“There’s my boy,” she would say, and whisk me to the kitchen for a snack of jam and bread and a cup of Ovaltine. “How was your day today, Henry?”
I would make up one or two pleasant lies for her benefit.
“Did you learn anything new?”
I would recite all that had been rehearsed on the way home. She seemed inordinately curious and pleased, but would leave me at last to the dreadful homework, which I usually managed to finish right before suppertime. In the few moments before my father came home from work, she would fix our meal, my company at tableside. In the background, the radio played her favorite ballads, and I learned them all upon first hearing and could sing along when the records were invariably repeated. By accident or ignorance, I mimicked the balladeers’ voices perfectly and could sing tone for tone, measure for measure, phrase for phrase, exactly like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney or Jo Stafford. Mom took my musical ability as a natural extension of my general wonderfulness, charm, and native intellect. She loved to hear me, often switching off the radio to beg me to sing it one more time.
“Be a dear boy and give us ‘There’s a Train Out for Dreamland’ again.”
When my father first heard my act, he didn’t respond as kindly. “Where did you pick that up? One day you can’t carry a tune, now you sing like a lark.”
“I dunno. Maybe I wasn’t listening before.”
“You’re kidding me? She has that racket on day and night with your Nat Cole King and all that jazz, and ‘Can you take me dancin’ sometime?’ As if a mother of twins . . . What do you mean, you weren’t listening?”
“Concentrating, I mean.”
“You should be concentrating on your homework and helping your mother with the chores.”
“If you pay attention and listen instead of merely hearing the song, you can pick up the tune in no time.”
He shook his head and lit another Camel. “Mind your elders, if you please, Caruso.”
I took care not to be such a perfect mimic around my dad.
Mary and Elizabeth, on the other hand, were too young to know any better, and they accepted without question my budding talent for impersonation. Indeed, they begged for songs all the time, especially in their cribs, where I’d trot out all the novelty tunes like “Mairzy Doats” or “Three Little Fishies.” Without fail, however, they fell asleep as if knocked unconscious every time I sang “Over the Rainbow.” I did a mean Judy Garland.
My days with the Days quickly fell into a comfortable routine, and as long as I stayed inside the house or inside the classroom, all went well. The weather suddenly grew cooler, and almost at once the leaves turned garish shades of yellow and red, so bold that the mere sight of trees hurt my eyes. I hated those bright reminders of life in the forest. October proved a riot to the senses and climaxed those giddy last weeks before Halloween. I knew that parties were involved, begging for nuts and candies, bonfires in the square, and playing tricks on the townsfolk. Believe me, we hobgoblins did our share of mischief—unhinging gates, smashing pumpkins, soaping the library windows with cartoon demons. What I had not experienced was the folderol among the children and the way that even the schools had gotten into the act. Two weeks before the big day, the nuns began planning a classroom party with entertainment and refreshments. They hung orange and black crepe paper along the tops of the chalkboards, pasted paper pumpkins and black cats on the walls. We dutifully cut out scary things from construction paper and glued together our own artistic efforts, pitiable though they were. Mothers were enlisted to bake cookies and brownies, make popcorn balls and candy apples. Costumes were allowed—indeed, expected. I remember exactly my conversation on the matter with my mother.
“We’re having a party for Halloween at school, and teacher says we come dressed in our trick-or-treat outfits instead of our uniforms. I want to be a hobgoblin.”
“What was that?”
“You know, a hobgoblin.”
“I’m not sure what that is. Is it anything like a monster?”
“No.”
“Or a ghost? Or a ghoul?”
“Not those.”
“Perhaps a little vampire?”
“I’m no bloodsucker, Mother.”
“Perhaps it’s a fairy?”
I howled. For the first time in nearly two months, I lost my temper and screamed in my natural wild voice. The sound startled her.
“For the love of God, Henry. You scared the wits out of me, raising the dead and howling like a banshee. There’ll be no Halloweenin’ for you.”
