The Girl

She walks among them, pretty as a brand new morning, friendly as the warm sunshine on a cold winter's day, and as harmless as the unicorns that once used to graze this land. It's hard not to like her easy smile and generous being, but the people always, always try to stay away from her at first. Of course, they always fail, but that's not the point, is it?

Before they succumb to her sweetness, they whisper; they just can't help themselves. The problem is that she looks all of seventeen summers old, but the olden ones still cannot remember her birth. It seems as if she had just appeared among them one day, and hasn't aged a day since. The old priest in the tiny church had thrown her angry looks more than once, muttering about how she was a creation of the devil, a fairy, a changeling placed in their midst to lead them astray, but then she had knocked on his door and brought him some fresh bread, delicious of smell and taste, and that was that. They now meet in the tavern once a week, where she makes him laugh, and he tries to keep her from eternal damnation.

Her house is just at the edge of the dark forest, the one that swallows hunters and children alike, never to spit out their remains. Deep in the forest is a castle, rumoured to be inhabited by a fearsome monster that once used to be a prince. Now that the people like her, they always try to make her move into the centre of the village, where the kind girl can be protected from whatever lurks in the darkness. But she only ever shakes her head, and smiles, and picks some flowers on her way back. It's as if the darkness can't touch her, the villagers whisper, and do not know whether to be afraid for or of her.

So the years go by, the monster ravages those that enter the forest, and the girl lives right at its edge, warning stray children to return home to their mothers and smiling away the hunter's interest in making her a wife. She has many admirers; it comes with being strange and beautiful. Among the villagers, she finds a friend, a real and true one. His name is Caleb, and he has once seen the fairies and the monster. He's the only one who went into the forest and returned, but it cost him his youth. His hair is now white, snow white, and there is a knowing in his eyes that has no place there. He's twenty-five, but she always teases him that his soul is bordering on a thousand. Caleb, who used to be a hunter, has settled in the oldest and crookedest house in the village and he sells bread and cakes out of his kitchen window. In a village where everyone bakes their own bread, it makes him a poor man, but Caleb doesn't seem to care.

The girl, whose name is so ordinary that it doesn't seem to fit her wonderful nature, likes to come to his window and breathe in the smell of the fresh bread, warming in the oven. So she leans against the window sill and he smiles at her and they are friends, even though words are rarely exchanged. Occasionally, he comes to her hut, hat in his hand and fear in his green eyes (the forest will never not make him nervous), and then they sit down on the bench in front of it and let the sun warm their faces.

That is how they spend his lifetime and one day, the young hunter turned baker with the old eyes is gone, replaced by a spindly man of too many winters. The girl is still a girl, and holds his hand when he passes away. Lonely years follow, and she often misses him. His few words were kind, and he never whispered about her, not even in the beginning. But sadness is not her in her nature, so she braids her hair and puts on her dress and sets out into the morning, curious and content with what it will offer her.

When she returns one afternoon, she finds someone else in her hut, another girl. The unexpected visitor looks a lot like herself, only that where the girl's hair is of a silver hue, that of the visitor looks like spun gold. The visitor laughs for no reason, and the girl chimes in and then they dance a bit, sisters under the evening stars, and the golden one tells her that Caleb is now young again in the place where the fairies sing. Then the golden one is gone and in his castle in the forest, the monster howls.

The flowers around the hut grow faster after the visit, and they no longer wilt. Soon, sunflowers grow in the most random of places, just beyond the small windows and even on the roof. The girl likes it: it looks pretty and reminds her of friends in far away lands. She still walks into the village, shares ale and dinner with the priest (even though it's a different one these days) and walks past the crooked house. It grows more crooked every day, tilting to the left. Sometimes, a shingle falls down, but it never hits anyone on the head. The villagers joke that they have a lucky charm somewhere and the girl giggles.

During the longest winter anyone can remember, two boys move into the house. They're wee, and blond, and come alone. Their parents had left them in the forest at night, no longer able to feed them, and when the children heard the monster's roar, they climbed on the highest tree and waited for morning to arrive. It did, and then they ran as hard and fast and long as only children can until they found themselves in the centre of the village. Their parents never made it out of the forest, and the monster made its way back to its castle well fed.

The villagers didn't know what to do with the boys at first: their parents' house has a leaky roof and is on the edge of the village and there was no-one who could take care of them there. There was lots of talk, lots of worry, and little result. Then the priest thought of the crooked house, which was empty and despite its tilt to the left, has a good roof and a strong oven. The boys moved in and now the village raises them together. The girl often comes to visit, and brings them bread and sunflowers. Ezechiel is awfully shy at first, but his brother is not, and soon the girl and Jamie play hide and seek in the crookedest house. It takes Ezechiel many years to no longer only play hide, but once he does, he's always the first one to find the girl.

