Swan Sister (13 page)

The two had bombarded Antonio with questions: Did the bones of the harp belong to a dead girl? Had he known all along? He told them nothing. The harp that had seemed extraordinary before now seemed to bear a curse.

Then the lord, riding alone, caught up with them, and the two vanished into the wagon and left Antonio to face what they were sure could be only trouble.

“The harp,” inquired the lord when he’d dismounted. “Might I see it again?” Antonio turned, and one of his friends handed it to him. He offered it to the man below him.

With trembling fingers, the lord took the harp. He held it by its arms as if wanting at the same time to embrace it and fling it away. Forlornly he said, “She’s gone.”

“Not gone,” replied Antonio. “She’s been with you all this time. She was waiting for this day.” He didn’t know if what he said was true, but he felt it was something this man needed to hear more than truth.

“Would you—would sell this harp?” asked the lord.

“If you desired it, I would, my lord. It has more of your daughter in it than it does of my talent.”

The lord nodded. He offered Antonio a large purse. “I don’t know how to play it,” he said. “Perhaps you could teach me?”

Before Antonio could answer, the lord plucked a string, idly, and the harp sang—not as before with the voice of his lost Beatrice. Now it sang in two distinct tones forming a perfect harmonic interval. Yet he had touched only one string.

Antonio dropped the reins and climbed from the wagon. The harp had never made such a sound under
his
fingers. He peered closely at his handiwork. Then he pointed at it in wonder.

The strings of the purchased harp were bound, each one, in alternating filaments of gold and raven black.

—For Kayla and Dolly

G
REGORY
F
ROST
says, “I love Pentangle. They are one of the great folk music groups, and one of my favorite songs of theirs is a piece called ‘Cruel Sister’ from an album of the same name. I had been thinking of writing a story from that song for a couple of years, ever since two other writers—Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman—had invited me to contribute a story to an anthology they wanted to do, in which all the stories would be based on folk ballads. Alas, they didn’t get to do it, but they had planted the idea for ‘Cruel Sister,’ and, thus, by the time Terri and Ellen asked for a story for this anthology, I had already written one in my head. The song ends with the revelations made by the harp, so it was left to me to find a fitting ending for it. I hope I have.”

G
REGORY
F
ROST
is the author of six books and more stories than you can shake a stick at (if that’s your idea of a good time). He has contributed to other fairy tale anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling such as
Snow White, Blood Red
and
Black Swan, White Raven.
His latest novel,
Fitcher’s Brides,
is a dark, disturbing fantasy that also comes from a fairy tale—in this case, from the story “Bluebeard.” He has been a singer in a garage band, an illustrator, an actor in two dubious horror films, and a researcher for a television series. He promises someday to grow up.

Once a poor couple worked at a place called TTT, which stood
for “Tomorrow’s Technologies Today.” They swept the labs, cleaned the windows, and generally picked up after the scientists, some of whom were astonishingly messy. The couple lived in a small cottage at the edge of the TTT industrial park and would have been content with their lot were it not for one thing: They did not and could not have a child.

One dark and stormy night there came a knocking at their door. As they rarely had guests, this so frightened the wife that she threw her apron over her face. But the husband scurried to the door. There he found a tall man with fierce eyes, who was much bedraggled with rain and mud.

“My car has broken down,” said the man. “May I take shelter here?”

Though he looked like a vagrant, the husband asked him in, partly because he had a kind heart, and partly because he knew security at TTT was such that no outsider could pass its gates.

What he did not know was that their visitor was Dr. Merrill Lyon, head of research at TTT.

After ushering their guest to the table, the husband dialed up some fresh coffee and hot bread, which the table swiftly delivered.

When Dr. Lyon warmed himself a bit, both inside and out, he noticed the wife peering at him from behind her apron.

“Come come, good woman,” he said. “You’ve nothing to fear from me!”

After a bit more coaxing the wife lowered her apron and edged her way to the table. Yet still she seemed sad, and now that Dr. Lyon saw it, he noticed that the husband, too, had eyes weary with sorrow.

“Why such long faces? Is TTT not treating you well?”

“Oh, no!” cried the husband quickly. “We love our jobs!”

This was not entirely true but was probably the wisest thing to say under the circumstances since he could not be sure that their guest had not been sent to spy on them. “It’s just that . . .”

When his voice trailed off, his wife jumped in with a vigor that belied her previous timidness. “It’s just that we
want a little baby boy, sir, and can’t seem to have one. Oh, I want a child so much I wouldn’t mind if he were no bigger than a mouse.”

And that was how the whole thing started.

