The Giant-Slayer (35 page)

“But it wasn’t a dream,” said Dickie. “Dr. Wishman was here.”

“Okay, Dickie,” said Mrs. Glass. She came and fluffed his pillow with her big callused hands.

“It’s true,” said Dickie. “He told me that Laurie would wake up in the morning. He said she was going to be okay.”

“And I’m sure he was right,” said Mrs. Glass, smiling down at him. “Now let’s let the doctor do his work.”

It didn’t take long for that; there wasn’t much the doctor could do. Mr. Valentine hovered around him, asking questions that didn’t really have answers.

“I’m sure it’s no comfort,” the doctor said, “but your daughter’s not alone with this. There was a problem at one of the labs, Mr. Valentine. Maybe a live vaccine.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Mr. Valentine. “I know about the Cutter lab. I work for the Foundation. The only thing I want to know is this: what will happen to my daughter?”

“It’s my hunch that she’ll be fine,” said the doctor. “I’m sorry that it all comes down to a hunch, but it’s the best I can do. Every day improves her chances.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Valentine. He knew the odds very well. Twenty percent of the deaths in the first day, eighty-five percent in the first three weeks. It was a long way to go until anyone could say she was safe.

Little Dickie was looking up. “Don’t worry, Mr. Valentine,” he said. “She’s going to be okay. She really is.”

And he was right.

Laurie came out of her coma not an hour later. She could move her arms and legs, her fingers and toes, and before noon she could manage just fine without a plastic tube in her throat.

The doctor took it out. But he left the girl in the iron lung. “Just for a night or two,” he said. “I’ve never seen a patient recover so quickly.”

In her iron lung, Laurie listened as Dickie told her how the story had unfolded. He brought her up to Piper’s Pond, with the Wishman there, and the Gypsy King. The others interrupted now and then when they thought he’d got it wrong, then Laurie asked one question: “So what did they wish for? The one wish for all three.”

“Yeah, what
was
that wish?” asked Dickie, turning to look at Carolyn.

She blushed. She shook her head, and the long braid of hair swished from the pillow. “It’s stupid,” she said.

“Aw, come on. Tell us,” said Dickie.

“Well, it sounds dumb,” said Carolyn. “But they all wished to live happily ever after. And that’s how the story ends.”

No one spoke. There was just the huffing of the iron lungs as Dickie and Chip frowned at each other. Laurie stared into her mirror, out at the window behind her.

Finally, Dickie spoke up. “What do you mean, that’s how it ends?” The coonskin cap dangled in front of him, beside the wooden tomahawk and the pictures of Davy Crockett. “Boy, there’s got to be more than that. What happened to Khan and Finnegan Flanders? What about the Swamp Witch and the Woman and the Gypsy King?”

“Beats me,” said Carolyn. “I think Laurie should finish it.”

Dickie turned the other way now, and grinned at Laurie. “So what happened next?” he asked.

It seemed to Laurie that Carolyn knew very well how the story would end. Giving it back was a kindness, she thought, the first gesture of friendship she’d ever seen Carolyn make.

With her head on the pillow, the iron lung pulling her breaths in and out, Laurie felt herself floating from her world of hospitals and machines, into the land of her story. In the tilted mirror, there was a strip of sky with big round clouds made silver by the sunlight.

But in her mind she saw the fire blazing in the grove at Piper’s Pond. She could hear the laughter and the music, and watch the Gypsies dancing.

In firelight, the Gypsies reeled in a huge circle. Their clothes were swirling, their rings and bracelets flashing. Sparks flew up from the fire, and the fiddles screeched, and the Wishman played his pipes.

Jimmy the giant-slayer danced three times with every
girl, until he was exhausted. But the Woman danced only with the King.

Jimmy watched his mother twirl and laugh, and could not remember a time when she had been so happy. And when she was as tired as he, they sat together through the night and listened to the music.

At the edge of the pond—not seen by anyone—the Swamp Witch crouched in the shallows. Beside her was the little basket, empty now.

Her throat bulged and shrank. A happy croaking sound, something like the purr of a cat, came from deep in her throat.

At midnight a Gypsy girl went to the pond for water. She carried a pot and a dipping ladle, and she tossed back her long hair as she knelt at the edge of the water.

The Gypsies were dancing behind her, whirling through the firelight.

A splash, or a swirl of water, made the girl sit up and stare into the darkness over the pond.

“Marla!” said the witch in the darkness.

The girl gasped to hear her name come from the black pool in a croaking sort of voice. “Who’s there?” she asked.

“Marla, don’t be scared,” said the witch.

The girl stood up, staring. She saw a black shape hunched nearby. Behind her, the fire flared as someone added wood, and she saw the witch’s eyes staring from the pond.

