Ozark Trilogy 1: Twelve Fair Kingdoms (25 page)

“Never you mind that,” she said, “I’m glad you came, and no warning needed. It’ll be a cold day in a mighty hot place when this Castle can’t put up one scrawny girlchild on short notice. You’re welcome here any time.” And she hugged me close again, bless her; and bless her some more. I can’t remember when I’ve needed hugging worse.

She sent the man off with Sterling into the usual racket the Mules made greeting one another, told the servingmaid that had come with her to take my things up to the guestchamber I’d had before, and led me straight up to her own sitting room where she settled me in a rocker, with a quilt over my feet and a mug of strong hot coffee in my hand.

The Grannys came drifting in, then, one by one, and the daughters, and we soon had a roomful. And the Grannys lost no time.

“Well, youngun, how’d it go?” said Granny Heatherknit; she was senior here, at one hundred and eleven. “Your famous Quest, I mean ... did you do enough damage to satisfy your craving?”

Charity of Guthrie’s lips tightened, but I looked at her hard over my coffee and she made no move to call them off. We both knew this had to be gotten through sooner or laid; and it might as well be sooner

“Went well enough,” I said judiciously. “Well enough— considering.”

“Considering?”

“Considering that not a one of you helped me in any way
what
soever,” I said. Bedamned if I’d count that squawker egg out in the Wilderness; Granny Golightly had owed me that one.

“Not a one of who?” said Forthright. “Not a one of
what?
”

“Not a one of you Grannys,” I retorted. “Near thirty of you there are here on this planet—”

“Twenty-nine, child, twenty-nine!” said Granny Heatherknit.

“Nearly thirty,” I insisted, “and you did not one thing to help me the whole time I was gone.”

“
For
which,” said Granny Flyswift, jabbing the air in front of her with her knitting needles, “
for
which there are three good and sufficient reasons!
One
—this was your own tomfool idea, and none of ours, and none of our advice asked before you set out on it, hot out of here like a Mule with a burr under its tail!
Two
—you know the conditions on a Quest ... adventures aplenty required and supposed to be unpleasant, or it doesn’t count—and Granny Golightly herself reminded you of that in case it’d slipped your mind? And
three
—the best way for any child to learn that a flame’ll burn him is to let him stick his finger in it; that makes for remembrance.”

“Yes, ma’am, Granny Flyswift,” I said. I had it all coming.

“Now what did you learn that’s useful to anybody but your stubborn self, missy?” demanded Granny Heatherknit again.

Charity’s daughter Caroline-Ann, sitting on a windowseat with her skirts drawn up and her legs tucked under, asked if that couldn’t wait till I’d had some supper. She was twelve years old, and a lot like her mother

“
No
-sir,” said Granny Heatherknit. “She’s still able to sing for that supper, and I’m right interested in her tune.”

“Well,” I said, “I learned that a girl of sixteen as can put her hair up in a figure-eight and knows all the modem dances should not be called a child or treated like one.”

The Grannys peered at each other and snickered; and I wondered what foul task they had poor Silverweb of McDaniels doing that very minute.

“And, I learned that a giant cavecat stinks, in more ways than one. I learned that broken ribs are as inconvenient the second time as the first, and that where everybody’s trying to keep the corks in their homebrew nobody has much time for the export trade.”

“So far, so accurate,” said Granny Heatherknit. “Go on.”

“I learned that being licked to death is nasty.”

“No argument with that.”

“I learned that just about anything propped up in the moonlight and painted the right color is sufficient to turn a guilty head. I learned that one continent can hold two very small birds, and only one of them have gumption enough to fly. I learned that just because a Granny isn’t using the old formspeech doesn’t mean her garlic won’t work.”

“She’s only fifty-nine,” snorted Granny Flyswift. “Give her time, she’ll outgrow her notions.”

“She did very well,” I told the old woman. “Very well indeed.”

And I went on. “I learned that a Family truly
set
on a curse can bring one down on them. And, last of all, I learned that a person can’t knit with both hands tied together.”

“Think not?” said Flyswift.

“Well,
I
surely couldn’t.”

Granny Heatherknit scrunched up her eyebrows over her glasses—which she didn’t need and doubtful she ever would— and I could see her counting.

“You left out Castle Purdy,” she said. “What happened there?”

“There’s what I will tell,” I answered, “and there’s what I won’t.” (And about the Gentle coming to see me—I wouldn’t).

“Hmmmph,” said Granny Heatherknit. “That might be the most important piece of all.”

“None of it,” said Caroline-Ann of Airy sadly, “meant anything to
me
. As usual.”

To my surprise, Granny Heatherknit turned to her and spoke almost gently; that girl must have a way with her.

“Caroline-Ann.” said the Granny, “if you keep in mind that what Responsible of Brightwater’s doing is trying to see how much she can
not
tell—despite being asked most politely— you’ll understand why you found her remarks on the murky side. She’s riddling, can’t you hear that?”

“It didn’t rhyme,” said Caroline-Ann. “I never recognize riddles when they don’t rhyme.”