In his office the next day Dr. Lyon could not stop thinking about the wife’s words, which almost seemed an invitation to test a bit of technology he had been tinkering with. Two days later he invited the couple to his lab, where they signed several release forms freeing TTT from all responsibility, then underwent numerous tests and injections.

Not many months after, the wife gave birth to a perfect baby boy. Well, perfect in all ways save one: He was barely the size of his father’s thumb! Despite her comment to Dr. Lyon the mother was not entirely happy with this. On the other hand, the tiny infant was so dear that her whole heart went out to him the first instant she saw him.

Word of the miraculous child quickly made the rounds at TTT. Before long many scientists had come to visit the baby, who Dr. Lyon dubbed “Tom Thumb.” (Though Tom’s parents were not entirely happy with this name, they preferred it to Dr. Lyon’s first suggestion: “The Spacesaver 3000, Mark I.”)

Eventually even the daughter of the man who owned TTT came to visit. The girl, Titania by name and but four years old herself, was immediately smitten with the baby. “Oh, the dear thing!” she cried. “Please, can I hold him?”

Tom’s mother, being no fool, passed the child to
Titania, who cradled him in the palm of her hand and wept bitterly when it was time for her to leave.

The next day came a knock at the cottage door. Before either man or wife had a chance to answer, in swept the little princess (for that was what the people at TTT called Titania), bearing an armload of gifts for Tom.

From that moment on the baby wanted for nothing in the line of clothing, as it was Titania’s delight to dress him as if he were a doll. So it was that the child of the humble cottagers wore silks and satins and shoes made of the finest Italian leather—though it must be said that their cost was all in the workmanship, since an entire wardrobe for the lad could be made from a mere handful of scraps. Titania came to visit often and adored the tiny baby, though it did distress her that she often found him scrabbling around on the floor with the mice, who seemed to look on him as a special friend. Tom even trained one to carry him about on its back, as if it were a tiny horse. He named it “Charger,” and the two made quite a sight.

Though he grew no taller, Tom seemed to mature rapidly, and when he was but a year old it was decided that he should join the children of the other TTT employees at their day care.

This did not turn out to be an entirely good idea, for he was constantly in danger of being stepped on by the other children. Moreover, Tom himself was the soul of mischief and loved nothing more than to slip into some child’s pita bread then stick his head out from behind a cherry tomato and shout “Boo!” just before the poor
thing took a bite. These antics led to more than one case of hysteria, several parental complaints, and two lawsuits. Finally the vice president in charge of employee relations decreed Tom would have to be schooled elsewhere.

When Dr. Lyon learned of the problem, he invited the wee lad to come live in the lab. Tom’s parents were reluctant to let their boy go, but the doctor made so many promises about the fine education he would receive and the splendid people he would meet that finally, with heavy hearts, they agreed. Tom agreed too, though he insisted that Charger be allowed to come along with him.

Dr. Lyon had a dollhouse custom made for Tom to live in. Though he mentioned it to no one, he also had the dollhouse fitted with cameras and microphones so he could monitor Tom’s life.

Tom loved being in the lab, for all the scientists who came through would stop to talk to him and compliment him on what a fine lad he was becoming. In fact, by the time he was four Tom had the wits and skills of a ten-year-old. Dr. Lyon made many notes questioning whether this was a function of his reduced size.

Tom was enormously curious, and he and Charger were always prowling the lab to see what Dr. Lyon was up to. Finally the scientist ordered Tom to stay on the tabletops, saying he was afraid someone would step on the tiny boy if he was running loose on the floor. This so frustrated Tom, who now could not get from one table to another without being carried, that one of the TTT engineers created a system of towers and bridges for him. Soon every
lab table had a five foot tower at each end, each tower being connected by a narrow bridge to the one at the next table, with the bridges sufficiently high that the scientists could walk below them with no problem. The kindly engineer added a system of pulleys so all Tom had to do was climb into a little cup and then hoist himself to the top of the towers.

Now he could travel freely about the lab and was much happier. Most of the scientists soon became used to the sight of the thumb-sized boy scampering about overhead. Dr. Lyon, however, seemed to be somewhat nervous about having Tom move around so easily. And after a while Tom noticed that every night the doctor carefully locked his center desk drawer. The boy wondered what was in the drawer that Dr. Lyon hid it so carefully, but as the man always took the key with him, he was not able to find out.

The lab was a place of great fascination for Tom. He loved the bubbling test tubes and the crackling power sources and the strange-smelling concoctions so much that even though Dr. Lyon repeatedly begged him to be careful around them, he could not resist getting too close—which was how he happened to tumble into a small pot of something extremely disgusting one afternoon.

The goo, as it turned out, wasn’t an experiment at all, but something one of the lab assistants had been cooking for lunch that had been left on the burner too long and gone bad.