Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(66)

Miles makes a note:

Was Egon Wagner the Nazi mole?

If so, what happened to him?



Miles grabs the stack of flyers and the roll of tape. Just a few blocks around his neighborhood. Fifteen minutes tops. Like Amy said, everybody can do something. He can start here. He masks up and leashes Dodger, who seems surprised to be getting a bonus walk. “Come on, buddy. We got work to do.”





THE TALE OF THE HARE AND THE DEER



You would like me to tell the story.

What if the story you want to hear is not the story I need to tell?

Very well. It begins the same: Once upon a time …

Once upon a time there was a peaceable kingdom that fell into treachery and evil. This was a long time ago. Feels like yesterday. There was a mad king. You know from before. I need to tell you more about his reign, so that you understand. What is remembered holds power—it is a witness. One of the first things King Aldred did was to banish the historians and the truth-tellers. Only those who were followers and flatterers of the king could write the history. History gives us a chance to learn from our mistakes so that we do not repeat them. But only if it is told truthfully.

I need you to know this, my love. It is important.

Never let anyone hide the truth of history and replace it with myth.

King Aldred was not content just to rule Almany. His ambitions were far greater. For this he needed a war and for war he needed to create an enemy. This was easy, what with the historians and their lessons gone. These enemies were the reason that their cows took ill and made no milk! These enemies were why the crops failed! These enemies had stolen what belonged rightfully to the good citizens of Almany! Only when the enemies were gone could Almany be restored to this hazy memory of its former glory. The king pulled in farmers and young men from the fields. Potters and blacksmiths. Fathers and sons. People who had only known war through unreliable narrators. Some were eager to prove themselves worthy of the myths; others had no choice. In time, both would bleed. King Aldred sent these armies forth waving golden banners and banging drums. So proud. So smug. So naive. They did not see the tears on the faces of the eldest who knew war, who understood what could be lost forever. Lands were conquered, “enemies” murdered—mothers, fathers, children. The king’s body held no mercy; his bones were hollow, sharp things.

This may upset you. I did not tell this part before.

It’s just a story.

Let me tell you a bit about the prince, then.

Prince Alexander was handsome. It was said that when he sat upon his horse, he looked the very picture of the bronzed statue that had once stood outside the castle walls. Was he noble? Sometimes. He was a person; people are complicated. The prince had been a soldier. He knew its horrors. There were things he did not speak about. The prince had his spies who told him of Aldred’s treachery and of the people’s fear of the hunter. Prince Alexander began to form a plan. He gathered the men and women who were loyal to him. “We must put a stop to King Aldred’s reign of terror.”

Forgive me, Liebchen. What I said earlier is a lie. There’s no such thing as “just” a story. A story is a form of magic. It changes you from the inside and you are never the same after. Once you know about other lives. So it’s no wonder that King Aldred insisted on burning the books. People hurled entire libraries. Philosophy. Poetry. Fables and fairy tales. Martyrs, those books. They shrieked as their pages blackened and curled. But the ideas inside them would not burn. Aided by a sympathetic wind, the remnants rose up. They pressed themselves against woolen coats and stuck fast, shining out like singed medals until the curious peeled them off and read each rebellion aloud—“calumny,” “serendipitous,” “justice,” “prevail”—and the spell took hold. No. You cannot kill what lives inside of books.

But to the court, the king’s cruelties only enhanced his power.

“How strong is our king! How mighty!” the rooster crowed.

“One day, I will marry His Majesty,” said the fox, and she licked her golden fur until it shone.

And always, at the king’s side, was the hunter. Watching with his keen eyes.

Every morning, just before dawn, Saga and Freya whispered their secrets into the tree’s great heart. Such love between them. Each would die to protect the other. The tree accepted their confessions. It let out a sigh that held the whole world within it. In their trust, it felt less alone. That is a great magic: to know that we are not alone.

Do you know that I love you?

I hope so.

It helps us to bear the world.

The tree spoke to the sisters. “The magic has always been, just as the stars have always been. But there is only so much magic. There is what I can do. And there is what you must do.”

The tree could not hide the two sisters all of the time. By day, they were the hare and the deer, listening to the messages whispered to them through the resistance of trees and rivers and birds. But as the moon rose, the magic waned, and by the time the stars wrote their own stories into the ink of sky, they were Saga and Freya once more. It was at this time, under cloak of night, that the sisters began to weave. When they were finished, they delivered the cloth to the barn owl.

“Will you courier this message to the people?” Saga asked.

You know this word, courier? It is French. It takes great bravery to be a courier, to carry secrets that could get you killed. Great bravery.