Serendipity Market (5 page)

“‘Umm.
You
wouldn't want to return her, Mother, would you?'

“‘Oh, John. At my age?'

“I gulped and glared at Jack, who had put me in this miserable position. I wouldn't trust him to do it, even if he volunteered. I sighed, then yelled, ‘Well
then, here we come!' I put my shaking left foot on a stem and grabbed the stalk with my damp right hand. To Jezebel, the goose nestled in my left arm, I said, ‘Do not move,' and I started up.

“The stalk that had been so alive yesterday, so supple in the morning, was dry and brittle. Some leaf stems gave off crackling noises, even though I was moving as lightly as possible. I didn't look up, I didn't look down, I just climbed, trying to breathe slow, full breaths between my steps. Jezebel, bless her, stayed quiet, curling into me as if she were nesting in a pile of straw. I could hear Christobel howling below me. And then my head went into the dog cloud and there, in front of my nose, was a shoe the size of one of the miller's baskets.

“I stopped and looked up. Far, far above me was the head of a giant. And reaching toward me was a hand the size of my mother's best dinner platter.

“I decided then that falling, even falling that
terrible long distance, was better than having this huge hand, its meaty fingers decked with silver rings, coming straight toward my face, blotting out the sun. I closed my eyes, let go, and waited for the sensation of tumbling through space, waited for the crash as my body hit the ground.

“But before I fell through the dog cloud, I was grabbed. Now I was swinging free, held in a grasp that was both strong and somehow comforting. I opened my eyes, and there, in front of me, was the giant's face. The one eye I could focus on was the purple shade of spring violets, and there were wrinkles of what looked like concern showing in the corner. With the part of my mind that was still thinking, I realized that I was no longer holding Jezebel. Then one wing flapped and she settled herself, safe on the giant's shoulder.

“‘You were about to fall,' said the giant, and he must have known the effect he was having on me,
because his voice was as delicate as a giant's voice could be.

“‘I don't care for heights,' I managed to gasp, and my own voice was rough and raspy with fear.

“The giant nodded, but all he said was ‘I'm just going to place you on this cloud. Until you get your bearings.'

“Now, you may think a cloud would be something you would fall right through. And that was my first thought. I saw myself spinning down once again, saw the ground rising to meet me. But what choice did I have? I was, remember, being held from harm only by the good graces of a giant. I let him put me on the cloud. And when I could breathe again, when I could draw slow, steady breaths, I realized that I wasn't going anywhere at all. I even tapped my right foot, twice. The cloud bounced a bit—rather like a dog shifting his back, waiting for scratches—and that was that.

“A slow smile spread across my face. I looked up
and up once again and I said, ‘Thank you, Giant.'

“‘Pierre,' he said.

“‘Pierre?'

“He nodded.

‘I said, ‘John,' and I held out my hand. He leaned down, Jezebel shifted her weight on his shoulder, and we shook. Or, more accurately, I put my whole hand around his thumb.

“‘It's a good piece of work you've done, sir,' Pierre said. ‘And I promise you'll be well rewarded. But I'd like to suggest that you climb back down now. Quickly. Beanstalks don't last forever, you know.'

“As he said this, I noticed that the stem poking through the cloud was beginning to sway. I heard creakings, cracklings, and moans that sounded ominous.

“I moved with a speed I didn't know I possessed. For every three feet I climbed down, I felt two feet of the stalk above me sag and wilt. Perhaps it was some magic from
Pierre, but my feet found footholds where there should have been none. I seemed to have eyes in the soles of my shoes. Until, of course, the last four feet.

“I could blame it on the fact that I was now surrounded by wilting leaves, that I felt as if I were in a particularly dense forest, that my vision was reduced to fading green, but, in the end, I think my luck just gave out. I lost my grip and tumbled the last four feet, eyes closed, mouth open, not sure whether I should scream or not. I knew I was going to land in the worst possible way, was going to break my back or my neck or, at the very least, my leg.

