The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon Read online

  The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon

  Питер Сойер Бигл

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  The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon

  by Peter S. Beagle

  Findros had just begun to sniffle, and Mourra was still impatiently denying her own rising fear, when the tall man with the ragged cloak and the funny, pointy hat fell out of a tree in front of them. The children both yelped and recoiled, but only for a moment: there is simply nothing alarming or impressive about a man, whatever his size, wearing a hat that looks like a cross between a dunce cap and a crown. Raised not to stare rudely at strangers, Findros and Mourra nonetheless gaped shamelessly as the man stumbled to his knees, then quickly found his feet. He was certainly the tallest person either of them had ever seen, yet not big, not in a menacing way, like a giant or an ogre. Politely, he was slender, lean; less politely, gangleshanked; rudely, skinny, meager, gaunted-down. His thinness made his hands and feet look bigger than they really were, like those of a puppy yet expected to grow into his floppy paws, while his generous, flaring nose definitely belonged on an older, fiercer face. And if the green eyes were at once deep and distant, his voice was light and warm, a voice that tried not to call attention to itself. The man asked, “Children, are you in trouble? Are you lost?”

  It was the word lost that did it — that, and the genuine concern in the tall man’s tone. Findros promptly burst into tears, and Mourra swung a hard little fist at him, hissing, “Stop it, you baby! Don’t you cry!” She herself would have died a silent martyr before ever admitting to any sort of fear or pain; though where that streak in her came from neither her mother Sairey, nor anyone else in the family, could ever have said. Mourra herself had long ago decided that it was a special gift from the father she could barely recall — he had died when she was not quite four — and treasured it accordingly. Findros had no such tradition to keep up.

  “No,” she said loudly to the stranger. “We’re not lost, we’re just going home a different way. I keep telling him.”

  The tall man rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. He said, “Boy, I’ve mislaid the road myself, all my life. Believe me, it’s not the end of the world.” But Findros howled as loud as ever, pointing a dirty forefinger at his sister. The man raised heavy eyebrows without speaking.

  “He keeps saying I got us lost,” Mourra told him wearily. “But I didn’t, I never did. We went to the picnic, and then on the way home he was the one who just had to pick blackberries, and then we got turned around a little bit, but I still knew right where we were, and then —” her voice faltered for the first time — “then we had to go round through Craighley Wood, because old Mr. Willaby’s turned his bull into the north field, and so then we…”

  “Then you losted us!” Findros seized on her hesitancy, triumphant in terror. “You losted us, and you don’t know the way home, and it’s getting dark —”

  “I do so know how to get home, you liar!” The presence of the strange tall man made Mourra feel much younger than her eleven years, which in turn made her angry. “But I’m not going to move an inch until you stop your baby bawling! Look, I’m sitting down right now, you little baby!” She promptly plopped herself down by the roadside, in a patch of dry grass, folding her arms and grinning mockingly at Findros. “And if you don’t stop that crying, I’ll just sit here until it’s really dark, and the nightfliers will come and eat you, and they won’t leave a thing except your anklebones and your nasty dirty toes —”

  “Enough.” The tall man raised his hands, gesturing them both to silence. He sighed in the unmistakable way of a tired, exasperated grownup. He said, “Well, I had other plans, but never mind. I will see you home.”

  Findros stared, and went back to just sniffling. He eyed the tall man suspiciously. “You don’t live here. You don’t know where we live. You don’t know anything.”

  From another adult, stranger or no, Mourra would have expected anger at such insolence, even braced herself to defend Findros from swift and merited chastisement. But the stranger only smiled. He said, “That is perfectly true. I come from very far away, and I have never been in this country before in my life. But I will still take you home, because I am a magician, and magicians can do things like that. Come.”

