A Merry Sisters Story….

(This is my for-fun [as in, not eligible for the prizes] entry to the Merry Sisters of Fate anniversary contest. All of our stories are based on the prompt shown here, which is entitled Princess Tuvstarr, painted by Swedish painter John Bauer in 1838 or so, shared courtesy of Wikipedia.)

---

Summerbalm

The crackles from the small fire in the summer kitchen give the night a friendly sound. It is more for light than heat, I know, and I gratefully breathe in the sweetness of the summerbalm branches in the smoke. Father is away this night, and Mother has granted us a night of frivolity in return for our day’s work. We will sleep tonight in the summer kitchen at the edge of the orchard; the stream at our backs, and hectares of trees between us and the house.

Staking the canes and braving the brambles for the succulent summerbalm berries is sweaty, time-consuming, and painful. The hours in the stillroom over boiling kettles, our fingers stained and punctured, are repetitive and boring, but come the winter, our moods will be sweetened with syrups, our throats soothed with elixirs and our bread smeared with summerbalm jam. For this small joy, we sweat and toil, and are content to laze about on this warm night, indolent as cats stretched out before the blaze. Father’s absence only adds to the sense of heady celebration, as we giggle and feast, free for this one night from his hard words and iron will.

Firelight barely illuminates Mother’s face and the cluster of beads at her throat, but her voice rises in the familiar cadence of a story. Once upon a time…

“Oh, good,” my eldest sister, Adele, breathes. “A story.” We in and shift toward our Mother, pillowing sleepy heads on sore arms, as she speaks.

A prince from an evil kingdom so longed for a princess who was both pure and wise that he fled his mother, the Queen’s, red stone towers and crossed the Boiling Sea to charm an inland maiden and beg her to return with him and take her place as his queen. She refused him, as was her right, and because she was shy, she hid from him. But disguising himself as a jester from the neighboring keep, he capered and clowned and pulled sweets and flowers from the curls of her hair. She thought him full of harmless joy. She went with him then, believing in the laughter and light, and the goodness that flowed from him. She believed, and became his lady wife, and together they returned.

But the red stone towers only held in the chill and blocked out the light. The goodness and laughter the maiden, now a Lady Wife, had followed was swallowed up by the cold and darkness, for the Dowager Queen felt betrayed, and was angry, and her rage echoed in every silence. But the worst was the prince himself.

As day wore into day, the Lady Wife saw the light go out in her Lord Prince, and the evil that had rooted in the kingdom stretch forth and bubble beneath his skin. In vain, the Lady sought to save him, to remind him of who he was. She was as pure and wise as she knew how, but day followed day, and the light in him died.

“Mother, you’re telling one of Nartasia’s kind of sad stories,” my sister Maisie complains, and I feel my face heat. “Shut up, Maisie” I mutter, and glare across the fire at her. Now that she is ten, she believes herself knowledgeable, and talks far too much. “I like happy stories, too,” I insist, though mostly, I do not. “Shh,” my mother soothes, the firelight gleaming on her teeth as she smiles, her hand going to her beads in a familiar gesture. Maisie sniffs, and I sit back, waiting for more.

There was no joy in that house, and the Lady wept behind closed doors for the loneliness which pressed against her and the coldness in her Lord’s eyes. One summer night, in her grief, she wandered away from the stone towers of the castle, and came upon a still, dark pool in a clearing of summerbalm canes. She knelt, and holding back her hair, she peered into the darkness of the water, knowing that its depths were perhaps fathoms below. She wondered how quickly she would drown if she simply stood and took one last step. On her feet now, she felt the rocks at the lip of the pool beneath the thin leather of her slippers, their sharp, hard edges reminding her of her life. As she lifted her foot to take what could be a fatal step, she heard a sound. Turning, she found a tall, powerful Lord in a black cowl beside her, with wide shoulders and strikingly handsome face. She was startled, but became truly afraid when in his beautiful eyes she saw the blackness of the pool. And the Lady knew then that she stood with Lord Death himself.

As her heart raced, the Lady knew then that she did not truly want to die. She drew back from the pool and trembled, her heart fluttered like a bird in a snare, full of panicked wishes for what might have been. Lord Death took her hands, and as she bowed before him, three terrified tears dripped onto his glove. Lord Death took the tears onto his fingers where they remained as three drops of silver. He held them out to the Lady and said, “These you dropped by Darkheed’s pool. These I return to you, for none shed tears for Death. Lady, as you have called me, but refused me, these three tears I take as pledge. I will come for you when they are gone. May you love purely, love wisely, and love well.

“I don’t like this,” murmurs Maisie, rubbing her arms. “Quiet,” Adele insists, but I can see by her pinched expression that she wants mother to pass through this part quickly.

Lord Death was not there when the Lady looked up from the silver in her palm, and she could make no sense of her words. In fear, she fled the dark forest and returned to the towers, her hands cradling the strange silvery orbs. Much to her surprise, her Lord Prince had been seeking her, and was overjoyed that she had returned. He kept the Lady close, and in a very short time, she became heavy with her first child. First the one, then two, then three princesses graced the towers and bloomed in light and goodness, as bright as the sun. They carried their own purity, goodness and wisdom, which pushed back the dark for a time. The Lady adored them, and raised them well, but she kept her eyes on those orbs of silver, and when the summerbalm sweetened the air on warm autumn nights, she walked the floor and worried, fearful that Lord Death would return when she was not ready.

In time the Dowager Queen resigned herself to her son’s bride. In time, the Lady grew familiar with the sharpness of the cold cold, warmed, as she was, by the hearts of her princesses. In time, the princesses grew lovely and tall and wise, and were everything a mother’s heart could wish for.

Mother’s voice trails away into the darkness. I find myself leaning forward, intent on her next words. When she abruptly adds, “The end,” my heart thumps in dismay.

“What?” the word is out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “That’s it?”

“I think that was lovely,” Adele says defensively, and I flush, and curse my graceless tongue. Maisie simply leans against Mother and says, “Is that why you wear those beads?”

Adele turns sharply, and our heartbeats seems to freeze as Mother’s fingers close over the three spheres of silver. Maisie tilts her head back and bumps against Mother’s shoulder absently with her head. “Huh? Huh? Is that why, Ma?”

“Of course that’s not why Mother wears those,” Adele scoffs, her voice knife-edged with scorn. “Father gave her those beads, one for each of us when we were born. Don’t you know anything?”

“Hush, Delly,” our Mother scolds, and Maisie buries herself in mother’s side and whiningly begs for another tale, “a happy one, this time, not one of Nartasia’s sad-sack stories,” and Mother looks at me from across the fire, a distance in her eyes as she begins anew. “Another one? All right, Maisie, and then we will see you to your bed with no complaints. Once upon a time…”

Mother’s words spool away into the dark, but I cannot listen. That tale – it’s true. And I can see it all — my mother, seeking her reflection in the water, the darkness pushing in all around her, a beautiful man with fathomless eyes, and the silvery light of three silver tears. How much time has he given her? When he comes for her, will we see him? Is Lord Death our Lady Mother’s consort?

I look away from the light of the flames, into the darkness beyond the summer kitchen. The scent of summerbalm hangs heavy on the night air.

---

Merry Fate Fans telling stories this round include:

• Ravelda,
• Aquafortis,
• Chelle from Tempting Persephone,
• Andy,
• Bookduck,
• melted_rachel
• a poem from Eclectic,
• moonfire,
• Rowan,
• Movie Girl,
• Patesden,
• limericks(!) from Annemarie & Co,
• cinjoella,
• and dives.