Speaker 1: Hi. Welcome to Fiction Revised, a short story podcast where
each episode is a short story, rewritten, reimagined, and reshaped
into a different genre, which is chosen at random the sweek,
our short story is coming back. It's actually the second
version of this story. The first version was a horror genre.
This one is. It's going to be revised into a
fairy tale genre. By the time Arcole the Wizard reached
the clearing, the sun was already sliding down behind the
back of the pine, staining the sky and royal purples
and burnt gold. The giant tree stood at the center
of the glade, huge and hollow, its trunk split and
blackened in long crooked lines. Wind crept through the tall grass,
carrying a faint smell of old ash and wet earth.
The bark of the tree which charged in places and silver, gray,
and others magical scars of the last story oar Cole
had from this place he used to call home. High above,
some branches had grown new leaves, while others stuck out,
bare and broken. It did not look alive. It did
not look dead either. It looked like something that had
survived by accident. Ar Cole adjusted the strap of his satchel.
It was nearly empty. If everything went how he had hoped,
a foolish expectation, mind you, he knew it would be full.
When he walked back the way he'd come. Inside this tree,
behind an oak panel he had once carved and blessed himself,
he had hidden the Book of Restoring, thick and heavy
and stubborn. The book held spells for knitting bone and
binding life back to the edge of the body, for
calling warmth into cold limbs, for coaxing a spirit to
return to a forgotten life. Our coal had been fairly
successful at keeping his village safe, rebuilding what life he
could after the battle that had taken more from him
than just his home. Then the girl in the village
started to fade, the baker's daughter, Lena, who used to
sneak him sugared rolls and ask about the constellations. She
lay on a bed by the fire, now, her skin
too cold and too hot at the same time, her
breath shallow and small. He had tried herbal remedies, potions
and books that would work for an hour or maybe
a day, but it never lasted. She was fading, and
Arcle knew he had to try something, And so here
he was standing before the hollow tree that remembered every
mistake he let out of breath he hadn't realized he
was holding the irir tasted of damp bark and the faint,
bitter tang of burned magic. Goenn. He told himself, find
the book, go home, simple, But most stories are never
that simple. He remembered that once there had been a
perfectly curved door set into the trunk of his beautiful home.
That he had painstakingly decorated. This door with stars and swirls.
It had a brass handle, polished by years of visitors.
Now that door hung from its hinges, cracked and worthless.
He paused at the threshold for a heartbeat. He saw
the tree as it had been when Lanterns hung along
the inner walls like tame fireflies, and the shelves curled
around the spiral of the trunk, heavy with books. A
long wooden table stood in the middle, scored with knife
marks and inkstrokes. Maren Arkell's apprentice was sitting at the
table with a pen in her hand, tongue caught between
her teeth, studying. Then the wind shifted and the vision
peeled away like smoke, leaving the real hollow before him,
dark and broken and quiet. Stepped inside, the silence folded
over him at once. The charred walls soaked themselves with
the sound of the forest, till all that was left
was his breath and footsteps. The interior of the tree
rose around him in a tall cylinder, wider at the base,
narrowing slightly as it climbed. The inner bark was blackened
in places, stripped bare in others, but the floor nearest
the entrance was mostly intact. His eyes traced the spiral
of the old staircase, climbing along the inner curve of
the trunk, a ring of steps building into the wood,
with railings made from coast branches and vines. Some of
the steps had cracked and fallen, leaving gaps. Others sagged,
but still clung, stubborn as the tree itself. Maren had
loved those stairs. She'd race up them three at a time,
hair flying, arms full of books, ignoring whatever warning. Arkle
yelled to slow down. Don't look up, he told himself,
knowing exactly what his mind would drag forward if he did.
He looked up anyway, high above in the third level hollow,
where there had once kept the most delicate spell work.
A great wound had been torn in the side of
the trunk. Sunlight knifed through, turning ash into a dull shimmer.
That was where the Stranger's magic burst through and changed everything.
Arkell could still hear himself shouting protection spells, could still
see Marin in the corner of his eye while he
chanted on the ground floor, louder, louder, intil. The words
were swallowed by the roar of living fire. He forced
his gaze down. The past would not give him the book.
The present might the book. The Book of Restoring had
never been kept in the open. He had hidden it,
hidden it behind a panel on a side room, wrapped
in layers of wood and a spell and plain old secrecy.
No one had known about it but him and Maren.
