The Sparrow King #2
“Not if your help comes at a price,” she answered quickly. There was no doubt she was tempted by the stranger, but she was not yet ready to lose herself in a mysterious bargain.
The stranger laughed, a booming, bell-like sound that delighted Damiana and made her want to laugh along with them.
She briefly wondered if she might be in their thrall, for the figure looked as though it was the kind of creature to possess such a power as a thrall, and she was certain she’d be exceptionally susceptible to it if they used it on her.
A lock of the creature’s shock of silvery white hair fell into their pale eyes as they lowered their head. “One such as I would not think to bargain with one such as yourself.”
Damiana was stunned silent. Were they insulting her? “So I am not worthy of a bargain?”
“Worthy? You?” The stranger frowned slightly, their beautiful face tilting in that birdlike way once more. “It is I that am not worthy of a bargain made with yourself.”
Damiana couldn’t think of a word to say in reply, her mind suddenly swimming with confusion.
She was used to being told that she wasn’t good enough for this or that.
Ansel was often disparaging, and her visits to the village were unpleasant enough to know that she would find no approval there.
Not one person, in her entire life, had ever suggested that she might be considered an equal, let alone a station above anyone else.
This was perplexing to her. Damiana was so flustered that she could hardly grasp words. “I need no help.”
The stranger nodded. “Then I shall walk with you, if that would be all right, and watch you find the way. It will rain within the hour, and I’d hate for you, or your drawing, to get wet.”
Something about the way the figure’s words drawled at the end of their sentence made Damiana’s entire body feel warmer than usual, but she couldn’t lay a finger precisely on which words she found most enchanting.
“I’d be happy for the company, but you needn’t worry for the drawing. My brother Ansel will only steal it.”
The stranger’s shoulders tensed, their dark eyes narrowing. For the first time since they had appeared, Damiana felt a cold slither of fear. “Are there those that would steal from you?” The forest creature’s words were slow. Deliberate. Calculating. “Your brother. Are there others?”
There was no doubt in Damiana’s mind that there was a threat nestled in those words, and that was a gift in itself.
She wished no harm on her brother, or the villagers…
or at the very least, she did not wish them this kind of harm.
Something smaller, and less serious than whatever lurked in the stranger’s cold gaze would do nicely.
Pushing these thoughts from her mind, because after all, most nice things that happened to Damiana ended in disappointment, she gathered the remains of her lunch.
As she did, the stranger handed her the blanket she’d been sitting on and her drawing supplies.
Neither of them spoke, as Damiana bundled them into the carrying basket she took with her into the forest each day while Ansel whiled away his time in the village.
She shouldered the straps she’d fashioned from scrap leather, so the basket rested comfortably on her back.
She handed the drawing to the stranger with a smile. “Here, a gift for you, since you thought it was good. I’d rather you keep it than have Ansel take it to market to sell.”
A look of surprise flickered in the figure’s starry eyes as they took the picture. They smiled at it, a genuine, appreciative smile, that lifted every bit of Damiana’s heart. And then, the picture disappeared between their long, clever fingers.
“Oh!” Damiana exclaimed. “Where did it go?”
“Somewhere safe,” the stranger explained, gesturing in the opposite direction from the one Damiana had almost chosen.
Again, those long fingers caught her attention, their beauty something she wanted to draw, yes, but also…
her breath caught at the thought of those fingers on the laces of her stays, on her skin—the stranger’s mesmerizing voice interrupted her fevered thoughts.
“We shall call it the price for my help.”
“Oh no,” Damiana shook her head. “It was a gift freely given. I can find my way, thank you.”
Again, the look of surprise crossed the stranger’s face. “Then we shall call my help a similar and equally freely given gift.”
“I suppose that would be all right,” Damiana reasoned, then smiled. She nearly thanked them, but remembered the dangers of doing so just in time. Damiana wasn’t sure exactly who or what the dark figure might be, so it was best to exercise caution.
The stranger gestured again and Damiana followed. They chatted idly as they went, and soon the trees became familiar voices again. Up ahead, through the gnarled branches of an ancient oak, Damiana saw the path in the distance.
The figure stopped and nodded to the path, then turned as if to go.
