Greenglass House (13 page)

 

five

“
Listen.
There was once a young man who lived in a small town by the bay and worked up the coast in a slightly larger town to the north. The boy's name was Julian Roamer, and twice a day his walk took him six miles along a road that ran beside the water. There was the ocean, and then a ripple of high, seagrass-covered dunes, and then the road, which was badly paved along its whole length, with little stones that constantly got into Julian's worn shoes to abuse his feet. It was almost as if the stones themselves were embarrassed by the state of the road and wanted to escape it by any means they could.”

“Roamer?” This time it was Georgie who interrupted. “As in
the
roamers?”

“I'm getting there,” Mrs. Hereward said through clenched teeth.

“The roamers?” Negret asked. There was a story in
The Raconteur's Commonplace Book
called
The Roamer in the Nettles,
but he hadn't gotten to it yet. “What are roamers?” He had an idea that he ought to know, but he couldn't quite remember. Meddy had mentioned roamers when they were making up his character, but that was all that came to mind.

“In folklore they're this bunch of wanderers. Itinerants, living on the road. On special roads, usually.” Georgie smiled cheerfully at the scowling Mrs. Hereward. “Sorry.”

“Kindly don't spoil the story, young lady. To continue: One summer night, Julian was walking home under one of the most wondrous skies he had seen in ages. It was perfectly clear, and so full of stars that they seemed to have been spattered on like fine sprays of white paint. The night was so bright, Julian had even doused his lamp. The only thing spoiling the loveliness was a particularly painful stone in his shoe.

“He stopped and yanked off his shoe and muttered, ‘I wish these stones would leave me in peace. In fact, I wish I were mayor of this town so I could fix this road.' It was the sort of thing anyone might say at any time without a second thought and without really meaning it. But it happened that at that precise moment, there was a shooting star in the sky.

“Everyone knows—or at least, was probably told as a child—that you can make a wish on a shooting star. Not everyone knows that the only way to be sure it will come true is to speak it aloud before the star disappears, and this is a nearly impossible feat to manage. But because the wish—the second wish—was on his lips just before the star began its descent, Julian managed to do it, even though he hadn't even realized there was a shooting star in the sky to wish upon.

“He shook out the pebble and was in the process of lacing the shoe back up when he heard a voice from the dunes. ‘Young man,' the voice said. ‘Would you repeat that, please?'

“Julian turned and found a strange, soaking-wet figure picking his way over the dunes. ‘I beg your pardon?' he asked as the man approached. The stranger was wearing a silver tailcoat with black patches of burned fabric at the elbows and the collar. His trousers were a darker pewter color, and they were also burned at the knees. Every inch of him was sodden, as if he'd just picked himself out of the water.

“‘I asked if you could repeat your wish,' the man said, slapping a silver leather cap with earflaps against his thigh to shake the water from it. ‘I didn't quite catch it, what with the airflow. Actually, I can't say I was listening all that closely to begin with. Nobody manages his wish well enough to get it all out in time. But I must say I'm grateful, and I'd grant your wish even if I weren't honor bound to do it. You saved my life, after all.' Then the stranger held out his hand. ‘I'm Baetylus, and at the risk of stating the obvious, I'm a shooting star. What was your wish, now?'

“Julian stared, pop-eyed, but he understood this much: the stranger named Baetylus was offering to grant the wish he had just made. Julian looked down at the shoe he'd just put back on, and then at the long road ahead of him. ‘I think I said something about being mayor so I could fix the road,' he said warily.

“Baetylus frowned. ‘You'd like to be mayor? Really? And do you know anything about fixing roads?'

“Julian considered. ‘Well, if I were mayor, I suppose I'd have someone working for me whose job it was, wouldn't I?'

“‘I suppose,' the shooting star said, looking disdainfully at the ground upon which they stood. ‘Although frankly, this already looks like the kind of road you'd end up with if you had a mayor who'd wished his way into his job.' He wrung a few more drops from his hat and pulled it on, which made his head look like a bullet. ‘Listen. Being mayor—well, certainly, I can give you that wish. But if you want to be a
good
mayor—there seem to be so very few of them—that must be the sort of thing you have to be destined for. And a wish that goes against your destiny . . . that's always a bad idea. Only a fool scoffs at destiny.'