Banshee keen, I wanted to tell her, they wail and weep, but they never howl. Instead, I turned on the tears, bawling like the twins. She drew me to her and hugged me against her stomach.
“There now, I was only kidding.” She lifted my chin and gazed into my eyes. “I just don’t know what a hobgoblin is. Listen, how about going as a pirate, you’d like that now, wouldn’t you?”
And that’s how I ended up dressed in pantaloons and a shirt with puffed sleeves, a scarf tied around my skull, and wearing an earring like Errol Flynn. On Halloween day, I stood before a class of ghosts, witches, and hoboes, the only pirate in the school, probably the whole county. Teacher had tapped me to sing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” as part of the scary entertainment for our party. My normal speaking voice was a squeak like Henry Day’s, but when I sang “If you go out in the woods tonight,” I sounded exactly like the sonorous bass of Frank DeVol on the record. The imitation shocked nearly everybody. In a back corner, Caroline Hines sobbed in fear through the whole song. Most of the slack-jawed kids gaped through their masks and makeup, not quite knowing what to believe. I remember that Tess Wodehouse sat and stared without blinking, as if she realized a fundamental deception but could not unravel the trick. But the nuns knew better. At the end of the song, they whispered together in a conspiracy of penguins, then nodded in unison as they crossed themselves.
The actual trick-or-treating left much to be desired. My father drove me into town at dusk and waited for me as I walked the row of houses along Main Street, spying here and there another child in pathetic costume. No hobgoblin appeared, although a black cat did try to cross my path. I hissed at the creature in perfect cat, and it turned tail, running away in panic to hide beneath a honeysuckle bush. An evil grin crossed my face. It was good to know I had not yet lost all my tricks.
• CHAPTER 4 •
In the gloaming, the crows flew in to gather for the night in a stand of bare oaks. Bird by bird, they soared to the rookery, black shadows against the fading light. My kidnapping, still fresh in my mind, left me timid and battered, not trusting a soul in the woods. I missed my family, yet days and weeks passed, marked by the routine appearance of the birds. Their arrival and departure provided reassuring continuity. By the time the trees lost their leaves and their naked limbs stretched to the sky, the crows no longer frightened me. I came to look forward to their graceful arrival, silhouetted against the wintry sky, a natural part of my new life.
The faeries welcomed me as their own and taught me the ways of the woods, and I grew fond of them all. In addition to Speck, Igel, Béka and Onions, there were seven others. The three girls were inseparable—Kivi and Blomma, blonde and freckled, quiet and assured, and their tagalong, Chavisory, a chatterbox who looked no more than five years old. When she grinned, her baby teeth shone like a string of pearls, and when she laughed, her thin shoulders shook and twitched. If she found something truly funny or exciting, she took off like a skittering bat, dancing in circles and figure eights across the clearing.
Apart from the leader Igel and the loner Béka, the boys formed two pairs. Ragno and Zanzara, as I remember them, reminded me of the two sons of the Italian grocers in town. Thin and olive-skinned boys, each had a thatch of dark curls on his head and was quick to anger and quicker to forgive. The other set, Smaolach and Luchóg, behaved as brothers, though they could not be more dissimilar. Towering over everyone but Béka, Smaolach concentrated on the task at h
and, as oblivious and earnest as a robin tugging up an earthworm. His good friend Luchóg, smallest of us all, was forever pushing back an untamable lock of night-black hair that curled across his forehead like the tail of a mouse. His eyes, blue as the summer sky, gave away his fierce devotion to his friends, even when he tried to feign nonchalance.
Igel, the eldest and leader of the band, took pains to explain the ways of the forest. He showed me how to gig for frogs and fish, how to find water collected overnight in the hollow of fallen leaves, to distinguish edible mushrooms from deadly toadstools, and dozens of other survival tricks. But even the best guide is no match for experience, and for most of my early time, I was coddled. They kept me under constant watch by at least two others, and I was forced to stay around camp, with dire warnings to hide away at any hint of other people.
