In the Forest of the Wild Boar

What Came Before . . .

The weary wizard heard the voice of a girl beyond the enormous fist of granite that split the stream in two. He pulled his pony up short and listened. The sleek, silvery-gray cat was not as cautious. She jumped from her perch on the pony’s rump to the boulder and thence to the ground.

The voice was no better than ordinary, but the song–the song!–that was extraordinary. He could not remember ever having heard such a song. He blinked back tears. He had forgotten the sound of joy these last long years. And that was more painful by far than any injury of the flesh. The nearest village was a raw, harsh place with little room for joy. What then did this girl have to sing about in that way? And how could he learn it?

“Good morning Puss,” the girl said beyond the boulder. The wizard smiled as he dismounted. The cat always found a way. A trail of stones led across to the girl’s side of the stream. The wizard, stepping into view, stayed on his own side. He did not wish to alarm her.

“Here cat!” he called though he knew full well that the cat would no sooner come when called than she would dive into a pond to retrieve a stone. But the girl did not need to know that.

“Oh, is she your cat, sir?” She was closer to a woman than a girl with pure skin only just beginning to age in the sun and a sturdy figure thickening with muscle with the years of hard work and toil. Her hair was hidden beneath a scarf, but he imagined it thick and soft, the blue-black of a midnight sky. All around her laundry lay drying on stones and bushes along the stream.

“She belongs only to herself,” he answered honestly. “Though she permits me to feed her and see to her needs.”

The girl laughed with the same easy joy embodied in her song. The wizard could barely breathe though he was not normally given to such emotional foolishness. What next, he wondered. Will I dash across the stream and take her in my arms? But the sarcasm was lost on that part of himself pierced by the song.

“Miss, you are from the village farther down the stream are you not?” The girl nodded in agreement. “Yet you have carried your wash far upstream to toil alone.”

“The village is a grim place,” she explained. “Everywhere I look I see more that needs to be done.”

“Then would it not make sense to do your washing nearby where you might finish more quickly and be safe from the danger of wild boar?”

She laughed lightly. “Many have suggested that. Few understand my answer. At times the village seems a place of toil without cease. The clatter of the work drowns out the song of the village, then I am in danger of growing old more quickly than the years. Here there is only the one job at hand. All else is as it should be. Here I can savor a moment of peace while my washing dries. I can sing my song and enjoy the world for some short time.

Those few unfettered moments are well worth the extra effort of carrying my laundry to and fro. As to the wild boar, I saw one as big as a pony where you stand this very morning. But they will not cross the stream: they do not like the depth and swiftness at the center. Are you not afraid?”

“I am well enough protected,” he said. The key was safe around his neck, he could feel it as he could feel the half-healed wounds he had garnered obtaining it. “But tell me of your song! Where did you find it?”

“It is the song of the village. We found it here in the stream, in the sunlight, the trees, and the berries. It is why we make our home here. Have you tasted these berries? They are worthy of a song by themselves! Come enjoy them with me!”

“The berries are of no importance,” he said. “What would you have of me that I might have your song for my own?”

“You jest, sir.”

“The cat will tell you that I never jest.” He remembered too late that he alone could hear the cat. Still, it was perhaps the best answer he could make as she now was convinced of his lightheartedness.

“Oh, well then,” she replied. “I believe I would require . . .” and here she thought for a moment. “I believe I would require a grand manor house with a walled courtyard large enough for the whole village to share. And it must have a hearth which never ran out of wood, and a staircase that led to more rooms above.” She laughed at the absurdity of the demand. “And . . . oh yes, I heard once of a house where the upper floor extended out into the air that a person might sit safely and enjoy the sunset and the stars.” She laughed again.

The wizard did not laugh. He nodded quite seriously. “And if I build you such a house, will you bring your song to me?”

She stopped laughing. Her body stiffened as she took a step away from him. “Who are you Sir to offer this strange bargain?”

“Please do not be afraid. I have been too long apart from people,” he said. “My manners fail me.”

“You appear young to have been too long away from anything,” she replied Her voice betrayed suspicion and something else the wizard did not recognize.

“I am older than I appear.” He did not mention that he was many times older than she and yet still young. He had no wish to frighten her.

The cat, as always, saved the moment. She threw herself onto her back and waggled her legs in the air until the girl could not help but smile. A long silence ensued as she rubbed the cat’s chest. Finally she looked up and met the wizard’s gaze.

