DAPHNE
AND THE SILVER ASH
By Joseph Robert Lewis
Copyright © 2011 Joseph Robert Lewis
Edited by: Joss Llewelyn
Cover by: Joss Llewelyn, photo ©Kurhan (Dreamstime)
Edition: October 2012
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from Joseph Robert Lewis.
For my daughters
Chapter 1
The Golden Phoenix
Daphne was a young woman not yet twenty with long, shining hair as dark as raven feathers. She wore a faded purple dress that hadn’t always been so faded, and she tended to smile more often than not. She was shy and soft-spoken, sometimes having to clear her throat and repeat herself a bit louder to be heard. Her skin was still soft and smooth, except on her feet because she preferred to go barefoot, and except on her hands because she worked them so hard. Despite her fondness for going unshod, or perhaps even because of it, she had become a shoemaker and in her spare hours she fashioned the finest women’s boots in the weary old city of Trevell. But as cattle grew rare and leather became dear, there was soon no one left who could afford her beautiful creations, leaving her with only the occasional request to repair an old shoe. And though disappointed by this, she was content doing whatever work there was to be done.
Daphne was a rather young wife, having married her Justin only a year ago. They met in school and courted slowly over the years, first as friends and later as lovers. He was tall and strong with curling black hair and a deep, easy laugh that reminded Daphne of her father, who had died when she was very young. Justin joined the city guard as soon as he was old enough and had already been promoted once to lead a small group of even younger men, though he preferred to keep the watch alone and disliked giving orders. He wore a slender dented sword on his hip and he carried an old rusty musket in the crook of his arm when he left in the morning. In the evening, Justin came home looking weary and thoughtful, and after dinner he would sit by the window and watch the stars, or what few of them could be seen above their neighbors’ roofs. He would ask Daphne about her day, but never talked about his own.
Daphne was a very young mother with a baby daughter, Violet. They called the girl Violet for no particular reason except that they liked the name, which is a better reason than most. She was very small with fat cheeks and a thin wisp of brown hair on her head. When she was first born, she ate little and slept little, but cried often and so her parents slept little as well. But day by day through those first difficult weeks, things grew easier for all three as Violet slept longer and ate more and cried less. And soon the tiny girl could lift her head and meet her mother’s gaze with her wide brown eyes and smile her delightful smile, and that made the sleepless hours easier to bear.
One afternoon late in the summer, Daphne walked the streets of Trevell with her baby in her arms, the setting sun in her eyes, and an old lullaby on her lips. She hummed the tune and whispered the rhymes to herself as much as to Violet as she climbed the hill, gliding past the weary men and women on every side. It was still early, but everyone was slowly making their way home, each shuffling to her drafty house or his lonely loft. The shadows lay long and deep across the city streets, blanketing the crumbling buildings in cool darkness. Smears of dried mud lay in the cracks and corners of the gutters and alleys where no gust of wind or fall of rain would ever wash them away.
Precious few trees grew along the city streets, although Daphne remembered seeing more of them when she was a little girl. Now those few remaining trees stood gnarled and bare though it was not yet cold. A few brown leaves skittered through the streets on the breeze only to be trampled and crushed to dust, unseen and unmourned.
Violet reached up to grab her mother’s chin, and Daphne leaned down to kiss her daughter’s tiny fingers. She went on humming as she walked up the long dusty street and soon she came to the square at the top of the hill. In the center of the square was a park, a patch of green grass ringed by a low brick wall where children balanced along the top and young couples sat together, looking in at the small circle of green, or looking out at the vast tumble of gray and brown and black of the city.
There were two gates in the low brick wall and both were always open. Daphne entered the east gate and stepped gingerly onto the thick carpet of lush green grass. She looked up and smiled. “Do you see it, Violet? Do you see the tree?”
The tree, the great Silver Ash, stood in the center of the park like a towering pillar of shining white marble. Its branches spread out far overhead to shade the park and the square beyond the brick wall. A light breeze played through the branches of the Silver Ash and its countless shining leaves sighed and shivered like satin ribbons as they waved back and forth, reflecting the last rays of the setting sun all across the park.
Daphne crossed the soft grass, stepping carefully over the pale leaves and dry twigs on the ground, and she came to stand beside the smooth trunk of the tree. “Bryn? I brought someone to meet you.”
“Someone to meet me?” a voice answered. The voice was high and light and airy, a young voice that sounded like the chiming of delicate bells and the trilling of fragile songbirds. A slender figure emerged from the far side of the tree, as she always did. The nymph was always just out of sight until she wanted to be seen, and then suddenly there she was, as though she had been there all along. She was shorter than Daphne and wore her pale blonde hair down to her waist. Her skin was milk-white streaked here and there with soft grays in the hollows of her cheeks and throat and hands. She smelled of sweet jasmine, and her wispy gray dress swirled around her legs and bare feet in a tumble of soft silk. Bryn smiled and touched the baby’s tiny fingers. “And who is this little one?”
“Violet,” Daphne said. “I wish Justin could have come too, but he’s on duty until sundown and I didn’t want to be out so late. So we came without him.”
“She’s beautiful.” Bryn stroked the child’s thin brown curls. “She looks just like you.”
Violet squirmed at the nymph’s touch, her eyes squeezed shut, and she began to cry. Daphne kissed her and shushed her, but Violet would not be calmed so easily. She cried louder and Daphne glanced up at the high shining branches of the Silver Ash. “I’m sorry, I should go.”
