Once upon a Summer Day

19

“Chelle, my love.”

“Yes, Borel.”

“I have in mind another surprise for you.”

A smile lit Chelle’s face. “A dance?”

“No.”

“If not a dance, what?”

Borel laughed. “If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.”

“Oh. Hmm. Yes, of course. Then let us be gone, my lord, for I would see this surprise.”

A fleeting grin crossed Borel’s features, only to be replaced by a somber mien. “I must warn you, though, if I do this rightly, then when we step through this door I believe there will be a moon in the sky”-Chelle gasped, but Borel squeezed her hand in reassurance-“and I do not wish you to be alarmed and flee back to here.”

“My lord, the moon, there is less than a moon left.”

“I know, Cherie, and I am on my way. I will be here ere then.”

Chelle stiffened her spine and said, “I will face the dwindling moon with you at my side, my sweet Borel.”

Borel smiled, then turned toward the door and closed his eyes and stood a moment in deep concentration, then opened them again. “I think all is now ready, Chelle,” he said and offered her his arm, and when she took it he led her across the turret floor to the enshadowed door and opened it to find — A moonlit garden, rife with blossoming flowers, white stone pathways wending throughout. Vine-laden arbors graced the grounds, some with deep purple grapes ripe for the plucking, others with grapes of golden-white or rouge-red. Ivy flowed across the soil and up trellises, and a gazebo stood on the bank of a slow-running, crystalline brook.

“Oh, my,” said Chelle, “how splendid. Chrysanthemums, hibiscus, and, oh, spider lilies, red ones and white ones, too. And there is white stonecrop. Oh, the flowers, the flowers, how rich this garden is. Whose is it?”

“It belongs to my sister Liaze. We are in the Autumnwood, her principality.”

“Well, it is a wonderful garden, Borel, and I thank you for bringing me here.”

Borel nodded but said, “I know little of flowers, for my demesne is the Winterwood, where ice and snow rule, though at times, when it thaws a bit, a winter crocus blooms.”

They strolled down the stone pathways, Chelle now and again stopping to inhale the fragrance of a particular blossom.

“I need to know what flowers grow in your own gardens, Chelle,” said the prince.

“Don’t you remember, my lord? I gave you an extensive tour when you visited.”

“Cherie, I think at that time I was more interested in the afternoon hunt your father had planned. As for the tour, well, I merely recall a skinny girl chattering away.”

“Was I, am I that much of a pest?” said Chelle, lifting her face toward his.

“I think you will always distract me,” said Borel, and a long, lingering kiss left both of them breathless. Reluctantly, he released her, and they continued their stroll.

“Chrysanthemums and roses and various wildflowers,” said Chelle.

“What?” said Borel.

“Chrysanthemums and roses and various wildflowers,” said Chelle. “They are what grow in my gardens.”

Borel’s heart sank. “Shamrock? Have you shamrock?”

“Shamrock?”

“I seem to recall you showed me shamrocks. ‘Pink as my lips,’ you said.”

“You remember that?”

“I do.”

“I was trying to get you to notice my lips, my best and perhaps my only feature back then, though my mother seemed to favor my smile, and my sire my eyes.”

“Ah, yes, your eyes,” said Borel. “Would that I could see them.”

“Can you not?”

“No, Chelle. There is a darkness covering them.”

“A darkness?”

Borel nodded.

Chelle frowned. “But I see perfectly well.”

“ ’Tis a mystery, then,” said Borel. “One that we will resolve when I come for you.”

Again Chelle frowned, as if trying to understand what Borel meant. Finally she shrugged and said, “Oh, yes, we do have shamrocks, and they have pink flowers.”

Feeling relieved, Borel said, “White roses with a faint blush?”

“Mm-hm,” said Chelle, as she leaned down to smell the bloom of a crimson mallow.

Now even more confident, the prince asked, “Have you blackberry brambles on your estate?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t you remember we went blackberry harvesting when the hunt was called off?”

“I remember your mouth was stained purple,” said Borel.

