14) Pebbles
Gretchen's home was neat and orderly, made entirely of wood except for the massive chimney and hearth. Much like Grahme's had become since Bronwyn's arrival, it was a house of different proportions; the table a tad too high for normal comfort, a tad too low for a giant, chairs of two sizes, bowls and plates and spoons likewise. The bed was identical to the one in Grahme's stone tower, and Bronwyn suddenly recognized the craftsmanship in all of it. There was no question that Grahme had built this house, had lovingly carved the furniture and the massive bed. As well, Bronwyn could see that the blocks of the chimney were cut by the same hand that cut the stones of Grahme's house, the hand that had shaped the stones of the village well in the market square.
"Your husband was a stonemason?" Bronwyn guessed, touching the blocks of the chimney, warm from the banked fire.
Gretchen looked startled, but Grahme smiled. “He taught me to carve stone also, but i've always found more solace in softer stuff.”
Gretchen's workspace was as tidy as the rest of her cottage, fabric rolled in lengths and stacked carefully under her workbench. A basket of pins and shears and bits of chalk and wooden spools of thread set to the side with a fine stoneware bowl filled with small polished stones. A harp with several missing strings and a covered frame stood near the wardrobe. Bronwyn recognized it as the instrument that Grahme had spent so many weeks repairing.
Robbie Longfellow sniffed around the room twice before curling up on the footstool of Cormoran's chair. Grahme picked him up and settled himself in that chair, the dog almost lost in his lap.
While Bronwyn built up the fire, Gretchen lit the lamps, her fingers brushing the strings of the harp as she passed it by, a whisper of notes falling into the silence.
"You've never said much about Cormoran," Bronwyn said gently, settling on the hearth by Grahme's knee. Gretchen settled into her rocking-chair, pulling yarn from a basket and rolling it into a ball.
"There's too much to tell, and not much, really, to say," Gretchen's face was troubled, a sweet joy warring with terrible grief. Bronwyn thought she tasted an echo of sweetness in that look, and longed for a kiss she barely remembered herself. Grahme stroked her hair gently and she looked away from Gretchen's loss and deep into the fire. The giant idly lit his pipe and began to speak, his voice rumbling in the silence of the night.
"He was a stonesmith, fifteen years older than I, and all but raised me after our father died. He built houses and kirks and wells, and finally he took me and we traveled far away from our birthplace, in search of a place where giants could dwell in peace. Along the way, we met a merchant and his family, beset by brigands along the road. The brigands stood no chance against a pair of giants, and we drove them away, and then we accompanied them on the last day of their journey to see them safely home.
"The merchant's wife was the most beautiful woman my brother had ever seen, and she sang as beautifully as any bird. But she was married, and had a son and daughters to raise and her merchant to care for, so without ever saying a word about his feelings, Cormoran led us on until we came here." Grahme drew on the pipe for a moment, smoke rings wreathing his head. "The people of this country love their giants, and we had work. They even helped us build the tower on the mountain. We were content. When I was a man grown, Cormoran took to wandering the mountain at night, looking, listening for something he wouldn't share with me. After months of it, he came home with a bundle in his arms."
Gretchen sighed and picked up the thread of the tale. "The merchant's wife always remembered the giant and his brother," she softly, and Bronwyn realized she spoke of herself. "When my husband was killed by wolves one winter, all I could think of after that first shock of grief was a smile I'd seen only for one day and night. I left my children with my sister and set out into the night immediately after the funeral, never looking back. It took me weeks, and I'm no woodsman, so I was nearly starved and more than half frozen when Cormoran found me on the mountainside and brought me home." She looked steadily at Bronwyn. "Cormoran and Grahme built me this house, and Cormoran married me the next summer, and I was happier in the fifteen years after than I'd ever been in the lifetime before."
Bronwyn listened for the tug of fate, or a future or a puzzle to solve, and heard only the crackle of Gretchen's hearth fire. She smoothed her skirts, and felt the magic rippling around her. Robbie, sensing Bronwyn's unease, jumped down from the Giant's lap and came to his mistress, stretching up to put his paws on her knee and look at her with mournful eyes. She fondled his ears absently, drawing them between her fingers. "What happened next?"
Gretchen bowed her head, grief and shame swirling around her in the eddies of the magics. "Cormoran was killed by a youth named Jak, the son of a merchant who became a thief after his father died and his mother left them behind when he was three. One of his sisters died of a fever, and the other took up with a faithless gypsy and probably wanders still with him. He came to me while Cormoran was out helping Grahme repair a kirk-tower in the next county, demanding to know why I had abandoned them, why I had left them with my sister. He demanded that I change his fortunes as a punishment for abandoning them, and for days he hounded me. He brought me an old cow, commanded me to bring her milk down to make into a charm to give him coin. I'm no witch, but I know a bit about herbs, but the cow was old and terrible, and she died the second day. He brought me a goose, and demanded that I make her lay golden eggs." She laughed bitterly. "The goose died, too, and I hoped he would desist, but he continued on the third day, insisting that I give him something, anything, to reverse his fortune. He smashed my harp and threatened to do me harm." She was silent for a long time. "So I gave him what I called magic beans, told him to plant them at the bottom of the cliff that the Giant's Tower was built upon. Somehow the beans grew up, woven together, into a mighty vine that reached up into the clouds.” Bronwyn frowned, thinking of a dream long past, but listened carefully as her friend continued to speak.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"I didn't know that my husband had returned late in the night, stopping at the Tower to rest before coming the rest of the way down the mountain the next morning. I didn't know that Jak had stolen one of Cormoran's knives, that he would use it to cut out my sleeping husband's eyes and then drive him with a dozen cuts to the edge until he fell from the cliff to his death. His body fell with such force that we thought the earth had quaked, and the stones he fell upon crumbled into pebbles and were ground smooth." The widder touched the pebbles in the bowl with regret.
