Arabella on the Red Road
Walking along a red dirt road, I met a bald princess kneeling by the opening of a some animal's den.
It was a chilly day, the air as clear and cold as spring water, which to my mind was strange weather for the season. It should feel like the tail-end of spring boiling into early summer, making us all sweat out the rains that had come down so often, before. Even the air would feel thick, and it'd stink a little, too, sort of like rotted fruits. Teeth of Summer, I called it. When the world rolls into Summer's mouth, you felt its claws and teeth first, a hot time that lasts until we're partway into the gut of the season. Then it's time to harvest. After that, it's not so bad; even the smell is gone. Once you're in the season's belly, you're past the worst of it.
Every year, just before the teeth of Summer bear down too hard for walking, I go up into the Loud Mountains, where it's cooler. I'm not the only one who does, of course, but I go alone so I can rest naked in the streams I know there. It's not as safe and sure as going with companions, and I did that the first few years, going with several families, but it wasn't for me. As soon as I learned from them where to find water, I was done with them. To avoid going with others, I took a less known route, not on any map. Never saw another body near it, except beasties. Then I met the princess.
Just looking at her, I knew she was not from my humble town, not anywhere close to it. The finest townspeople were still from solid farmer stock, and one had to go far and away to meet someone with rank. But with her you had no doubts, didn't need to ask. Wrapped in blue cloth shaped like a sack and sitting on the ground, she still had this presence. Might've been her posture. Her back was so straight without being braced against anything but regal air, long goose neck gracefully turned away from me as she watched the den opening. Her hands rested on her knees like rabbits. Nobody normal would sit beside a road like that.
Nobody would leave such a woman alone, either, at least nobody with a heart. Lost? Waiting? In trouble? I couldn't figure which. I didn't want trouble, especially with me heading deep into the hills now, but she was different. If it had been anybody else, I would have left him to his business, and gone my way whistling, too. To pass her by would be like, well, something unthinkable, I can't imagine it at all. But staring at her wouldn't get me answers. I wondered if she would be beautiful.
"Excuse me, miss," I called from my place, "can I help you?" The woman turned her head around towards me, startled but not afraid, not even standing up. From where I stood, she being a little further up the hill than me, I could see that she was friendly. She wasn't pretty, not like you'd expect, but her face was rosy and full - a face as plain as sweet peaches, as my pal in town would say - with a long nose and broad forehead and dimples at the corners of her lips. Perhaps not pretty, but memorable. Striking, too. There were strange, swirling black markings - like coils of snakes slipping among braided vines, dots along the edges too - on her scalp that began with a widow's peak on the center of her forehead then curved over her brows, behind her ears and tapered to a tip at the nape of her neck. It wasn't hair, as far as I could see, but I could not think of why a lady such as she would tattoo her bald scalp. Her eyes were dark, that's all I know, watching me with curious interest. Memorable and striking, oh yes.
She said, "I could not impose on a complete stranger. What is your name, kind sir?"
I bowed my head deferentially one moment. It was a politeness I rarely use, and it feels dumb to do it, but I don't think she'd mind my brutish manners. "Jepsen, miss. If you don't mind my saying, it wouldn't bother me at all to help you."
The woman smiled, just a bit. "My name is Arabella. Do you know these mountains well, Master Jepsen? Do you perhaps have a map I could see? A book I could borrow?"
"Are you lost, Lady Arabella?" I asked boldly, knowing I was prying. When she didn't immediately answer, I went on, in a respectful way, "I know parts of the hills better than most. Not all, sorry to say. Where is it you aim to go?"
Arabella looked away from me and up the path, which led into the Loud Mountains. The Loud Mountains were forested from the base until halfway up, after which they appear to become bare and rocky all the way to their snowy tops, which disappeared into clouds. Most people don't go too far into the range, so it's not known what lives on their peaks. Buzzards, I supposed. A whole lot of nothing, likely. As mountains go, ours aren't particular. But the look on Arabella's face! Fear, pain, longing, hope, all mixed up. I've never seen such naked emotion, and never will again, not like that. Then she shut her eyes and inhaled slowly. Her face became composed. As she opened her eyes and exhaled, those dark eyes of hers still on the mountains, she said, almost too quiet for me to hear, "I need to follow this path until it ends. But I am... unaccustomed with traveling in mountains. I--"
"Need a guide," I finished. I too looked up the red path now. Wasn't a thick path, no good for carts or beasts of burden, but it was bigger and tidier than anything made by animals. Follow the path? Having found it myself and used it to get to the deeper steams, it still never came to mind to see if it led anywhere. Like usual, I had expected it to go noplace. But you don't make paths into mountains that don't go somewhere, I knew that.
In any case, Arabella turned back to me again. She gestured with one arm to a spot across from her. "Come closer, Master Jepsen, so we may stop raising our voices in order to speak," she said. So ordered, I began walking slowly uphill, as casually as I could do at the time. Arabella smiled that tiny little smile again. Then she carefully stood up, looking strained all the while. The bag of a dress she wore hung to her knees, and on her feet were simple sandals, bound with coarse rope that had rubbed her ankles raw pink. I noticed her toes were wound with white cloth, faintly bloody. Odd.
