The Springborn

SABELLA

JULY 5, 1886

AFTERNOON

I stand between Robbie and Sparrow in front of the house. The sunshine is pleasant this afternoon, tempered by a gentle, blossom scented breeze. It is a good day for a journey.

My fingers fumble at my nape to tie a fresh knot in my dark green headscarf. I cut my antlers off myself after the midday meal. A half inch of growth remains atop my head, but it was the best I could do. To trouble Calder with the chore seemed too much. He is already tasked with guiding us up a possibly perilous mountainside this evening, by the light of the full moon.

Calder halts the wagon close to the front of the house, where Sparrow, Robbie, and I stand waiting. He hops down to help Robbie lift Sparrow into the back. Last night, I piled pillows and blankets there to cushion her frail bones for the first part of our journey. When Sparrow is settled, he glowers at the space above my head. “You cut them yourself again, didn’t you?”

My face burns. “We could meet strangers on the road. I did what needed to be done. You don’t have to like it.”

“At least you’re not bleeding this time,” Calder grumbles.

“Now, now,” Robbie says. “Play nice, children.” He climbs into the wagon bed with Sparrow and covers her with a thin blanket. “Sabella, you ride beside Calder and try to enjoy his company,” he says cheerily. “We will be fine back here.”

Calder rounds the side of the wagon and stops short when he gets a full view of my attire. “Whoa, Nellie,” he says, his face alight with barely contained hilarity, “What in the name of the saints are you wearing? Wait. Are those my striped trousers?”

Hands on hips and straight-faced, I reply to his accusations. “This is a riding costume the twins gave me, Calder Hadrian, and no, they are not your trousers. If you own trousers resembling these, Branna and Cleona were playing a joke. And for your information, I thought it practical to eschew cumbersome skirts when going hiking in the mountains.”

Robbie snorts with laughter. “Darnation,” he says. “I’d pay money to see you in that outfit, Cald. I might fall in love with you myself!”

“Stuff it, Robbie.” Calder scowls as if he’s irritated with his best friend, but we all know he is not.

Robbie is still snorting with laughter as we pull away from the house minutes later.

As the wagon carries us through the wrought iron gates of Three Stars Farm, anxiety grips my heart. Things will change today, for better or worse. There is a chance that Sparrow will not return home alive.

Beyond the gates, the road loses its smooth straightness. The trees grow thick around us. Shadows play on the ground. Squirrels and robins leap from branch to branch as we pass. I spy a deer among the ferns. She blinks shyly at me.

“They’re nice, now that I’ve had a chance to get used to them,” Calder says out of the blue. When I give him a questioning look, he adds, “Your striped trousers. They’re rather becoming.” He doesn’t laugh when he says it, so I believe he’s at least trying to mean it.

“Thank you.”

His smile appears, warm and boyish in the green-tinted forest light. He leans forward a little, reins held loosely in his hand, the picture of a young man taking a pleasant Saturday drive.

“Do I have something on my face?” Calder asks, eyes fixed on the road. “Jam or something?”

“Not that I can see,” I say. My cheeks flame because he’s caught me staring. “You do have a freckle on your earlobe, though.” I tell myself to be quiet and look at trees. I’m only worsening the embarrassment by admitting I’ve taken notice to a freckle no bigger than a poppy seed.

“Hmm,” Calder says. I don’t have to look at him to know he’s grinning.

Half an hour later, as the sun sets, Calder reins in the horses. Beside us, the mountain rises steeply. Patches of ferns are interrupted by boulders and stubborn, spindly pines. “The footpath up the mountain starts a short walk from here,” Calder says. “The markers should appear on the trees as soon as the moon is a little higher.”

I jump from the wagon to the ground. Calder ties the horses to a tree, and Robbie brings them pails of water and a little hay. These chores are done in silence, as if we’re in a church and not the woods. The moon inches up the sky.

As the shadows thicken, Calder grabs a tin lantern from the wagon bed and lights it with a match. He gives the lantern to me and says quietly, “You’ll have to carry this unless your firefly friends come to call. I don’t expect the moon will light everything well under the thick trees.”

“Is it time to go?” I ask. I am filled with equal measures of excitement and fear.

He points to a tree marked with a slash of glowing, yellow-green fungus. “It is.”

Robbie climbs into the wagon. From there, he transfers our drowsy Sparrow into Calder’s arms. How small she looks curled against his chest. Were it not for her snowy hair and wrinkled face, one might mistake her for a child. She wraps one arm around his neck, lays her cheek against his shirt, and falls back to sleep.

Our hike begins. The path turns from earth and rock to all rock as it steepens. Even though he bears the weight of Sparrow, Calder is as surefooted as a buck. My head regularly grows the antlers of a deer, yet I am as clumsy as an old cow. I stumble, bruising my knees and shins again and again, and scraping skin from my hands. The lantern stays lit but bears a dozen new dents.