“I enjoyed your company,” Damiana murmured softly, sorry the walk was over so soon. She’d been having a pleasant time. “I am Damiana.”
She spoke her name without thinking, without a shred of wisdom, and the creature spun, starlit eyes ablaze. “You give your name to a creature of the wood? Foolish girl, why would you do such a thing?”
Damiana shook her head. “I could do nothing else. How else would you know what to call me?”
The creature stalked forward, towards her until the warmth of their body warmed Damiana’s.
Those long, clever fingers fanned out, one tipping Damiana’s chin upwards so that she looked into their moonlight eyes.
Their voice was low and menacing when they asked, “And why, pray tell, would I need to know what to call you?”
Though her heart beat ever-faster, Damiana shrugged blithely. “Suppose you saw me in the woods again tomorrow, but I was a distance off. It would be rather rude to shout ‘Hey you!’ Now you may call my name and I will know it’s you.”
The bell-like laugh bubbled out of the figure again, all danger gone for the moment. “Then dear Damiana, you may call me Sparrow.”
“Is it your name?” Damiana asked, suspicious.
“In a way,” Sparrow said in a wry voice that indicated they found humor in their words. “And perhaps I will see you again soon.”
Damiana inclined her head to Sparrow, and when she lifted her eyes, they were gone.
She took the path home, and just as they had warned, it began to rain just inside the garden gate, heavy raindrops plopping onto her sweet fern and the red maple leaves that covered the path to the cottage door.
She was hardly damp when she ducked inside, so sporadic were the crystalline droplets.
“Took you long enough today,” Ansel muttered from the heavy wooden table their mother had painstakingly painted with forest flowers and herbs, labeling each one with their scientific name so that Ansel and Damiana would learn what was safe to forage and what was not.
Damiana had learned, but Ansel had never bothered. “Did you find any mushrooms?”
“Yes,” Damiana said cheerfully, heartened by her adventure in the forest. “And some wild onions. We shall have a brilliant omelet for dinner this evening.”
Ansel wrinkled his nose. He preferred heavier fare, but as he refused to hunt, and they had no money for the butcher, they would make do again. “If you say so. Did you make a drawing to sell at market tomorrow?”
Damiana’s nerves prickled at the question. He was pawing through her basket, a look of possessive rage on his face when he found nothing but mushrooms, onions and the remains of her lunch.
“No,” she said carefully, not wanting to provoke an argument. “I got lost.”
“Lost?” Ansel asked, drooping his long frame into a chair. “You should really be more careful.”
Damiana lifted her shoulders as she began to clean and slice the forest vegetation. “I had help.”
Ansel’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Help? From who?”
“Someone named Sparrow. They were very kind.”
Something like fear tensed in Ansel’s body and his voice was sharp when he said, “Stay away from the forest folk, Damiana. I mean it.”
“Of course, Ansel,” she said pleasantly, with absolutely no intention of obeying. “You may take my mushroom sketches to market if you like.”
She pointed to the pile of scrap paper she’d drawn several species of mushrooms on by her cot near the hearth.
Her brother had taken her parents’ big feather bed when their father had died, leaving her to choose either the privacy of the cold attic, or the warmth of the hearth.
He was the eldest, and their father had declared him head of house upon his death, but it did seem unfair that Damiana did all the work, and was expected to have so few comforts.
Ansel looked them over and then nodded. “Fine. They’re not as good as the trees, but I suppose they’ll do.”
He signed his name to them and she hardly felt the usual anger at his actions, but still, it irked. Why couldn’t he make his own drawings? Or something else? Why must he insist on taking what was hers and claiming it for himself?
The memory of Sparrow’s laugh, low and clear as a bell soothed her. Damiana’s voice was even when she finally answered Ansel. “I’ll do better tomorrow. Stay nearer to the path. I promise.”
He smiled at her, the smile she hated, the one that reminded her of their father, a grifter who had, in life, cheated poorer villagers out of their hard-earned money, while their mother stayed home and tended to the house and geese.
Ansel’s hand reached out to touch her bright hair and she noticed his nails were ragged and dirty.
What had he done all day that he couldn’t at least clean his hands?
She shied away from him and began dinner.