He tightened his jaw. There was a small door on
the ground floor to his right, half hanging from its hinges.
Once it had led to a little study alcove where
he did the work. He didn't want apprentices or of
visitors to see. He stepped carefully over the burned boards
and pushed the door open. The rest of the way
The room beyond was narrow and curved, following the line
of the trunk. The side where the outside world pressed
close was black and blistered. Their interior curve, where he'd
carved the shells, was a mess of half melted wax,
broken glass, and fallen scrolls. The ceiling sloped low, with
a small window that was now only a jacket hole
ar coal. Melt ran his fingers along the base of
the inner wall, searching for the notch he'd cut. The
grain of the tree felt unfamiliar, wrong in places, grown over,
scorched his nails, scraped rough wood and cold ash, and
nothing more. The panel should have been there, no bigger
than his hand. He could find it blind Once now
his fingers met a straight seam that was not his
newer wood, different hands. He frowned and pressed harder. The
wood did not yield, no trick latch, no hollow echo.
Someone had been here. He sat back on his heels,
heart ticking faster. If someone had found the panel and
taken the book, if he had went back to the
village with nothing but excuses, with empty hands and a
story about how he had tried, He wasn't sure he
could lose another person that looked up to him. Of course,
it wouldn't be easy, he said. Standing He brushed ash
from his hands and stepped back into the main hollow.
The tree creaked faintly, a sound like an old chest
shifting in its sleep. Somewhere above, something scraped, a light,
irregular sound like bare feet on a board. Markole stilled.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. His
first thought, ridiculous and hopeful, was that the sound was
coming from Maron. His second, more reasonable thought was animals.
The forest claimed empty things quickly, birds, squirrels, mice, spirits.
He looked up the spiral staircase. Halfway up, a scrap
of blue fabric fluttered from the railing, smoke stained but familiar.
He tasted the memory of shouting, the sharp, dry heat
on his face as fire licked the inner bark. Maren's
voice calling his name from somewhere he couldn't see. He
took a slow breath. Just find the book, he reminded himself.
He traced the curve of the trunk of his eyes,
imagining where someone might hide something heavy and dangerous, not
too close to the ground, Somewhere cramped, tangled, somewhere no
one went by accident up. Then the scraping sound came again,
lighter this time, and with it, very faintly, the ripple
of a small voice say, who's stomping around my study?
Arkle blinked, hello, he called up. The tiny head popped
over the edge of the nearest landing. It had a
narrow face with a tangle of hair the color of
dried thistle, two huge eyes, and a smear of something
purple around the corner of the mouth. The rest of
the body followed in a flip, with wings flapping, and
then the small figure was hovering just a few armspans
above Arkle's face and peering at him. You're enormous, the
creature said, hello, Arkle said, carefully, I'm you're dusty. The
creature said, bluntly and sad and very tall. Are you dangerous? Hip?
Another voice hissed from above. Don't accute strangers of dangerousness
to their face. It's rude. Figure appeared on the landing,
round cheeked, with a wreath of crooked twigs in their hair.
Then a third, sharper faced one with a maple leaf
raft around her like a dress. Oh, it's him. The
one in the dress, said me. Arkle echoed the wizard.
She said, from the painting in the hall, Arkle right,
the tree says your name in its sleep. Very annoying. Pip,
the first one, flew in a quick circle around Arkell's head,
inspecting him from all sides, their wings beating so fast
they were a blur. Do you have snacks? They asked Pip.
The third fairy said, through gritted teeth, we do not
ask giants for snacks before we know if they are
going to curse us. Arkle stared, I'm not going to
curse you. Good. She said, then, with the tone of
someone introducing a council, I am Thistle. This is Bramble,
and that one is Pip. He does not listen. Bramble
waved cheerfully, smearing a bit of berry onto the railing.
Pip saluted upside down. Arkle bowed his head. I am Arkell,
as you know, he said. I was once of this tree.
Now I am of the village down the south road.
This will said, you left and then you came back.
Don't usually come back, so that's a good thing. I'm
sure the tree is happy about it. I came for
something Arkle said, a book. Pip's eyes widened. We have books,
sort of gesturing into the shelves of burned books under
the staircase. The book I'm looking for is large, Arkle said,
carefully bound in bark leather, thicker than your whole body,
full of spells, and pages that cannot be torn or chewed.
This'll's nose wrinkled. We don't chew books. I didn't mean
to imply you did. I do apologize, Arkle said. See.
