Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(89)
The oak was moved by Saga and Freya’s sacrifice. “Come, child,” it said, and beckoned the boy forward. The boy whispered his loss and longings and, finally, his name so that someone would remember.
“What transformation should I give you?” asked the tree.
“I should like to be a fish so that I could swim away,” said the boy.
“So mote it be,” said the oak.
The little boy slipped into the river and ducked his head beneath its waters, which sang of his journey, a song somewhere between lament and prayer, and in the next moment, there was a splash of orange and silver. A beautiful, swift fish flicked its new tail against the current and swam out toward the unknown of the sea. One day, that fish who had been a boy would grow into a great whale. With his spout he would lift others above the whirlpools and storms and dangers and help carry them toward home. Sometimes, we cannot see what becomes of the people we save. Saga and Freya and the oak did not see what became of the boy whose name they kept close in their fingers, but he never forgot them. As it happened, there were other children who needed the oak’s magic. One by one, Saga and Freya led them to the tree where they might become a duck or a frog, a squirrel or chipmunk or, occasionally, a snake. Safe from the mad king’s soldiers. Safe from his hunter.
I don’t think I’ve ever told you that part before.
Stories are like that, you know. There are stories hidden within stories, smuggled across borders.
Anyway, now I’ve told you. Now you know.
While Saga and Freya were helping the lost children of the forest, there was new danger in the castle. King Aldred’s men had learned the location of Prince Alexander’s secret camp. They had hatched a plan to ride north and slaughter them all.
“Oh, lamentation!” cried the river. “We must warn the prince or all is lost!”
All night, Saga and Freya wove their warning to the prince. They used special thread that could not be detected easily. The message hidden beneath another, more banal one. A story within a story, you see? All that remained was for someone to carry their message to the prince. To act as courier.
The barn owl spoke. “I can fly the message.”
“It is a long journey,” said the oak.
“Then I must begin,” said the barn owl.
The owl was very brave. Very brave.
That night, when the moon let out its first yawn of light, Saga and Freya tucked two messages into the barn owl’s beak—one for the prince and one for the townspeople. The barn owl brushed a wing across her sleeping owlets, who shivered in their dreams. And then, she was gone.
For some time, the rooster had been eager to prove himself to the hunter. To most, the rooster seemed arrogant and obnoxious strutting around. But in reality, he doubted himself. He feared he was not a very good rooster and that when his back was turned, the chickens’ clucking was really them making fun of him. He believed, and this is rather sad, that he was beyond love. It was the rooster’s job to signal the arrival of dawn with his crow each morning. But instead of sleeping that night, he decided instead to keep watch. When he saw the barn owl tying the sisters’ message to the castle walls, he alerted everyone with his loudest crowing. The barn owl immediately recognized the danger she was in. She tried to fly away. But the guards threw a net, trapping her inside.
The hunter arrived with his crossbow and silver-tipped arrows. He lifted his bow. “Tell me where to find these traitors and I would spare your life.”
The barn owl was as wise as she was brave. She knew this to be a lie. “That? I found it in a ditch. I meant to use it to pad my nest.”
The hunter was angry. “Tell me or it is you who shall lie in a ditch.”
What choice did the poor barn owl have then? To betray her friends or to face certain death. I cannot imagine what thoughts must have occupied her mind then as she raised her head proudly. “More will come,” she said. “For not even you have the power to end hope.”
The hunter shot his arrow. It flew, like a terrible bird of prey, and pierced that snowy heart.
The brave barn owl spiraled to earth. Dead.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.
SPRING 2020
A text arrives from Mama D: Call me. It’s about Die Eichel.
Miles had finally remembered to text her about it last night. He FaceTimes his mother. Anke answers. With her severe bob and very German glasses, she looks like the headmistress of a school for artsy witches. “Guten Abend, Miles. Wie geht es?”
“I’m good. Uh, alles gut, danke.” He smiles in the awkward silence that follows. Talking to parental friends is always weird. Anke is particularly weird.
“Good. I am also fine,” she says in clipped English. “Let me get your mother. Dallas! Es ist dein Spawn!” Anke yells. She puts the phone down and Miles is left staring up at a ceiling with an old water stain.
“Hey! Hi, honey!” his mama says, picking up. With the other hand, she towels her wet hair. He is happy to see her face and wishes she were home, where, no doubt, they would start to irritate each other in small ways within days.
“Did Anke just call me your spawn?”
“You know Anke. Not big on the cuddly.”
The wall behind Mama D hosts a possible layout for the exhibition. He’s seen this process lots of times. Just over her left shoulder is a picture of her best friend, Richard, in an ACT UP T-shirt. He’s mid-chant, mouth wide open as he marches through the streets of New York carrying a hand-painted SILENCE = DEATH banner whose other side is held up by a Black trans woman, Genevieve. Every December 1, on World AIDS Day, Miles and his moms light a candle for Richard and honor his memory by watching a classic movie, something from Truffaut, which is Mama D’s favorite, or by Hitchcock, which is Miles’s fave. Mom Lisa only likes The Fast and the Furious and Marvel. Why do you wanna watch subtitles? That’s work! I don’t watch movies for them to be work.