“‘I think only a fool relies on it,' Julian grumbled. ‘How can destiny decide what I'm going to be before I do?'”

Negret shifted where he sat on the hearth, suddenly vaguely uncomfortable as he considered the idea of destiny. It was the same kind of uneasiness he'd felt earlier that same day when she-who-was-now-Sirin had begun asking questions like
Who do you want to be?
Thoughts like this inevitably led to wondering what might have been if his life had started out just a bit differently. Or maybe, if there was such a thing as destiny, it didn't matter. Maybe he always would have ended up here at Greenglass House as part of the Pine family.

This train of thought brought on a gutful of guilt. Because if anyone had been able to hear his thoughts, that person would have to assume that Milo wished he hadn't ended up here. And that wasn't true. It was just that it was impossible not to
wonder
 . . .

He turned his attention back to Mrs. Hereward. “The shooting star was apologetic about his criticism,” she continued. “‘This is just my opinion from eons of observation,' he said. ‘You're welcome to take it with a grain of salt. If you'd really like to be made mayor, say the word and I'll do it.'

“But by this time, Julian was already rethinking his wish. It had been a bit of an impulse anyhow. ‘You're probably right,' he said. ‘Honestly, I only said it because I had a stone in my shoe.'

“‘Look here,' Baetylus said, ‘stone-proof shoes, that I can do. That's easy.'

“‘Seems like a waste of a wish.'

“‘Not at all. Stone-proof shoes that never wear out would be at once practical and completely impossible without the benefit of magic; just right for wishing. In fact, it's such a perfect wish that I'll give you that one for free, and the next time you and I cross paths, you can tell me what your real wish is. After all, you saved my life.' And with that, the shooting star reached into one pocket, took out a handful of dust, and sprinkled it over Julian's feet. Immediately the boy could feel the soles of his shoes stiffen, the laces tighten, even his socks thicken up between the leather and his skin. Then the peculiar man in his silver coat bent down and picked up a pebble from the road. He held it out to Julian.

“‘Was that the stone that was torturing me?' Julian asked.

“‘Not anymore,' Baetylus said, setting it in Julian's palm. ‘Now it's a reminder of the wish you almost made.' He shook the boy's hand, and then the shooting star turned and headed up the road.

“When Baetylus had disappeared from view, Julian continued toward home, shaking the stone in his palm. He thought about what his real wish would be when Baetylus found him once more.
Well, I'm not going to wish to be mayor,
he thought, and tossed the stone over his shoulder. Aloud, he said, ‘Perhaps I'll wish for enough money to pave the road myself.' And wouldn't you know it, Julian's luck was such that his carelessly thrown pebble fell into an old and forgotten well covered over by weeds. It happened to be a holy well—the kind they call in fairy stories a
wishing well.
”

“Who needs wishes with that kind of luck?” Sirin asked from behind the tree.

“Shh,” Negret hissed. Then his cheeks went red as everyone turned to stare. “Sorry.”

Mrs. Hereward gave a little harrumph before carrying on. “Julian, of course, didn't know this. He hadn't seen where his little stone had landed. He just kept on walking, looking at the stars and thinking of wishes, while behind him dark water began to bubble up out of the forgotten well, pouring over the mossy stones and running through the wind-twisted shrubs on the inland side of the road. It kept flowing up and out, more and more of it, all coming right toward Julian, who was blissfully unaware until the water splashed into the back of his shoes. Just then, a woman's voice called from the shrubs to the west: ‘Excuse me, young man, you'll have to say that again.'

“Julian climbed onto a rock by the road-turned-creek and peered into the bushes just in time to see the owner of the voice haul herself out of the well and stride toward him. She wore a slate-colored dress, and her hair was the same silver as Baetylus's suit, but her skin was the dark of dark water—it might have been gray, or black, or brown, or green, or any one of them, depending upon the angle of the light that hit it. ‘Could you please say that again?' she asked. ‘I wasn't listening. My well is so old, and it's very rare that anyone finds it to make a wish in; I confess I don't listen as well as I should.' She held out the pebble he'd just thrown. ‘I believe this is yours.'