Up close, I saw how she was nearly as tall as I, though I am not by anybody's measurement a giant. And I could see her looking at me, too, noticing things now that she couldn't before when I was downhill. Girls used to tell me I wasn't the handsomest, but I never minded when they did. Big nose, straw-yellow hair under my hat, never the best shaved. I am a sturdy man, that's enough for me to know. Never had problems handling for myself, and I can get most jobs done on my own. But Arabella, she looked straight into my eyes - even now, I couldn't say what color they were - in a searching way, like she wanted to see something showing in my eyes that you'd only know from looking for it.
"If you are offering to be my guide, Master Jepsen..."
"Miss, I wouldn't mind at all," I said.
She shook her head. "Oh, I just could not impose. Thank you for offering your assistance so freely to me, but I would feel wretched to accept it. Good day and goodbye, Master Jepsen." Arabella bowed from the waist, hands clasped in front of her, as if I were some puffed-up lord. When she straightened, she looked up the path again and put one foot forward, walking tenderly, as if the ground were hot, or her feet sore. Without the grace you'd expect from someone like her, she still moved with all the dignity.
Watching her walk off in such a troubling way, I bit my tongue before I could yell out that it wouldn't burden me at all to help. I had offered and she had refused, and it would be wrong of me to change it. Besides, I still planned to go to my streams. Least there was that in my future.
I waited a good bit where I stood, watching her get further away, until I felt that it wouldn't be impolite to continue my walking on that same path. Since she moved slow, I kicked at the red dirt a bit. Against the normal grassy ground, it looked like blood. I had never thought about the strangeness of it, how there was red dirt tracing a thin, distinct path into Loud Mountains. Every year, it looked the same, never blown wider by winds or shuffled by animals. Where did the red come from? Eventually, I saw Arabella just about disappeared into the forest, and I walked again, slow enough so she wouldn't think I chased after her, but not so slow that she'd leave my sight completely.
Walking through the forests of Loud Mountain isn't a bad thing. Everything up here is fragrant, smelling spicy and earthy and fresh. The trees were tall and wide for shade, but spread out enough so that bush grew. By day this let sheets of sunlight hang down between branches; at night, it showed patches of stars, and never was completely dark. If you knew the safe places, like I did, then you'd be okay here, at least for the few weeks it takes for the bite of summer to go. With properly packed bags, a man could survive comfortably until summer eased up. Even the walk uphill wasn't too much work, at first, and nobody goes past the easy part. Normally, I'd be looking around the trees I passed, because it paid to be watchful, but I looked straight ahead towards the distant blue figure of Arabella. She had stopped suddenly, and seemed to be clutching her hands to her chest. I couldn't understand it. She hadn't fallen, so I didn't think she was hurt, but like I said, the walk up through this part isn't hard. She couldn't be winded now.
Arabella started walking again, hands in front of her. All over again, I noticed how awkward her walk seemed, as if she didn't want to use her feet at all, or didn't know how. She was never clumsy, but now that she walked with her hands like that, it made her take steady, slow steps. Not once did she turn around to look if I were around to help again.
I had stopped when she'd stopped, partly to watch her behaviour, partly so that I wouldn't make it too clear that I followed her. When she walked again, I started walking too. Just that moment, I watched the ground, brow furrowing to see how her tracks seemed uneven. And as I looked at the dirt, I saw two small twigs of some kind rolling downhill, pale against the red. I wouldn't have paid it any mind, except that as they rolled down, they trailed smoke behind them, and it wasn't steep enough for them to roll so fast. I stopped one with my boot. The thing puffed smoke and tried to roll over the leather. What I saw, it made my heart drum hard. I had thought they were twigs, or large grubs. Looking at it, however, I could see it was not. But it couldn't be...
I bent down and picked it up carefully. It was warm and growing hotter, and white smoke continued to flow out of it.
It was a finger, slender and feminine. It was Arabella's smallest finger.
I looked behind me, but the other one had already rolled out of sight. The one between my fingers twitched and burned, turning into a small ball of fire, and I couldn't take it, I could feel my fingers blackening, smell the flesh burning. I dropped her finger to suck on the ones that had been hurt, and it rolled downhill, faster than before, fast to get away from me. Soon it disappeared. When I pulled my fingers out of my mouth, I saw before my own eyes the red flesh heal. I wriggled my fingers. No pain at all, as if nothing had happened.
I faced the mountains again. Arabella had walked out of my sights, probably still holding her wounded hands to herself. Her fingers! I thought of her bandaged toes, and her careful, pained walking. The way her severed fingers smoked and burned without harming, the way they continued moving on their own... My town is a humble town, I don't have any airs about it. Our dealings with magic were rare, rare enough that we as a community weren't sure whether to trust our backs to it. But like the saying goes, you didn't need to be pals with a magician in order to recognize magic, and this was definitely magic, probably powerful stuff, and none of my business. She had refused my help, and I'm no good with magic, and I had come here to relax before the heavy harvesting I'd come home to, and I've never paid women any particular attention anyhow, and it was none of my business. That was that.
