The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror(18)

“Put her by the fire,” her oldest brother insisted, over the clamor. “She’s weak as a calf, no doubt, and we’ll have to coddle her exceedingly, though it cost us our own health.”

And their sister beamed and wept through it all, though she could not bring herself to return their jokes.

“That’s me you’re hugging, idiots!” Elyas shouted. “Put me down.”

*

After this, every day passed in swift and perfect happiness. Elyas and his sister stayed at home while the other five went hunting for roe deer and ptarmigan every morning, and between the two of them made quick work of housekeeping. They chopped wood for the fire, drew water for the cooking, and tended to the vegetable garden, so their table would not always depend on the luck of the hunters.

In the clearing by their little house grew six white lilies all in a row. One afternoon, wanting to bring some cheer into the house, the girl plucked them from their stems and gathered them into her basket. But in that same instant, her brothers were transformed into six bone-white swans, circled the sun overhead three times, and were gone. She clapped her hand to her mouth and wept bitterly, for now she had lost her brothers twice, and this time from her own fault more than the first. She scanned the sky for any sign of their return, until her eyes were red and weak, and she fell to the ground, exhausted from weeping, and fell asleep. And in her dream she saw her own mother, looking older and more grieved than she ever had before.

“Not-born,” her mother said, “what have you done? Why could you not leave the lilies growing where they were? They were the only protection I could have afforded my sons, and now they have been transformed into birds forever. The only comfort I can take is that he who kills a swan will surely die himself.”

“I am sorry,” said the girl and wept.

“You were born sorry,” her mother said. “I am sorry, too.”

“Is there nothing I can do to help them, Mother?” she asked.

“No,” she said. “There is one way, but it is so arduous, so solitary that I know you cannot accomplish it, you who cannot even leave a garden alone without tearing it up. You have murdered my sons’ hopes twice, and my heart with them, and there will be no mending of it.”

“Tell me what it is and I will do it,” the girl said.

“You must suffer for them, as they have suffered for you,” her mother said.

“I am not afraid to suffer,” she said.

“Of course you are not afraid to suffer,” said her mother. “The worst that has happened to you is a week’s walk and a few stones in your shoes, and you do not know what there is to be afraid of.”

“Nevertheless I am willing,” said the girl. “I know I can do it. They toiled for twelve years on my account; I will do no less for them.”

“You owe them each a year of silence,” her mother told her. “You will never be able to do it. Six years—plus one for yourself—must pass before you can let a word or a laugh cross your lips. You may not sing, nor hum, nor whisper, not one word, or all your good work will be undone; not even a single minute before the seven years are up, for your brothers will surely die the moment you utter it.”

“I will do it,” the girl said.

“There is more,” her mother said. “See you the stinging nettle I hold here in my hand? You would have to gather as many as you could, pulling them up firmly by the roots and withstanding the scalds and blisters they give you. You must grind them to bits under your feet and turn them into flax, silent all the while, then spin it and weave out of it six new shirts for your brothers to wear. You would have to find them and throw the shirts over them, before they could take their homely forms again.”

“I will do it,” the girl said.

“Remember their lives depend on your silence,” her mother said. “You must not speak again from the moment you begin the work until it is finished. And I pray that you will not cause me more heartbreak than you have already. How God could send me so much pain in one so small, I cannot guess.”

“I will do it,” the girl said, “and as much as you and my brothers have suffered, I will see to it that you know twice as much joy hereafter.”

“We shall see about that promise,” her mother said. “You could have saved them with labor far less troublesome than this.”

“What is that?” the girl asked.

“You could have not been born when I asked you to,” her mother said, and was gone.

The girl awoke to find herself alone. There was a frilled patch of stinging nettles nearby, and slowly she began the sticky work of gathering them.

*

At sunset, her brothers returned to the house in a clot of beating wings. She looked up from her work and smiled to show her joy, but said nothing. There was blood on the floor. Her mother had not lied to her about the nature of suffering, and the girl found that one did not grow accustomed to pain with time, as one did with pleasure. Each new blister, each new pocket where her skin sloughed off and left a raw and oozing throb behind, each sting that worked its way into her bare feet, was as fresh and startling as the first. But while these pricks and gashes did not decrease with time, she slowly became better able to bear them, or at the least began to divide her day in terms of less and more pain. If she could last until the sun cleared the garden wall, then she could make it until noon, and by noon the day was half over. Every night she was glad to be rid of another day, and in the evening she had her brothers for company, if not companionship. At any rate, she had been born for suffering, and it was time to get acquainted with it.