"Jak stole a sack full of rocks from beneath my husband's body, finding that some of them had soaked his blood like rubies, and others gleamed like diamond, and nuggets that looked like ivory and gold and jade. He took them all, intending to share the wealth with his aunt.."
Grahme shifted in his seat. "I found my brother's body the next day, and tracked the boy. He was beset by brigands the first night, and they took all he had. The next night, a wolf came upon him and finished the job. I found the brigand's lair and took back what was ours, resolved that they would never waylay another traveler, no matter how good or evil. I followed the wolf another night and day, but never found him before I knew I must return to my home and my brother's widder."
"Six months after Cormoran died, fate or magic sent to us you, Bronwyn, a woman who would be my friend and Grahme's lover, and eventually you will be my healer. I will die peacefully at planting time with my brother in law and his wife at my side." She smiled at Grahme. "Maybe we can restring my harp before then."
Bronwyn slipped out of her chair, kneeling before Gretchen and taking the older woman's hands in hers. "How can you know this?" She searched Gretchen's face for any sign of uncertainty in her words, but found none. Worse, she read clearly what she had chosen to ignore earlier, a darkness around her friend's eyes, a tightness at the corners of her mouth that spoke of lingering pain.
"Oh, I knew I was ill even before my Cormoran was taken from me. Since then, I've no desire to live past the pain, except perhaps to see you wed Grahme at Midsummer."
The witch's eyes filled with tears. "I can't grant wishes, Gretchen," she said out of old habit, though she thought perhaps that wasn't true anymore. "I don't have that power."
Grahme gestured with his pipe, shaking his head. "I won't marry her, sister. Bronwyn is dearer to me than I could ever say, but she's pulled by fate. I can't ask her to choose between saving a child or a kingdom and staying with an aging giant who has little impact on the world." Bronwyn looked up at him sharply, stung.
"You have impact on my world," she insisted sharply, but he only smiled and did not reply.
The giant's widder saved them from having to continue the exchange. "I saw the end of my story in my grandmother's mirror. I don't have any living daughters, and I'd like you to have it after I die. It might help you to see whether marrying your giant, or not, is the right thing for you." Gretchen rose stiffly, gently pulling her hands from Bronwyn's grasp. She walked over to the covered frame and pulled the linen drape aside. Bronwyn followed her, wading through the magics that pooled thick on the floor, spilling from the mirror as Gretchen stood before it.
Clearly, Bronwyn saw Gretchen's reflection, perfect in every detail, young and vivid and undistorted by any irregularities in the glass. The woman in the mirror had rich auburn hair, not its current fading glory. Her love for her late husband was written clearly in her face, but so was the pain and the darkness in her belly, a darkness that sucked down all her life and energy and grew to consume her. The reflection drew Bronwyn in, and it was as if she saw time move forward, the illness overtaking her friend until she lay gasping in pain in the bed she'd shared with Cormoran. Familiar hands gave her a drought, a sip from a flask, and Bronwyn recognized her own blood-stained hands holding the woman's head, and saw the slim gold band on her left hand. Before the meaning of that came clear, peace and relief eased the deep lines of pain in the dying woman's face, and Bronwyn and Grahme left the house together as it burned, a pyre for the giant's widder.
Then the image in the mirror changed, and Bronwyn saw herself, and the magic that was gathering around her. It made itself at home in the high mountain village, seeping into the ground like floodwaters easing finally into a pond. She saw a young woman with hair the color of hay and hazel eyes standing near the well, throwing in a silver coin and closing those eyes tight, and later a green-eyed, golden haired girl running towards Bronwyn, laughing. In a flash, the green-eyed girl was a young woman herself. A woman a few years older, dark hair falling forward over her face in a curtain, held up a newborn babe with wonder in her eyes, lifting the babe to Bronwyn’s waiting hands. Finally, a raven haired prince with hard yellow eyes and Bronwyn's fair white skin rode his charger through the woods, his eyes glassy with fever and madness.
Bronwyn drew herself out of the vision with a start, turning to Grahme. "No, Gretchen is right. You will marry me at Midsummer, my Giant. I have a few years yet to be here." He looked at her, startled, but she turned back to Gretchen before he could speak. “And as for you, dear sister, I must plant something in your garden, because you have yet to make my wedding dress.”