“Well, it is not purple now,” said Chelle, turning to face him.

“No, my love, it is not,” replied Borel, and, laughing, he swung her up and about and lowered her until their lips met in another lingering kiss.

When he set her to the ground, she fanned her face and reddened under his gaze, and as if to draw attention elsewhere, she gestured about and said, “I understand the Autumnwood has a peculiar power.”

Borel grinned and nodded. “Each of the Forests of the Seasons has its own peculiar power. In the Autumnwood, it is the season of eternal harvest. Here, let me show you.” Hand in hand, Borel led Chelle to a nearby arbor, one bearing purple grapes. He said, “Note which bunch I pluck, say, this one dangling through this particular trellis opening.” Borel reached up and picked the cluster, and he offered the grapes to Chelle and said with a grin, “Make your mouth purple, my love?”

Chelle laughed and popped in a grape, and offered one to Borel. Smiling, he reached out to take it, but she shook her head and lifted the fruit to his lips and said, “I understand the way to a man’s heart lies through his stomach,” and she slipped the grape into his mouth.

Borel chewed, seeds and all, and swallowed and softly said, “You need not feed me, Chelle, for you already have my heart.”

He wrapped her in his arms and again they kissed, and as they did so, she let fall the grapes.

Yet nestled, “Oh,” she said, and she glanced aside at the dropped bunch. “See what I have done.”

Borel laughed and released her and stepped back. “Fear not, love, there are plenty more where they came from. In fact…” He pointed above.

“Oh, my,” said Chelle, looking at the dangling cluster. “Can it be?”

“Yes, love. The Autumnwood has replaced the clutch we picked.”

Chelle turned and looked out on the moonlit garden. “What of the flowers?”

“Should we pluck a blossom, then it would reappear on its stem when none was looking.”

“Oh,” said Chelle, a bit crestfallen.

Borel frowned. “What is it, Cherie?”

“Then nothing changes in the Autumnwood? All things plucked replaced?”

Borel nodded.

“How sad,” said Chelle. “Wonderful, but in the end quite sad.”

“Why do you say so?” asked Borel.

“I repeat,” said Chelle, “nothing changes. All is static. Forever fixed. Even this garden is frozen in its display.” Chelle turned up her hands and sighed. “It seems to me that such an existence must eventually become quite dull.”

In silence they strolled to the gazebo by the stream, and as they took a seat in a swing, Chelle said, “What of weeds? Do they return when plucked? If so, then how does one care for a garden?”

“Weeds are burned, my love, or dug out entirely. Anything destroyed by fire is not replenished. To plant a garden in new soil, one has to either burn whatever was standing-burn it in place-or completely uproot whatever was there.”

“Oh. I see. Well, then, what of root crops-tubers, parsnips, onions, and such? If you harvest them-uproot them-do they not return?”

“If you unearth one normally,” said Borel, “always does some part of it-perhaps a minuscule part, a bit of hair root or stem or such-remain within the soil, and the vegetable returns.”

“Oh,” said Chelle. “Then you do not have the pleasure of turning over new soil, tilling, planting, hoeing, tending… getting your hands in dirt and watching things grow, and then enjoying the fruits of your labor. You see, for me and many others not only is there delight in seeing a garden or field in its fullness, but there is also joy in all the steps it takes to bring such a thing about. And so, to have a never-changing realm, a realm without seasons, well, it seems quite sad to me.”

A thoughtful look on his face, Borel nodded but said nothing, for until this very moment he had not considered the Autumnwood anything other than a place of everlasting harvest.

They gently swung to and fro without speaking for long moments, the only sound that of the brook murmuring past and the rustle of leaves in the faint breeze. But as the silvery light from above crept across the garden, Borel glanced at the waning moon and said, “Tell me this, my love, how do you know that there is less than a moon”-of a sudden they were back in the enshadowed turret-“left?”

Her voice trembling in dread, “Rhensibe told me,” whispered Chelle, and the stone walls began to waver, and there was nought Borel could do to hold on to the dream.