Friday's child

One day, over in the ancient lands of Mornkiss, the town of Friday was experiencing a spot of trouble. Not because its name sounds like a day in our world, but because on the fourth and final day of their week (Thendersday), crowds of townsfolk were attempting to leave the town by its only gate.

‘Go back to your homes,’ the guard at the gate was saying, ‘there’s no need for you to lose your heads,’

With the way he was leaning against his pointy stick, it was not wholly clear whether he meant that they were being too rash, or that he would really start to lop their heads off. He was a short and stocky man with thin lips and a jaw like an angry dog.

‘It’s been thirteen moons!’ shouted one of the crowd, feeling protected by their numbers.

‘We just want to sleep!’ called another.

‘Yeah!’

‘Yeah!’ shouted others in agreement.

The guard held his gloved hand up and waited for them to simmer down. When they did, a lone ferret-shaped woman stepped to the front. On her head she had the typical three foot up-do worn by Mornkiss women, and in her arms she held a big, pink fuzzy baby.

‘Listen here and listen good,’ she said, in a tone commonly wielded by very stubborn and very angry grandmas, ‘If them trees don’t shut up, talking all night long, then we cannot stay another night in this town. They’ve kept the ruddy baby up for three moons on the trot now!’ she held up her baby as proof, ‘and it’s not on!’

‘Bit of an improvement isn’t it?’ The guard said, surveying the baby in front of him and then looking at the brood she had also brought in a cart. They were all chubby, fuzzy things and they were lying lackadaisically around on the woman’s house wares. They all looked like they had good cry welled up inside them, but were too tired to remember how to let it out. One of the babies, seemingly having exhausted all internal functions, began to hit its fist against the side of the cart, hoping for some external button. Instead, it pushed the side of the cart down, causing it to roll out and land in the mud below.

‘Oh, bit of an improvement is it?’ said the woman, whose first response went to her eyebrows, which she raised in haughty disbelief. The baby remained where it was, giving itself over to its new lifestyle by lying face up and watching the people walk around it.

‘It’s a bloody sham, is what it is!’ shouted a disgruntled crowd member.

‘Yeah, who said that?’ sniffed the guard, holding his pointy stick up so that it could be seen above the crowd, and jutting his jaw out to inflate his menacing appearance. No one stepped forward.

The guard had been given instructions to not let anyone leave the town until the issue with the trees had been thoroughly discussed in a dusty room. The dust was essential to the meeting because as the people in Mornkiss had it, dust was partially made up of the dead skin and belly button fluff from people past. So more dust meant more bits of old people. It was their way of keeping their ancestors involved in the conversation. Unfortunately, the most dust-choked chambers in the town had recently been flooded. And all those ancestral bits of belly-button fluff had been washed away. So there were teams out searching for the next best dusty room to talk in. While they were doing that, it was the guard’s job to make sure they still had a town left to talk about.

‘Go back to your homes! Until we can get all this sorted out,’ he said tiresomely.

‘No!’ Chorused the crowd.

‘Yes!’ the guard rebutted.

‘No!’

The guard pinched the bridge of his nose, probably in an effort to stop his hand from reaching for his sharp stick to whack the people with.

‘Fine,’ he relented, ‘what will it take to get you to stay?’

The crowd said nothing. They clearly had not thought that far. Most of the heads turned away so they wouldn’t be called upon to answer, but some turned to the baby-wielding woman in front.

‘Well,’ she said, trying to keep up her authoritative tone, ‘what will it take?’

The guard blinked at her. And the crowd waited. She looked hurriedly around for a solution. Her eyes darting from Friday’s knee-height town walls in front, to the wooden shops and houses behind. Then her gaze fell squarely on a young girl who was watching the commotion from the bottom step of a laundry house, dodging out of the way of its busy workers coming and going. She had a brown fringe, a wide face and very small ears.

‘Her!’ declared the woman, pointing an almost accusing finger at the girl, ‘send her into the woods, she can find out why the trees won’t stop talking!’

All turned to look at the girl and the girl looked back. She had been idly chewing sunflower seeds but stopped when they had called her out.

‘Send her into the woods?’ asked the guard dubiously.

‘Aye, send her! She’s only got little ears!’ someone from the crowd shouted.

‘Send her! Send her!’ came the chorus.

The girl rose defiantly, putting her hands on her hips just like she had seen her mother do at the fishmongers, when she refused to back down from a deal.

‘Alright!’ the guard shouted at the crowd.

‘You!’ he turned to the elected girl, ‘go out to the woods and talk to the trees, find out what you can,’

‘Why?’ she said, maintaining her attitude and composure.

‘Nevermind why! Just go!’ the guard shouted.

