Peter S. Beagle - Two Hearts

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2024-11-24 0 0 61.92KB 20 页 5.9玖币

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TWO HEARTS

Peter S. Beagle

MY BROTHER WILFRID KEEPS saying it's not fair that it should all have happened to me. Me being

a girl, and a baby, and too stupid to lace up my own sandals properly. But I think it's fair. I think

everything happened exactly the way it should have done. Except for the sad parts, and maybe those

too.

I'm Sooz, and I am nine years old. Ten next month, on the anniversary of the day the griffin came.

Wilfrid says it was because of me, that the griffin heard that the ugliest baby in the world had just been

born, and it was going to eat me, but I was too ugly, even for a griffin. So it nested in the Midwood (we

call it that, but its real name is the Midnight Wood, because of the darkness under the trees), and stayed

to eat our sheep and our goats. Griffins do that if they like a place.

But it didn't ever eat children, not until this year.

I only saw it once — I mean, once before — rising up above the trees one night, like a second moon.

Only there wasn't a moon, then. There was nothing in the whole world but the griffin, golden feathers all

blazing on its lion's body and eagle's wings, with its great front claws like teeth, and that monstrous beak

that looked so huge for its head.…Wilfrid says I screamed for three days, but he's lying, and I didn't hide

in the root cellar like he says either, I slept in the barn those two nights, with our dog Malka. Because I

knew Malka wouldn't let anything get me.

I mean my parents wouldn't have, either, not if they could have stopped it. It's just that Malka is the

biggest, fiercest dog in the whole village, and she's not afraid of anything. And after the griffin took

Jehane, the blacksmith's little girl, you couldn't help seeing how frightened my father was, running back

and forth with the other men, trying to organize some sort of patrol, so people could always tell when the

griffin was coming. I know he was frightened for me and my mother, and doing everything he could to

protect us, but it didn't make me feel any safer, and Malka did.

But nobody knew what to do, anyway. Not my father, nobody. It was bad enough when the griffin was

only taking the sheep, because almost everyone here sells wool or cheese or sheepskin things to make a

living. But once it took Jehane, early last spring, that changed everything. We sent messengers to the king

— three of them — and each time the king sent someone back to us with them. The first time, it was one

knight, all by himself. His name was Douros, and he gave me an apple. He rode away into the Midwood,

singing, to look for the griffin, and we never saw him again.

The second time — after the griffin took Louli, the boy who worked for the miller — the king sent five

knights together. One of them did come back, but he died before he could tell anyone what happened.

The third time an entire squadron came. That's what my father said, anyway. I don't know how many

soldiers there are in a squadron, but it was a lot, and they were all over the village for two days, pitching

their tents everywhere, stabling their horses in every barn, and boasting in the tavern how they'd soon

take care of that griffin for us poor peasants. They had musicians playing when they marched into the

Midwood — I remember that, and I remember when the music stopped, and the sounds we heard

afterward.

After that, the village didn't send to the king anymore. We didn't want more of his men to die, and

besides they weren't any help. So from then on all the children were hurried indoors when the sun went

down, and the griffin woke from its day's rest to hunt again. We couldn't play together, or run errands or

watch the flocks for our parents, or even sleep near open windows, for fear of the griffin. There was

nothing for me to do but read books I already knew by heart, and complain to my mother and father,

who were too tired from watching after Wilfrid and me to bother with us. They were guarding the other

children too, turn and turn about with the other families — and our sheep, and our goats — so they were

always tired, as well as frightened, and we were all angry with each other most of the time. It was the

same for everybody.

And then the griffin took Felicitas.

Felicitas couldn't talk, but she was my best friend, always, since we were little. I always understood

what she wanted to say, and she understood me, better than anyone, and we played in a special way that

I won't ever play with anyone else. Her family thought she was a waste of food, because no boy would

marry a dumb girl, so they let her eat with us most of the time. Wilfrid used to make fun of the whispery

quack that was the one sound she could make, but I hit him with a rock, and after that he didn't do it

anymore.

I didn't see it happen, but I still see it in my head. She knew not to go out, but she was always just so

happy coming to us in the evening. And nobody at her house would have noticed her being gone. None

of them ever noticed Felicitas.

The day I learned Felicitas was gone, that was the day I set off to see the king myself.

Well, the same night, actually — because there wasn't any chance of getting away from my house or

the village in daylight. I don't know what I'd have done, really, except that my Uncle Ambrose was

carting a load of sheepskins to market in Hagsgate, and you have to start long before sunup to be there

by the time the market opens. Uncle Ambrose is my best uncle, but I knew I couldn't ask him to take me

to the king — he'd have gone straight to my mother instead, and told her to give me sulphur and molasses

and put me to bed with a mustard plaster. He gives his horse sulfur and molasses, even.

So I went to bed early that night, and I waited until everyone was asleep. I wanted to leave a note on

my pillow, but I kept writing things and then tearing the notes up and throwing them in the fireplace, and I

was afraid of somebody waking, or Uncle Ambrose leaving without me. Finally I just wrote, I will come

home soon. I didn't take any clothes with me, or anything else, except a bit of cheese, because I thought

the king must live somewhere near Hagsgate, which is the only big town I've ever seen. My mother and

father were snoring in their room, but Wilfrid had fallen asleep right in front of the hearth, and they always

leave him there when he does. If you rouse him to go to his own bed, he comes up fighting and crying. I

don't know why.

I stood and looked down at him for the longest time. Wilfrid doesn't look nearly so mean when he's

sleeping. My mother had banked the coals to make sure there'd be a fire for tomorrow's bread, and my

father's moleskin trews were hanging there to dry, because he'd had to wade into the stockpond that

afternoon to rescue a lamb. I moved them a little bit, so they wouldn't burn. I wound the clock —

Wilfrid's supposed to do that every night, but he always forgets — and I thought how they'd all be

hearing it ticking in the morning while they were looking everywhere for me, too frightened to eat any

breakfast, and I turned to go back to my room.

But then I turned around again, and I climbed out of the kitchen window, because our front door

squeaks so. I was afraid that Malka might wake in the barn and right away know I was up to something,

because I can't ever fool Malka, only she didn't, and then I held my breath almost the whole way as I ran

to Uncle Ambrose's house and scrambled right into his cart with the sheepskins. It was a cold night, but

under that pile of sheepskins it was hot and nasty-smelling, and there wasn't anything to do but lie still and

wait for Uncle Ambrose. So I mostly thought about Felicitas, to keep from feeling so bad about leaving

home and everyone. That was bad enough — I never really lost anybody close before, not forever —

but anyway it was different.

I don't know when Uncle Ambrose finally came, because I dozed off in the cart, and didn't wake until

there was this jolt and a rattle and the sort of floppy grumble a horse makes when he's been waked up

and doesn't like it — and we were off for Hagsgate. The half-moon was setting early, but I could see the

village bumping by, not looking silvery in the light, but small and dull, no color to anything. And all the

same I almost began to cry, because it already seemed so far away, though we hadn't even passed the

stockpond yet, and I felt as though I'd never see it again. I would have climbed back out of the cart right

then, if I hadn't known better.

Because the griffin was still up and hunting. I couldn't see it, of course, under the sheepskins (and I had

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Peter S. Beagle - Two Hearts

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