“Please don’t go,” Bryn said, looking up at the tree. “I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
Daphne began to sway from side to side, lightly bouncing Violet in her arms. The child quieted a little. Daphne smiled at the yawning girl and began to sing,
The ash tree, so graceful, so plainly is speaking,
the wind through it whispers its secrets to me.
Whenever the light through its branches is breaking
a host of kind faces is gazing on me.
Violet quieted down in fitful stages, but soon she closed her eyes and curled up tightly against her mother’s chest. Smiling, Daphne glanced up from her sleeping child and saw that Bryn was staring up at the Silver Ash. The entire park had fallen silent and still.
Daphne looked up.
There, on the lowest branch of the great white tree, perched the phoenix Serafina. Daphne felt her heart leap into her throat and freeze at the same moment. Her back stiffened, her lips trembled, and for a moment she forgot how to blink her eyes.
The phoenix stood tall on her long slender legs, her golden feathers glowing softly with the
last faint rays of the sun’s fading light. The tips of her wings and the crest atop her head burned and sparkled like dark rubies as she turned her long neck slowly from side to side, watching the people below first with one eye and then with the other. She was a bird, but no mere bird. She had the willowy grace and height of a heron and the powerful talons of an eagle. And some old grannies told tales that she spoke with the voice of a siren or a harpy, but no one could remember which. It had been decades since anyone had heard her speak, and it had been many years since anyone had seen more than a glimpse of her sleeping high in the Silver Ash.
“Sing.” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, a woman’s voice as soft as a whisper and as terrible as thunder. The phoenix never opened her slender bill, and never had as far as anyone knew, not to eat and certainly never to speak. But there was never any question of where the voice came from. She sounded as old as the mountains and yet she implored with all the earnest innocence of the tiny baby girl blinking up at her. “Sing. Please.”
Daphne felt her heart pounding in her throat and she realized that she was clutching Violet tightly to her chest. She relaxed her hold on her child and nodded at the beautiful creature above. In long slow notes, she sang,
The friends of my childhood again are before me,
each step wakes a memory as freely I roam.
With soft whispers laden its leaves rustle o’er me,
the ash tree, the ash tree alone is my home.
Daphne blinked and wet her lips. She exhaled slowly as she looked up again at the Silver Ash, but the phoenix was gone. For a second she thought she saw a glint of gold or a flash of crimson through the branches and leaves, and then everything was still. After a few moments, the park came back to life. The people whispered and talked and laughed, standing up to stretch and then make their ways home.
Bryn laid a light hand on Daphne’s shoulder and said, “It has been so many years since I have heard her voice. Thank you.”
Daphne nodded. “She’s so beautiful. And so strange.”
“I know.”
“It will be time soon, won’t it? Time for the rebirth?”
Bryn nodded. “Yes. Very soon now. She and I have been weaving her new nest high in the tree, and one night, very soon, we will light the golden fire and be reborn. The Silver Ash will blossom with new leaves of every color, Serafina will rise young and beautiful, and the entire city will be washed clean and new once more.”
Daphne smiled. “I only wish Violet was older so she could remember it all. She probably won’t live long enough to see the next one.”
“No, she will not,” Bryn said. “But she will live her entire life in a bright city with no memory of these declining years, no memory of these gray and dusty days. And that is its own blessing. She’ll only know blue skies and gentle rains, warm summers and mild winters. Her city will overflow with new life, with trees and vines and flowers. The fields outside will be full of cows and sheep and goats, and there will be rich food for every mouth and delicious smells for every soul that breathes.” The nymph winked.
“And fresh leather for new shoes, maybe?” Daphne smiled.
“More than you’ll ever need.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Beautiful weather means young lovers sneaking off on long walks and picnics, and young ladies will need beautiful boots for those outings.”
Bryn laughed. “Whatever for? The young men won’t notice what they wear on their feet!”
Daphne smiled. “They’re not for the men. Didn’t you know that?”
They stood and talked lightly about little things, from the gloomy weather to the strange smell of wet dog that seemed to forever cling to the old city, until the sun began to sink below the western wall. Then Daphne said goodbye and made her way slowly and carefully back down the hill from dirty street to pot-holed lane with Violet fast asleep in her arms. She reached home just as the old lamplighter stepped out onto her street with his brass candle lighter to set the smoky-glassed street lamps ablaze.
Hers was a simple stone house that stood wall to wall with the other stone houses up and down the street. The door had been a dull red once but now appeared more brown than anything else, and the grime on the windows no longer relented when she tried to scrub them clean. Inside the house was clean and tidy, though dark and cool. A few floorboards creaked despite Justin’s many attempts to silence them, and one corner of the roof leaked in heavy rains no matter how often they covered it. But it was home. Daphne laid Violet between the pillows on the bed and set about lighting the candles and warming the remains of yesterday’s supper for their evening meal.
Justin arrived half an hour later, on time as always, and he flashed a tired smile as he entered. He quietly removed his boots, and set his rusty saber and clanky musket by the door. After giving the sleeping baby a quick kiss, he joined Daphne at the table for supper and they talked in soft voices about the tree and the weather and Violet. When the table was cleared, Daphne lied down beside their daughter to rest while Justin went to sit in the ancient rocking chair by the window to stare up through the grime at the first faint stars peering down through the hurrying gray clouds.
Daphne closed her eyes. It had been a good day.