‘Go!’ ‘Go!’ came the chorus from the crowd.

‘Go where?’ asked the girl’s mother who had come out from the laundry house above with a wicker basket of washing on her hip.

‘Into the woods!’ came the answer from the crowd. The mother looked at the crowd and then to her daughter’s belligerent and pouting face. She shifted her basket from one hip to the other.

‘Aye, go on then,’ she decided and patted the girl on the back, pushing her off the step. The mother so reckoned that because she already had twelve children, and this ten-year-old daughter was inextricably bad at everything she turned her hands to, it would be awfully convenient if she went and got lost in the woods.

‘Off you pop then,’ she told the girl, before heading back up the steps to the laundry house, where she had to dribble three toddlers back behind the door with her feet.

The young girl, who insisted the guard call her by her name of Rhonwen and not just by ‘girl’, was pushed out of town. She was shoved down the tracks and through the fields, and then kicked up the path to the trees. There, the guard abandoned her. And told her not to come back until she had got to the root of it. So Rhonwen stood before the trees, listening to the creaking chatter that had been the cause of so much distress. To her, it didn’t seem so bad. But the guard had positively stuffed his hat inside his ears to belay the noise.

She wasn’t so sure of the trees though, they looked old and creased and mean. So, to give herself courage, and to show them that she wasn’t afraid, she stuck out her tongue and made a noise like ‘Nnnmmmm!’

Understanding this gesture at once, the rank of trees set about bringing forth all of their most terrifying tricks. First, they went completely silent, cutting off all chatter. Then, they sent out the low, deep HOOS of an owl which reverberated through their limbs. This was then joined by the awful snickering chatter of ground animals. And any birdsong that had been in the air was pushed out, along with the hush and light breezes from the fields behind. And in this new eerie quiet she could make out the trespasses around her. Dead twigs were broken under scurrying feet and the flap of dark wings flashed in her periphery vision.

LEAVE, said The Forest.

Rhonwen ran a hot, chest-burning sprint through the corn and carrots of the fields, with the loud baying of the trees at her back. They were louder than ever now and she did not stop until she reached Friday’s gate.

When she did, it was closed. The guard that had pushed her out was nowhere to be seen. He had already gone home for some stew and an argument with his mother.

There was a guard there, behind a corner on the other side, but they looked very disgruntled and hard to soothe, like a wild boar with its leg caught in a trap; waiting to gore whoever got close.

‘HELLO! LET ME IN’ she shouted, banging on the iron lattice of the gate to be heard over the noise of the trees.

‘WOT!?’ the angry guard bellowed.

Rhonwen looked behind her, she knew the trees wouldn’t be there but the gesture helped her to believe she would be much safer in Friday than out of it.

‘Let me in!’ she pleaded.

The guard rose from their stool and came towards the gate. Rhonwen could see then, that the guard’s hair was blonde and worn in a three foot up-do that they had tried to squish under their guard’s hat.

‘Why, who are you?’ the lady guard sniffed.

‘I live here!’ Rhonwen blurted, quite annoyed that this had happened to her at all.

The guard closed one eye and focused on the girl with just her right.

‘Are you that girl who was sent to see about the trees?’ she quizzed.

‘It’s Rhonwen, not ‘girl’,’ she answered, unable to stop herself from correcting the guard.

‘Well then, you’re not allowed in,’ the guard said triumphantly, ‘captain says you’re not allowed in ‘til you’ve dealt with them trees.’

Having said this, the guard turned and in a faster-than-usual strut made immediately for the gatehouse door, slipping behind it before Rhonwen could say anything in protest. But she could see the nose of the guard peeking through the window, waiting to watch her leave.

Little Rhonwen with the little ears, put in as much effort as she could to make her storm away from the gate more impactful and angry-looking. But she was so tired and dejected that all it amounted to was kicking dust up in her own face and hair. Feeling sad and alone, she headed for the l’arl shepherd’s hut that was set two wheat paddies back from the edge of the forest. She could see the trees outside the window, as she settled into the dog’s bed on the floor of the old cramped hut. She tucked the tatty blankets up to her chin and tried to pretend to be happy that there was no one else in the hut. But really she missed the comfort and familiarity of voices around her.

The next morning, on Dinnsday, Rhonwen was woken unceremoniously by the clatter of a cup being dropped. She shot up, bleary-eyed and out of sorts.

‘Sorry,’ a voice mumbled.

‘Who . . .?’ she said, with a lick of dribble at the corner of her mouth. In front of her, there was a boy in breeches and a dirty woollen jumper picking a cup up off the floor.

‘I’ve come to make tea,’ he said.

