There were so many birds: martins and larks, turtledoves and jays, robins and snowbirds. They filled up Sunday’s little basket in minutes. Trix fetched a few more.

“I don’t believe it,” Sunday said.

“If you want anything to work, Sunday, you’re going to have to believe it.”

Sunday laughed. He was right. Clever brother.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll watch the birds for you.”

Sunday ran for the Wood without looking back. She was sweaty and dirty and her hair was full of feathers, her hands were chapped from spinning, and her dress was old and worn, and she had forgotten her book on the table in the kitchen, but none of that mattered. There was so much to tell Grumble. So much had happened in the short time—the eternity—they had been apart. She needed him to keep her sane, to make her laugh, to feel complete. She was so happy, it made her eyes water. She skipped through the lengthening shadows of the trees along the overgrown path and thought about what she would tell him: the family secrets, her strange powers, Aunt Joy’s unorthodox methods of teaching...

What
had
Joy taught Sunday? She had spun gold, miraculously enough, but where had it come from? She’d felt magic when she’d named Trix her brother, but the gold had been spinning for some time before that. Both of them had been so wrapped up in her story, neither had noticed when it had begun.

That was it!That was where the magic was!The same magic that had pulled them into the story had changed the wool as she’d spun. For one spins a tale, doesn’t one? Weaves it. And it hadn’t been someone else’s tale; she’d made up her own, as Aunt Joy had suggested. Sunday laughed at how obvious it was to her now. The lessons didn’t have to do with writing because she had the ability to change things without writing them down.

Sunday pushed aside some branches and let them spring back behind her. So how had Aunt Joy created the harvest full of beans? The answer came as she thought the word: “created.” That was her power, the crux of what Joy was teaching her. Sunday was a Creator.

Everything in the world was about creativity: belief and creation. Storytelling was the essence of both. Sunday had been teaching herself the rudiments of creative expression every time she scribbled in her journal. The beans had not changed on a basic level; Aunt Joy had merely let them be what they would inevitably be. Just like naming Trix her brother: Sunday had never believed for a moment of her life that he wasn’t. Now, as it was, so it would be forever.

But the bird and the yarn had changed at their core. That was scarier. One day, Sunday would have the ability to turn men into animals. And one day, she would also know how to change them back. She wondered what Grumble would say to that.