Once upon a time there was a small village. A handful of homes huddled together, right where the vast forest gave way to the banks of a river. It was a quiet, peaceful place, the tranquil flow of its life broken only by the usual hiccups of people, doing their best to get along.
The sun rose every morning over the sloping rooftops, on those who rose early to till the fields and tend to the chickens and sheep, and on those who had risen in the pre-dawn darkness to turn the miller's wheel and bake the bread - and set each night on a village of people sleeping the sleep of those who have a day's work well done behind them. Sunrise, sunset, and the hard work of living in between.
All was well.
[[Until the day it was not]] It began, as most things do, slowly and in small ways. As summer shaded into fall, and the mists rose from the river, things began to go strange.
The miller's wife went to set the table one day, only to find her prized silver vase gone from its place on the mantlepiece, and nowhere to be found. She searched high and low, but could not find it anywhere in her home - or in the home of anyone else, for all the trouble she made going through her neighbours' cupboards. It was as if it had grown legs and walked away.
Farmer Brahe, on the edge of town, woke up to go and milk his cows, and was surprised to find his garden gate standing wide open, and his chickens wandering all over his yard, eating beans off the stalk as they pleased.
"I swear thee, I locked it in the evening," he told his wife. "No wind's been at it, and the lock's not broken."
One morning, the weaver rose from her bed still exhausted, as though she had not slept at all, and on her bare feet were grass-stains and mud. She sat on the edge of her bed and wriggled her toes, all a-wonder at how cold and damp they were, though she had been in her warm, dry bed all night. She must, she thought, have left the window open, and perhaps there had been a damp draft in the night. And a magpie or two, too, stealing in through the window and nicking her chatelaine-ring, the thieving birds.
... and so it went, little by little; each thing just a small drop in a bucket, but all of them slowly filling it up. Each week that went by saw some new bit of strangeness; each week some villager waking up in the morning wearier than they were going to sleep, and drop by drop, person by person, [[the malady spread]]One by one, the villagers turned hollow-eyed and weary, as though sleep held no respite for them any more. Doors were left open in the night, clothes were found soaked and muddied in the morning, and from every small and slope-roofed house, things were going missing. Silverware and vases, brooches and rings, treasured trinkets and precious mementoes alike.
Every day was a little worse than the day before, and with the exhaustion settling in their bones, there were few among them who could muster the strength to do much of anything about it. A pall of gloom settled over them, heavy and immovable.
[[Something was stealing their sleep away]], and with it went so many other things. And then, in dying days of summer, Alva the baker found herself coming back from the mill empty-handed, as the miller had been too tired to get out of bed that morning to grind the flour. As she walked home again through the steely light of dawn, she decided that enough, at long last, was enough.
Something needed to be done about this, and she was not going to wait around until the creeping, cursed malady got to her as well. The day before, her neighbour had found the brass buttons on her wife's best coat gone missing in the night, and the old man across the street could no longer do much of anything but sit on his stoop and stare into the distance.
Something needed to be done, she thought. And with her fellow villagers one by one lost to weariness and mystery, it seemed that it was up to her.
Very well. There was a riddle to unravel. [[Best find a thread]].There were many who had already lost themselves to this strange illness, if illness it was. Where should she begin?
With [[Hilde, the hunter]], who used to fear neither man nor beast, [[Thea, the seamstress]] whose hands crafted the finest gowns and the sturdiest coats, or [[Vanja, the beekeeper]], wise in all things?
Or did she [[already know enough]]?Hilde the hunter lived at the north edge of the village, where the low houses gave way to grass and brush and spindly trees. Beyond Hilde's cabin lay the vast forest, towering pines and firs outlined dark against the blue late-summer sky.
The hunter herself sat perched on a fence, dark rings beneath her eyes as she turned her arrows over and over in her hands. There was a slump to her shoulders where once they were proudly held high, and a morose cast to her expression.
"What do you want?" she asked, wary like the beasts she hunted.
"This dreadful gloom has gone on for too long, and I mean to do something about it," Alva said. Smaller than Hilde by a head's height, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I may not be the great hunter that you are, but I will not sit idly by and wait for it to come and claim me. I came to ask for your advice. [[Tell me, how do I hunt this thing down?]]""I dreamed of laughter, and dancing," the seamstress said, staring into her tea cup. She lived in a small cottage on the edge of the river, right next to the mill, and had woken one day to grass-stains on her bare feet and her nightgown soaked through with river-water. "Enough dancing for a whole wedding's worth. And when I woke in the morning, my best pair of scissors and my finest needles were gone, as if they were never here at all."