  Without another word, he turned and began walking away from them down the narrow little road, still muddy from the rain of two days before. To Mourra’s amazement, Findros — from birth as wary as any wild animal of anyone he didn’t know — ran after him, taking hold of his left hand, exactly as he did with their mother when the three of them went out walking together. Mourra wavered briefly between fascination and distinct annoyance that her brother should have admitted an outsider to the kind of confidence he almost never granted her; then got to her feet and hurried after them, placing herself firmly on the stranger’s right, though without so much as looking at the inviting free hand, easily available. She decided on the spot that she was far too old to need such childish reassurances of protection, and she made the vow stick all the rest of that day.

  “Why were you up in the tree?” she heard Findros questioning the stranger. “Were you doing a trick? Gicians do tricks.”

  “Do they so?” The tall man looked mildly surprised, as though he had never heard of such a thing. “Well, would this count, do you suppose?” In rapid succession, lightly ruffling Findros’ hair, he produced a handful of cowrie shells, along with a turtle egg, a few old coins and a tiny bell, all of which he handed to the boy.

  Findros closed his hand over his new treasures, but his mouth remained slackly open in wonder. Mourra said scornfully, “You put all those things in his hair. You had them in your hand, up your sleeve. I saw.”

  The green eyes considered her, and the tall man nodded slowly. “You’re quite right. It was just a trick, nothing more. That’s what I do, tricks.” His voice sounded to Mourra as though he were biting down on something hard. “But then again, I know your names — Findros and Mourra, children of Sairey. There’s a good trick, surely?”

  Both children stared — Findros in wide-eyed fascination, Mourra in sudden alarm. No one outside family was ever supposed to know a person’s birth name: you could never tell what might be done with it by the ill-meaning. The stranger said, “My name is Schmendrick.”

  Findros shook his head. “That’s a funny name.”

  The stranger agreed cheerfully. “It is, indeed, but I’m used to it. Now that’s a fine, strong name you have — Findros! I’d much rather have a name like that.”

  “I’m just Findros for right now.” The boy made a gesture with two fingers, as though he was flicking something away into the grass. “When I grow up, I’m going to tell people my name’s Joris, because that was my father’s name. Our father’s name,” he added, in a quick concession to his scowling sister. “He’s dead.” The stranger nodded sympathetically, but said nothing.

  A low-hanging twig brushed Mourra’s hair, and a small spider dropped onto her arm. She screamed involuntarily, shaking the creature to the ground, lifting her foot to crush it. Schmendrick said quickly, “Ah, don’t do that,” and although he neither raised his voice nor reached to interfere, she moved away without stamping on the spider. This made her even more annoyed with the tall man, for reasons she could not explain. She kicked a stone, and followed sullenly on.

  The magician said, “I knew a woman once who collected spiders.” Mourra shuddered in revulsion, and though she made no sound, Schmendrick turned his head to regard her out of his green eyes. “She treated them so kindly,” he went on, “and they became so fond of her, that in
time the spiders wove all her clothes, every last garment she wore. What do you think of that, Mourra?”

  How did he know our names? Mourra’s own voice was thin, but steady and clear, as she answered, “I’d never ever touch a dirty old spiderweb. I hate spiders.”

  “Mmm.” The stranger nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, but you should have seen my friend in those gowns and capes and dresses that the spiders made for her. I promise you, Mourra, when she walked out in the moonlight, when she spun on her heels with her arms straight out, the same way you spin and dance when no one is watching —” Mourra flushed angrily — “oh, then you would have thought that she carried the moon inside her, so that it shone right through her. That is just the way those spider-clothes made her look, and that is one reason why you should always be good to spiders, among many others.” He reached for her hand, but she sidled a step away, and he did not press the issue. He said, “You should always be good to anyone — any thing — that can create such beauty. Do you understand me, Mourra?”

  “No,” she said, and nothing more. He walked on, matching his stride to Findros’ short legs; even slowing down a little to accommodate Mourra’s sulkily dragging pace. It seemed to her that he was beginning to look a trifle anxiously from side to side; now and then he made an odd, twisting gesture with his free right hand, or mumbled something under his breath that she could not catch. By and by he said, “I am very sorry your father died. How did it happen?”