I hit it behind a panel on the ground floor.
The panel is gone. I think someone moved it. All
three fairies thought, tiny brows flwing. Bramble tapped his chin
with a purple berry sing finger. We did move things,
but there are quite a lot of us, and not
all of us are here right now, so maybe one
of them moved it right after we moved into the tree.
It really was a mess, and we still do actually
have a lot to do. Bramble gestured around at all
of this still half scorched hollow. We rescued what was useful,
Thistle said, and swept the rest into piles, many many piles.
One of the piles bit me, Pip said. It had
thorns and everything. There was a hedgehog, not a pile.
Thistle said, we've been over this our coal, pressed his
finger to his forehead. Do you remember moving anything large
and very flat? Yes, too big for your little hands alone.
Maybe you pushed it or dragged it. Bramble groaned, Wizard,
there were ever so many things, and this conversation is
so long. Can we please discuss this over tea or something?
In very hungry bramble Thistle groaned, that's no way to
treat a guest who used to live here. What maybe
tea is a good idea, Arcole the Wizard, Will you
join us for tea? Arcole did not want to give
up his search for his book, but he did feel
like he was on the right track, and he had
not eaten anything since dinner the night before, so a
bit of tea did seem nice. Besides, Arkle thought, it's
probably my tea anyway, that sounds lovely. Yes, I would
like to join you for tea, said Arcle. Arcole's mine
remembered the old layout of his home, ground floor with
the entrance and the large table, then the second level
with the workshop and the reading nook, then the third
level with the little kitchen carved into the trunk where
Maren had learned to cook truffled apple tarts. Lead the way,
said Arkle to the three fairies. The fairies exchanged looks
a little triangle of opinion, duties and importance. Wonderful, said Thistle.
Mind the stairs. Please follow, but carefully do not break anything.
We worked very hard to unbreak all of the broken.
Thistle zipped upwards. Bramble followed. Trailing close behind was Pip.
Pipped it a loop around Arkell's head, just to make
sure he was coming, and then zipped a head as well.
Arcle put his foot on the first stair and felt
it give a little under his weight. The tree creaked
but did not crack. One step, then another, hand on
the railing. The last time he had run up these stairs,
the bark had been too hot to touch, and smoke
had seared his lungs. Now every board felt cold. He
climbed slowly, listening to the fairies voices above him. Get
the cups, Pip, I got three. We have company. Pip.
Three is not enough. I'll drink wine very fast and
then we can share. No, get an extra cup, and
don't forget to grab the bread, and do we have
any fruit left? By the time Arcle reached the second landing,
his body ached from the memories. He stepped onto the
platform and looked into the kitchen. It was smaller than
he remembered, the ceiling lower. A round window led in
a spotlight of dusty sun, painting the room in long shadows.
Strings of mushrooms hung to dry along one wall. A
cluster of acorn cups and hollowed nutshells sat on a
little shelf. In the middle of the room, taking up
more space than anything else, stood a fairy sized table.
It was about as high as his ankles and wide
enough for half a dozen fairies to sit around comfortably.
A cloth covered it, a faded, surprisingly clean piece of
linen that might once have been part of a curtain
or a bed sheet, which draped carefully and tucked under
all around. A few berry stained spotted its surface. Eight
little flat stones served as seats. Thistle hovered at one end,
arms folded Bramble arranged acorn cups on the cloth, and
Pip carried a thimble sized pot with both hands, tongues
sticking out with concentration, and sloshed something steaming into each cup. Sit.
Bramble said to Arkle, the chairs are too small, Sorry
about that, Just to sit on the floor. The floor,
it's very strong, and we swept it. Arcle folded himself
down as best he could, crossing his legs. His knees
still stuck up higher than the table. But Pip put
an acorn cup on the cloth in front of Arcle,
full of something that smelled like mint and mushrooms and
a little bit of honey. We thought. Bramble said that
if you were going to talk about your problems, you
should do it properly with tea. Arcle stared down at
the table. He was hungry, but quickly realized maybe tea
with fairies is not the most thrilling option. Still, the
room was warm and the company was nice. Thank you,
he said. He picked up the acorn cup between his
thumb and forefinger and it nearly disappeared. Pip blew on
their tea until it slashed dangerously near the rim. So
they said, why are you sad again? What's wrong with you? Pip?
This Will said, remember your manners. We talked about this.