Her face still looked about as confused as a fish so he added ‘I’m the shepherd’s boy,’ for clarification.

‘Oh,’ she said. Then thinking it had nothing to do with her, put her head back down to sleep. The shepherd’s boy coughed.

‘I’m afraid you’ve to leave soon,’ he told her, ‘master won’t like you being in here, not unless you can deliver a lamb,’ the way he tilted his head suggested that he didn’t believe she could.

‘I don’t want to deliver lambs!’ she said hotly, then got up to leave the crummy hut. ‘I don’t want to do anything!’

The best way, Rhonwen decided, to get back to doing nothing, was to get the business with trees over and done with. So thinking, she made her way to the tree-line to give them a piece of her mind.

‘Excuse me!’ she said, pulling up before them with her mother’s steadfast bargaining stance.

LEAVE NOW! OR WE SHALL BRING FORTH THE TERRORS!

‘And you will be slaiiiin!’ chimed in another voice.

‘Eviscerated!’ said another, with a tone as nasally as a tree’s can get.

NOW GO! BACK TO YOUR TOWN.

Rhonwen shivered with fear and closed her eyes. She considered going back to the shepherd’s hut to learn the ways of the lamb. But that seemed like too much work and she told herself (rather dramatically) that she’d rather lay down dead in a ditch than do that. No, she wanted her own bed in her mother’s house.

‘I can’t go back! They won’t let me! So you have to speak to me, tell me why you won’t be quiet!’

NO, boomed The Forest.

‘YES!’ Rhonwen boomed back.

The trees gasped, or rather there was a collective rustle in their leaves.

‘Rather rude, isn’t she?’ said a voice to her left.

‘I’ll say,’ agreed another.

‘Well, now we’re not going to talk to you,’ one harrumphed.

‘But you already said you weren’t going to talk to me,’ she pointed out.

‘Oh yes, we did. Then we SHALL talk to you-HA!’

Several trees groaned, swaying on their aching limbs.

JUST LEAVE, came the deep monotone voice of The Forest. Its words seemed to rumble out from within the ancient heart of the woods, sounding like it was Lord over all others.

‘But they said they’d talk!’ complained Rhonwen, ‘you’re not being fair at all!’

So saying, she crossed her arms and turned her back on them, pushing the contemptuous tip of her nose into the air.

‘Oh, urrr, well, what is fair then?’ asked a meeker voice.

‘You have to give me a chance,’ she said, still turned snootily away.

‘OOoo, like a bet!?’ asked a good giddy voice.

‘We do love a good bet,’

‘Yes! Let’s do a bet!’

NO BETS!

‘A bet like what?’ she asked the more amenable voices. She turned slightly with one interested eye open. (She pretended not to see the looming terrors that bristled around The Forest’s voice)

‘Bet you can’t hit that stump from there with one of your seeds,’

NO BETS

‘She doesn’t have seeds, she’s a people,’ said an obvious voice.

‘Yeah well maybe she does,’ another argued.

‘Huh! Just watch this!’ said Rhonwen, popping one of her sunflower seeds in her mouth. Then she spat one at lightning speed, hitting the centre of the stump with a satisfying plink.

‘WOOooo!’ cried a joyous voice

‘She did it’ cooed another.

NO MORE SPITTING ON CARL’S BODY

‘What’s next?’ the woods asked her.

Rhonwen considered and then said ‘You have to tell me why you’re talking so much,’

‘But what about our bet?’

‘Yeah! We want a bet!’

‘But you don’t need one,’ she explained.

‘Oh, so now she’s not playing fair,’

‘Hmmph!’ agreed several many trees from around the wood.

‘Alright! I’ll give you a bet! And then you tell me,’

NO BETS

‘Ooo yes, we love a bet,’

Rhonwen sat down on Carl’s stumpy remains. She felt like if she really thought about it, she could

outsmart these trees. Then she grinned a very smug grin, one that showed all of her teeth.

‘I bet,’ she stated, ‘that you can’t be quiet for a whollllle night,’

‘Oh bet we can!’ the trees answered immediately. Then shushed themselves with a gust of wind that went through them with a ShhhhSSHhhh.

PLEASE, NO BETS, JUST GO.

ShhhSSHHhhhhhh

Rhonwen rubbed her mischievous little hands together. Then she turned to go, feeling sure that they were really being quiet.

‘Where are you going?’ asked a voice that might have belonged to a little shrubbery.

‘Ha! You lose the bet, you talked!’ she pointed at the trees and laughed.

‘No- No-! How can you tell if we held up our end of the bet, if you’re not here to see?’ quizzed another voice.

‘But that wasn’t part of the bet!’