She dropped the pot; it clattered on a stone. She dropped the ladle. She opened her mouth to scream.

“It’s me,” said the witch. “Your sister.”

The girl stepped back from the water. She held up the
hem of her long dress, ready to run. “Jessamine?” she whispered.

“Yes. Please stay,” said the witch. “It’s really me.”

The girl hesitated. She looked back at the fire, again at the pond. She took another step from the water. Then she leaned forward and whispered into the shadows the beginning of a rhyme she had invented long ago. “The Gypsy King has dash and flair.”

And back from the darkness came the rest of it. “And yellow spots in his underwear.”

The girl laughed. She ran into the water, splashing through the shallows blindly.

Suddenly, a face loomed in the faintness of the fire; cold arms reached out and hugged her. She could see the witch’s frog-like face. She could touch the knobs of lizard skin. But she could
feel
the soul of her sister, and that was all that mattered.

“Jessamine!” she said, and drew her toward the fire.

The dancing stopped as the pair came closer. The music faded away. Then every Gypsy stared as the Swamp Witch and the girl walked slowly round among them. The witch was wearing her Gypsy rings now, her earrings and bracelets, the very same jewelry that Jessamine had worn on the day she’d disappeared.

When she came to the King of the Gypsies, the Swamp Witch stopped and looked up. Her throat filled and emptied. She held out her webbed hands, the fingers long and knobby. “Father, I’ve come home,” she said.

Carolyn sighed. She was looking up at her mirror, or at least
toward
her mirror. In its surface she saw the darkness of Piper’s Pond and the face of a Gypsy girl. “Gee, that’s nice,” she said. “That’s keen.”

“Huh?” said Dickie, beside her. “What’s nice?”

“Just the way she went home,” said Carolyn. “She was so different, so ugly, but she went home anyway.”

Chip didn’t seem as pleased with that part of the story. “But the King wouldn’t even recognize her.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” said Dickie.

“It wouldn’t take him long; he’s not stupid,” said Carolyn. “On the inside, Jessamine’s the same girl who got stolen. Maybe she’s even better now. Maybe she’s nicer.”

Laurie nodded. This time it pleased her that Carolyn had seen right through the story. “That’s what
I
was thinking.”

“But what about the changeling?” said Chip. “When the witch stole Jessamine she left a changeling behind. That’s what the hunter said.”

“Yeah, what about that?” asked Dickie. “Boy, what’s a changeling anyway?”

“It was a creature,” said Laurie, “a
thing
made of wood and sticks and stuff. It looked like Jessamine. It talked and moved and everything, but it was evil and horrid. When the witch left it there, the Gypsy King couldn’t understand how his lovely Jessamine had suddenly become so horrible.”

“But the changeling didn’t live very long,” said Carolyn. “Did it?”

“A few weeks. That’s all,” said Laurie. “Then it withered away like a plant without water. It got dried-out and hollow, until all that was left was a thin, hard shell. Then the
King understood; he saw that this thing was really a changeling, nothing more than enchanted wood. From that day on he was haunted by the thought that his daughter was still alive, so he kept moving from place to place, hoping to find Jessamine.”

“Maybe that’s why Gypsies roam today,” said Carolyn. “They got used to it.”

Dickie was happy now, content. But Chip still looked puzzled. “So why does the King hate the Swamp Witch so much?”

“Gee, I know
that,”
said Dickie.

“Does he think she’s the one who stole Jessamine?”

“No,” said Dickie, scornfully. “There wasn’t even a Swamp Witch living then. It was just a story that she was a hundred years old. There wasn’t a witch in the swamp until Jessamine went to live there. Right, Laurie?”

“Right,” she said.

“So why does the King hate her?” asked Chip again.

“Boy, it’s easy. Every time she came around the camp, and the dogs knew she was there, the King was afraid she’d steal another baby. He thought all witches stole babies.”

“Oh!” said Chip.
“Now
I get it.”

Carolyn rolled her eyes. “I hope the King was happy that day his daughter came home,” she said. “What happened after that?”

The witch was never changed back to the way she had looked as a girl. Forever she was froglike, with enormous
yellow eyes and a mouth that barely had lips. But in the story the Gypsies told of that night, a tale that would live a thousand years, she had never seemed more lovely than she did in the light of the fire, as she came home from the bottom less swamp.

From then on she lived at Piper’s Pond. Her father, the King, saw no need to wander anymore, and his caravan never moved again. The grass grew up above the wheels, twining round the spokes.

The Wishman too discovered a fondness for his home. Months later, he made one more journey down the Great North Road. He returned in seven weeks, with many small doilies, with samplers to put on his walls, and pretty little covers for the toilet paper, and a wedding ring for Jessamine.