Alva sipped her tea, and watched the dappled sunlight dance across the cottage wall, over the bolts of cloth and small, handcrafted things painted in bright colours that crowded close on every shelf. The seamstress seemed weary, her thin limbs brittle and moving slow, as if pushing through the weight of no sleep.
"I have other scissors, other needles," Thea went on, and brushed a hand over the unrolled sewing kit on the table between them. Dull but serviceable needles poked through the fabric, the handles of the scissors worn with use. "I can still work. But those needles were fine and sharp, and prettier than all of the rest. I just wish I knew where they had gone."
She looked a little bit smaller than she usually did; a little bit paler. As if a little light had gone out of her.
"I loved those needles," she said. "They were a gift."
"Thank you," Alva said, as kindly as she could, "for the tea."
The seamstress saw her off with a weary smile and a wave, before she went back to her work, humming quietly to herself. Alva took a deep breath and stepped back outside, into the quiet gloom of the village. [[There was work to do->Best find a thread]] There was a hum in the air of the orchard, and Alva hesitated on the edge of the clearing, in the shade of the apple trees.
"Come, dear. Step into the light," the beekeeper said, in a voice that hummed in tune with the bees. "The hive will not harm you."
The clearing was warm, the breeze through it heavy with the scent of apple blossom and honey. The air was alive with flitting, golden bees, and in the midst of this quadrille, the Vanja the beekeeper was a still and steady center. The drone of the swarm was a steady wax and wane, like the [[breaths of something living]]At the end of the day, as the hazy gold of the afternoon began to turn into the chill of early evening, Alva returned home. Her feet were weary from all the wandering she had done, and her head was full of noise. As she moved about her kitchen, only half her mind on her evening tasks of setting doughs to rise overnight and cleaning the baking tables for the morrow, she tried to sort out what she knew.
At first glance, it seemed all a jumble of things that did not quite fit together - dreaming dreams of dark skies and rushing rivers; of laughter and dance; precious gifts lost and grass-stains on feet that should have been clean - but as the sweet scent of dough filled the warmth of her kitchen and the river mist began to creep close by her cottage walls, she thought there might be something like a pattern to it after all.
Dreams, both of dancing and of rushing rivers under dark skies. Not a curse, but something dark and strange, on paths unsafe to travel. Sleep stolen away. Precious things lost in the night. It all sounded like a story, like the ones her mother used to tell.
Alva washed the flour from her hands, and stared out the window at the deepening blue shadows of the evening coming on. Her face, pale and frowning, reflected back at her in the warped glass. Drying her hands on an apron, she stepped away from the window and began looking through her drawers and cupboards. Cups rattled and cutlery clanked until finally, she found what she had been looking for.
A small, silver locket with two little birds engraved on its face, dangling from a thin chain. Worn and in need of a polish, the silver still caught the light of the candles, glinting.
That was one thing in place. [[Now, for the others]]. "I can find the trail of any beast in these woods; I can set a snare, and I can strike an arrow true. I can skin a hare and I can stalk a deer. But this thing has no shape, no trail to follow. I know not what has become of me, or how I lost my silvered arrowheads. All I know is that something that was there now is gone."
"Do you know nothing at all that might help me? Even the smallest thing will do," Alva pleaded.
"... I remember only the sound of the river, rushing all around me, and the dark trees overhead. There were stars, too, and moonlight."
And that was a small thing indeed - but it was something. Moonlight, dark trees, and the river.
Alva thanked the hunter and [[left her sitting on that fence->Best find a thread]], turning her arrows over in her hands and humming a melancholy tune to herself."I came to ask a question," Alva said, above the voice of the bees.
"I know, dear."
"... How?"
"I heard a rumour," the beekeeper said, holding up a hand for a bee to land on. "The hive hears many things, and sometimes pass them on to me."
The beekeeper raised their gnarled and big-knuckled hands and folded the veil away from their face. Beneath the shade of their broad-brimmed hat, their face was tired, but smiling. A rare sight indeed, in these fraught days.
"Sit and rest a while, child," they said. "The grass is soft, and the bees will not sting you."
"I don't have time to linger," Alva said. "There are things that must be done, and I'm the one to do them."
"A quest, is it? How very brave of you."
"I'm not doing this for bravery," said Alva. "I'm doing this because it needs doing. That's not the same thing."
"[[It's close enough, when it matters]].""Brave or not, I need help," said Alva. "And you are wise. What wisdom can you give me?"