“If they catch you, they will think you a devil,” Igel told me. “And lock you away, or worse, they will test to see if they are right by throwing you in a fire.”
“And you will burn up like kindling,” said Ragno.
“And be nothing more than a puff of smoke,” said Zanzara, and Chavisory demonstrated by dancing around the campfire, circling away to the edge of darkness.
When the first hard frost hit, a small party was sent away for an overnight excursion, and they came back with armloads of sweaters, jackets, and shoes. Those of us who had stayed behind were shivering beneath deerskins.
“Since you are the youngest,” Igel told me, “you have first choice of the clothes and boots.”
Smaolach, who stood over the pile of shoes, beckoned me. I noticed that his own feet were bare. I poked through the assortment of children’s saddle shoes, square-toed brogues, canvas tennis shoes, and the odd unmated boot, choosing at last a pair of brand new black-and-white wingtips that seemed to be my size.
“Those’ll cut your ankles off.”
“How about these?” I asked, holding up the tennis shoes. “I might be able to squeeze into these.” My feet felt damp and chilled on the cold ground.
Smaolach rooted around and picked out the ugliest brown shoes I had ever seen. The leather creaked when he flexed the soles, and the laces looked like coiled snakes. Each toe was tipped with a small steel plate. “Trust me, these will keep you warm and toasty all winter long, and a long time in the wearing.”
“But they’re too small.”
“Don’t you know you’ve been shrinking yourself?” With a sly grin, he reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out a pair of thick woolen socks. “And I found these especially for you.”
The whole crowd gasped in appreciation. They gave me a cableknit sweater and an oilskin jacket, which kept me dry on the wettest days.
As the nights lengthened and grew colder, we exchanged our grass mats and solitary beds for a heap of animal skins and stolen blankets. The twelve of us slept together in a tangled clump. I rather enjoyed the comfort of the situation, although most of my friends had foul breath or fetid odors about them. Part of the reason must be the change in diet, from the bounty of summer to the decay of late fall and the deprivation of winter. Several of the poor creatures had been in the woods for so long that they had given up all hope of human society. Indeed, a handful had no such desire at all, so they lived like animals, rarely taking a bath or cleaning their teeth with a twig. Even a fox will lick its hindquarters, but some of the faeries were the dirtiest beasts.
That first winter, I yearned to go with the hunter-gatherers on their morning forage for food and other supplies. Like the crows that convened at dusk and dawn, those thieves enjoyed freedom away from the roost. While I was left behind, I had to suffer babysitters like that toad Béka and his companion Onions, or old Zanzara and Ragno, who squabbled all day and threw nutshells and stones at the birds and squirrels poking around our hidden hoard. I was bored and cold and lonesome for adventure.
On a gray morning, Igel himself chose to stay behind to watch over me, and as luck would have it, my friend Smaolach kept him company. They brewed a pot of tea from dried bark and peppermint, and as we watched a cold rain fall, I pressed my case.
“Why won’t you let me go with all the others?”
“My great fear is that you’ll run away and try to return whence you came, but you cannot, Aniday. You are one of us now.” Igel sipped his tea and stared at a point far off. After a decent interval, letting his wisdom sink into my mind, he continued. “On the other hand, you have proved yourself a valuable member of our clan. You gather the kindling, husk the acorns, and dig a new privy hole when asked. You are learning true obedience and deference. I have watched you, Aniday, and you are a good student of our ways.”
Smaolach stared into the dying fire and said something in a secret language, all vowels and hard consonants full of phlegm. Igel pondered over that secret sentence, then chewed on his own thoughts before spitting them out. Then, as now, I was eternally puzzled over how people think, by what process they solve life’s riddles. Their consultation over, Igel resumed his study of the horizon.
“You’re to come with Luchóg and me this afternoon,” Smaolach informed me with a conspiratorial wink. “We’ll show you the lay of the land around these parts as soon as the rest of them get back.”