I remembered that expression on her face when she looked where the path would lead her, alone. Fear, pain, longing and hope, all mixed up, all right there for anybody, even a nobody like me, to see.
"Arabella!" I yelled. I began walking, soon running, after her.
*
Even with her head start, catching up to Arabella didn't take too long. Like the first time I saw her, she was sitting a little off the path, only this time she wasn't kneeling. She had her legs out in front of her, sandals off on the ground beside her. Gripped tightly in her hands were bandages, taken off her feet, I noticed. As soon as I saw her, I slowed my run to an easy, cautious walk and approached her from an angle so she could see me and know I meant no harm. Arabella watched me come closer with wide eyes, again with no fear. The shock of holding her single finger made me feel so familiar with her. I sat on the ground beside her, not too close but closer than I should've dared without permission. And there in front of us both were her poor feet. With the bandages and shoes off, I could see she was missing two smaller toes on each foot, and that the soles of her feet were a little bloody. The toes looked as if they'd been bitten off, but at least she wasn't bleeding out like she should've. I thought I could see where she was missing her smallest fingers, too, but it was hard to tell, the way she was grasping the dirty cloth for dear life.
Arabella saw my staring and glanced at her feet, then down at her hands. That little smile again. As much to herself as it was to me, she said, "Earlier, when it was my fingers, I thought: at least it is not my feet again. When it is my hands, I can keep walking, for it will not impede my journey. When it is my toes, I must stop and sit; otherwise I would fall. I must learn to walk all over again, balance myself in a different way. Do not worry about the bleeding. It is not so painful, now."
"I don't understand, miss," I said. Arabella's voice was so calm, I couldn't imagine how. Were it me, I would be howling from the loss of toes and fingers.
"I do not wish to burden you with my troubles, Master Jepsen. Trust that, to me, it is generous enough that you freely offered to assist me without knowing anything about me, and it is kind enough that you sit beside me out of concern. I will be fine."
"Lady Arabella, why does this happen to you?" I persisted.
She was silent so long, I didn't think she'd speak of it. I wasn't sure I could ask again, it wasn't my right. It was chillier now, sun going down as it does. That blue cloth around her body didn't seem tough enough to warm her at all. From my packs I pulled out my blanket and dropped it beside her. Thought I heard her murmur thanks, but already I was rummaging in my stuff for whatever food I had on me. I had planned to fish at the streams, take edible plants and berries as I walked, but that was out of the question right now. I always carried I stood to gather some wood and leaves to build us a fire right there on the path. Not exactly the best thing to do, but it shouldn't risk much. Arabella sat there, breaking pieces of the bread off and putting it delicately into her mouth, as if savoring it.
By the time I had a small fire popping amongst the wood, she'd eaten all of the bread I'd handed to her. She had left the blanket where I'd left it, though folded in a tidy way. It wasn't too near nightfall yet, so I let the fire stay low, adding small sticks and dry leaves until I was sure it'd be fine.
"Thank you," Arabella said again, decisively. She turned to look me, waited until I looked back so she could gaze right into my eyes. "You are very kind to me, Master Jepsen, yet you know nothing of me. There is no duty here, and yet you stay."
"I do what I can. Just a fire, see." I waved an arm at the fire, drawing her attention to it. "And it was just bread, too." Arabella, looking at the flames, smiled, gentle and small. I thought to point out that I could tell she was in trouble, toes and fingers falling off wouldn't be anybody's idea of a good life, but I couldn't think what more I could do for the likes of her. So I, too, went quiet. Not hard for me, of course. At home, I'll be knocking into more people than I'd care for, but out here, here it's different. It's nice not to hear someone else's voice sometimes.
Arabella reached out with one hand towards the fire, warming it. Out in the open like that, it was obvious that she was missing a finger. Where the finger should be was, instead, an ugly cut, pink and scabbed over with blood. She held it up in front of her, fingers spread like a fan.
In a soft voice, she said, "Before I came here, my father ordered that I wed a powerful, violent politician, some man from a kingdom not on any map, said he. The man is wealthy, yet unspeakably cruel. He would punish the smallest trespass with flaying. My father thought this made him strong. He, too, was cruel, but not nearly so much as the rich man, I thought. I told my father that I would not marry anyone who could not ease suffering endured by people who age, who ail, who are dying. At this, my father laughed. He told me I would marry whomever he chose for me."
Here, she stopped, and put down her hand on her lap again.
"Please understand, Master Jepsen, that though my father was greedy and vicious, it did not overflow excessively. Amusements would occupy his attention. It was not until the stranger - I dare not speak his name - came to us that everything intensified. No matter how I pleaded, my father would not change his mind. It was his wish that I wed that man, and so I could not gainsay him anymore.
