Lessoc Fountain - a fairy-creature tale

Ch. 5.1 Ringing Silence

After the hand fairy flew away, silence rang louder than ever in the small chalet. Swallowing her disappointment, Cocot counted out loud while she dressed and stepped out to work in the garden.

She whispered the charm for the door. She counted the stones that created her path to the wood pile and compost heap. As she jumped from one to the next, basket banging her thigh, the garden struck her as out of place that morning.

Something was different.

Smelly compost, buzzing insects, wood pile, axe hanging on for dear life to the side of the chopping block and a mess of split logs on the grounds. She frowned.

But she had never split so many logs in her life and where was the pie she had dropped on the stones last night?

While she waited for a reason to pop into her head, she stacked the logs in orderly rows. No explanation presented itself, and worse, there weren't any bugs or slugs on her vegetables.

"So you are having good luck for a change," she muttered. "A man fairy wants to be best friends, someone stopped by in the middle of the night to chop wood, and the pie you dumped on the stones has disappeared. Oh, and the bugs aren't eating your food for a change. Nothing to worry about."

She nodded to herself. She couldn't afford to worry about good luck.

In a daze, she freed a leek from its narrow dirt bed for soup. Early nettles would be good, too, but were growing in the field.

The day was heavy and her mind was on the chopped firewood; her footsteps dragged as she walked up the lane to the forest's edge. There, she clipped a dozen young nettles at the ground and carefully gathered them with her apron to keep them from stinging her hands and arms. Basket full, she stood and stretched, arching her back to soak up some sunlight and take in the view of the smooth, green hills and jagged, steel blue mountains across the valley.

At the far side of the grassy hillside, there was a cloud of field fairies clustered in a changing, undulating mass. More excited than she had ever seen them, they flew in strange formations like a flock of birds, Hundreds swarmed together in one direction while hundreds more went in another, turning in complex knots.

She set her basket on the ground and crept forward cautiously, over the grass and wild flowers. There was no cover for her to hide behind and the fairies noticed her coming. The tiny creatures grew more agitated, flying faster and faster. A huge, black beast appeared briefly in flashing gaps. Then, with pounding hooves, the animal disappeared into the forest beyond. The cloud dissipated in silver lines of an explosion.

Cocot raced to where she had seen the black animal vanish in the forest, but she stopped at the line of trees. There was no path or road in this part of the forest, and only thin, spotted light reached the ground. Any number of dark beasts could be hiding in the shadows of the larches and spruces.

It was quiet. Apprehension prickled along her scalp and the length of her arms and she stepped back into the open field. Too big to be a deer, too fast for a bull, too fearful to be a cow...it must have been a lost horse. Its owner must be searching for it.

This thought hurried her home and into the cool recesses of her chalet. If there was anything she did not need, it was men from the village or farms poking around, figuring out that she was living alone there. She shut the doors and windows and set about preparing a pot of nettle and leek soup, put two bowls on the table, and tidied up.

In the afternoon, she sewed and sang to herself (trois petits chats, trois petits chats), waiting for men to come looking for a horse. She was ready, she knew what to say; her mother had died, but her mother's niece was living at the chalet with her. No, neither of them needed any assistance.

When her mother had died, Cocot had to bury her mother herself. It was too hard to remember. The pain in her arms and her heart. Wrapping her mother in a scratchy wool blanket to take her outside, digging the shallow grave, gathering stones and then saying goodbye in the dusk, the cold, the bitterness of the end of winter. Then crying herself to sleep, hands covered in oozing blisters, arms aching so badly she couldn't undress and in the cruel silence of her chalet—silence that made her ears ring and mocked her pitiful gasps and sobs.

The people in the surrounding villages were probably unaware that her mother had died, but sooner or later, they would remark how odd it was that no one had seen or talked to Fanchon since early winter. One day, they would want to know where she was and what her young daughter was doing to stay alive.

Evening rolled up the hill from the bottom of the valley, and Cocot put aside her mending when it became too dark to see. The heavy, quiet day became a sharp, chill night.

She struck a spark to light one of her candles, its faint glow creating a comforting ball of light that Cocot wanted to stay in, so she carried the candle with her to the cupboard. The floorboards squeaked with each step.

The doppelganger creak of a footstep from the workshop sneaked through the inner door.

Cocot paused, holding the candle aloft. She stared at the door, head tilted, listening. Another groaning creak, this one like the moan a tree makes during a storm. She inched closer to the door, candle in front of her like a shield of light.

Thwack!

The door rattled in its frame when something hit it on the other side. The candle jumped of its own volition in her hand and she nearly dropped it.

The girl clutched at the candle, more afraid of setting the place on fire than she was of the noises. Until the scratching started.

Mice, rats and weasels will make scratching noises when they burrow in walls or the attic to build nests or bite through sacks of grain. But this was not the susurration of rodents digging, it was the sound of a fingernail on wood, or a chisel like the ones on the workbench.

Hands on her ears, Cocot swallowed her fear and tiptoed across the hardwood floor, forcing herself closer and closer to the door. She kept the candle high, telling herself that Jean-Baptist could not hurt her, he was only a memory, the echo of a man who once lived here. Noises and shadows could not hurt her. He had surely carved this door, it was as beautiful as the armoire. This could be a ghostly reenactment.

The back and forth scrit-scrit worked its way upwards, Cocot following it with her gaze as best she could. The light from the candle wavered and flickered. Every nerve tingled, every muscle was tight and every instinct screamed for flight, but where could she go? It was night now and there was the forest outside.

"Who...who...is someone there?" she called. The scratching continued. "Go away!"

There was a thump against the ceiling when the scrit-scrit reached the top of the door. A bit of dust floated down from the dark beams above onto Cocot's hair.

"Go away!" she shouted again, stepping backwards.

Metal poked through the space between the frame and the top of the door. It could be the grey tip of a file or a chisel prying at the crack, going in and out of view, making the door shudder. Then the object slid across the top, reached the corner and disappeared, only to reappear a moment later sliding down the side of the door.

She heard a ping of metal on metal when the tool hit the bolt. No, not the lock.

The file started scraping the bolt, screeching in a relentless rhythm. Whoever or whatever was behind the door wanted to cut through the lock.

"Go away!" Cocot screamed, stumbling to the far wall. "Leave me alone! Please go away!" She was sobbing. She squeezed into the corner between the armoire and the wall and crouched in a tight ball. She kept the candle as close to her face as she could, hoping the light would keep her safe. She bit her lips together to swallow her sobs and whimpers.

The only other sound in the chalet was the cry of metal on metal.

"Mother," she whispered, "make him go away, he'll listen to you. Please, Mother. Don't leave me here alone with him." She closed her eyes and begged her mother to come.

*** The ghost is filing through the lock to open the door...should Cocot brave the forest at night? Perhaps her mother will come and help her from beyond the grave... ***