Thirty-Seven

  A long time later the fire had died to orange coals, and we had sung the korred washing song for our hosts to the best of our recollection, and I had surreptitiously dumped out most of my mug of lage hoping that Highview and Liatris had not been looking. With an apology about their house not being large enough to fit us, filled as it was – Highview said – with their own long frames, he invited us to sleep around the remnants of the fire. We did so, and it was the most sound sleep I’d had since our departure from home. It was very odd to feel that secure in the Drearwold.

  The next day we were awoken by a small Highview, accompanied by two even smaller Liatrises. That’s how the three firbolg children struck me. They rather reminded me of Mabel, Daisy, and Twyla, my perspicacious serenading neighbors back in town. They were equally bright-eyed; sort of just very stretched-out versions of the girls. They brought us hot bowls of porridge and another round of large mugs, which were filled this time with a green tea rather than the firewater lage.

  “Mother and Father,” the boy said, “send these. They will be out soon.”

  I was still sitting on the ground, with my blanket over my knees, but I could see that he was easily taller than I was even though still clearly just a boy.

  “What an honor to meet you,” Freydis said. “What are your names?”

  They stated them, one by one, each of them making a little bow to us as they did so:

  “Maraven,” said the boy.

  “Saralie,” said the older girl.

  “Mistflower,” said the youngest.

  “And you,” the boy said, “are Freydis, and Flicker, and Caiside. We hope you slept well.”

  They then turned on their heels nearly in unison and walked back into the house.

  “So that’s why the house was too small for us,” Freydis said once they were gone.

  “I wonder that Highview and Liatris did not introduce them to us until now,” I said. “Were they – fearful of us? Protecting their children from us? It seems hard to believe.”

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  “Maybe one can’t be too careful in the Drearwold, even if one is a firbolg,” Caiside said. “Especially with one’s offspring. This can’t be an easy place to rear them. No matter who you are.”

  Not long after, Highview and Liatris were escorting us through the outskirts of the Drearwold. They strode confidently, but they had both taken up long hornbeam staffs before we left their clearing.

  “Do you worry about trolls?” I asked Highview. “Out here? You’re very large, but so are they.”

  “So are they,” Highview agreed. “But no, we don’t worry about them much. We do travel with these walking poles, as you have seen. We could smack away any troll if we needed to. But we don’t cross paths with them often. We both keep to ourselves, I would say.”

  “The trees are thinning,” I said.

  “Indeed they are. We are nearing the end of the wold.”

  The trees gradually grew more and more spaced out, and those that remained were straighter and greener than the ones we had been walking through for days. The ground between them was now mostly grass, rather than mostly mud.

  I told them:

  “We can’t thank you enough for your hospitality. I wonder if we’ll be able to find you if we return this way.”

  “Return this way after you spend some time with your wise woman further up?” he asked. He looked down at me as he said this, and there was a tone to his voice that made me think he had grown skeptical of our story after having had more time to consider it. But he simply continued:

  “We should be able to notice your presence, if you’re back. You’ll be welcome. Perhaps it will be a grown Maraven out walking, then, if you spend enough time up there. Take care in your journey.”

  “Highview,” I said. “One last thing. I think I have a respectable rhyme for you.”

  “Do you now?”

  “You may have to humor me a bit with this one. But let’s say you encounter a stranger out in these woods of yours. Some other wanderer.”

  “Very well.”

  “And if you were to stop him, and demand that he answer riddles, let’s say. And you pretended he had to answer correctly, on pain of death, let’s say.”

  “That would be a cruel prank for one of us to try on a simple traveler,” he said.

  “Of course. You wouldn’t mean it, I know. But let’s say that was the challenge you posed to him: Answer riddles or perish. Well then, that would be –”

  Mischiefmaking firbolg aims

  interpreted as fearful games.

  Highview and Liatris just looked at me, expressionless for a moment. But then I noticed them nodding, ever so slightly.

  “Very good,” Highview finally allowed. “That’s quite good. I thank you for that, Flicker. A true musician and poet you are.”

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