“Instead, I landed on a pile of fallen leaves, a pile so thick, it was like falling onto my own bed covered with our best down quilt. I stayed there for a moment, staring into the sky, searching for broken things on my body. Above me, the dog cloud changed shape and became a castle—drawbridge, moat, and all.

“Then my mother was standing next to me and
Christobel was bashing her head against mine. My mother said, ‘Oh, John, are you all right?'

“I'd finished my inventory and had to admit that yes, I was. She smiled and said, ‘A man and his goose. That's as it should be.'

“I eyed what was left of my stalk. It was leaning closer and closer to our barn. Then I looked at the others and saw that they were listing even more. Christobel yowled and smacked me in the leg, and I jumped up. My arm brushed against my stalk, which trembled.

“‘Run!' my mother cried, and we ran like fury—Jack, Christobel, my mother, and I. When we were at what seemed like a safe distance, we all turned and watched as the last bit of my climbing stalk and what was left of the other two wobbled like drunken men making their various ways home after a night at the local inn. When they crashed into the ground, the earth shook like a quake, and all four of us stumbled. The stalks lay like the dead things they were, inches
from the south wall of our barn.

“I was still staring at them when I heard my mother shout, ‘Jack! Come back here at once!'

“‘Oh, let him go,' I said, contempt in my voice. I didn't even bother to watch Jack's retreat. ‘Whatever you want him for, he won't do it. If we're lucky, we'll never see him again. Stealing from a giant.'

“‘Young man.' The voice came from above, from the cloud that now looked like nothing so much as a big-nosed smiling face in profile. A face like Pierre's. ‘For you, With my thanks.'

“Gold coins began tumbling through the air, spinning and casting sun rainbows on their way to the ground. Coins that equaled the seven I'd given Jack, times seven. When I picked one of them up, it was warm to the touch, warm as the beans had been just two days before. On one side was a striking likeness of Jezebel. On the other, a fully bloomed rose glowed red-gold.

“My mother, looking around my shoulder, gasped. Christobel walked over the dead stalks and swatted at the scattered coins. One last coin tumbled down and landed square in my palm. Instead of Jezebel, this one had a portrait of a woman with thick, long hair, standing next to a large dog. I looked at the gold in my hand and at my feet, looked at the bushels of beans all around me. We had food and we had money. Enough for a long, long time.

“I called up to the sky. ‘My thanks to you, Pierre. The best of luck. And don't worry. I won't ever sell your beans.'

“I turned to my mother and said, ‘I think, tonight, I'll move my bed up to the sleeping loft.'

“‘Why, John,' she said, ‘you won't be afraid of the height?'

“I looked up into the sky and said, ‘Not anymore.'

“I heard a rumble of thunder that sounded like a chuckle. When I looked up, the sky was the clear blue
of the town pond on the first sunny day of spring, and there were no clouds at all.”

 

Mama Inez chuckles herself, low in her throat. As Toby accompanies John back to the waiting area, she tosses John's coin back to him, and he catches it with a practiced hand. She stands very still and checks the spin of the world. She can feel the start of the shift back to equilibrium, and she breathes out in relief. It's working, this gathering.

When she looks for the twins, Mama Inez finds them sitting close together, holding hands and having what could be considered a discussion.

“Remember, Earl. You only help if I forget my place.”

Earl holds up both hands. “I swear. Only if you forget your place, need local color, or faint.”

“Earl! That covers all the time! I'll forget everything. I always do when we both try to speak.”

“Oh, please. It's not as if I'll be telling a different story on top of yours.”

“You're most distracting, Earl. You always bring in peripherals that turn me sideways.”

“Ah. It's your lack of concentration, not my storytelling, that's the problem. Truly.”

This last word is half laughed, half yelped, as Earl dodges Maddie's deep-purple tasseled hat, thrown with remarkable accuracy by its owner.

Maddie sighs.

“The story will sound wonderful. You're just nervous, you know,” Earl says.

“You're right. Of course you're right.”

Earl nods. “Now, deep breath.”

Maddie breathes.

“Three more times,” says Earl.

She's steadier now.

