Robins and Wool
Marissa thought, as she sat at her spinning wheel. She had had lots of time to think, since that fateful day three years past, when she had snapped at a child at the well. She did not speak anymore, forbidden to do so by the mother who had once doted upon her.
So she sat and thought, and spun. She and her mother, furious and humiliated and proud, had refused her sister's offered charity. They had fled their home, traveling to another town and learning a trade to make their own way. It had been difficult, learning to do all the work that her stepsister had previously done, but Marissa had little choice. Now she was the one to knead the bread, and sweep the hearth, and fetch the water, and mend the clothes, and, when her chores were done, to sit and spin wool into yarn.
Her mother was the one who dealt with their customers, in the little room in the front of their shop. She did not enjoy it, and her mouth was always pursed in displeasure, but she spoke civilly no matter how much effort it took, for who knew which old crone or pert child might be a fairy in disguise?
A flutter of wings and a shadow at the window drew Marissa's attention. A robin sat upon the sill, fluffing its wings and surveying the room with a dark beady eye. Marissa could not speak to shoo it away, but she could, sometimes, if she were careful, make sounds in her throat if they were not recognizable words. She did so now, a scolding noise, and flapped her hand at the bird.
It did not startle and fly away, as she intended, but hopped sideways, tilting its head at her. Marissa stared back. It had been such a very long time since she had seen such a friendly face. What was it really hurting, anyway? Let it stay.
She bent for her distaff and spindle once more, resuming the steady treadling of her wheel. The wool fibers slipped through her fingers, twisting into sturdy, warm yarn. The robin on the windowsill hunkered and watched, as though wishing to learn to spin.
Marissa thought of the hunched, deaf and half-blind spinner who had taught her and her mother their craft. She wondered if, one day when she was quite old, a maiden would come to a hunched, mute old spinner, perhaps driven there by foolishness or a curse, and ask to be taught a skill.
The customers out front left, and Marissa's mother swept into the tiny back room. "Not done yet, you lazy girl?" she scolded, and then let out an angry cry when she caught sight of the robin on the sill. "Oh! What is that creature doing here? Why didn't you drive it off? Shoo! Go on!"
The robin, startled by her waving hands and strident tone, scattered away into the air, and vanished into the brush. Marissa's mother slammed the window shut, and Marissa bent once more to her spinning.
The next day, the robin returned. Marissa's mother was busy with customers once more, and Marissa stole a furtive glance at the door before looking back to the robin with a small smile. It was good company, whistling a merry greeting at her. Carefully, tentatively, she pursed up her lips and, ready to stop at her mother's step or the first hint of toad-slime or snake-scale on her lips, whistled cautiously back at the bird. No viper fell from her mouth and her mother did not storm in, demanding to know what all the racket was. Instead, the robin trilled, hopping with its wings slightly outspread.
Marissa smiled more broadly than before, delighted, and whistled at the robin again. It answered in kind once more. She did not dare to laugh with delight, as she should like to do, but picked up distaff and spindle and began her spinning, whistling back and forth to the robin until she heard her mother's step outside the door. She shut her lips upon the instant and as the door opened, the robin took to the air. Marissa, bolstered by her little visitor and the first conversation she had held in three years, endured her mother's scolding in meek silence, looking forward to the morrow.
The robin did not come on the morrow, perhaps chary of the spindly-tailed kitten who came sniffing at the kitchen stoop as Marissa swept it. She paused in her sweeping, so as to not startle the little creature, and crouched, offering it her hand to sniff. It butted its ears and head against her fingers, producing a purr that sounded entirely too large for that fragile little body. She scratched the orange ears, rubbing the hard little head, then stood, moving back to where the morning's milk still sat on the counter. It would be one more dish for her to wash, later, but she took a saucer and poured a tiny bit of the precious milk into the dish. This she set on the stoop.
The kitten stalked over stiff-legged to sniff suspiciously at the dish, then bent to lapping up the offering in good earnest. Marissa quietly finished her tasks around the kitchen, keeping an eye on the kitten. She had just dried the last dish - save the saucer on the stoop - to put away, when her mother came in, looking as bad-tempered as always. The kitten, curious about this newcomer, ventured indoors.
Marissa's mother gasped, drawing back her skirts. "Oh, ugh! Why are you letting that horrible creature in here? Take it and drown it at once!"
Marissa, appalled, reached silently for a basket, bending to scoop the kitten up in one hand. It immediately began purring again, vibrating against her palm. She set it in the basket and stepped out the door, setting off down the path towards the village. As soon as she was out of sight of the house, she paused and set down the basket carefully, pulling off her kerchief and tucking into the basket, petting the kitten's head carefully. It purred up at her and she gave it a sad, strained little smile, lifting the basket once more and carrying down the path.
The village was bustling and she drew many curious looks, a comparative stranger in their midst, a mute with her head down and her eyes on the dust below her feet, her hair bare in the sun. She set the basket carefully by the well and retreated into the shadows between two narrow buildings, watching. It did not take long for the purring kitten to draw a crowd of admiring children, and when one delighted little girl lifted the kitten and went running towards a house, Marissa slipped forward to collect kerchief and basket and trot rapidly back to the house.