"The wedding was... exquisite. Lavish arrangements, grand costumes, lush food. Oh, I will not speak of that! During the ceremony, however, screams interrupted our final vows. I turned to look, for how could I ignore the cries? This... creature, this beast, this monster had come. It looked like a scorpion with a bird's head, and it was leaping for my face, screeching. It took my hair in its beak and cut it off. It shook the strands everywhere. By then, my father had arrived at the dais and was reaching for its neck... The monster dove towards his face, pulling out his eyes, stabbing him with its tail, pinning his arms with its pincers. My poor father, he cried out for me to help. I reached to grab hold of its tail, but as I did it released my father and jumped onto me again, hissing and spitting in my face. I covered my eyes.
"Suddenly, the creature leapt from me again, towards my husb... towards the stranger. I heard him laugh and there was the sound of thunder and smell of iron. The screeching stopped. When I looked, the monster was in pieces all over the floor, its awful head right at his foot. He stepped on it as if it were an egg.
"He told me that we had been attacked by a demon sent to stop our union. He told me he, too, was a demon, and it was illegal for his kind to marry anyone like me. My father was dead by my feet, and he sounded wickedly cheerful. Now that I knew, I told him I would never marry him. The ceremony never finished, we were still unmarried. Everyone would know him for his true identity: an evil monster. He laughed again. I could never stop him, he said, but it would amuse him to play a game with me. As you know, all demons are insatiably competitive. If they could love anything, it is that they love to gamble with anything precious, even their own existences. He told me that on top of the Loud Mountains is a secret hidden from mortals, and with that knowledge I could banish him back to his own kingdom forever. I merely needed to walk the red path to it."
"But it's not so simple," I guessed, willing myself not to look meaningfully at her hands or feet. I hadn't wanted to interrupt, but Arabella had paused again.
She nodded. "As you correctly say, it is not so simple. I was promised to him as his bride. With my father dead, he felt this made him my... guardian. I belonged to him, at least in body. If I left him to pursue the secret, he would write a spell in my flesh that would eventually return to my whole body to him, piece by piece. First, I would lose what was left of my hair, plucked from my head strand by strand. He assured me it would feel like being stabbed with a needle each time. Then I would lose my fingers and toes. Then my hands, then my ears, then arms. He told me I would not enjoy feeling what it is like to sunder my head from my body. You understand, he felt he was doing me a service by letting me have my feet longer than I would have my hands and arms, or else how would I be able to walk up any path? Each piece of myself would return to him, and there he would build a... simulacrum of me. When I... When it is finished he will marry that other me, setting in motion consequences I dare not imagine."
The horror! I could picture it in the fire, how already this demon had a wig of her shorn hair hanging, how he'd drop her toes and fingers into a box like jewels. It wasn't me who'd talked into the evening, and it wasn't me running from this groom, but my throat hurt from swallowing bile and my heart hurt too, for her. For me too, no lying about that. It hurt that I couldn't do anything more to help. Build a fire, feed her bread, share a blanket she didn't even use. Now we were both quiet, the heaviness of it all pressing down like rocks.
Finally, I asked, "How long? To find the thing, I mean."
"To expedite this game of his, he used sorcery to transport me not far from here. I asked him to give me normal vestments. I could not wear a bridal gown through a forest. He laughed, and he tore my dress to ribbons and blew the strips around me. I told him I could not walk naked through a forest. The one thing for which I am grateful is that he gave me this... frock to wear." Arabella smoothed the bandage cloth on her lap, touching it gently. Silk? I wondered if it was once part of her bridal garb, but knew I shouldn't ask. "To answer your question, Master Jepsen, I have until I become too weak to continue my journey. If I am that weak, it means he would have all of me soon. He said that the higher I ventured into the mountains, the more quickly I would be... divided."
I couldn't think of anything to say to her. Head so foolishly empty. This was too large to comfort easily. Without noticing, the sun had set completely. The fire was dying. I dropped more sticks at it until it became lively, warming us both again. In the better light I could see Arabella's serene face. If she climbed the mountain, it'd mean losing her body, piece by piece. She'd die, and who knows what'd happen for the demon. If she stayed, I'm sure she'd die anyway, just slower. The choice was terrible.
Arabella rolled the bandage neatly, then held it in one hand as if it were a dove. I could see the missing finger, and so could she, I'm sure. In the uneven firelight, the scab looked waxy.
She tossed it into the fire. It did not sizzle and it did not explode in smoke and screams like I expected it to. It burned up like some soft, fragile thing.
*
NOTES:
It's an unfinished fairytale. I know it ends suddenly, and I'm sorry for that, but after tweaking I decided that it wasn't too bad.
Arabella's desire to marry someone who eases the suffering people endure from aging, illness and dying is inspired by a legend of the life of Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy. (Well, more like it's from a legend about Miao Shan, but really it's the same thing.)
The demon which attacked the wedding is loosely based upon an amikiri and another Japanese creature who cut hair (I forget its name, sorry! but it doesn't look anything like an amikiri anyway).
This is the first time in many, many years that I've written in first person perspective. I couldn't imagine doing this story in any other way.
I tried to work on things both editors from my previous entry pointed out (grammar in particular, since this is a longtime problem of my writing). I'm not sure how well that worked out.
