You would think that five days of peace, alone and without my scare-bird worries, would have been enough for me to recover my equilibrium, but I worried my way through every hour of the five.
Would the boy remain on the bus? Would he get off at the right place? Would he find his way to Meteora? Did my letter get to her in time? Would she curse me for sending him? Was he the right boy? The wrong boy? Did he have naught to do with this knot?
These and other questions buzzed in my head and when—on the fifth day—a letter came from Meteora, I was forced to write another back at once. At least to share my worries. I wrote my first thoughts quickly and left the unfinished letter on the mantel:
Oh dear Paddle Foot:
I knew you would do the right thing. You always do the right thing. It is annoying, but true. Only you never know when to shut up. There. I have said it at last. And I say it with love and a certain amount of trepidation for I treasure your letters, all I have now of our old life. But really, Meteora, you are so like your name, flashing across any universe you happen to inhabit.
Shut up.
You are best when you are fixing things, mending broken boxes or heads or hearts. When you cut the strings that are binders, when you uncurdle the brownie’s milk, when you set aright a spell that has gone so miserably wrong. Then—oh then—you are what you are meant to be.
Only for Mab’s sake, shut up about it.
The memories you curse me with are so one-sided. Have you never understood that? The miller’s babe was a mistake, granted. But I recognized it immediately and had not the wherewithal to take it home. Only you could do it—as you did. The harper was not there for dancing nor bound by love, but to twit the Queen and oh! I can still see her face, a rowanberry red, as he went on his seventy-dozenth round of the song. And I did not need to hold my ears, dear sister, having stuck lamb’s wool in them ahead of time. Remember, I am the farseer, the visioner.
As for touching my things—do you not remember that as a little one, you burned yourself badly that way. Look at the puckered skin on your left ring-man finger. The reminder is still there. You never seemed to recall that on your own, much as I iterate. A meddler you were then and still are. A meddler and a mender.
I sent you the boy so that you can meddle and mend to your heart’s content. I have seen that you need to fix this broken thing, whatever it is. I can only clean him up but not make him better. Something eats at his heart, something coils in his gut.
I had already cleansed the house of Robin’s presence, burning the lint he left behind, throwing out any food he had touched, scrubbing the rooms on my hands and knees with a soap I made of rowan and bleach. Those first couple of nights my right leg had ached from buttock to bone being unused to such a position.
That said, I kept a bit of his hair I found in my good brush and used it for a new casting. The picture that spiraled out of the smoke was as clear as the first. There was something to come out of their coupling, the girl and my scare-bird, if ever they got down to it. Though there was also some strange blurring around the edges of the vision, which was worrisome.
I moved closer to it till the smoke made my eyes water. But all I made out was a single crow feather in the left corner and a bit of gingerroot in the right. And what those two things augured—well, it was anyone’s guess. I gave it a good try, though.
Crow feather. I knew the old adage, “One crow for sadness, two for mirth . . .” Could that be what was meant? Or perhaps it was a hunter’s sign disguised? I had once seen a hoodie crow bait-fishing, and everyone knows how they use bent twigs and stalks of grass to pull out insects from hills and burrows. And a split-tongue crow can talk in any language. My dam heard one curse an UnSeelie prince in the old tongue, and did she not laugh!
As to the ginger? It could leach poisons. Make a cold man hot. Fix a bilious stomach. Help a woman newly with child. But what it meant here, I might never know. Farseeing is like that. Sometimes meaning emerges long after.
I took up the letter to Meteora and added what I had just seen, saying,
So now I fear for the gift I sent to you. If they see one, this boy, this girl, they will be swept into each other’s arms. But whether that is for sadness or mirth, whether it is only for heat, I do not know. However, I do know this: whatever you give Robin to plant, do not let it be Arum. Never Arum.
This time I am afraid I have been the meddler and you must use all that is left of your magic to mend if you must, or bend if you will, else we might both be broken on this wheel forever.
I was about to crumple the letter, thought better of it, and put it back on the mantel. I would write something fresher in the morning. Then I ran out of the house, needing air and trees and food to sustain me.
* * *
I MADE MY WAY DOWN the street to the Man of Flowers store. He saw me and smiled, waved, came over.
“Dona,” he said. “The sun has not shined here since you were gone. Is your grandson well?”
For a moment I had to think whom he meant, then remembered I had told him the scare-bird was my kin. And in a way, I suppose he is. “I have sent him off to my sister’s.”
“You have a sister?” he countered. “Here? That is good. Then you are not, as I feared, all alone in this world.” His head nodded. “A grandson, a sister.” He paused. I remembered such pauses from the life before, when men found me beautiful and asked me such questions.
“But no husband,” I said. I said it softly, so it could be read as he wanted. I do not know why I said such a thing. Habit? Desire? Loneliness?
“Ah.” He blushed. I liked that. It made him look younger. “May I make you a present of . . .”
I raised a hand between us, surprised at how old my hand was. Always surprised. “No more presents, kind sir, for your generosity shames me. I must repay you.”
“Dona, no payment is necessary.”
“It is the custom of my people,” I said. “I must repay you, or . . .”
He nodded. “Then make me a dinner tonight and let me supply the food and wine. It has been too long since I have had a beautiful woman cook for me.”
“Beautiful?” He had never seen me beautiful. Only fat and aching and old.
He took my hand. “There is a life lived in your face, Dona, and a wisdom and laughter in your eyes. There is kindness there, too.”
I who had never melted when a lover said such things in my nest, nor lost my heart for more than a night’s dalliance, almost wept. “I have never been kind,” I whispered to him.
“I cannot believe that.”
I let him give me root vegetables, cream, long noodles, three kinds of cheeses, some berries, a sweet basil plant, a bit of thyme, three rosemary stalks, and a round orange fruit as big as his fist.
“I close the store at six.”
I told him the number of my house.
“I know.”
“Second floor.”
“I have seen the plants on the sill.”
So I smiled. “I will expect you then, sometime after the store is closed.” And I left, my heart thudding so hard, I feared it would burst through the bag of food I had from him as a gift. No—not a gift, but a promise, though I wondered with a shiver if this old body could keep the promise made by my suddenly much younger heart.