Grayling's Song(14)

Auld Nancy woke and assessed the scene. “’Tis well done, mouse,” she said, “but let us make some noise to drown out the chewing lest the guard hear.”

Pansy yawned and said, “Can you not call thunder and lightning?”

Auld Nancy shook her head. “Nay, nothing that would bring attention to us or illuminate what is happening. Nay.”

“My mother,” said Grayling, “has a song with chiff chiffs that she sings as she slashes chive blossoms from their stems. We could sing it loudly.”

The mice chewed on. Chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff!

“What be that sound?” called the guard. “What are you doing in there?”

“We,” Grayling said, “are but singing a song with much chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiffing.”

“Chiff chiff, chiff chiff,” sang Auld Nancy. She knocked Pansy with her elbow, and the girl shouted, “Chiff chiff!”

“I do like a song,” said the guard. “Sing so I can hear.”

So Grayling sang:



Do not go to the field, my girl, today.

’Tis August and the men are cutting hay.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff

Go silvery scythes.

Harvest is underway

And I wish you would

Not go to the field today.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.





The mice went chiff chiff, chiff chiff, Auld Nancy and Pansy sang chiff chiff, chiff chiff, but Grayling was silent a moment as she remembered Hannah Strong singing while she snipped greens in the garden. The sun had lit streaks of bronze in her hair and roses in her cheeks, and her fingers were swift and supple.

“You witches be fine singers,” their guard called out. “I vow I can hear the sound of the scythes cutting the hay.”

Grayling sang louder as she continued her song and the mice continued their chiff chiffs.



Her own true love was in the field that day—

His hair was gold and eyes were moonlight gray.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff

With silvery scythe

He swung but swung astray.

He cleaved her head

And laid it in the field of hay.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.





“Chiff chiff, chiff chiff,” shouted Auld Nancy.

“And swish. Swish swish,” cried Pansy, her face red with excitement, “and slash slash!”

The listening soldier was so stirred that he had begun to chiff chiff along. “Finish the song,” he called. “What follows? How fares the girl?”

“Poorly,” said Grayling, “for she be headless and dead.”

“Dead? Nay! That be a poor story and not worth the listening,” the guard said, “with a most unacceptable ending.” He crossed his arms and, with a huff and a bah, walked away.

“Not all endings are happy,” said Grayling. And she sang on.

There were other sounds in the darkness: shouts and cries, the calls of soldiers striding through the yard, the grim and doomful echo of their boots. Ere long, the night grew quiet but for the chiff chiff of the mice. More songs were needed, but Auld Nancy and Pansy slumbered in a corner.

“Can you not hurry?” Grayling whispered, but to whom? The cold of midnight settled upon her, and she pulled her cloak tighter. She sang her mother’s healing song and a love chant and a song to cheer, although it did not cheer her.

She even sang to the grimoire, but there was no answering song. Face spots and flea bites! Had the song lost its magic? Grayling caught her breath but then remembered—a bridge. They had crossed a bridge. Water stood between her and the grimoire. She hoped it was no more than that.

After a time, the mouse hole had grown large enough for a person to pass through. “’Tis done,” Grayling whispered as she woke Pansy and Auld Nancy. And Pook? Where was Pook? She could not leave without him, but the mice were so many, crawling and climbing over each other. Gray mice, brown mice, fat mice, and thin—how would she ever find one special mouse? “Pook,” she whispered. “Pook, come hither to me,” but there was no response, no Pook with his pink nose and pink ears and more whiskers than any mouse truly needed.

“We must go,” said Auld Nancy.

“Not without Pook.”

“Who?”

“Pook. The mouse. The raven. The goat.”

Auld Nancy shook her head. Grayling could not see it in the dark, but she knew from the tsk sound Auld Nancy made. “He is a resourceful bird . . . mouse . . . whatever he is, and likely he will find you.”

They had to leave. Pook was resourceful indeed. Grayling took some comfort in that fact, but still her heart felt empty and sore.

She climbed out of the cage behind Pansy and Auld Nancy. Making what haste they could, they fought their way through a hedgerow thick with thorns and thistles that scratched their faces and snagged their hair. “Thistles and thorns! Begone! Begone!” Grayling shouted, as she yanked the skirt of her kirtle from the thorns’ grip, leaving a long gash in the skirt.

They crashed through bushes and brush to a path heading steeply down. With a sharp cry, Pansy fell, twisting her ankle beneath her. She pulled on Auld Nancy’s skirts and almost toppled her, too. “Clumsy girl!” Auld Nancy hissed. “Can you do nothing right?”