Did we talk about this? Pit fast? I mean, I
don't know. We tried to this Will muttered. Arcole looked
at the three of them. They were ridiculous, and they
were serious. They were mending a burned world one piece
of moss and stolen cloth. At a time, when I
used to live here, I had an apprentice named Maren,
Arcole said. Maren. She was young, but super smart, and
she was great at her studies. One day there was
another wizard that knocked on our door. He demanded I
teach him a spell that had been passed down to
me in words only the spell, if he was wrong,
could hurt people. I refused to teach him. He got angry,
and I thought I could fix it by arguing I
could not. He cast a terrible spell, and the house
turned into what it is now, and Maren, well, Maren
was lost with the house. The fairies grew very quiet.
Bramble rested his hands on the edge of the cloth.
Pip sat down cross legged on their stone and picked
at a loose thread. We did wonder how the tree
ended up this way, said Thistle. I knew it wasn't
just lightning or a simple accident. I came back because
there was a girl in the village who will die
if I don't use the Book of Restoring, Arkle went on,
and that book was hidden here. Well, then let's find
that book, declared Pip, as he slammed his fist on
the table. When he did, he knocked over every single
cup of tea. Pip Thistle shouted, you've done it again.
What a mess, tea everywhere? Quick, go get a fresh tablecloth.
Bramble put the kettle back on. Thistle began removing the tablecloth.
As she did. Arkell's eyes widen. That's it, Arkle said,
that's my book. Your table is my book. Pip booked
from our cole to the table and back again. A
table is a book. No, a table is a table,
and a book is a book. No, this time, a
table is a book, a very very important magical book.
Arkle said, Oh, what wonderful luck. A magic book, and
we've been eating on it. This will snap. Oh no,
Pip whispered, we have been eating on spells. That explains
the dreams where my toes turn into mushrooms. That was
just you eating mushrooms before bed. Bramble muttered. Our Cole
reached forward, fingers brushing the edge of the cloth. He hesitated,
May I our cole took hold of the cloth and
peeled it back underneath the Book of Restoring leg exactly
as he remembered. Thick bark leather cover corners, once protected
by metal that had now gone dull. Fairy size scratches
and stains mark the surface, now tiny crescents where cups
had sat, a smear of berries, the faint outline of
a leaf that had rotted and vanished. Bramble clapped both
hands over his mouth. Pip made a strangled noise. Thistle
went a little pale. You know, it really does look
like a book, Pip whispered hoarsely. It was flat. Bramble said,
how are we supposed to know? Furniture and magic objects?
They look the same. Half the time Arcole let his
hand rest on the cover. The book felt cool and
stubborn and faintly alive. It always had. That had been
the trouble. I'm so sorry that I left you. I
should have saved you from the fire. Please forgive me.
Thistle uncrossed his arms, folding them tighter around himself. Instead,
we cannot eat on the floor though we're not animals.
I mean, we're small, but we're not animals. I know
Arkle said, I won't leave you without a table. Pip
looked up. You won't, no, he said, In fact, I
think the best payment I could give you for using
this book as your table is another table, and I
can actually make it from the book. Three small foreheads wrinkled.
That sounds complicated. Bramble said, that sounds dangerous. This will, said,
Pip said, will it have legs? I like legs on
a table. And then, more cautiously, you aren't going to
feed us to it, are you? No one is feeding
anyone to anything, Arkle said, I mean using the spells
inside it to mend a piece of the tree into
a new table for you, A proper table, made on purpose,
not by accident. This will aide him. You can do that.
I used to be able to do that. If the
tree is willing, I can do that. The tree creaked
softly all around them, like a very old creature shifting
in its sleep. The fairies lessened heads tilted. Bramble nodded.
It is tired of being broken the tree. It would
like to be partly something else for a change, good,
Arcle said, setting his hands on the book. Then we'll
make it a bargain I'll take the book of Restoring
to save the girl in the village, and before I go,
I'll use it to build you a new table from
the tree's own wood, one that fits you, one that
is only a table and not also a book that
complains if you spill tea on it. Pip lifted a hand.
It actually never complained when I spilt tea on it. Well,
that sounds perfect. This will said, on the condition that
once the girl is heared, you may bring the table
book back to visit the tree. It misses you and
you reading sitting under it. Arcole hesitated. He had not
thought about what had come after the girl. He only
thought as far as her next breath. I don't know
how often I'll be able to travel, he said. Honestly,
the village needs me. The tree needs you too. Pip said,
you're right. I will come back when I can, and
when I do, I'll bring the book and we can
talk about better uses for it. Thistle looked at the
other two fairies. They nodded, okay, we accept Bramble clapped.