“You better dress warmly,” Igel advised. “This rain will changeover soon.”
On cue, the first snowflakes started mixing with the raindrops, and within minutes, a heavy snow began to fall. We were still sitting in our places when the faery troop meandered back to the camp, chased home by the sudden inclemency. Winter sometimes came early to our part of the country, but usually we did not get a snowfall until after Christmas. As the squall blew in, I wondered for the first time whether Christmas had passed altogether, or perhaps at least Thanksgiving had slipped by, and most certainly Halloween was gone. I thought of my family, still looking for me every day in the woods. Perhaps they thought me dead, which made me feel sorry and wish that word could be sent concerning my welfare.
At home, Mom would be unpacking boxes of decorations, putting out the stable and the manger, running garland up the stair rail. The past Christmas, my father took me out to chop down a small fir tree for the house, and I wondered if he was sad now, without me to help him choose the right one. I even missed my little sisters. Were they walking and talking and dreaming of Santa Claus, wondering what had become of me?
“What day is it?” I asked Luchóg as he changed into warmer clothes.
He licked his finger and held it into the wind. “Tuesday?”
“No, I mean what day of the year? What day of the month?”
“I have no idea. Judging by the signs, could be late November, early December. But memory is a tricky thing and unreliable when it comes to time or weather.”
Christmas had not passed after all. I resolved to watch the days from then on and to celebrate the season in an appropriate fashion, even if the rest of them did not care about holidays and such things.
“Do you know where I can get a paper and a pencil?”
He struggled into his boots. “Now, what would you want them things for?”
“I want to make a calendar.”
“A calendar? Why, you would need a store of paper and any number of pencils to keep a calendar out here. I’ll teach you how to watch the sun in the sky and take notice of the living things. You’ll know time enough by them.”
“But what if I want to draw a picture or write someone a note?”
Luchóg zipped up his jacket. “Write? To whom? Most of us have forgotten how to write entirely, and those that haven’t, didn’t learn in the first place. It is better to have your say and not be putting down in more or less a permanent way what you’re thinking or feeling. That way lies danger, little treasure.”
“But I do like to draw pictures.”
We started across the ring, where Smaolach and Igel stood like two tall trees, conferring. Because Luchóg was the smallest of us all, he had trouble keeping up with me. Bouncing along at my side, he continued his d
issertation.
“So, you’re an artist, are ye? No pencil and paper? Do you know that the artists of old made their own paper and pens? Out of animal skin and bird feathers. And ink from soot and spit. They did, and further back still, they scratched on stones. I’ll teach you how to leave your mark, and get you that paper if you want, but in due time.”
When we reached the leader, Igel clapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’ve earned my trust, Aniday. Listen and heed these two.”
Luchóg, Smaolach, and I set off into the woods, and I looked back to wave goodbye. The other faeries sat together in bunches, huddled against the cold, and let the snow coat them, mad and exposed stoics.
I was thrilled at being out of that camp, but my companions did their best to control my curiosity. They let me stumble about on the trails for a time before my clumsiness flushed a covey of doves from their rest. The birds exploded into the air, all pipes and feathers. Smaolach put a finger to his lips, and I took the hint. Copying their movements, I became nearly as graceful, and we walked so quietly that I could hear the snowfall over the sound of our footsteps. Silence has its own allure and grace, heightening all the senses, especially hearing. A twig would snap in the distance and instantly Smaolach and Luchóg would cock their heads in the direction of the sound and identify its cause. They showed me the hidden things silence revealed: a pheasant craning its neck to spy on us from a thicket, a crow hopping from branch to branch, a raccoon snoring in its den. Before the daylight completely faded, we tramped through the wet grounds to the mucky bank of the river. Along the water’s edge ice crystals grew, and listening closely, we heard the crack of freezing. A single duck paddled further down the river, and each snowflake hissed as it hit the water’s surface. The sunlight faded like a whisper and vanished.