Remaining notes are locked high up on the Loud Mountains. Whoops. Feel free to inquire about anything.
It was a chilly day, the air as clear and cold as spring water, which to my mind was strange weather for the season. It should feel like the tail-end of spring boiling into early summer, making us all sweat out the rains that had come down so often, before. Even the air would feel thick, and it'd stink a little, too, sort of like rotted fruits. Teeth of Summer, I called it. When the world rolls into Summer's mouth, you felt its claws and teeth first, a hot time that lasts until we're partway into the gut of the season. Then it's time to harvest. After that, it's not so bad; even the smell is gone. Once you're in the season's belly, you're past the worst of it.
Every year, just before the teeth of Summer bear down too hard for walking, I go up into the Loud Mountains, where it's cooler. I'm not the only one who does, of course, but I go alone so I can rest naked in the streams I know there. It's not as safe and sure as going with companions, and I did that the first few years, going with several families, but it wasn't for me. As soon as I learned from them where to find water, I was done with them. To avoid going with others, I took a less known route, not on any map. Never saw another body near it, except beasties. Then I met the princess.
Just looking at her, I knew she was not from my humble town, not anywhere close to it. The finest townspeople were still from solid farmer stock, and one had to go far and away to meet someone with rank. But with her you had no doubts, didn't need to ask. Wrapped in blue cloth shaped like a sack and sitting on the ground, she still had this presence. Might've been her posture. Her back was so straight without being braced against anything but regal air, long goose neck gracefully turned away from me as she watched the den opening. Her hands rested on her knees like rabbits. Nobody normal would sit beside a road like that.
Nobody would leave such a woman alone, either, at least nobody with a heart. Lost? Waiting? In trouble? I couldn't figure which. I didn't want trouble, especially with me heading deep into the hills now, but she was different. If it had been anybody else, I would have left him to his business, and gone my way whistling, too. To pass her by would be like, well, something unthinkable, I can't imagine it at all. But staring at her wouldn't get me answers. I wondered if she would be beautiful.
"Excuse me, miss," I called from my place, "can I help you?" The woman turned her head around towards me, startled but not afraid, not even standing up. From where I stood, she being a little further up the hill than me, I could see that she was friendly. She wasn't pretty, not like you'd expect, but her face was rosy and full - a face as plain as sweet peaches, as my pal in town would say - with a long nose and broad forehead and dimples at the corners of her lips. Perhaps not pretty, but memorable. Striking, too. There were strange, swirling black markings - like coils of snakes slipping among braided vines, dots along the edges too - on her scalp that began with a widow's peak on the center of her forehead then curved over her brows, behind her ears and tapered to a tip at the nape of her neck. It wasn't hair, as far as I could see, but I could not think of why a lady such as she would tattoo her bald scalp. Her eyes were dark, that's all I know, watching me with curious interest. Memorable and striking, oh yes.
She said, "I could not impose on a complete stranger. What is your name, kind sir?"
I bowed my head deferentially one moment. It was a politeness I rarely use, and it feels dumb to do it, but I don't think she'd mind my brutish manners. "Jepsen, miss. If you don't mind my saying, it wouldn't bother me at all to help you."
The woman smiled, just a bit. "My name is Arabella. Do you know these mountains well, Master Jepsen? Do you perhaps have a map I could see? A book I could borrow?"
"Are you lost, Lady Arabella?" I asked boldly, knowing I was prying. When she didn't immediately answer, I went on, in a respectful way, "I know parts of the hills better than most. Not all, sorry to say. Where is it you aim to go?"
Arabella looked away from me and up the path, which led into the Loud Mountains. The Loud Mountains were forested from the base until halfway up, after which they appear to become bare and rocky all the way to their snowy tops, which disappeared into clouds. Most people don't go too far into the range, so it's not known what lives on their peaks. Buzzards, I supposed. A whole lot of nothing, likely. As mountains go, ours aren't particular. But the look on Arabella's face! Fear, pain, longing, hope, all mixed up. I've never seen such naked emotion, and never will again, not like that. Then she shut her eyes and inhaled slowly. Her face became composed. As she opened her eyes and exhaled, those dark eyes of hers still on the mountains, she said, almost too quiet for me to hear, "I need to follow this path until it ends. But I am... unaccustomed with traveling in mountains. I--"
"Need a guide," I finished. I too looked up the red path now. Wasn't a thick path, no good for carts or beasts of burden, but it was bigger and tidier than anything made by animals. Follow the path? Having found it myself and used it to get to the deeper steams, it still never came to mind to see if it led anywhere. Like usual, I had expected it to go noplace. But you don't make paths into mountains that don't go somewhere, I knew that.
In any case, Arabella turned back to me again. She gestured with one arm to a spot across from her. "Come closer, Master Jepsen, so we may stop raising our voices in order to speak," she said. So ordered, I began walking slowly uphill, as casually as I could do at the time. Arabella smiled that tiny little smile again. Then she carefully stood up, looking strained all the while. The bag of a dress she wore hung to her knees, and on her feet were simple sandals, bound with coarse rope that had rubbed her ankles raw pink. I noticed her toes were wound with white cloth, faintly bloody. Odd.