“Only because he'd just met a shooting star did Julian manage to recover his poise at the sudden appearance of this strange woman. He introduced himself, and the woman in the beautiful dress shook his hand. ‘My name is Wielle,' she told him. ‘Would you tell me again what you wished for?'

“Once more, Julian had been speaking off the top of his head, and not because he really wanted anything. ‘I wished for money,' he admitted, and then because that sounded quite selfish, he added, ‘For paving the road.'

“Wielle looked critically at him. ‘I'm not sure I'd suggest you make that wish,' she said at last. ‘I'll grant it if it's what you truly want, but you seem like a nice fellow, and that sort of wish just never turns out well in my experience. Trouble comes when a person starts asking for money; it never does what they think it will do. And then there's the problem of destiny. Things never turn out well when you try to outwit destiny. Only fools do that.'

“Destiny again. Julian sighed. ‘I don't know if I believe in destiny,' he said, ‘but you're right, I didn't actually make that wish hoping someone was going to grant it. I was just thinking out loud.'

“‘Well, I'm not going back without granting a wish,' the woman protested. ‘Do you know how long it's been since I've been out of that well? Give me something to do, I beg you. It's lonely down there. Moreover, if I grant a wish, I am allowed to stay out of the well for a decade.'

“There was nothing Julian particularly wished for—not really—but he didn't want Wielle to have to return to the well if she didn't want to. ‘Let me see,' he said. ‘I was only thinking of fixing the road when I made the wish before. Even getting rid of the broken paving stones would be an improvement.'

“Wielle considered. ‘That's not a bad idea, you know. I could grant your wish for the broken paving stones to be gone for now, and then you could tell me your real wish another time.'

“Julian wondered for a moment why these strange wishing creatures were so eager to give wishes away and why they thought they were going to cross paths again—but Wielle was already walking toward him, her steps carrying her atop the little flood as easily as an insect skimming the surface. She took his hand, folded the pebble into it, and kissed his lips. When she stepped back, the broken pavement beneath the water was gone, without a single foot-piercing stone to be seen. ‘Until we meet again, Julian!' she called, and then she too withdrew to the north, trailing the waters of the hidden well in her wake like the train of a fancy gown.

“With his fingers to his lips, Julian watched her disappear. Then, feeling a bit like he'd wandered off his usual road and into a dream, he started walking again.

“The dirt road was nicer than the broken pavement, but now that the well waters had receded, they had left a good deal of mud behind. Julian's improved shoes kept the sludge out nicely, but they didn't make the actual walking through it any easier, so after a few yards, he hiked off the road a bit, found a bush of blackthorn, and cut himself a walking stick. Then he returned to the road and continued on his way, muttering, ‘Wishes, wishes, wishes,' as he walked. Now he had two saved up for a rainy day, and he was trying to figure out what sort of wishes Baetylus and Wielle would approve of.
Only a fool scoffs at destiny,
Baetylus had said, and
Things never turn out well when you try to outwit destiny
had been Wielle's advice. But Julian still didn't know if he believed in destiny at all. ‘That would be a useful wish to make, maybe,' he mused. ‘To know whether I have a destiny, and if I have, what it is.'

“He walked on in silence for a few yards, and then a new voice spoke up, a voice that seemed to come from incredibly close by. ‘Say it properly, for goodness' sake! I can't do anything unless you say it properly.'

“Startled, Julian dropped his walking stick and turned in a circle, but there didn't seem to be anyone there. He looked toward the dunes, in case he'd inadvertently wished upon another star. He patted his hip and peered into the brush, but the stone was still in his pocket and there were no more strange waters rising to flood the road. Then he turned back around and saw a thin creature picking itself up out of the mire. Julian's walking stick had sprouted arms and legs and a narrow face and was now brushing mud from its bark-colored suit.