Martin stared at the way to town, to his mother’s house, if he could make it that far, and then looked at the mushrooms again, the only real source of light until the moon rose.
Then he sighed and started walking.
Leaving the path was easier this time, even though it was night. That probably said something about him, but it was nothing his mother hadn’t already accused him of, and the lights were very pretty. Martin followed the soft glow until he reached a clearing where a doe was chomping away on the mushrooms that had been guiding him, possibly the same doe that had slept on him. She startled at the sight of him, althoughshewas the one with the glowing mouth, and if anyone should be scared, it was Martin, which he told her.
He didn’t understand why she didn’t run, unless she had never encountered a human before. But after a while, she began to walk again, pausing to nibble things, while Martin slowly followed. The rules were as clear about the paths as they were about following strange lights and suspicious animals, but when the doe stopped to curl up beneath a familiar oak tree, Martin was more relieved than worried.
He stumbled into his place between the roots, and leaned his head against the trunk to sigh. When he felt he could, he prodded at his ankle without removing his boot. His ankle didn’t hurt enough to be broken, but it was hot and swollen. He sighed for that, too.
His mother still brought up the last time he’d spent the night in the woods, and Martin flinched to think what she would say about this. He wondered what she would do if he told her that he’d rather sleep on a tree out in the cold than in her house in a warm bed. Then he wondered if all odd things were allowed to sleep safely in the woods, or if the odd things were all in town. But that was the sort of thought Joseph would have.
After a while, the doe wandered off, and Martin pulled some of the bread he’d made for Alyce from his pocket. He’d meant it for his dinner, anyway.
Without the rain, or any mysterious sounds, the woods were quiet. When the moonlight began to filter through the trees, they were even lovely. What a story it would make, if he told anyone. Martin, the oddity, who could stay in the woods at night.
SOMETIME LATER, Martin woke just enough to turn his face away from the tree and into something much softer. He whined quietly at waking, at feeling the pain in his ankle anew, and the wind stirred his hair, gently and carefully, until he went back to sleep.
HE WOKE AGAIN, this time to sunshine, and stumbled toward an exquisite sunbeam that ended at the banks of a small, clear stream. He washed up, and drank from it, and considering dunking his ankle until the cold numbed the pain, but knew he had to get home soon or his mother would never stop speaking of how irresponsible he was, or how thoughtless. Howwrong.
Martin peered at his wavy reflection, his bright red hair and eyes of muddy brown, his pale, freckled skin, and felt the smile that had been on his face since he had woken up in sunshine fall away.
Then he got to his feet and hobbled back to the path to begin the long, painful journey to his mother’s house.
THE NEXT TIME Martin entered the woods, when he could walk without pain, it was in the middle of the day, and he had nowhere to be except there. He started out on the path to the foothills, and then, once he was surrounded by trees and the town was far away, stepped deliberately from the path.
He stayed for hours, filling his basket with good berries for tarts, and magic berries to sell to the healer in town, and mushrooms that did not glow for soup, and acorns for whatever he pleased. He left two handfuls of acorns by the oak for the doe, if she should come by, and smiled at the tree, which was as impressive in the full light of day as it was at night, and then, with time enough before sunset, he sighed and reluctantly returned to town.
MARTIN WAS BACK in the woods the next day, his basket brimming things for Joseph. But this time, he stopped midway up the path to the foothills, and dithered like the odd boy he was, until finally setting out a slice of acorn cake on a piece of cloth. He placed the cake on the outside of the path, blushing hard for no reason he could name.
An animal would eat it before anything else would. But Martin did not think the creatures in the woods would mind a bit of cake, if they found it first. It might not even be wanted, though Martin’s cakes were one of the few things people desired from him. He’d just thought, if he intended to keep coming to the woods, then he should offer a gift. He did not deal with the fairy, but the forest had been generous, and he ought to be so in return.
All the same, he did not mention it to Joseph, though it was on his mind throughout the visit.
ON HIS RETURN, the cloth and the cake were gone. Near where they had been, in the middle of the path, in thecenterof the path as though no white stones existed and where Martin knew nothing had grown but the moss he had walked upon, were beautiful yellow jonquils in full bloom that had seemingly sprouted from nowhere.
Martin didn’t pick one, though he was tempted. At first, he could not breathe, then he worried that he was being fairy-led, and then he thought that nothing magic would ever bother to lead him anywhere. Eventually, he realized he was smiling.
He stared at the flowers for almost too long and had to hurry back to town.
He only did that because his mother was expecting him.
HIS MOTHER asked more than once what was wrong with him, and not in her usual way. Martin wanted to tell herthe spirits in the woods have sheltered me.The spirits in the woods might like me. To explain that he had been led to safety and to water, trusted by a doe, been given flowers.
He almost did, almost offered to take her so she could see for herself, but the town was afire with news. The dragon royal family had asked every town and village to send their very best, available youths to the palace to see if they might suit the youngest prince as a companion, and half the town seemed torn between wanting to end up the favorite of royalty and the fear of being roasted by a dragon.
No one suggested sending Martin, not that Martin had expected them to, or wanted to end up eaten, if dragons really did that. Martin was not the most beautiful or the most talented. But his mother was outraged that Martin wasn’t insulted, even though she admitted, loudly, to everyone, that her son was not handsome or clever, that he could cook and sew but not wield a club or run the mill. Everyone had agreed.Martinhad agreed.
But when his mother left the house, Martin left, too, walking toward the woods without another word, though it was already night.
If fairies or other creatures in the woods wished to take him, Martin was inclined to let them. He scrubbed his burning eyes and followed the dots of blue and purple that went to and fro across the path. White rocks and red swirls did not stop them, or anything else in these woods. Whatever walked here did so because it chose to, not because humans had exiled it or bound it.
Martin had never thought of it as a choice before, but it must be. Maybe those in town pretended otherwise, and painted symbols to try to make themselves matter in this wild place. Martin could stay here, too, but he was not wild. He was a human who liked an oven and a spinning wheel.
“They do not want me in town,” he said, teeth chattering slightly in the cold. “My mother does not…” he could not finish that shameful thought aloud. Not here, where he was tolerated, perhaps even liked.
He did not see the doe when he stopped by the stream to splash his stinging eyes with icy water, nor when he walked to the oak to curl up beneath it. He hadn’t brought dinner, or even his cloak to keep him warm. He pressed his forehead to the bark and closed his eyes.
Maybe he could run away to live with Alyce, if she would allow it. Someday, he could build his own place, far from the path but also far from town. If the woods would have him.