“How much farther?” I ask, panting, when we stop atop a level rock.

Calder points. “Up that way, and then across a ridge and down into a little valley. Half an hour’s journey, perhaps.”

“Darnation,” Robbie says. “My bird feet weren’t made for scaling rocks. I’ll be in bandages for a week.”

“Stop grousing, chicken legs,” Calder says. But a few minutes later, Calder stops again. He waits on an outcropping of rock, still clutching Sparrow to his chest. She slumbers soundly, unbothered by the climb.

“Are you all right?” I ask him.

“Hale and hearty. And you? You’ve spoiled your fine outfit, I fear.”

“Yes.” I glance down at my torn, dirt-smeared trousers and stained blouse. “It is a pity.”

We both erupt into laughter. Our tiredness must be getting the better of us.

Robbie raises one eyebrow. “You’re quite the pair. Shall we continue and get this loathsome trek over with?”

Soon, we descend into a narrow valley. Soaring hemlocks and pines surround us. The sound of water spilling into a pool teases my ears long before the spring comes into view. Save for this and the rustling of evergreen branches overhead, no other sounds sully the air. Not one bird trills; not one chipmunk chatters. This place feels holier to me than the chilly sanctuary of the Miners Ridge church ever did.

Calder leads us toward a dip in the earth. Here, water gushes from a crack in the rocks at the base of a tree and cascades into a dark, round pool an arm’s length wide. “The fairy spring,” he says reverently. “Sabella?”

I know what he asking. “Yes,” I say. I am certain but shaking.

“Help me get her into the water, Rob.”

“Sparrow, you mean? You said we were bringing her to see it, not…” Robbie looks as if he might throw up. “Are you sure you want to tamper with the spring’s magic? I have a bad feeling about this. More than one bad feeling, to be honest.”

Sparrow awakens and lifts her head. “Did someone say my name? Have we arrived?”

I nod at Calder, and he lowers Sparrow to the ground. She leans back against the rough bark of a pine. Lantern in hand, I crouch beside her with my heart hammering. She will not like what I have to say.

“We’ve brought you here to wash you in the water. To see if the spring will revoke the magic. It’s the only chance we have to break the enchantment. To save you.”

“You cannot save me by taking away my gifts. I would not be myself without them. You must understand, Mama. My gifts of aging and healing are vital parts of me as your antlers are a vital part of you.”

Tears course down my cheeks. Calder sets a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Sparrow,” I say. “Forgive me. I have never wanted you to be anyone other than yourself. You know that, do you not?”

She holds my face in her soft, wrinkled hands. “I know you love me. That you have always loved me. And that is more than enough.”

Robbie sniffles behind me, the poor, tenderhearted boy.

“Now, since we’ve come this far, I would like to see the fabled spring,” Sparrow says too cheerfully.

“It is a sight to behold,” Calder says. “Come.” He helps Sparrow to her feet. He and Robbie take her elbows and support her as she hobbles along the narrow strip of rock that leads to the pool.

Midnight-dark water bubbles and swirls in a basin of dark stone. It smells like creek water sweetened with honey. It is beautiful, but not what I expected. Perhaps Delphine brought Calder here to feed him a lie for her own amusement, and this is not the spring.

A single brown-edged birch leaf falls to float on the surface. The leaf bobs and spins, turning silver, then gold, and then dissolving in a flash of eye-stinging light.

“To think,” Robbie says with awe. “That bit of water there once changed my boy legs to bird legs, when it could have melted me to nothing just as easy.”

“That’s one small mercy,” Calder says.

“I need a moment of silence,” Sparrow says. “Alone.”

“Anything you want,” Calder says. He takes my hand and we follow Robbie until we are several yards uphill from Sparrow and the spring.

When I turn back, I see her fling something into the water. The water rises, boiling and steaming, glowing green and then orange. It leaps into the shape of a huge flame and flashes more brightly than lightning. With a thunderous boom, the flame goes out. The mountain trembles and small stones tumble down its slope to fill the hole that once held water.

“Come,” Sparrow beckons. “The spring is no more. I have fulfilled Delphine’s last wish, and now I am truly at peace.”

Her words make me shudder. If she believes her earthly work is done, her death is nigh.

With the tenderest of care, Calder bears Sparrow down the mountainside. Robbie and I trail behind, saying nothing. I fall too many times to count, bedeviled by slanted rocks and tear-blurred eyes. I lose grip of the misshapen lantern and watch it tumble end over end and off a cliff.

This was not the way I expected the visit to the spring to end. I’d envisioned Sparrow coming out of the water as a young girl, or even a baby, healthy and full of promise. I expected joy. Instead, our return to the wagon feels like a funeral procession.