Pip attempted to clap and nearly knocked over their second
cup of tea, then caught it at the last second
and beamed good. Pip said, now you can also help
with the upstairs thistle ground. Pip, what upstairs? Uncle asked.
Bramble's wings drooped. I don't really want to mention it.
Maybe ever, but if you're already going to do some spells.
There's a room on the top level. We do not
go there. We do not like it. It leaks cold.
Sometimes it says things. Does it say bad things? Are colasked?
It says sad things. Bramble said, come back, come back,
over and over again. The tree. It tries to ignore it,
but it gets inside of the sap, inside of the bark.
Sometimes it says names up there, your name and another name.
What other name are collasked? Maren? Maren is the other name.
After I build your table, he said, I will go
and see what is crying upstairs. They nodded all at once,
as if it had been their plan and not his.
Bramble pointed to a clear space on the floor. Make
the table there. The tree says that spot doesn't hurt
too much. He opened the Book of Restoring with hands.
That shook a little, though he told himself it was
just because it had been a long time. Since he
had held that weight. The pages rustled like dried leaves,
then softened under his touch. The ink darkened as if
it was waking up. The spell is for shaping supportive
wood into a sturdy form, was three quarters of the
way through, written in his own cramped hand and Maren's larger,
careful letters. She had added a marginal note, don't forget
to think the tree, it's doing all the work. Always
the better wizard, He muttered, what'd you say? Pit passed nothing,
Markle replied. He read the spell out loud, softly, in
the language that trees listened to when they pretend they weren't.
The floor hummed under his fingers. A circle of bark
at the spot bramble had indicated loosen, then flowed, rising
in a slow, graceful twist. The fairies watched wide eyed
as roots smothered and braided themselves into legs, as a
flat top uncurled like a leaf and settled into a
perfect even surface. When he finished, there was a small
round table in the center of the kitchen, sized precisely
for creatures who drank from acorn cups and argued shoulder
to shoulder the tree side a sound of deep relief.
Bramble darted forward and patted the new table. It doesn't
wobble at all, pipped, hopped onto it and lay flat,
face pressed against the grain. Oh it's warm, they said,
and it smells like spells in a nice way, not
in an oop's way. Thistle flew once around it, inspecting
the legs and joints. It will do, she said, but
there was satisfaction in her voice. Marcole closed the book,
wrapped it in the cloth they jeused, and tied it
with a twist of root the tree offered like a belt. Now,
he said, take me to the room you don't go into.
The fairies exchanged looks again, all of them unhappy with
the idea, but he even more unhappy with the thought
of not doing it. We will fly as far as
the landing, Thistle said. Then we will wait. We do
not go past the door. That is wise, Arkle said.
They let him up the spiral staircase, past the old
reading nook, where burned books still lay in sad drifts,
past the place where the wall had opened to the sky.
The higher they went, the colder. It became not the
chill of ordinary night, but a creeping inside out cold
that slid up his arms and into his chest. Pips
shivered and tucked themselves behind thistle brambles. Hands shook At
the top, the stairs broadened into a small landing. A
single door stood there, half closed, its edges rimmed with
a thin line of frost. Some when I tried to
hang a curtain across at once, a scrap of cloth
nailed into the bark. But the cloth was now stiff
and torn. We do not like this door, whispered it whispers,
Pip said, it also listens. This aladded, which is worse.
It's okay, Arcole said, I'll go alone, stay here. If
anything changes, fly down. If the tree starts screaming, we
are not waiting for you, this will said, That's fair,
Arcle replied. He reached for the door. His fingers stuck
to the handle for a moment, it was that cold.
He pried them loose and pushed. The wood resisted, then
shifted as if it had grown around the frame. The
gap widened with a soft, complaining creak. Cold spilled out,
sharp and clean and wrong. The room beyond was not large.
It had once been the kitchen. Proper shelves carved into
the inner curve of the wall hooks overhead. The remains
of our hearth hollowed into the outer bark. Now, the
shelves sagged under the weight of frost. The hearth was
choked with Ashscles hung from the rafters like teeth, though
he could see no source of water. In the forest corner,
where the trees wood was thickest, the bark bulged inward,
knotted and stained. A pale light pulsed behind it, slow
and uneven, as if it were breathing with difficulty. Arkle
stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a soft thud.