Her mother scolded her, of course, but Marissa had been expecting it, and endured the scolding with bent head, and sat down to her distaff and spindle and wheel once more. No cheery robin came to bear her company today, but only her mother's sharp tongue. Marissa sat and spun, pensive, pondering the acute difference between kind words and cruel ones. The sun had long since sunk past the heavy trees out the window, the sky above dark and embroidered with stars, when Marissa's mother blew out the candle and curtly ordered her to bed.
The bells in the village chapel tolled their call to the service. Marissa sat at the window and listened, her shoulders slumped with weariness. There would be no customers today, and Marissa's mother slept late, as exhausted by her own toil as was Marissa. Outside the window, somewhere in the verdant forest, a robin chirped and whistled, but it did not come to the window. Marissa sat, watching the forest and listening, the week's burdens weighing on her.
Bake and mend and cook and draw water and sweep and dust, and then sit and spin spin spin spin spin. Voices from the shop in the front room, Marissa's mother with the forced note of pleasantry in her tone that Marissa was never judged worthy to receive, the cheerful jolly voices of matrons come to buy their yarn and their cloth. A robin whistled in the forest and Marissa whistled hopefully back, but her little friend did not come hopping or flying out to see her.
Instead a battered tom-cat slunk out of the forest, its ribs showing, ears tattered like old dish-cloths, one eye missing. It did not approach the house, but sat, watching Marissa through the open kitchen door as she bent over the fireplace and oven where their daily meals were cooking. Marissa straightened, pushing back a sweat-damp tendril of hair, and looked at the wary old tom with compassion. Chicken was dear, but a very little bit would not be missed if she was careful to take less for herself that evening. Only a bite, but she tossed it to the tom-cat, the morsel landing in the dust some halfway between the step and the stray.
The cat rose to its feet with wary grace, creeping forward to sniff at the half-cooked meat. A quick bite, and the chicken was gone. The cat turned round, melting back into the bushes on the eaves of the forest. Marissa hoped that he would not find robin for dinner.
Over the next few days, she could not help fearing that her little friend had ended his days as a cat's dinner, but she had but little time to think of the cheery robin that had brightened her days. Shearing time had come, and Marissa was hard at work from before dawn to after dusk. At the end of each exhausted day she would collapse onto her narrow cot, too tired even to think. After three years, the work was no longer clumsily unfamiliar, but it was still hard. She was beginning to feel as old as her mother, whose hair was increasingly streaked with grey, who had new lines around her hard-set mouth.
Marissa moved through her days in a fog of exhaustion, which was likely why it took her several hours to realize that her mother had not come even once to harangue her for being slow, or stupid, or lazy. Guilty relief warred with anxiety, and Marissa halted her wheel, standing to go in search of her mother. She found her, sprawled on the neatly swept floor of the kitchen, breathing labored. A sharp flare of alarm stabbed like fire through Marissa; with an effort, she lifted her mother to the bed where the older woman slept. Her face was an unhealthy grey and Marissa, after tucking her in warmly, tied on a kerchief and all but flew down the trail into the village.
It was difficult to convince the wise woman to follow her, without speaking betraying words, but pleading looks and tugged sleeves and the display of their few precious hoarded coins convinced her to come. The old lady gathered her herbs and her basket and followed Marissa back to the small cottage.
An attack of the heart, she pronounced. She left a tincture with Marissa, along with a stern instruction that her mother was to be allowed to sleep quietly for some several days. Marissa realized with sinking heart that she must need tend the shop herself, now, mute as she was, and there would be no abatement of her own workload. It was a daunting prospect, and her heart sank, but she firmed up her mouth and squared her shoulders. She would need to buy more candles, that was all.
Three days, of little food and less sleep, of spooning broth into the invalid's mouth, of smiling silently at customers and fetching their yarn for them and indicating through awkward gestures how much was owed, of sitting up late into the night shivering beside the banked fire, spinning by candlelight and moonlight until skilled fingers were too cold and numb to do their work. Three days, Marissa's mother slept, and woke only to eat, and said little, and slept once more. Three days, without even a robin's whistle to sustain her, and Marissa scarcely noticed.
On the fourth day, she was nodding off over the shop counter when her mother shuffled into the room. "Oh, there you are," she said peevishly, her voice little better than a croak. "Did you not hear me calling to you? Sleeping out here! I ought to have known!"
Marissa had sat up with a jerk, and now rubbed her stinging eyes. She could not answer back, but her mother was mercifully cut short by the door opening. Both women turned to help their customer, but stopped short in surprise.
A pert robin hopped across the floor towards the counter, halting halfway. It spread its wings and then a lady stood in its place, tall and grand, bright dark eyes and brown feathered cloak and crimson gown, feature elfin-fine and magnificent. Marissa and her mother gaped, Marissa shrinking back in alarm.