  Findros looked at Mourra, for once waiting for her to speak. She muttered, “The dragon.”

  “Dragon?” Schmendrick wrinkled his forehead. “This is not dragon country. Far too low and wet. Dragons hate wet.”

  “It was lost, too,” Mourra said. “It didn’t belong here.” She bit back the impulse to say, like you, and only continued, “It was going to eat us, but Papa fought with it. Papa killed it.”

  “A rogue dragon,” the magician murmured, as though to himself. “I suppose that could be.”

  He had not questioned the story, but Mourra bristled as though he had. “I was there! I was little, but I was there! Papa killed it, all by himself, but it killed him too. I remember!”

  “Me too,” Findros said to no one in particular. “Me too, I member.”

  Mourra turned on him scornfully. “You do not! You were a baby, you were in your cradle — you never even saw the dragon!” Seeing his eyes grow large with tears, she yet could not keep herself from adding, “You don’t even remember Papa!”

  A sound came out of Findros that might have started out to be you take that back, but had dissolved into a wordless screech of outrage by the second word. Schmendrick caught him round the waist in midair as he lunged at his sister. Studying her over the boy’s struggling body, he said, mildly enough, “That was a cruel thing to say.”

  Mourra had known that before the words were out of her mouth, but she would have dared Willaby’s bull before apologizing to Findros in this man’s presence. The magician set Findros on his feet with some caution, saying, “Come, we must walk faster if I am to have you home before dark.” Findros took his hand again without question.

  Brooding behind them as they walked, Mourra heard the boy announcing, “You could have killed the dragon. Gicians can kill dragons, can’t they?”

  “Some of us can,” the tall man answered absently. “Myself, I usually try to talk to them. You learn more that way.” He was silent for a moment, and then asked, “What sort of a dragon was it?”

  Findros looked confused for only a moment. “It was black. All black and normous, and with big orange eyes. And horns, and things all over it. Bumples.”

  Mourra said tonelessly, “It was gray. A kind of purply-gray, like a storm cloud. Like thunder. And its eyes were silver, and it didn’t have any horns or anything — it just had fire. Fire and teeth and claws.”

  The magician said, “Your father must have been a very brave man. I never knew even a knight or a soldier dared face a dragon alone.”

  He was not looking at Mourra now, but she felt his eyes on her even so. She said, “He was the bravest man in the world.” When Schmendrick did not reply, she continued fiercely, “There’s going to be a statue of him in the town, on the green. Him fighting the dragon. It’ll be finished soon.”

  “And I wish I could be here to see it properly dedicated,” the magician responded heartily. “But I must deliver you to your mother and be on my way, for I’ve a long journey yet to go. Yes…” The last word was uttered in a different, softer tone, almost a whisper, as though he had not meant to say it, or for the children to hear. Mourra still did not take hold of his hand, but she moved slightly closer.

  Findros said stubbornly, “It was a black dragon. I was there.” Mourra did not answer him. Findros peered cautiously into his closed left fist. “I like turtle eggs. You can bounce them.”

  Schmendrick halted, no longer attempting to conceal the fretful, mysterious movements of his long hands, nor to disguise the fact that he was looking apprehensively in every direction. Mourra said, “You’re lost.” It was not a question.

  The magician looked embarrassed. After a moment, he said, “Yes. I have taken you even further out of your way than you were, and I haven’t the slightest notion of how to bring you home. I am very sorry.”

  Mourra had expected her brother to burst into frightened tears a second time — the horizon was definitely growing transparent with approaching sunset — but Findros only said confidently, “But you’re a gician. You can do a trick.” He leaned against Schmendrick’s leg.

  Schmendrick said, as though to himself, “I thought I had that much magic in me. At least…that much. I was wrong.”