‘Well then,’ said an uppity voice. And then the entire tree line exploded into argument and singing and a whole cacophony of noises that would have made Thunder itself feel quiet and demure.

‘Very well!’ Rhonwen huffed and stepped forward, ‘move aside then,’ she said, and entered the woods by the grace of a yew tree. She found a mossy dell between the trees and settled in for the night. She reasoned with herself that she could spend one night outdoors, away from a bed, if it meant she could climb right back into one in the morning.

At some point during the night, a shower of fragrant leaves fell on her sleeping form.

Next morning, on Lobesday, Rhonwen woke feeling actually quite refreshed. As she stretched up and out of her comfortable bower, the soft coo of a wood pigeon filled the air. And there was a set of newly-bloomed daisies sprouting in the grass underfoot. There were plump pinecones too, and happy swaying dandelions. It all looked lovely in the morning’s light, and she thought it might be nice to stay there, were it not for the fact that none of it looked edible to her.

So, as the trees were all still quiet, she stepped out from the woods and was greeted immediately by the shepherd’s boy. He was sat on a fence post and had clearly stolen the apple he was eating from the hamper he had at his feet.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, bending down to the hamper. She could already smell its fresh oatcakes.

‘Food,’ he said between crunches of apple, ‘for you,’

Rhonwen beamed and threw open the lid. Sitting right on top of the other fare, were the still-warm oatcakes. She pulled one out and stuffed it into her mouth. Then she grabbed one of the stoppered jars and sniffed; orange juice! She finished her mouthful then took a glug.

‘But why?’ she thought to ask after a second bite of oatcake.

‘So you don’t go back to Friday,’

‘Wha-‘ she stopped tearing open a well-meaning loaf of seeded bread and looked at him.

‘They said I’s to bring you food, so you don’t need to go back,’ said the shepherd’s boy, continuing to munch his apple nonchalantly.

‘But why am I not allowed?’ Rhonwen asked with tears springing into her eyes.

The shepherd’s boy jumped from his post and gave her a sage pat on the back.

‘The trees have been quiet with you out here,’ he answered simply.

‘That’s not fair!’ she cried.

‘Not fair, she says,’ the trees began.

On the next day, Chandlersday, the shepherd’s lad brought her food again.

‘How do you do it?’ he asked of her, while she was polishing of the pots of jam and honey.

‘Hmm?’ she looked up at him, breakfast smudges on her face.

‘The trees,’ he said, ‘how do you keep them quiet?’

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed and then wiped her fingers down the front of her dress, ‘Mmm, well, the woods have grown so much, see, and they’ve spread quite far from The Forest, at the heart of the woods,’

The shepherd’s boy bobbed his head up and down as she explained.

‘So, the trees don’t listen, or just can’t hear what The Forest tells them. So they end up arguing. They can’t agree most times. So the best way is to settle it with a bet; leaving it to chance to decide. The Forest doesn’t much like that though, I think it likes being in charge.’

THAT IS NOT TRUE

The shepherd’s boy took this all in as best he could, but admittedly couldn’t deduce much. What he did garner from it however, he voiced; ‘Bet you can’t finish them cakes faster than me,’

‘Oooooo,’ echoed the voices around the wood.

‘Bet she can!’ cried one of them.

Rhonwen put a slice of bread down and dusted off her sticky hands. Her eyes locked with the shepherd’s boy’s and they grinned together.

BET SHE CAN’T, murmured The Forest.

Rhonwen and the Shepherd’s boy (who she later found out was called Eric) created for themselves a happy little paradise in the friendly boughs of the woods, where they were brought fresh food every day by the townsfolk of Friday. And they continued to do so forevermore, bringing generous offerings to the esteemed lady of the wood who controlled the trees with her mysterious powers.

In time, her reputation became entangled with her own myth and legend. There was the tale of the missing axemen; gone to chop her trees down and finding themselves mysteriously missing the next day. There was the story of the secret tunnel; where youths went to test their mettle and bravery, only to be sent home with their purses emptied and a rather large headache (brought on after hearing too many voices talking at once).

Some of her tales also took a dark turn, tales as would victimise the shepherd’s boy. The lad who had told the woman of the woods that she was to stay out of their town. He had gone missing the very same day. Leaving behind only the upturned hamper that he had so innocently taken into the wood so that the woman may eat.

Not everyone in Friday believed the scarier tales though, it was just that their existence was enough to stop the curious folk from finding out how the woman of the wood really kept the trees under her spell. And if anyone had cared to look, they might have been surprised to find a herd of small-eared babies roaming wild through the wood. These chubby little beings grew up with moss between their toes, and the language of bets on their lips. All watched over by their loving parents, Rhonwen and Eric.