He heard the fairies small bodies flinch on the landing.
The room hummed low and sad. He approached the knot.
He knew what it was, even though it didn't make sense, Marin,
he said. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the light
behind the bark quivered, the frost on the walls shivered.
A whisper snaked through the woods. Then as silk Arcole.
He pressed his palm on to the knot. The cold
bit to the bone, and here he said, sorry, I'm late,
but I'm here. There was a pause that seemed to
stretch for years. You came back, the voice breathed. It
was Maren and not Maren, layered with something deeper, older,
the echo of the spell that had snapped and trapped
everything it could catch. I should have never left, he said.
The words lodged in his thoat, but he shoved them through.
I was afraid of the tree, of the magic, of
the wizard, of seeing what I did. You didn't set
the fire, she whispered. I also didn't stop it. He
shouted my name, and I argued with the stranger instead
of focusing on pulling you out. You died in a
house that was half a tree and half my pride,
and all my fault. The light fluttered faster and steady,
the cold dug and harder, like accusation or grief. Oh
your fault, she said that spell. It was hungry, and
the tree was full. The world was Then I stepped
in where I shouldn't have. I was trying to help,
and I wasn't strong enough. You weren't supposed to help,
he said. It was my job to teach you, not
for you to help yourself. The silence settled between them,
both apologizing on top of each other, neither truly it
fault outside the door, he heard a tiny sniffle that
could only be pipped. He let it pass without comment.
How are you still here? He said? At last, you
should have gone. Whatever comes next, How did you stay?
You're stuck in bark or is this just a memory?
I don't know how I'm here. The tree held on
to me. I'm tangled with these spells. Every time I
reached for the light, I've tried, it's caught in some
crane and it pulls me back. And then then the
fairies came. You could almost see it as she spoke,
three small lights investigating a burned out kitchen, some ancient
part of the tree, reaching for them for help. It
didn't know how to ask for The fairies are kind,
but they don't know how to help. They just knew
that the tree was hurting, and they patched it and
soothed it, and they sing, and I just didn't want
to scare them, so I made myself smaller and tried
to be quieter. But the not the tree, it just
wouldn't let me go. The voice trembled. Frost crept out
from the knot under his hands, threading along the floor.
I don't want to haunt this place, she whispered. I
don't want to be a voice and a wall that
tells people to come back when I know they shouldn't.
I don't want the fairies to be scared of me.
He closed his eyes. Then let me untangle you, he said,
Let me do at least that much right. You don't understand.
My body is gone. I don't have anywhere to go
back to. I can't walk beside you to the village,
or carry the book, or burn porridge or make tarts.
There's nothing left of me but this. Then I will
give you something new, he answered, something that belongs to
you now, Not to the fire, not to the spell.
He opened the Book of Restoring again, fingers numb but
moving near the back. Was a spell he had never
used because it had always seemed more like a story
than a necessity, a way to lift a soul caught
in one shape and ease it into another, made for
it slowly, safely. He had written it late at night,
when he and Maren had talked about what it might
be like to be a hawk, or a fire or
a tree. He had suggested that if she ever had
to be something else, she wanted to be something that
could still see the sky, something that didn't have to burrow.
He searched now, until his fingers landed on the lines
for a soul that must be carried from what was
broken into what can bear it better. He braced himself,
and then he read. The words were simple and hard,
all at once, the way good words are. As he spoke,
the tree shuddered, the knot throbbed under his hand. A
crack ran through the bark, then another, splitting the bulge
like an over ripe nut. Lights spilled out. He was
cold at first, stinging his skin, then warm as it
flowed along the lines of the spell he's spoken. It
gathered in the air before him in a trembling cloud.
The book told him what to do next, but he
already knew. He cupt his hands. The light cooled there,
sweeping into the palms like snow melting and sun shining.
At the same time. It was heavier than it looked.
He was familiar. His throat ached as the words came
out of him like water. He repeated Maren's name over
and over and over again, not out of fear, not
out of apology, but as an invitation. The light answered,
curling into itself. A small shape formed in his hands,
oval and smooth, warm and cool, all at once, glowing
faintly from a thin It was not a stone, It
was not quite an egg. It was something between story
and seed. Behind him, the door cracked open a fraction,
and three tiny faces peered in. Is it done? Is
the voice gone? In a way? Arkle said, this is
everything of her that was caught in the wood. The
spells hold, the trees grip her stubbornness, all of it.