Up close, I saw how she was nearly as tall as I, though I am not by anybody's measurement a giant. And I could see her looking at me, too, noticing things now that she couldn't before when I was downhill. Girls used to tell me I wasn't the handsomest, but I never minded when they did. Big nose, straw-yellow hair under my hat, never the best shaved. I am a sturdy man, that's enough for me to know. Never had problems handling for myself, and I can get most jobs done on my own. But Arabella, she looked straight into my eyes - even now, I couldn't say what color they were - in a searching way, like she wanted to see something showing in my eyes that you'd only know from looking for it.
"If you are offering to be my guide, Master Jepsen..."
"Miss, I wouldn't mind at all," I said.
She shook her head. "Oh, I just could not impose. Thank you for offering your assistance so freely to me, but I would feel wretched to accept it. Good day and goodbye, Master Jepsen." Arabella bowed from the waist, hands clasped in front of her, as if I were some puffed-up lord. When she straightened, she looked up the path again and put one foot forward, walking tenderly, as if the ground were hot, or her feet sore. Without the grace you'd expect from someone like her, she still moved with all the dignity.
Watching her walk off in such a troubling way, I bit my tongue before I could yell out that it wouldn't burden me at all to help. I had offered and she had refused, and it would be wrong of me to change it. Besides, I still planned to go to my streams. Least there was that in my future.
I waited a good bit where I stood, watching her get further away, until I felt that it wouldn't be impolite to continue my walking on that same path. Since she moved slow, I kicked at the red dirt a bit. Against the normal grassy ground, it looked like blood. I had never thought about the strangeness of it, how there was red dirt tracing a thin, distinct path into Loud Mountains. Every year, it looked the same, never blown wider by winds or shuffled by animals. Where did the red come from? Eventually, I saw Arabella just about disappeared into the forest, and I walked again, slow enough so she wouldn't think I chased after her, but not so slow that she'd leave my sight completely.
Walking through the forests of Loud Mountain isn't a bad thing. Everything up here is fragrant, smelling spicy and earthy and fresh. The trees were tall and wide for shade, but spread out enough so that bush grew. By day this let sheets of sunlight hang down between branches; at night, it showed patches of stars, and never was completely dark. If you knew the safe places, like I did, then you'd be okay here, at least for the few weeks it takes for the bite of summer to go. With properly packed bags, a man could survive comfortably until summer eased up. Even the walk uphill wasn't too much work, at first, and nobody goes past the easy part. Normally, I'd be looking around the trees I passed, because it paid to be watchful, but I looked straight ahead towards the distant blue figure of Arabella. She had stopped suddenly, and seemed to be clutching her hands to her chest. I couldn't understand it. She hadn't fallen, so I didn't think she was hurt, but like I said, the walk up through this part isn't hard. She couldn't be winded now.
Arabella started walking again, hands in front of her. All over again, I noticed how awkward her walk seemed, as if she didn't want to use her feet at all, or didn't know how. She was never clumsy, but now that she walked with her hands like that, it made her take steady, slow steps. Not once did she turn around to look if I were around to help again.
I had stopped when she'd stopped, partly to watch her behaviour, partly so that I wouldn't make it too clear that I followed her. When she walked again, I started walking too. Just that moment, I watched the ground, brow furrowing to see how her tracks seemed uneven. And as I looked at the dirt, I saw two small twigs of some kind rolling downhill, pale against the red. I wouldn't have paid it any mind, except that as they rolled down, they trailed smoke behind them, and it wasn't steep enough for them to roll so fast. I stopped one with my boot. The thing puffed smoke and tried to roll over the leather. What I saw, it made my heart drum hard. I had thought they were twigs, or large grubs. Looking at it, however, I could see it was not. But it couldn't be...
I bent down and picked it up carefully. It was warm and growing hotter, and white smoke continued to flow out of it.
It was a finger, slender and feminine. It was Arabella's smallest finger.
I looked behind me, but the other one had already rolled out of sight. The one between my fingers twitched and burned, turning into a small ball of fire, and I couldn't take it, I could feel my fingers blackening, smell the flesh burning. I dropped her finger to suck on the ones that had been hurt, and it rolled downhill, faster than before, fast to get away from me. Soon it disappeared. When I pulled my fingers out of my mouth, I saw before my own eyes the red flesh heal. I wriggled my fingers. No pain at all, as if nothing had happened.
I faced the mountains again. Arabella had walked out of my sights, probably still holding her wounded hands to herself. Her fingers! I thought of her bandaged toes, and her careful, pained walking. The way her severed fingers smoked and burned without harming, the way they continued moving on their own... My town is a humble town, I don't have any airs about it. Our dealings with magic were rare, rare enough that we as a community weren't sure whether to trust our backs to it. But like the saying goes, you didn't need to be pals with a magician in order to recognize magic, and this was definitely magic, probably powerful stuff, and none of my business. She had refused my help, and I'm no good with magic, and I had come here to relax before the heavy harvesting I'd come home to, and I've never paid women any particular attention anyhow, and it was none of my business. That was that.