“Good Sir,” she said carefully, “you are welcome to my song for the asking. I would begrudge no man what joy he could derive from my poor offering. I see plainly that you are more in need than I.”

Now he recognized the other emotion he heard in her voice: compassion. “Thank you,” he said and meant it. He took from his pack a wooden box and, using a small key he took from around his neck, he unlocked and opened it. “If you will but loan me your song, I pledge to build you the house you requested. When it is ready, I will send for you by way of the cat.”

The girl smiled at him a bit nervously. Then she took a deep breath and began to sing. When she was finished, the wizard closed the lid and locked the box again. He thanked her once more, remounted, and was on his way deeper into the forest of the wild boar. A week and a day passed before she realized that he had in fact taken her song from her. And though she waited a year and more, he never returned, nor his cat either. And all too soon even the memory of the song slipped away.

The cat was clearly annoyed with him. “What is wrong now?” he demanded. “I have committed no sin. The girl gave me her song willingly and I will fulfill my part of the bargain. I shall surpass her loftiest dreams of comfort.” The flick of the cat’s tail angered him. “Why should I not enjoy the song while I work? Using the key drains me. I need something to sustain me while I work. The song will keep awhile locked in my box an I shall return it to the singer soon enough. Now let me be. I see a likely spot for the house up ahead.”

When the great manor house was finished, every detail in place, the wizard tied the key around the cat’s neck with a ribbon. “Take this gift to her and lead her back that she might join me,” the wizard told the cat. “I will wait here by the fire until I hear the key in the lock. I am weary beyond measure and have not the strength to do aught but sustain my work. Not until the singer sings her song will the magic be set. Beware the wild boar as you go. Without the key, I cannot protect you from those beasts.” The cat padded across the broad courtyard, over the wall and into the forest of the wild boar.

Neither the cat nor the girl returned. The sweetness of the song remained locked inside the magic box. The wizard could hear it (being a wizard) but he dared not set it free. A song without a singer is more fleeting than a dream. And so he wrapped his cloak around him and closed his eyes, and waited.

Once upon a time in a small village in the midst of a forest there lived a poor family. The husband and wife worked hard to care for their three children. The oldest child, a girl named Taeya, was brave and strong. She was surely destined to seek adventure in the wide world. The youngest, a boy called Qwy, was graceful and fair of face. His future, too, looked bright. The middle child, Parsien . . . Ah, well, Parsien . . . her parents always sighed when they thought of her future. Even their ragged, one-eared, soot-colored cat seemed to think her a bit dim. And Parsien did little to persuade them otherwise. (Who would notice even if she did?) Her most notable talent was her ability to ignore the little voice in her head that urged her to do what she did not care to do. (Which was nearly anything.)

It was the cat, by accident or design, that led Parsien into a part of the forest she had never before visited. A stream ran beside the village. It was not much of a river (but then it was not much of a village) just wide enough, in fact, to keep the wild boar on the opposite side on the opposite side. Few ever crossed the river for it ran swift and deep in the middle and the far side was rife with prickly thickets, slippery roots, and wild boar. It was even said that a powerful wizard had once lived there. Needless to say, Parsien was less likely than most to brave the dangers.

One steamy summer morning Parsien knelt in the dirt between the beets and the turnips. Her mother’s lecture that morning still smarted. “Parsien, you take twice the time to do half the work of your brother and sister,” her mother said. “Life is hard and you only make it harder.”

Her father shook his head. “If you would only do your part we might free another field from the forest this year.”

“And then we will have even more work to do,” Parsien argued. “If working hard only brings more hard work, why do we toil?” Her parents had no answer.

“I do try to do things right,” she told the cat who had followed her to the garden. But even as she complained, a little voice inside added “but not very hard” in that annoyingly honest way it had. “Well how can I care about the weeding when the weeds return as soon as they are pulled? This is a village of weeds!” The cat had no answer except to rise, stretch, and meander away into the forest. The cat was no fool, she knew where to find a cool escape from the heat. Parsien hesitated only for a moment before following.

The cat led her on a roundabout path into the darker regions. It was cool and following the scruffy gray cat as she wove in and out of the shadows was a challenge. Gradually it dawned on Parsien that somewhere along the way the gurgle of the river was lost to the rustling of the trees. By then she was quite lost and had no choice but to follow the cat or she might never get home again.