“Well, take the list she gave you and rhyme it, then,” said Granny Heatherknit. “Set it to a tune for us, Caroline- Ann ... good exercise for you, and we’ll have something new for tale-telling makings.”

“Granny Heatherknit, that would be
hard!
” objected Caroline-Ami, and that seemed to me accurate. “You don’t mean I have to?”

“Think you should,” said the Granny, and the other two nodded their agreement.

“Pheew!” said one of the huddle of girls on the floor below the sill where Caroline-Ann was. “Glad it’s you and not me, Caroline-Ann!”

“Easy rhymes,” said Granny Flyswift calmly. “Cat. Rib. Bird. Knit. Suchlike. You can manage that, Caroline-Ann; we give you three days, and then we’ll hear it.”

“Oh,
blast!
”

Caroline-Ann sat up straight and dropped her legs over the sill, careful not to kick anybody. “Naturally I had to open my mouth with three Grannys in the room!
Botheration!
”

I felt sorry for her; but I needn’t have; it took her only half an hour to do the task set, and we had the song from her right after supper that night. It went like this:

CAROLINE-ANN’S SONG

A girl of sixteen as can put up her hair

in a figure-eight knot, and can do it alone,
 
and can dance through the figure-eights smartly as well—
 
that girl is no child, but a woman full grown!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater:

That’s what I learned.

The smell of a cavecat is ranker than bile,
 
and a cavecat’s attentions are close to its chest,
 
and a cavecat that moves a mysterious mile

has a second rank odor that’s risky at best!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A rib as is broken will ravage your breath,
 
and the second time round it will ravage your pride,
 
and it’s cold comfort knowing while choking to death
 
that none of the damage shows on the outside!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater.

That’s what I learned.

A cellar of homebrew with corks to be set
 
and a hot spell ahead as makes setting them hard

keeps a family home from the market and road,

keeps a family corked to its Hall and its yard!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A Yallerhound’s neither a hound nor a dog,

it’s a bag full of water with a topcoat of hair;

it will drown you in slobber for the sake of pure love,

let the Yallerhound owner think well and beware!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A chair in the moonlight all painted with gold

is easily taken for royalty’s throne,
 
and a conscience that’s guilty can easily see
 
a scepter and crown in a rock and a bone!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

Two little pretty birds sharing one nest,

hidden away in the littlest tree;

one has a leash on and sorrows to know it, and envies the other that dares to fly free!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A Granny should cackle and gabble and nag,
 
and twist her tongue round to the formspeech and motions,
 
but garlic still wards if she knows her craft right,
 
and as she adds years she’ll no doubt drop her notions!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A Family as goes through its days set on gloom,
 
talking of curses and harping of fate,
 
eyes to the past and determined to suffer,

will get what it asks for served up on its plate!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater,

That’s what I learned.

A person whose hands are tied tight at her back,
 
a person who’s bound like a goat to a spit,
 
a person in such a predicament can’t

neither gather nor sow, neither broider nor knit!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

And there was a nice pre-verse to it, too, for times when there might be those singing back and forth:

What did you learn as you flew out so fine,
 
splendid on Muleback, dressed like a queen?

What did you learn, daughter of Brightwater?

Tell us the wonderful things that you’ve seen!

I could see how, throwing that in every time a verse came round, you could use up a good part of an evening with that song. And I was especially impressed with Caroline-Ann’s solution to the fact that there’s no way anybody can sing my awkward name. It was a fine song, every syllable and note in its proper place, and it added a certain respectability to my Quest, which was why the Grannys had demanded it, of course. I expected to hear a good deal in future of this daughter of Airy.

I passed two blissful days being mothered by Charity, and teased by her Grannys, and generally catching my breath, and by the end of the third day I felt able to face my role in this world once again. I was grateful to Castle Airy for that, because I had arrived in a sorry condition. And I kept humming Caroline-Ann’s song.

And then on the third night, I set about catching myself a serpent. Or serpents, as the case might be.

I waited until all the Castle was sound asleep, and then I took my three baths: one hot, one cold, and one of herbs. I pulled my lawn gown through the small gold ring and saw that it passed without wrinkle or raveling to show for the trip, and I slipped it over my head. I put my black velvet ribbon around my neck, and braided my hair. I set wards and double-wards, which took some time; the guestchamber I was in had three doors and eight windows, and there had to be a pentacle at every one of them, and a double one at the corridor door where the Grannys might pass in their night-prowls.

It was past midnight before I was finally able to climb up into the center of my bed, set a pentacle round
me
with white sand from my shammybag, and take what was needful out of my pouch.

A bowl of clearest crystal, exactly the size of my closed fist, crystal so clear you had to look twice to see it was there. A vial of water from the desert spring on Marktwain that was holy to Skerrys, Gentles,
and
Ozarkers, and exactly twelve drops of that water poured into the bottom of the tiny bowl- My shammybags—one full of sand, one of fresh herbs, one of dried herbs, one of talismans. My gold chain, and my gold ring. Everything else I needed was inside my head.

I laid them all out around me within easy reach, and I crossed my legs and sat up straight, and realized that in no way was I tired any longer. Youth does have its compensations.