From the chime tower I could see everything. A bright orange bloom, not unlike the setting sun, except it was much too low and black smoke rose above it into the evening sky. From above I saw the castle's summer guards and stablemen scurrying out to the field like mice. Villagers poured out of their homes at the sound of the church bell. I heard shouts of "Fire! Fire in the fields!" And from behind me the chimes began to ring, the magic in them responding to the bell and the fearful shouting.
The noise startled me from my paralysis. Our grove was burning. If the trees were all lost I might not ever see him again. And what if he was there when the fire started!
I ran down the tower steps, the noise the chimes echoing all around me, heedless of the way I looked. My hair tore loose from its chignon and my dress flapping around my legs as I flew downward. I didn't care who saw me. I had to find him, nothing else mattered.
"Joli!" Father caught my arm and held me back. "The chimes are - were you in the tower - where are you going?"
I turned to him wildly. "Papa," I cried. "There's a fire -"
He nodded, his grip tightened. We stood at the cross hall, just below the tower. Father wore his cornet and a worn garment. An old summer guard was at Father's side in helm and leathers. "It was caught in time, it hasn't spread yet to the wheat. We will contain it before it reaches the village. That would be a disaster. We were lucky a village boy noticed the smoke right away." He dragged me along with him to the courtyard.
All the dames scurried about there, with buckets over their arms or sack cloth in hand. Mother was among them, directing their furious activity. Father joined her. "Stay here Joli," he ordered, handing me over to mother. You were there Sister, in one of the carts. I saw you piling up rolls and lifting tools and blankets to be taken to the village square. Amid all this desperate racing to stop the fire, how could I run off on my own? I knew my place was here. I couldn't escape mother's watchful eye, and so I stayed and helped, even though my heart was breaking.
You must remember that fire, how it destroyed the grove, all those old trees and a large part of the pastures.
By early morning everyone had settled down. The panic was over, and only a small part of the fire smoldered. Father returned to the castle exhausted. Villagers gathered in the courtyard, huddling together, feasting on soup and bread and nectar. There was no way for me to approach the grove, or what remained of it, instead I fled into the gardens. The fruit trees there were small, yet fragrant. I curled up beneath the apricots in the far corner and wept. I was a foolish, stupid girl and only had myself to blame.
"Why is it you are crying?" A soft hand touched my head. His voice.
I looked up. It couldn't be. My eyes surely played a cruel, cruel trick. He knelt there beside me. It was really him. I choked on my tears.
His hand retreated. "I should not have come," he whispered.
"No, no," I cried desperately, reaching for him. "Don't say that. Don't leave me."
Our eyes met. He took my hand this time, pulling me up on my feet and threw his arms around me. "Come with me," he whispered, and before I could reply we were flying through the garden. It felt like I had wings on my feet. My heart was bursting. He was alive still. He came to find me. I didn't know where he was taking me, but I wanted to go wherever he did.
That's what I thought at that moment.
The gardens are not large, as you know sister, but they can be. That night they were more than ever. They changed. Metamorphosed. You probably won't believe me, but as I followed him I soon realized we weren't even in the gardens any longer. The trees grew impossibly tall, and wide enough to live inside. They were no longer simple fruit trees, but giants. They reached up into the heavens. The light diffused through them like golden amber, and the colors, both green and golden, brightened right before my eyes. The ground underneath my feet became a soft mossy carpet.
"Where are we?" I asked him, my voice small and awed by the sight of the gigantic trees and the beautiful colors that surrounded me, like no garden I'd ever seen.
"My home. It is, how can I describe it to you . . . it is what you might call the heart of the forest, like my heart." He touched his chest, then reached out. "Or yours. We are safe here. You are safe as long as you stay with me." He took both my hands in his.
"I was so afraid," I told him, leaning into him. We'd never been so intimate before, had never touched like this.
"Afraid - why?"
"That I might not see you again, that the fire had -"
"There was no need to be afraid of that fire, it could not hurt me. Especially not me, its maker," he sighed, holding me tightly. "I only wanted it to get your attention. I thought you had forgotten me."
I looked at him startled. "You stared the fire?"
He nodded.
"But you - I thought you-" I stepped back. He caught my arm.
"What is it? You look fearful again, why do you look thus?"
That's when I learned he wasn't of forest folk, like I thought. Though he is like the elves, he is different. He is much taller than them after all, and even though he dwells within the forest just like the elves, his home is the heart of the Firewood Forest, but he is very different from them. Just as there are kings who rule over him and those like him. They are all different beings, similar to human, but they are not. He is not either. He can not die so easily.
I learned many things that night, how much I loved him, how tightly I wanted to hold onto him and never let go, and how much that scared me. He didn't understand why the fire upset me as it did, and I couldn't explain properly why. He wanted me to stay in that forest with him, but even though I loved him I couldn't just disappear from Winding; not after the fire, not when he'd set that fire and nearly destroyed my home. He'd burned down the grove just so he could see me again. That frightened me, sister, but it didn't stop me from loving him. How could I stop? I couldn't, after all I had fallen in love with him before I realized it.
The next weeks we met in secret in the gardens and then he would spirit me away to deep within the heart of the forest. I didn't mean to be absent as often as I was, not many people at the castle noticed. At that time Sister, you were desperate to leave Winding, and go to the Circle Kingdom. You had to convince Mother to let you go. In the end she agreed and she made you take me along. I wonder now if she suspected something, and hoped to separate me from my beloved.
The last time we spoke was the night before I left Winding. He came for me like always and we sneaked away to his forest. The light filtering through the giant trees that night was different, redder and harsher as if the forest itself was angry. I know he was angry at my words, no matter how hard I tried to explain.
"Stay here with me," he begged.
"I can't abandon my home," I said, trying to be strong. I was torn inside so much it hurt. "I can't leave behind my sister or my parents."
"You do not love me as you say you do."
"That's not true!" I cried, desperate for him to understand.
"Still you abandon me."
"No, never. I haven't." I shook my head. "I just have no choice. I can't leave them. Why can't you follow me? Can't you follow me to the Circle Kingdom?"
He frowned. He held his arm stiffly as if it pained him. "There are ways," he admitted. "I will try, but I - it will be difficult."
"You will try though. It won't be forever. I'll come back to Winding soon enough and we can be together again. Always." I reached out to him.
He pulled away, still gripping his arm.
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
"It is nothing," he grunted. He didn't look at me. "Come, I will return you to the Castle of Harmony."
I nodded.
That's how we parted ways. A bitter farewell between us. It was practically dawn by the time I returned to the castle. The journey to the Circle Kingdom began a few hours later. It would be a long day, and already my heart was heavy and grieving.
to be continued . . .
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