I remembered that expression on her face when she looked where the path would lead her, alone. Fear, pain, longing and hope, all mixed up, all right there for anybody, even a nobody like me, to see.
"Arabella!" I yelled. I began walking, soon running, after her.
*
Even with her head start, catching up to Arabella didn't take too long. Like the first time I saw her, she was sitting a little off the path, only this time she wasn't kneeling. She had her legs out in front of her, sandals off on the ground beside her. Gripped tightly in her hands were bandages, taken off her feet, I noticed. As soon as I saw her, I slowed my run to an easy, cautious walk and approached her from an angle so she could see me and know I meant no harm. Arabella watched me come closer with wide eyes, again with no fear. The shock of holding her single finger made me feel so familiar with her. I sat on the ground beside her, not too close but closer than I should've dared without permission. And there in front of us both were her poor feet. With the bandages and shoes off, I could see she was missing two smaller toes on each foot, and that the soles of her feet were a little bloody. The toes looked as if they'd been bitten off, but at least she wasn't bleeding out like she should've. I thought I could see where she was missing her smallest fingers, too, but it was hard to tell, the way she was grasping the dirty cloth for dear life.
Arabella saw my staring and glanced at her feet, then down at her hands. That little smile again. As much to herself as it was to me, she said, "Earlier, when it was my fingers, I thought: at least it is not my feet again. When it is my hands, I can keep walking, for it will not impede my journey. When it is my toes, I must stop and sit; otherwise I would fall. I must learn to walk all over again, balance myself in a different way. Do not worry about the bleeding. It is not so painful, now."
"I don't understand, miss," I said. Arabella's voice was so calm, I couldn't imagine how. Were it me, I would be howling from the loss of toes and fingers.
"I do not wish to burden you with my troubles, Master Jepsen. Trust that, to me, it is generous enough that you freely offered to assist me without knowing anything about me, and it is kind enough that you sit beside me out of concern. I will be fine."
"Lady Arabella, why does this happen to you?" I persisted.
She was silent so long, I didn't think she'd speak of it. I wasn't sure I could ask again, it wasn't my right. It was chillier now, sun going down as it does. That blue cloth around her body didn't seem tough enough to warm her at all. From my packs I pulled out my blanket and dropped it beside her. Thought I heard her murmur thanks, but already I was rummaging in my stuff for whatever food I had on me. I had planned to fish at the streams, take edible plants and berries as I walked, but that was out of the question right now. I always carried I stood to gather some wood and leaves to build us a fire right there on the path. Not exactly the best thing to do, but it shouldn't risk much. Arabella sat there, breaking pieces of the bread off and putting it delicately into her mouth, as if savoring it.
By the time I had a small fire popping amongst the wood, she'd eaten all of the bread I'd handed to her. She had left the blanket where I'd left it, though folded in a tidy way. It wasn't too near nightfall yet, so I let the fire stay low, adding small sticks and dry leaves until I was sure it'd be fine.
"Thank you," Arabella said again, decisively. She turned to look me, waited until I looked back so she could gaze right into my eyes. "You are very kind to me, Master Jepsen, yet you know nothing of me. There is no duty here, and yet you stay."
"I do what I can. Just a fire, see." I waved an arm at the fire, drawing her attention to it. "And it was just bread, too." Arabella, looking at the flames, smiled, gentle and small. I thought to point out that I could tell she was in trouble, toes and fingers falling off wouldn't be anybody's idea of a good life, but I couldn't think what more I could do for the likes of her. So I, too, went quiet. Not hard for me, of course. At home, I'll be knocking into more people than I'd care for, but out here, here it's different. It's nice not to hear someone else's voice sometimes.
Arabella reached out with one hand towards the fire, warming it. Out in the open like that, it was obvious that she was missing a finger. Where the finger should be was, instead, an ugly cut, pink and scabbed over with blood. She held it up in front of her, fingers spread like a fan.
In a soft voice, she said, "Before I came here, my father ordered that I wed a powerful, violent politician, some man from a kingdom not on any map, said he. The man is wealthy, yet unspeakably cruel. He would punish the smallest trespass with flaying. My father thought this made him strong. He, too, was cruel, but not nearly so much as the rich man, I thought. I told my father that I would not marry anyone who could not ease suffering endured by people who age, who ail, who are dying. At this, my father laughed. He told me I would marry whomever he chose for me."
Here, she stopped, and put down her hand on her lap again.
"Please understand, Master Jepsen, that though my father was greedy and vicious, it did not overflow excessively. Amusements would occupy his attention. It was not until the stranger - I dare not speak his name - came to us that everything intensified. No matter how I pleaded, my father would not change his mind. It was his wish that I wed that man, and so I could not gainsay him anymore.