The boys become young men, the memories of their hollow-hearted parents forgotten, and they come to say goodbye to the girl, still seventeen, and still the kindest being in the village. It's their time to explore the world, have adventures, and slay dragons, Jamie proclaims and the girl shakes her head and sends them off with chaste kisses on still stubble-less cheeks.

Just as they part, an old man with curly brown hair (grey with a few streaks of brown) walks up the hut and the boys smile and the man grins, and then they're all on their way, the boys off to slay dragons and live adventures and the man to the hut, where he asks for a meal and a glass of water and offers to chop wood for the cold days in exchange. The girl smiles, gives him bread and water, and two very shiny red apples and then they sit down and talk while he eats. He's just passing through, he tells her, he's looking for a woman he once loved and hopes to find again, and then he speaks of the greenest eyes and lips as pink as roses, and the girl nods and tells him to go in the forest because she knows many secrets, and how to find lost and loved ones is one of them. So the man eats one apple and pockets the other and disappears in the green darkness. The monster in his castle howls with glee and while the girl doesn't like it, she knows that the man's path to true love must begin there.

As expected, the golden girl appears the next night, a green one by her side. The green one is sad and happy at the same time: she and her long lost lover have been reunited, but it means that he now has to live in her world, the eternal one, that of the fairies. The girl and her golden visitor tell the green one that this is the only way, and then they dance under the moonlight, and maybe, the green girl leaves happier than she arrived. When morning comes, the eternal sunflowers all around the house are joined by pink roses, ranking over the walls and coiling around the little bench.

The girl cuts those off and carries them to the village, where she gives them to the oldest woman that lives there. It's another stray the odd village near the forest took in a few weeks ago; the woman had stumbled into their midst, blind and deaf and lonely, and the village knew it was time to be kind. She lives above the tavern now, and plays the flute even though she herself can't hear it. Her hair is as white as snow (as white as Caleb's, the girl thinks and is pleased to remember her first friend) and the smell of the flowers makes her smile.

When the girl returns to the village the next day, red lilies grow in front of the tavern, growing higher than lilies have any right to and smelling better than anyone could have ever imagined and then the girl knows that the old woman is young again and has joined her sisters in the land that is not spoken of among mortals. So she smiles and dances through the village and right back to her hut, where the next days are spend in quiet happiness.

Days become years, and the village begins to look as unchanged as the girl. The monster still roars, and still eats children and hunters when they dare to walk into the forest, but the girl knows that this is the way of the world and that for every suffering, there is also happiness. It is this thought that she amuses herself with (counting happiness on one hand and suffering on the other and being best pleased that they're always, always the same number) when an old friend returns to her.

He wears dragonskin boots and bravado and she still remembers that once, Jamie was a boy who loved to hide under the kitchen table and seek her in the crookedest corner of the crookedest house. Ezechiel follows him a day later, white beard almost trailing on the floor. The two brothers bicker and laugh just the way the girl remembers and they brought her a present, too. It's the first present the girl has ever gotten, and she loves it fiercely. It's a bouquet of flowers: blue forget-me-nots and a single red rose at its centre. So there is a blue fairy, the girl thinks and looks at Ezechiel, whose days in this world are numbered now that the attention of the fae is on him. The red rose however she doesn't understand; a first in many, many years.

The brothers move back into the crookedest house and don't tell her anything. The priest, the fourth of fifth one, it's so hard to tell after all those years, doesn't know anything either, and the girl finally feels a new feeling: wanderlust. Where does the red rose come from and why does it smell so sweet? The answer, the girl knows, is in the forest. So one day, many, many years after she walked into the village to live among humans, the girl packs a small bundle and closes the door of her hut for the last time. It's spring, and the whole world is in bloom. She looks at the sunflowers, the pink roses and the occasional forget-me-not and lily in between (so the red and the blue fairy have visited her after all, the girl thinks) and takes the ten new steps in the direction she never walked in before and then she's in the forest, wild and green and dark and exciting.

Reader, you will not be surprised to hear that the crookedest house has collapsed seconds after the girl stepped into the green darkness: its tilt to the left became a fall to the front, showering the village with ancient shingles. One even hit the priest on the head, and he briefly saw stars!

The two old brothers shrugged and simply moved in the chambers above the tavern: they like it there, and tell everyone the story of their adventures, of the slain dragon, and the human fairy, and the monster in the forest that once was and now is a prince again. They grin and whisper how love conquers all, even a wolfish appetite and a curse that went on for centuries. Then they order more ale, and the priest, still seeing stars when he closes his eyes, makes a toast with them, 'to the girl', he proclaims, and the whole village joins in.

But the little hut at the edge of the forest is something that can no longer be seen: too many flowers grow around it. If you know exactly where to look, you might see a hint of white painted wood behind the thick green ivy and the many, many red roses. But there is also a new flower that grows there now. It's a daisy, and there is only one, growing right at the edge of the forest, far too special for the ordinary name it carries.

The End