“Take me back this minute or you shall never have another drop of milk from me,” she scolded. But the cat merely flicked her tail. Finally the cat did indeed lead her back to the water at a point where a great knob of granite split the stream in two. All would have been well if the cat (or Parsien) had stopped there, but they did not. The cat leaped from branch to stone to boulder crossing the stream with ease. Parsien watched her alight beside a thicket of fruit-laden black-berry brambles. Oh! They looked rich and ripe and so very near. It would be a shame to return home empty-handed, she thought. An apron-full of sweet blackberries might even excuse her absence. She was halfway to the other side, hopping from stone to stone, before she remembered the wild boar. But really, she argued, the berries were within a dozen steps of the stream and there was no boar in sight. She would have plenty of time to cross to safety if necessary.

Oh! Those blackberries were sweet despite the vicious thorns. Long before she had filled her apron (but after she had filled her belly), the little voice in her head urged her to listen. For once, she did as it suggested and the sound froze her heart. Parsien had never heard a wild boar before. She did not need to to recognize the sound. It was a clomping, crashing, snorting sort of noise made by a clomping, crashing, snorting sort of beast. She had seen one once (and that was enough) when a triumphant group of hunters displayed a carcase in the village. It took four men to carry the beast. It’s tusks were each as long as Parsien’s forearm. And for the space of a lifetime, one seemed to be drawing near. Then it veered away and Parsien remembered how to breathe.

“I think we have enough berries. We must get back home now,” she told the cat when she found her voice again. The cat miaowed angrily from deep within the thicket.

“What are you doing in there?” Parsien demanded. (This was a foolish question as only sheer terror had prevented her from wriggling into the bushes herself to hide from the approaching boar, but she did not think the cat needed to know that.) “Oh, wait a moment and I will help.” The thorns had already claimed much of the cat’s fur. Parsien was not about to sacrifice her own skin to free her, nor would she abandon her. She looked around for a long stick. By poking and prodding, shoving and wrenching, Parsien cleared a tunnel for the cat. But the cat was not the only thing under the bramble. Something caught on the end of the stick as it dragged along the earth; a narrow bit of fine cloth tied to a small dirt-clogged something. It was not iron, nor any metal she knew. It was a stick of some kind. No longer than her longest finger it had a flat, notched piece on one end and a dance of intertwined circles on the other.

“A key.” The word appeared from nowhere as unexpectedly as the thing itself. Part of her wanted to leave it where she found it for it was bound to bring no end of trouble. The other part held tight to the wonder. She tucked it into her pocket and followed the cat back across the stream.

The village was not nearly as far as Parsien had thought though the cat once again took a round-about path. As she neared her home, Parsien’s feet slowed and then turned aside. “Is it truly a key?” she asked the cat. “I must know before I take it home.”

“Yes indeed, it is a key,” the blacksmith told her as he turned the thing over in thick, soot-blackened hands. “But it will open no lock in this village. And a key without a lock is of little value. But I am feeling generous today. I will give you a few pennies. That is more than it is worth.”

“No!” Parsien tried to snatch it back, but the blacksmith did not seem eager to let it go. “I think I will keep it for a bit,” she added more calmly. “Perhaps I will even find the lock for which it was made.”

The blacksmith laughed and shook his head. “I think not. There is no one alive who could have made so fine a piece. Do you know what it is made of?” Parsien shook her head. “The tusk of a wild boar, that’s what. My grandfather used to talk of work like this. He called it wizard’s work. I did not believe him, yet here it is!

Where did you find this?”

“In the forest.” She waved her hand vaguely in the correct direction. In truth she could not have described the location had she wanted to (which she did not.) The blacksmith followed her wave and she grabbed the key from his hand.

She could tell from her mother’s face that this would not be a good time to share her discovery. Her mother did not need to say a word to scold her daughter for the un-weeded garden, the unswept floor, a single soul-scouring glare was enough. Even the berries did nothing to assuage her ire. Her father’s disappointment was even worse. Her sister and brother did not look at her at all. Parsien tucked the key into her pocket and there it stayed for a week and a day growing heavier in her mind with each passing hour. She could think of little else.

The days passed in a torment of curiosity and indecision. “I could not find my way back to that place even if I wanted,” she finally decided. And she clamped her mind shut–but not soon enough: the other little voice inside (the one she preferred not to hear) chided her for her cowardice. What was there to fear? It demanded. Wild boar and wolves and getting lost, the reasoning side of her replied. Hah! Her obstreperous self retorted. Hah! And Parsien (as a whole) sighed. She would have to at least try or that “Hah!” would echo in her head forever.