Mama Inez says, “Ready?” and Maddie sighs again and wrinkles her nose in a way that means she's worried as well as nervous and scared.

But…“Come along, then,” says Earl. “I'll only be supporting, I'll only interrupt when necessary, and I'll only correct you when you're completely wrong.”

“Somehow that isn't very encouraging.”

This makes Mama Inez laugh, a growly laugh that comes straight from the belly. That laugh makes Maddie smile. It makes Earl throw his arm around Maddie's shoulders. They walk, linked, out to the teller's cushion.

“M
Y BROTHER AND
I are as near identical as twins can be when one is a boy and one is a girl. My name is Madeline, although my brother insists on calling me Maddie. In return, for some small measure of retribution, I call him Earl. As that is not even close to Nathaniel, his true name, and as it irritates him just enough, it seems fair payback.”

“Oh, Maddie. Must you do the name story yet again?

“Stop the ‘Maddie' and we'll see.”

“Maddie, Maddie, tall, thin, and catty.”

“I could tell them the Earl rhyme.”

“I beg you, lady, no.”

“Then may I proceed?”

“Of course.”

“You're quite gracious, Earl.”

 

By now the audience has caught the spirit of the twins, the give-and-take, the call and response. The crowd waits, smiling, for whatever will come next.

 

“If you've not guessed by now, if the points on our ears haven't made it clear, we're elves. But we're far away from the denizens of Faerie, and loyalty to certain humans as well as a sense of adventure keeps us away.

“We were separated from the others by chance.”

“No! By exploration.”

“True, Earl. And by exploration. We were often accused of digging too much into the world of humans, but it's been our passion since we learned to walk.”

“And talk.”

“As Earl says. Our caravan was passing by a most charming town. We had spent the night on the fringes, as we were seldom welcomed anywhere we landed. Think of us as Gypsy Travelers. We share their reputation for scrounging, and it's mostly a well-deserved one. Many of those we caravanned with had no problem ‘borrowing' whatever they needed from those who made an honest living.”

“But not us or our family, Maddie. Don't let them think that. Remember how one of the first lessons we learned at our mother's knee was that ours was ours and theirs was theirs.”

“True. But also true, we needed a group to belong to. Moving through the countryside alone was always dangerous. And moving was what we did.

“Before the morning oatmeal was served, Earl and I were out and about. Because our people never stay in any one place for long, we needed to see everything, to experience all of it, before we were pulled
on our way. The clean cobbles of the village streets, the sun riding on the thatched roofs, the warm smells of fresh bread—all of this was almost more than we could bear.”

“We were fifteen, and for us everything held a sense of wonder, a sense of excitement. We always felt we had to be smack in the middle of it—whatever it was.”

“We were gone before our mother could miss us, gone into the cool, fresh damp of morning.”

“Gone, with every intention of coming home before the caravan pulled horse stakes, before the wagons were packed, before everything disappeared.”

“Earl makes this sound exciting. But being unwelcome in most places is hard.”

“No, adventurous. Moving was in our blood.”

“Although it could be sad.”

“Well, yes. But on this day—”

“On this day the whole world seemed welcoming,
as if it had been put together just for our benefit. The sky was the perfect shade of blue that only seems to show in the early morning, the birds were singing the summer in, the river danced with water sprites, and, in the center of all this, the town smiled and held out its arms. It was—”

“Irresistible.”

“We wandered the town. We bought a loaf of smooth bread from the baker, bottles of mead from the vintner, green-and-gold pears that were just ripe enough to make the juices drip down our chins. We stopped in the square, sat on the lime-green grass, and watched the pageant of life parade past us. A coconut-brown dog joined us, and we fed him bits and pieces of our picnic.”

“But we misjudged.”

“‘Misjudged.' A nice word. A polite word. An untrue word. We made a huge and very complete mistake. We've lived with it ever since.”

“You make it sound terrible. Threatening.”

“Not at all.”

“It hasn't been terrible, Maddie. In its own way, it's been very fine.”

“In its own way.”

“When we went back to join the caravan, it was gone.”

