Faery Tales & Nightmares

THE ART OF WAITING

ONCE THERE WAS A TOWN TUCKED IN the hollow between two mountains. In the winter, the snows fell so heavily that the passes out of the town became sealed by layer upon layer of dense white snow.

When winter would come, the townsfolk spent long months sealed in their hollow, away from outsiders. Sometimes, it was well past winter before the walls of snow and ice melted enough to make travel safe again. And in these melting times the natural springs overflowed, and the hills grew verdant once more. Wildflowers pushed through the last remnants of snow, and trees burst with new life. Every year, the wait was long, but spring reminded them why they stayed in their tiny hollow. No place in all of creation was as lovely to the townsfolk as their own town.

The townsfolk—often sequestered by nature’s moods—were quite satisfied with their place in life. They had learned the wisdom of waiting.

They grumbled about the difficulties to passing strangers, lamenting the inconveniences of long winters cut off from the outside world, but should a stranger suggest the unthinkable—“Why not move?”—they’d smile and shake their heads, knowing well that one cannot teach the inexplicable.

And it was to this town that the man and his young daughter came to live. Once, the man had lived among the priests, learning dead languages and archaic literature. Once, he had traveled, seeing strange sights and mysteries. But when his child began to walk, he chose this small hamlet as their home. He chose to tend the soil. He chose to bury the remains of last year’s crop—to carefully carve seedling potatoes, leaving at least one eye on each, and set them into well-watered soil.

Those who had been in the town their whole lives murmured to one another—grizzled heads slowly bobbing as they spoke in hushed undertones—and waited.

They did not ask the man in the planting time; they did not ask during the harvest. Nature would answer in due time.

When the frosts came, the townspeople waited still.

Thick snows fell. Then, they began to watch the man.

He stayed that first year, the man with his daughter. He weathered the snows without wavering. And in the melting time, when the springs flowed freely, he smiled alongside those who had always been there.

Nature had answered: the man with his daughter belonged between the two mountains; they fit in the hollow.

More than a decade passed. Snows fell, and springs gushed. The crops flourished as often as not. Strangers paused in the late spring to ask foolhardy questions. The world was as it must be.

But then, one year, a young stranger stopped beside the man and his daughter.

The stranger asked the man’s daughter, “Why do you stay here, trapped in this tiny hollow?”

She looked at him, this stranger with his runningso-fast words and his pretty-as-spring smile.

And he asked, “Why don’t you leave?”

Her eyes were the green of lush fields as, instead of the answer townsfolk always gave to strangers, she asked, “What’s out there?”

Gazing into the distance, the stranger offered, “There are sights, unbelievable mysteries I could show you. I’ll be back this way before winter. Come with me; we could travel….”

She smiled. “Maybe.”

Late that night, the man listened to the gurgles of the spring. It bubbled, forcing water over the edge, spilling it onto the soil. The water, cold and pure, soaked into fallow fields.

As he stared into the distance—seeing the pass, that narrow fissure that wouldn’t again fill with snow for many months—he listened to the spring and waited.

Come morning, he began his day—waiting. Each morning that followed, he began his day—waiting. In the years he’d spent in the hollow, he’d learned the art of waiting, understood it in a way he’d not understood the other long-ago mysteries he’d studied.

He waited as his daughter spent all of her time with the stranger.

He waited as his beloved child rushed about, seeing imaginary flaws in the peace of the hollow.

The stranger spoke much, his mouth brimming with fanciful tales of the world’s wonders, things found beyond the two mountains, lessons learned away from the hollow.

By autumn, the stranger became restless.

When the frosts came, they all three gazed toward the pass.

And the stranger announced that he would leave, that she should leave. He told her foolish tales, and the man’s daughter laughed—a sound rushing and out of season, a sound not of winter’s coming but of flowing springs.

The man gazed at his daughter, hearing that awful sound, that rushing-racing sound. And he told her, “Step inside now.”

Softly, she whispered, “Yes, Father.”

Then the man turned to the stranger and offered, “You could stay…. It’s peaceful here.”

The stranger snorted.

Once more the man invited, “New faces are welcome in the hollow.”

The stranger started to step around the man, calling to the man’s daughter.

The man blocked his way. “I’ve been to the places you spin your tales of. There’s no peace there. You don’t mention the ugly parts.”

The stranger shrugged.

The man held the stranger’s gaze and offered, “My daughter has no need of what’s out there, but you could stay. Bide with us awhile.”

The stranger shook his head. “She’ll be fine. We’ll have great adventures.”

Sadly, the man watched the stranger’s darting gaze, watched him look everywhere and see nothing. He didn’t pause to contemplate the beauty that filled the hollow; he sought only to take a creature of beauty from the hollow, to destroy the peace that the man had found for his daughter, to capture and remove rather than stay and wonder.

“I want to show you something.” The man led the stranger to a well fed by the spring. The water was low now, barely a whisper deep in the earth.

The stranger started, “I don’t unders—”

The man shoved him into the hole, that deep earthen hollow between damp walls.

The stranger bellowed, spewing curses and demands, clutching at slick walls.

And the man turned away from the well to face the townsmen who were approaching them.

They nodded their heads at him, silent as was their way.

“I waited, you know.” The man spoke in no particular direction. “I waited, but still I had to act.”

One townsman answered, “Wait until the snows fall; then, you can decide if he is able to learn.”

The man glanced back at the spring. “He’s staying in the hollow. Whether he stays in the well…”

“No need to decide tonight,” they murmured. “Dinner is liable to be cold if you try to decide now.”

“You’re right: I should wait. Thank you.” The man smiled. “I thought I understood more.”

The eldest man quirked his mouth. “Waiting’s not so easy as that.”

Then the others turned and strolled down the road, and the man and the elder listened to the stranger hollering from inside the well.

When the noise finally ceased, the elder smiled and ambled off in the direction the others had gone.

The man squatted at the mouth of the spring. “You can wait here awhile; we have time.”

As the man looked down at him, the stranger had begun to curse again.

The man shook his head and turned away: they both had much to learn.