"Oh, wisdom is not *given*, dear. Wisdom is *earned*. And you do not have time to linger long enough to do so." And Vanja patted her cheek with one gnarled, weathered old hand. "But the hive knows many things, and I can give you some of *that*."
"Really?"
"Yes, dear," Vanja said, and there was a twinkle in their eye. "It's not not the same as wisdom.... but it's close enough, when it matters."
Alva crossed her arms and felt a little foolish asking: "Does the hive know what's wrong with everyone? Some are saying that it's a curse."
And Vanja cocked their head to one side and listened to the voice of the hive humming all around them. Their eyes closed and the bees spun lazy circles around their head, a golden halo around their hat, and when they opened their eyes again, Alva could have sworn the glint of something gold was in them.
"It is, perhaps, a little like a curse," they said, and their voice hummed like the bees. "But it is mostly like something else altogether. Something dark and strange, and closer than you think. If you must go from here, the hive says, you must go careful. There are many paths, and [[some may lead you astray]]." "... Your hive is very cryptic, Vanja," said Alva and watched a little bee wander along the brim of their hat and down into the shade beneath it. "I am not sure that is of any use."
"I promised you *knowledge*, dear, not wisdom," Vanja said, and brushed the little bee off their hat and let it wander over their sunburned knuckles instead. "It's up to you how to use it."
And Alva frowned, but there was little else to be said. The beekeeper had given her a mystery, but perhaps it would prove a useful mystery. She bowed her head in thanks, and turned on her heels to find the path back to the center of the village. As she turned, Vanja called out to her one last time.
"Wherever you go, dear, you had better carry iron. There are things beyond your ken in these woods. Not every path is safe to travel, and not every stranger to be trusted. Best watch your step."
Pausing on the path, Alva half-turned back to see the beekeeper let down their veil again, covering their face in gauze and mystery, and she hesitated for a moment. Then she bowed her head again, deeper this time, and let the bees trace a few, final circles around her [[before she left->Best find a thread]].
Wisdom she would have to earn later - there was a task yet unfinished.Not every path is safe to travel, the beekeeper had said, and not every stranger to be trusted. Alva dug deep into the nooks and forgotten corners of her little cottage, and found herself the tools she thought she needed.
The old lantern from atop the mantlepiece, scrubbed clean of soot and grime. A sturdy oaken rolling pin, polished smooth with years of use. And, at last, a heavy, blackened nail, pried out of the wall above her front door, where her great-grandmother had hammered it in on the day the house was built.
They were small, humble things - nothing like the shining swords and magic stones you heard about in stories of brave heroes and crafty heroines - but they would have to do.
She slipped the locket around her neck, tucked the rusty old nail in her apron pocket, and [[sat down by her window to wait]], rolling pin in hand. Night rolled in on heels of mist, turning the world shadowed and blue.
A single lantern burned in the window of the baker's cottage, lighting the tired face of Alva as she kept watch, waiting. Little by little, the lights in other windows winked out as the village went to sleep - some restful, some less so - and darkness blanketed the world beyond the window.
An hour went by, and then another. Alva felt her eyelids grow heavier as the hour grew later, until she was nodding off over her mug of steaming tea. She pinched herself sharply and rubbed the grit out of her eyes - if she fell asleep now, this would all be for naught.
Long, quiet hours dragged on, until midnight swept in among the little houses. With it came a breeze, swirling the mist around the village streets - and on the very edge of hearing, the thinnest whisper of a sound. Softly at first, like a hushed voice in another room, but then more clearly.
Laid over the breeze, so thin a splinter, came the haunting strains of a [[song]].The light in her lanterned flickered a little as she opened her front door, letting in the breeze and the song it was singing.
It was a sharp and mornful melody, like the wind through the reeds on a winter day, and it seemed to tug at her. Standing there on the stoop, her feet itched to move, pulled as if by strings.
*Best find a thread, and start pulling*. She gripped the rolling pin in one hand, raised the lantern in the other, [[and stepped out into the mist]], following the sound of distant song. The song led her away from her little cottage and through the village, weaving between darkened houses. Mist eddied about her ankles as she walked, houses slowly falling away beside her until she passed Hilde's cabin, and the village lay behind her.
The night seemed to swallow her whole, and with it came a prickling fear. It nested close, like sparrows in the eaves, and Alva did her best to hold it in. Shadows crowded close, growing deeper still as she stepped beyond the first line of trees and into the depth of the woods. The path ran uneven here, over stock and stone, round the roots and under branch. Her little lantern bobbed along among the trees, a single point of light in the vast silence of the trees, ever following the song.