The fairy smiled kindly upon her. "Fear not, child. You have done nothing to merit punishment. Do you remember them?" She held out one elegant hand. Above it, a robin hopped, a kitten gamboled, an old tom cat winked its one eye. "You were kind to even the very least of these, when it would give you no gain, when it might cause you further trouble. Tell me, child, have you learned the value of kind words, and the pain of cruel ones?"
Tell her, she had said, and Marissa dared not disobey. She swallowed hard and said, very tentatively, only a single word. "Yes."
No slime or scales offended her lips, no venomous toad or adder fell to the floor. Her eyes widened, and she looked down at the wooden planks, and over at her pallid mother, and back at the fairy. The fairy met her gaze with compassion. "Speak freely, then, child. Do not forget the cost of cruelty, though," she cautioned. "If you revert back to your old ways, the curse will return, and you will be beset by the toads and snakes of your own making."
"Thank you," Marissa gasped. "Oh, milady, thank you! I will not!"
The fairy inclined her head. "It is well. The curse is lifted, and I would give you a gift. Do you wish for gold and jewels and wealth? Or a handsome man to fall in love with you?"
"Oh," Marissa said, dazed. "Oh, I do not know."
"Think a moment," the fairy advised. "And while you do, I will see to justice." She turned her gaze, heavy and piercing as a saber, on Marissa's mother, who had begun to tremble. "You, I deem, have not learned the lesson your daughter has learned. You treated these least of creatures with callous disregard, and your own daughter with cruelty. Would it not be a fitting punishment for your words to manifest?"
"Milady, please," Marissa's mother whimpered, and Marissa's heart was wrung with horror.
"Oh, milady, I beg you," she said quickly. "My mother has been ill, and she has grown worn with a work to which she was not raised. I beg you, please, milady, have mercy on her, and do not lay a curse upon her!"
The fairy looked at her, pointed brows tilted in surprise. "Do you, who have suffered the worst for her sharp tongue, interceded for her, then, child? Why?"
"Because..." Marissa faltered, and looked over at her mother, who was gazing at her with a strange expression. Quick as lightning, memories ran through Marissa's mind. A golden childhood, adored and doted upon, her younger sister bearing the brunt of their mother's displeasure, growing into a young lady, petted and pampered and flattered, an offended fae and a curse and a fall from grace. Always, Marissa's mother had been straight and regal and haughty as any queen. Now her hands were roughened with toil where once they were smooth and white, her silks and velvets had been replaced with rough homespun, her once-elegant hair was caught in a simple bun that would not stay smooth, her arrogant beauty lined and wrinkled and weary.
"Because she is my mother, and I love her," Marissa said simply. "You offered me a gift, milady. Let it be this, then: that my mother go free and unharmed, no curse meted out upon her."
The fairy regarded her. "Are you certain, child? Think what you are giving up. You could have aught that your heart desires; wealth untold, love, ease and luxury."
It was a tempting lure. It was. For a moment, Marissa thought longingly of never spinning again, never having to touch wool even once more in her life. She thought of a large home with many rooms, massive fireplaces and heaps of wood. She thought of silks and jewels.
Yet, having lived three years of her life in miserable silence, keeping every thought to herself and enduring everything mutely, she could not wish such a fate on her mother. "Nay, milady," Marissa said humbly. "I ask only that I may speak freely once more, and my mother the same. I would wish to converse, not speak to one who cannot answer back."
There was kindness and respect and surprise in equal measure as the fairy looked on her. "As you wish, child. Let it be so." She turned to Marissa's mother. "For the sake of your daughter's forgiveness towards you, I shall have mercy. I advise you to remember that."
"Y-yes, milady," Marissa's mother said unsteadily.
The fairy gave them a regal look. "I would not leave you without a gift, child. You will be the greatest spinner in the land, while you live, and your daughter shall surpass your skill: she will be able to spin straw into gold." With this pronouncement, she turned away, and dissipated into the sunbeam shining through the door, leaving both women silent and stunned.
Marissa put a hand to her lips and murmured wonderingly, "I can talk." Her words fell into empty air and dissolved there, and she said aloud and joyously, "I can talk!"
"Daughter." Her mother's voice was husky, and Marissa turned towards her. Tears stood in the older woman's eyes. "I am... sorry. Forgive me. Thank you."
A lump choked Marissa's own words. "Of course," she murmured, and lifted her arms, and stepped forward to embrace her mother.
That wasn't quite the end‚ of course. The fairy had said that Marissa would have a daughter‚ so it did not come as a complete surprise when the young miller from whom they bought their grain began making the trip to deliver it all the way out to their cottage himself. It was not a surprise when he began bringing bouquets of flowers when he came. It was not a surprise when‚ a year later‚ he asked for Marissa's hand in marriage. He was a good man‚ and a kind one‚ and she was pleased to accept. Their daughter was as beautiful as the sunrise‚ and even as an infant‚ loved to twist pieces of string into thread.
But that is a story for another time.