“We can make things vanish. We're fey, after all.”

“But Maddie, no one had ever made the caravan vanish.”

“I never said. I only made a cogent comment.”

“Just tell, Maddie.”

“While our caravan hadn't been spelled away, there was certainly a spell that cloaked its direction of travel. And a good, strong spell at that. We stood in the empty field that had been so full of life the night before. We sent out feelers, floating our searches on the four winds. And we found nothing.”

“We were fifteen, remember. In fact, we're barely
sixteen now. For an elf, that's very young. Our finding powers were still quite weak.”

“We were on our own for the first time. It was an adventure. No one to report to. No explanations for any behavior, no matter how peculiar. No schedules. Bedtime whenever we chose. Then the seasons began to move through their cycles. Summer skidded into autumn. We cavorted through town, keeping below the radar of the humans.”

“Which is quite easy for an elf.”

“That sounds so much like bragging, Earl.”

“It's not. It's truth. It's only hard to hide when you're in a group, like our old caravan. Now tell them about the part when things began to stumble.”

“We had no way to get back to our caravan. We had long ago run out of money. During the warm months, we had been reduced to ‘borrowing' food and drink. Sleeping under the stars had been fun. And on rainy or thunderous nights, we'd slip into dry sheds or
the upper reaches of stables. The brown dog from the square always seemed to know when we were unsure of our next move. He'd appear like he had magic of his own, to guide us. He knew every hidey-hole in town.

“Then autumn skidded into winter. Our adventure rapidly became less wonderful. We decided, after a miserable night of cold during the first snow, that we needed a permanent place to call our own.

“The next day, chilled and bedraggled, we walked up and down the main street of our adopted village. We looked in all the windows, remember, Earl? We listened at all the doors. We stopped at the shoemaker's. We knew he was a shoemaker from our earlier, carefree wanderings, when finding a home had been of no importance. We were sure that we knew everything about everyone in the village. We observed without being observed ourselves. But had we not known how this man made his living, we would have found it out only by the conversation we heard through the
keyhole of the garden door. There was nothing in his street window to indicate a trade.”

“The window was, in fact, completely empty.”

“The shop was unhappy.”

“As were its inhabitants. They were saying…No. You tell, Maddie. You do it so much better than I.”

“Earl. How kind.”

“I always am.”

“The shoemaker and his wife were saying they had nothing left. The new shoemaker, to the north and across the square, had taken all their business with his fancy shoes made with polished leathers. Our shoemaker made working shoes, sturdy and long lasting, but suddenly everyone needed to look as if they were going to town, going to the palace, going to a ball. No one, it seemed, had the money left over for strong, simple shoes.

“The shoemaker held up a piece of golden leather.”

“We saw, through the keyhole.”

“He told his wife that it was the last piece he had. Tonight he would cut his last pair of shoes, tomorrow he would make them, then heaven alone knew what would happen.”

“Don't forget, Maddie and I watched. And we remembered what we saw. We knew, for example, that the barber was not at all kind to his wife or to his children.”

“We knew that the vintner drank more of his product than he sold.”

“We knew the new shoemaker, the one who called himself a cobbler, used old leather and colored it the shades of the rainbow to disguise its poor condition. We knew his dyes would fade quickly. We knew he used one stitch when he should have used three. And that his soles were thin and slippery.”

“As was his soul, actually.”

“Earl! A metaphor.”

“We knew good things, too. We knew our shoemaker spent long hours on his shoes, charged as little as possible, believed devoutly in the power of a good pair of shoes to smooth out a day.”

“We listened, and the brown dog listened with us. Then he shoved us closer to the door with his dark coconut-brown head. ‘Do you want us to go in?' I asked. He didn't bark, seeming to know our need for stealth, but he did nod his head.

“Earl said, ‘We do need someplace to sleep.'

“I said, ‘We could help.'

“That night, when the shoemaker and his wife had gone to bed, we magicked his door lock and crept into his workroom. The golden leather was cut, ready to be stitched. It was going to make a beautiful pair of brogues.