It grew louder as she went, and the tug on her feet grew stronger. All around her, wisps of mist swirled in a [[strange and ghostly dance]].
The trees parted ahead, letting through a patch of starlight, and [[rushing voice of the river]]. The mist rippled and eddied about her, like the river water at the shore. It wrapped around her limbs like little gossamer hands, soft and sheer and beautiful. They seemed to dance in time with the distant melody, and Alva brushed her hand through them.
Beads of water gathered on her skin, glittering in the starlight - they were beautiful; more beautiful than any jewel she had ever seen. The faint sound of laughter, tinkling like silver bells, tickled at her ears - so sweet a sound that Alva found herself smiling along. Shapes were forming in the mist - graceful people, with pretty smiles and flowing hair, wispy gowns and pointed chins - and some seemed almost to bow to her and offer her their hands. She reached her own hand out in return and -
*- 'ware the dancers, little one, in coats of grey and skirts of mist,' her mother's voice from long ago, as she was tucked into bed, safe beneath the covers, 'and watch your step at twilight' -*
- beneath the mist, her boot struck not the soft pine needles of the path, but gnarled roots and slippery stone, [[and the moment s h a t t e r e d]]. The river cut through the steep banks like knife, jagged and dark. The pinpricks of distant stars glittered on the waters, and her little lantern was a bright yellow smear on its inky face. Veils of mist danced above it, airborne fish seeking their mates beneath the surface, and above it all, the lilting tones of song.
It was stronger here, in the dark of the woods and the chill of the river. Though she did her best to hold her own against it, her feet turned irresistably to walk [[the path beside the water]], up the hill. Though the path be steep and winding, she tugged her shawl closer round her neck and carried on. With each turn of the river, the tune grew, until it seemed to weave all around her. At long last, she crested the last rise, rounded the last boulder, and found herself standing at the foot of an old stone bridge.
It spanned the dark waters in a crumbling arch, and above it, silver mist in the moonlight - the waterfall. Here, the tune was so loud it seemed part of the air itself, cutting and melancholy. It sank down through the stubborn anger that had carried her this far, down through the creeping fear, until it struck her bones. Tears prickled in her eyes, threatening to spill over, as the tune ran mornfully across the rushing of the waters.
But she had not come here for crying, so she scrubbed the tears from her eyes and [[stepped out onto the bridge]]. The wisps of mist turned cold, icy on her skin, and the silver-bell laughter cut sharp and brittle in her ears. The shapes that once were bowing flickered, turned warped and strange. Immaterial hands still reached for her, needle-sharp fingers grasping, but she did not find them sweet and pleasant now. She tried to back away, but everywhere she turned, there were more of them; tugging at her sleeves, yanking at her hair, tangling in her skirt.
Ghostly hands burrowed into folds and pockets, icy hunger clawing at her skin, and Alva trembled like an aspen leaf. One of the grinning, twisted figures crowded close, yanking at her apron - and recoiled, its mocking laugh dissolving into anguished shrieks. Where it had touched her, the mist seemed to almost burn away.
Shaking and unsure, Alva reached a hand [[into her pocket]].There, heavy like a stone, lay the iron nail. She wrapped her trembling hand around it and felt the eassuring weight of it in her palm. *Better carry iron.*
With a deep and shaking breath, she raised her little lantern high and the candelight inside it blazed. In its brightness, misty fingers boiled and shrivelled away, turning twisted figures back to nothingness, clearing the air around her. Quick as a thought, Alva spun on her bootheel and brought her lantern around, scanning the trees for any solid landmark.
There! A sharp glint in the gloom between two pines! She took off running, the grasping mist still tugging at her skirts. Ghastly shrieks echoed behind her as she darted in between the trees and out into the starlight again, on the [[banks of the river->rushing voice of the river]]Her footfalls rang out on mossy stones, and her lantern swung out across dark and gurgling water. At the very top of the arch, she stopped and looked about her. All that lay beyond the bridge was more dark woods, and a narrow path that lost itself in the night.
Alva frowned. There was nothing here except the woods, the river, and the tumbling waterfall - and the haunting voice of the song. She sighed and ran her hand across her face, wiping away the misty droplets dampening her skin.
"[[Ah, a guest - how good of you to come.]]"... And where before there was but lonely stones in an empty waterfall now sat the figure of a man, as if risen from the very water itself. He raised the bow from the fiddle on his shoulder, and the haunting tune he had been playing faded - not to silence, but a murmur, cut loose from the strings. When he raised his chin from where it had rested on the fiddle, his eyes were silver in the moonlight, and his hair seemed spun of mist.