It's more like a ghost and less like a body.
It needs time, time for what to become what it
wants to be, he said. He pressed a kiss to
the show, without thinking about it at first, the way
his mother had once done to a bruised knee or
a frightened forehead. Then he held the egg shaped light
out towards the fairies. It should stay here, he said,
voice steadying as the rightness of it settled in his bones.
This is where she was lost. This is where she
can learn to be not lost. If you look after it,
this glowing thing, you will know when to sing to
it and when to leave it alone, when to wash
it and care for it. You will know when it's
ready We are very good at taking care of things,
especially things that you have broken. Bramble said. This soul
frowned and concentration. Will will it hatch? I believe so,
Arkle said, not into a girl again that's gone, but
into something that can live a long time and see
the sky and sleep in the tree's arms instead of
its walls like a bird. Will she be a bird?
A proper magical bird with very good feathers. That is
probably what will happen, and it will suit her. She
always liked to be everywhere at once. This wile flew
forward and hovered before the egg, his small fingers resting
on its glowing surface. Careful and firm, very well, he said,
as if accepting a great charge. We will keep her
safe until she decides what to be. We will make
sure the tree does not swallow her again. And if
she hatches cranky, Bramble said, we will her anyway. That's
what you do. Pip reached out, after a moment's hesitation,
and patted the egg. Hello, Maren, they said, Please don't
haunt the pantry anymore. The light inside the shell brightened
just a little. Arcle could have sworn he heard a laugh.
Very far away, and very surprised. He left the egg
with them in the new kitchen, on the new table,
wrapped in a small nest of moss and bark, the
tree pushed up for the purpose. It sat there, glowing softly,
warming the room in a way that had nothing to
do with fire. By the time he tightened the cloth
around the Book of Restoring again and slung it under
his arm, the knot upstairs was nothing but a smooth
patch of bark. The room was still cold, but it
was the ordinary cold of high places and old stone,
not the biting kind that whispered his name. He walked
back down the spiral stairs, through the hollow heart of
the tree that felt a little less hollow than before.
At the threshold, he paused and looked back. This whole
Bramble and Pip covered near the doorway, a glow of
the egg behind them, turning their wings into thin, bright leaves.
You will come back, this will said. This was not
a question. When I can, he said. If the girl
in the village lives, it will be because of what
we've done here today, because you give up your table,
because you asked me to help. Pip darted forward and
shoved a small sticky object into his hand for you,
they said, or in case your book gets hungry. On
the way. He looked down. It was a dried berry,
shriveled and sweet smelling. Thank you, he said, and he
slipped it into a small fold of the cloth around
the book, because a bit of fairy kindness is always
a good thing. He stepped out into the clearing. The
sky was darker now, the first stars pricking through the blue.
The air tasted different, less like an old argument, more
like a conversation that hadn't finished yet. The path back
to the village was long. His shoulders ached with the
weight of the book, his heart ached with the weight
of other things. But there was something else under the ache.
Now it felt dangerously like hope. When he came to
Lena's door, the house was quiet except for the low
murmur of her mother's voice and the crackle of the fire.
He laid the book on the table, a very ordinary table,
he thought of the one upstairs, built from trees and
spells and apologies. He opened the Book of Restoring and
began to work. Weeks later, when Lena was running down
the lane again, with flower on her apron and color
in her cheeks. The villagers still looked at Arcle with
the caution people give the things that might be miracles,
or it might be disasters, and might be both at once.
But there was space now in some of those looks,
and something softer. And sometimes when the wind blew from
the north, it carried with it the faint sound of
wings and laughter, and the sense of a bright eyed
bird watching him from far away, a bird that knew
his name and did not say it like an accusation.
They say in the years have followed that a long
lived bird with feathers like dawn light, nested always near
the top of the hollow tree, scolding thistle when she
was too sharp, helping bramble arrange moss carpets, and teaching
pip songs that made the leaves shiver with joy. When
Arcole was able to visit, she would swoop down and
land on his shoulder, light as forgiveness, and in the
end the tree was happy. Hey, thank you so much
for listening. Let's see what I'm ready next. So next
week will be another rewrite of the story rest up,
which was episode Previously it was a romance, but this
time it's gotta be science fiction. So I don't know
how I'm gonna turn a story about two people moving
into each with each other into some kind of science
fiction story, but we'll give it a go. Next week,
the story changes. Thanks for listening.