As it was, she had little trouble finding the spot again. The thickets all seemed determined to usher her in the right direction. This was not a comforting thought: this was not a comforting part of the forest. But, like it or not, Parsien found the blackberry bramble.

Beyond the thicket a path led into the wilderness. “The path of a wild boar no doubt,” she muttered. The thought of those fearsome tusks made her shiver. “Perhaps this is not such a good idea, Cat,” she said. “Cat?” Where has she gone this time, Parsien wondered. Each step took her farther from the safety of the stream and deeper into the danger of the forest. Now she was certain she could hear sharp hooves striking the ground and knee-quaking grunts. “Cat?” she called in a sort of strangled whisper.

The cat sat upon the remnants of a tumbled wall, cleaning a front paw. Parsien considered throwing a stone at the smug creature. “Is this what you brought me to see? A wall?” Parsien asked the cat. “Well, I have seen it and it is not worth facing a wild boar. Can we go back now?” The answer came from the forest as a distant snorting rumble.

Perhaps it would be better to wait until the forest was quieter, she thought as she scrambled over the wall. The trees in the overgrown courtyard were small, but they were no longer saplings. They might be as old as my grand-mother’s grandmother, Parsien realized. And that was old indeed.

The courtyard was quiet–much quieter than it should have been. The weight of the quiet grew until it covered her like a heavy cloak. Parsien crept through the flickering sunlight. Half the village would fit in the space of the no-longer-clear-ing. What court would need such a courtyard?

The hulking mountain of what must once have been a great manor house only added to the mystery. Surely it had once been as large as all the village cottages joined together–though much grander. No wattle and daub had been used here, nor rough timbers, either. Countless boards, smooth and even, lay strewn upon the ground; enough for a house bigger than a barn! It might well have stood two (or even three!) floors high. Now, like a sleeping night giant, it seemed to suck in the light and exhale shadow that lay upon the ground like sheets of obsidian.

Parsien shuddered as she wondered how so grand a house could have been forgotten. Surely someone would have wanted it. Unless . . . Parsien shuddered again and took a step back, and then another. She turned to run only to be stopped in mid-stride by a flash of color at the edge of her vision.

A small spot, the color of dried blood, drew her closer to the house even as her fear pulled her away. A massive oaken door lay upon the ground like a fallen soldier, a rusting iron box was mounted on it with a single opening just the size to fit the key. The tongue of the lock extended into nothing as if locking the door to the air itself. Parsien pushed the key into the lock and tried to turn it, but rust and age had frozen the lock in place. No amount of jiggling could force the key to turn. She could feel the house watching–the stony shadows creeping closer. For a moment she wished her brave sister was with her, but only for a moment, then she ran.

She made it no farther than the wall before she stopped. The key was still in the lock! “Leave it there!” She told herself. “A key with a lock that won’t turn is of no more use than a key alone.”

The words did not reach her feet.

She approached the door as she might an unfamiliar dog: and if his tail did not wag, neither did his hackles rise, nor a growl rumble in his throat. The house did not move, or change. Or perhaps it did change a little. The shadows no longer tried to suck her in or smother her. The door looked more forlorn than frightening. It did not seem right to leave it like this. But the doorway from which it had once hung remained as dark as a nightmare. Parsien stood for a long time looking from the door to the doorway and back again. The house was as silent as the courtyard. Parsien slowly knelt beside the door and swept it with her hands. Nothing happened. Breathing a bit more easily, she began clearing the years from the door; scrubbing at the rust with a handfuls of dried leaves before sliding the key back into her pocket. The harder she worked the less she feared the open wound of the doorway.

“It is late,” Parsien told the door, as afternoon added its own shadows to those of the house. And much to her own surprise she added, “I will come tomorrow and try my key again.”

But tomorrow is at best a maybe, more often a maybe-not. This one brought with it an angry sky and rain delivered by vicious winds. The following day was spent repairing the damage from the storm, and the next day the fields needed hoeing, and the next the sheep needed attention, and the next . . . And so it was a week and a day before Parsien could slip away once more and return to the house in the forest.

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In the Forest of the Wild Boar by
Lisa Wright

© 2002