Storyteller CornerAn Admittedly Infuriating Interruption
Very sorry, but we’ll have to close the door here and give our knight and our prince their privacy.
After all, this isn’t that kind of story.
Storyteller CornerA Less Infuriating Interruption (I Hope)
Queen Skya, long may she reign, was so happy her prince and her knight had returned the lost princess to her that she declared fifteen days of celebration. Why fifteen? One day for every year she’d waited for Rafe and Jeremy to return. When you’re a well-loved queen, you can do that sort of thing, and no one says you’re being self-indulgent.
No time to tell everything wonderful that happened during those fifteen days, but I’ll try to hit the highlights.
—
On day one, the good people of Shanandoah gathered together on Halfmoon Hill. At sunset, the Valkyries—looking glorious and fearsome all in white—led a procession into the sacred grove and formed an honor guard.
Then came Rafe, wearing his finest dark green doublet and trousers (trust your storyteller—he looked to die for). Jeremy came next in his favorite black trousers, tunic, and vest, and Queen Skya wore a gown of deepest red. Rafe carried a bowl of water, Jeremy a bowl of fire, and Queen Skya a bowl of earth—the three elements of all creation. Then Emilie, wearing a humble linen gown, entered and stood in the center of the circle. Her hands were empty, to symbolize that she was willing to receive what the Creator would offer her.
Music played, soft strange pagan melodies, and when the song faded to silence, Jeremy began to speak. Although Emilie hadn’t yet learned the ancient language of Shanandoah, the tongue of the one who laid the foundations of the world, she understood the meaning.
And Jeremy said, No one knows the face of the Creator, but we have seen those giving hands at work in the rising and the setting of the sun and the shining of the moon and the dancing of the stars and the finding of the lost. One who was lost stands in our midst and we celebrate that she, at last, has found her way home…
The words sounded like autumn leaves scattering in the wind.
—
On the second day, the four of them rested and recovered from the blessing ceremony, which had lasted until long after midnight. The day was cool and crisp because October in Shanandoah is exactly what you want October to be. Far too cold for their usual game of combat croquet with the Valkyries in the back garden. As night was falling, the four of them retreated to Skya’s cozy salon. Emilie lay on the rug in front of the fire. Rafe stretched out on the sofa. Jeremy took the armchair, and Skya sat at his feet on a silk cushion. As Rafe read aloud to them from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Jeremy took Skya’s long hair out of its braid and gently rubbed her tender scalp.
“Can I get a head massage next?” Emilie asked her sister.
With a blissful smile on her face, Skya said, “Get your own knight, Brat. This one’s mine.”
“Ahem,” Rafe said.
“Sorry, my prince,” Skya said. “This one’s ours.”
Rafe finished reading and closed the book with a dramatic “The end.”
They all applauded. Time for bed.
“What are we reading tomorrow night?” Emilie asked her sister as they went up the stairs to their rooms.
“One I picked,” Skya said. “It’s a story about two school friends who get swept into another world and then they have to help a prince who has forgotten who he is.”
“What’s it called?”
“The Silver Chair.”
—
On the third day, Skya declared they’d been lazy long enough. It was only a matter of time before the Bright Boys reared their ugly heads again. After a morning spent receiving well-wishers who’d come to greet the new princess, they ate a hearty lunch, and then it was time for Emilie to practice her archery with Rafe and her sword fighting with Tempest and Jeremy. The sword fighting wasn’t much fun, but with Rafe teaching her, Emilie finally managed to land a few arrows in the target. When one hit the blue ring and stayed in it, she remembered to cry out, “West—by God!—Virginia!” much to her sister’s delight. She decided she would get very good at archery, no matter how long it took. When she told Rafe this, he passed on to her the deep secret of archery, that she must put her heart where she wanted her arrow, and then be willing to put an arrow into her own heart. There is no other way.
—
On the fifth day, the village of Beartown hosted a festival in honor of the return of the prince and his knight. Emilie was more than a little relieved to be out of the spotlight for a day. Although they did ask her to judge the pie-baking contest, which she was happy to do. Very, very happy to do that, thanks for asking and pass the pie. Rafe and Jeremy were fed and feted at the feast as the mayor and other villagers recounted the tales of long-ago feats of derring-do. (And yes, I realize this last sentence is a tongue-twister, but it’s not my fault “fed,” “feted,” “feast,” and “feats” sound so much alike.)
They toasted Rafe for saving the queen from the sleeper spider, of course, but also for riding three days to the Witch of Black Wolf Cave to fetch a cure for a child’s blue fever, and Jeremy for scaring off a silver-backed tiger from Beartown with his sword and some very choice four-letter words he’d learned in his home country of Engle-land.
“We did all that?” Rafe whispered to Jeremy between toasts.
To which Jeremy responded, “We couldn’t make out in the Star Tower all the time.”
“Why not?” Rafe asked, then in front of two hundred villagers, Rafe kissed Jeremy, and the cheering was so deafening that Emilie had to shout to announce that the red rainberry pie had won the contest.
That very night, Queen Skya sent Emilie to bed early. She sat Rafe and Jeremy down in her salon and read them a story. Her story. All of it. Even the part about the door that would lock behind them if they left again.
They were shocked and sad, but otherwise they faced the news with courage and good humor. But that was no surprise to the queen. She’d chosen her knight and her prince well. They might be Shanandoah princes, Shanandoah knights, but they were also Mountaineers—one by blood and one in spirit—and they grow them strong in West—by God!—Virginia.
—
The next day, they rode out early to the Painted Sea and spent two days and two nights on the queen’s dragon ship. At dusk, when the water was bloodred with the setting sun, they set anchor. Then they all made mermaid traps out of candle boats and set them floating on the water as they waited on rafts.
An hour passed before a mermaid took the bait. A silver-skinned young one with bright copper eyes surfaced and blew out Emilie’s candle.
“Got you,” Emilie said, as she tossed a ring of pink orchids around the mermaid’s neck. “Now tell me a secret.”