"The wedding was... exquisite. Lavish arrangements, grand costumes, lush food. Oh, I will not speak of that! During the ceremony, however, screams interrupted our final vows. I turned to look, for how could I ignore the cries? This... creature, this beast, this monster had come. It looked like a scorpion with a bird's head, and it was leaping for my face, screeching. It took my hair in its beak and cut it off. It shook the strands everywhere. By then, my father had arrived at the dais and was reaching for its neck... The monster dove towards his face, pulling out his eyes, stabbing him with its tail, pinning his arms with its pincers. My poor father, he cried out for me to help. I reached to grab hold of its tail, but as I did it released my father and jumped onto me again, hissing and spitting in my face. I covered my eyes.
"Suddenly, the creature leapt from me again, towards my husb... towards the stranger. I heard him laugh and there was the sound of thunder and smell of iron. The screeching stopped. When I looked, the monster was in pieces all over the floor, its awful head right at his foot. He stepped on it as if it were an egg.
"He told me that we had been attacked by a demon sent to stop our union. He told me he, too, was a demon, and it was illegal for his kind to marry anyone like me. My father was dead by my feet, and he sounded wickedly cheerful. Now that I knew, I told him I would never marry him. The ceremony never finished, we were still unmarried. Everyone would know him for his true identity: an evil monster. He laughed again. I could never stop him, he said, but it would amuse him to play a game with me. As you know, all demons are insatiably competitive. If they could love anything, it is that they love to gamble with anything precious, even their own existences. He told me that on top of the Loud Mountains is a secret hidden from mortals, and with that knowledge I could banish him back to his own kingdom forever. I merely needed to walk the red path to it."
"But it's not so simple," I guessed, willing myself not to look meaningfully at her hands or feet. I hadn't wanted to interrupt, but Arabella had paused again.
She nodded. "As you correctly say, it is not so simple. I was promised to him as his bride. With my father dead, he felt this made him my... guardian. I belonged to him, at least in body. If I left him to pursue the secret, he would write a spell in my flesh that would eventually return to my whole body to him, piece by piece. First, I would lose what was left of my hair, plucked from my head strand by strand. He assured me it would feel like being stabbed with a needle each time. Then I would lose my fingers and toes. Then my hands, then my ears, then arms. He told me I would not enjoy feeling what it is like to sunder my head from my body. You understand, he felt he was doing me a service by letting me have my feet longer than I would have my hands and arms, or else how would I be able to walk up any path? Each piece of myself would return to him, and there he would build a... simulacrum of me. When I... When it is finished he will marry that other me, setting in motion consequences I dare not imagine."
The horror! I could picture it in the fire, how already this demon had a wig of her shorn hair hanging, how he'd drop her toes and fingers into a box like jewels. It wasn't me who'd talked into the evening, and it wasn't me running from this groom, but my throat hurt from swallowing bile and my heart hurt too, for her. For me too, no lying about that. It hurt that I couldn't do anything more to help. Build a fire, feed her bread, share a blanket she didn't even use. Now we were both quiet, the heaviness of it all pressing down like rocks.
Finally, I asked, "How long? To find the thing, I mean."
"To expedite this game of his, he used sorcery to transport me not far from here. I asked him to give me normal vestments. I could not wear a bridal gown through a forest. He laughed, and he tore my dress to ribbons and blew the strips around me. I told him I could not walk naked through a forest. The one thing for which I am grateful is that he gave me this... frock to wear." Arabella smoothed the bandage cloth on her lap, touching it gently. Silk? I wondered if it was once part of her bridal garb, but knew I shouldn't ask. "To answer your question, Master Jepsen, I have until I become too weak to continue my journey. If I am that weak, it means he would have all of me soon. He said that the higher I ventured into the mountains, the more quickly I would be... divided."
I couldn't think of anything to say to her. Head so foolishly empty. This was too large to comfort easily. Without noticing, the sun had set completely. The fire was dying. I dropped more sticks at it until it became lively, warming us both again. In the better light I could see Arabella's serene face. If she climbed the mountain, it'd mean losing her body, piece by piece. She'd die, and who knows what'd happen for the demon. If she stayed, I'm sure she'd die anyway, just slower. The choice was terrible.
Arabella rolled the bandage neatly, then held it in one hand as if it were a dove. I could see the missing finger, and so could she, I'm sure. In the uneven firelight, the scab looked waxy.
She tossed it into the fire. It did not sizzle and it did not explode in smoke and screams like I expected it to. It burned up like some soft, fragile thing.
*
NOTES:
It's an unfinished fairytale. I know it ends suddenly, and I'm sorry for that, but after tweaking I decided that it wasn't too bad.
Arabella's desire to marry someone who eases the suffering people endure from aging, illness and dying is inspired by a legend of the life of Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy. (Well, more like it's from a legend about Miao Shan, but really it's the same thing.)
The demon which attacked the wedding is loosely based upon an amikiri and another Japanese creature who cut hair (I forget its name, sorry! but it doesn't look anything like an amikiri anyway).
This is the first time in many, many years that I've written in first person perspective. I couldn't imagine doing this story in any other way.
I tried to work on things both editors from my previous entry pointed out (grammar in particular, since this is a longtime problem of my writing). I'm not sure how well that worked out.
Remaining notes are locked high up on the Loud Mountains. Whoops. Feel free to inquire about anything.