“We pieced the leathers together, Earl and I. We stitched the leathers to the soles with stitches so fine, no human would ever have been able to match them.
Not even our shoemaker.”

“And certainly not the cobbler to the north.”

“We added decorative accents. Embossed leaves around the lace holes. We polished the leather until it shone like fresh coins. Then, just as the sun was cresting, we climbed the narrow ladder stairs to the attic. We'd made shoes for the shoemaker and found a place to stay for us. An even trade. To make sure he saw things as we did, to make sure he appreciated our part of the bargain, we eavesdropped.”

“When the shoemaker and his wife woke early the next morning, he said, and I quote, ‘Sweet heaven, my Mary. Look at these shoes. I've never seen any as fine. Did you do this while I lay sleeping?'”

“Earl! That sounds just like our shoemaker. Well done!”

“Thank you. Mary, of course, denied having anything to do with the shoes.”

“Knowing that somehow he'd had an amazing
piece of luck as good as handed to him, the shoemaker put the golden shoes in his empty shop window. ‘If we sell them, Mary, we'll eat for at least another week,' he said.

“Pleased with ourselves, feeling that our part of the bargain had been paid, even if the shoemaker wasn't aware of our trade, Earl and I fell asleep, curled like field mice in the warm, sweet-smelling attic.

“An hour later, well before the start of the business day, when the sun was barely pushing against the cracks in the attic walls, a battering at the street door woke us.

“‘Those shoes in your window!' a man cried. ‘They're beautiful. I must have them.'

“Our shoemaker agreed that they were indeed beautiful.

“‘Please let me try them on. I only hope they fit as well as they look. I really must have them!'

“When the man tried the shoes on, they fit as if
they'd been custom-made for his feet alone.”

“Elven magic. In the stitching.”

“The man sighed with delight and purchased the shoes for a sum that made us gasp.”

“It's always nice to see one's work appreciated, don't you think, Maddie?”

“The thing we'd hoped for had come to pass. We now felt completely confident that we'd worked to pay for the roof under which we had rested our heads. One good deed means another will follow.”

“Do unto others.”

“And we did so need a place to stay.”

“So stay we did. We fell back asleep, pleased with ourselves and our new home.

“We did the same good deed the next night. And again. And again.”

“It's wise to keep your goodness in the plus column.”

“Each night, the shoemaker cut the leather he'd
purchased with that day's sales. Often there were one or two—”

“Or three!”

“—more pairs than had been there the day before. But the leather was always the finest available. The cuts were always well done, the designs both practical and imaginative. Our rival to the north soon had a show window filled with nothing but faded leather, shadows, and dust. Remember the dust, Earl?

“Then, one night when the winds were particularly fierce, when our attic shook like a ship lost at sea, we found clothing mixed among the leathers.”

“The most warm and comfortable clothes.”

“Yes. Oh, Earl, remember the sweater? The one with the flock of sheep playing in the spring fields?”

“How could I forget? You grabbed it almost before I saw it. In fact, all I could see, that night, were the colors. Pale green, white, and robin's-egg blue. In all probability it was meant for you all along.”

“I loved that sweater.”

“Which is why you love the winter so, I imagine. I myself was especially pleased with the pants. The right size. Even for my long legs.”

“We pranced like children in our new clothes. We almost forgot the shoes. When we remembered, we worked like demons. We stitched the red boots, nailed the blue slippers, laced the rich brown brogues. We finished just as the sun was showing its face over the village green.”

“Which was when we heard the creak on the stairs. We whirled around, but there was nothing there to see.”

“
You
didn't see anything, Earl.
I
saw a slippered foot and the trailing hem of a nightshirt.”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, Earl. Certainly I did. And it made us talk that day in our little attic space. We had the clothes. Proof that someone was watching us as we were watching
them. Didn't it follow, then, that they approved of us? It was a thought that was both alarming and appealing.”

“Generally, our people are told to get along, move along, no stopping, no standing.”

“To get approval, even a somewhat sideways approval, was a rare thing. A thing to be treasured.”

“I know that I worked twice as hard after that.”