  Findros looked up at him, and began to sniffle again. Mourra said, “Maybe if we go left, just up there, maybe…” But her voice trailed away, and she could do no more than point diffidently to a path further ahead. The magician shook his head.

  “There is one more…trick I can try, but I will need your help. I cannot do it without you.” He held his hands out, reaching silently for theirs. Surprisingly, it was Mourra who — after a long moment — took firm hold of his left hand, while Findros hesitated until his sister nudged him sharply. The boy’s grip on Schmendrick’s hand was more than tentative, barely making contact with all five fingertips. But the tall man smiled at him, saying, “Very good, thank you. Now close your eyes, and repeat everything — everything — I say. We will get home together.”

  He closed his own eyes and began to chant softly and musically. The syllables meant nothing to the children, but their sound was curiously comforting, though Mourra could not imagine why that should be. She kept her eyes tightly shut and repeated the words as clearly as she could, half-singing them as the magician did. When I open my eyes again, I’ll be home. I’ll be home with Mama.

  But when her eyes did open, they saw nothing at all different. The countryside around them was as unchanged as the stones under her feet and the pale-gold clouds over the distant red-oak hills. Schmendrick had let go of her hand and her brother’s, and his face was so despairing that Mourra would have felt sorry for him if she had not been so concerned to forestall a second tearful panic on Findros’ part. She said, “I think we ought to turn around. There’s a cowpath we always take, we must have missed it.” The magician neither answered nor looked at her.

  They had started to turn back — Schmendrick offering neither leadership nor resistance — when they saw a farm wagon emerging from the narrow path Mourra had pointed out earlier and swinging toward them. The driver recognized them, as did the horse; it stopped before he had even touched the reins. He was a big man with a white hair topping an amiable red face, set in its turn above broad shoulders and a cheerfully aggressive belly. He grumbled, “Sairey’s lot — I know you. Whatever be you doing, so far from home at dinnertime?”

  Mourra answered him quickly, saying, “We were coming back from the picnic, and we got lost.” She nodded toward Schmendrick. “This is our friend. He was helping us.”

&nb
sp; The farmer eyed Schmendrick up and down, turned his head and spat to the side. “H’ant done much of a job, got to say. Get y’selves up behind me.” He considered Schmendrick again, at some length, before he nodded. “Him, too.”

  Mourra yanked her brother away from feeding handfuls of grass to the old horse, and the children scrambled into the wagon. Schmendrick hesitated, looking as though he would have preferred to walk, and not necessarily in the same direction. But after a moment he sighed briefly, then shrugged and climbed up beside them, doubling his long legs like a grasshopper to leave room. The driver grunted a single word, and the wagon started on.

  They had indeed, following Schmendrick, wandered far enough from their road home that it was full twilight by the time the horse halted of its own accord and the farmer pointed down a wildflower slope toward a small, tidy house tucked into a ripple of hillsides. A woman stood in the doorway, shading her eyes, beckoning uncertainly.

  Findros was out of the cart and running before the farmer had had a chance to growl, “Figure he’ll likely get you the rest of the way,” jerking his chin at Schmendrick. “Best to your ma.”

  The woman was hurrying toward them now, picking up her skirts, as the farm wagon rumbled off. The magician said quietly, “Not much use for finding your way home, are they? Tricks.”

  Mourra stood still, peering up into the magician’s green eyes, suddenly so far above her. She said, “We got home. Maybe the wagon…maybe that was the magic. That could be.”

  Schmendrick stared at her without replying. She looked away, looked back at him, stood on one foot, scuffling the other in the soft earth, and finally asked, “I know you had all those things in your sleeve — I know that — but…but is there anything in my hair? Like with Findros?”

  The magician went on regarding her for a long moment before putting his hand lightly on her head. “Mmm…well, definitely no eggs of any sort…no money, more’s the pity…no pretty shells…hello, hello — now what on earth have we here?”