"Hail, and be welcome to my river," he said, in a voice like the lapping of the waves upon a shore.
"*Your river*?" she asked, and held her little lantern close.
"Yes, indeed," he said and rose from his perch, tall and slim and graceful as a fawn. "Long have I dwelt here, in the voice of her waters - it is my home. Please, good guest, let me greet you properly."
And he began to stride towards her, and [[where his feet touched the water]], the river held him up, as though he was no more than a leaf.Rings spread across the river's surface, echoes of his footfalls, as he crossed the deep pool to stand beneath the bridge's arch. He reached a hand up towards her and a soft smile graced his pale and fine-boned face.
"'Tis a cold night for travel, and yet you have come this far," he said. "You have my thanks."
His slim hand was cold in hers, long-fingered and tugging, like the song that still murmured all around them. Alva sank to her knees on the cold stones of the bridge, her legs heavy and aching from the long walk. The fiddler bowed his head to her, the moonlight painting him in shades of silver and mist. All air and grace was he, and her hand felt rough and clumsy in his.
"You are the one who has been calling us here?" she asked. "What is it that you *want* from us?"
"I am searching for something, dear guest," the fiddler said, and brushed feather-light fingertips down the side of her face, tracing the path of the droplets dampening her skin. She shivered at the touch. "[[Can you help me find it?]]" "Searching?" Alva frowned. "Whatever for?"
And the fiddler smiled and laid a hand upon his heart, pale against the fine embroidery of his waistcoat. The swirls and ripples of the river itself were picked out upon the garment, silver thread on blue, and they seemed to shift and curl as she watched. His smile, so soft and sweet before, turned brittle like the first bloom of ice across the river on a winter's morning.
"I have the river and I have my song, but something ails me," he said, and the melancholy tune still whispering among the trees rose and fell with his voice - a sound bereft of joy. "I feel... empty. Hollowed out. It aches and gnaws at me, like a wild thing at a bone."
As he spoke, he seemed to fold in upon himself, shoulders bent and head bowed, like an old and hollow log sagging around the absence in its heartwood.
"It aches and aches, and gives me no rest. For many a night I have searched for something that may quiet its hunger, but alas, I have had no luck."
"And.... you think I can find this for you?" Alva asked.
"Yes!" the fiddler brightened up again and the hand upon her face trailed down to rest at her neck, by the silver locket that she wore. "Night after night, I have tried, but I have not found it yet. All that I have found has not been enough, but I know that if only I had something truly precious to call my own, this hollow chest of mine would feel whole again."
Alva gazed upon his upturned face, [[so hopeful in the moonlight]], and felt the tremble in his fingers. Beneath him, she could see the glint of silver and gold, a village's ransom sunk into the water. In the face of such a spirit, what was she to do, who had come this far on anger and a stubborn will? He held out his upturned palm, empty and begging to be filled, and all around them, his sorrow-song echoed.
.... give him [[the locket]], an old and beloved gift?
.... hand him [[the iron nail]], that had kept her safe thus far?
.... truly give him [[something precious]]?Dreamlike and slow, Alva set the lantern down. The sorrow-song was ringing in her ears. With gentle hands, she unclasped the chain and took the locket from her neck. It lay cradled in her palm, the two birds carved into its lid gleaming in the moonlight.
"This belonged to my mother, and to her mother before her," she said as she held it out. "They carried it close to their hearts for years. May it... may it bring you peace."
"A fine gift indeed," the river-spirit said as he took it from her hands. "I thank you, dear guest."
He reached up and tugged her head into a bow and pressed [[a brief and misty kiss to her brow]]. With his hand at her throat, cold and slim and soft like water, Alva took a deep breath and tried to calm the shivering beat of her heart. In her head, she heard Vanja's warning words again. *Not every path is safe to travel, and not every stranger to be trusted*. With slow and careful hands that trembled only a little, she reached into her apron pocket and found the nail.
It fit into her palm, hidden in her closed fist, and she held out her hand to the river-spirit.
"I will give you something that has kept me safe on my travels," she said. "It is only a little thing, but perhaps it will be enough."
And then she opened her hand and let the
iron
nail
[[drop]]Alva sighed and felt a little of the anger ebbing away. He looked so earnest, so frightfully sincere - and so very, very mistaken. She raised a hand and clasped his where it lay at her throat, lifting it away and lacing their fingers together.
"I could give you this locket," she said, as gentle as she could, "and you could add it to all the others you have taken - but it would do you no good at all."
"Why ever not?" he asked, and his hopeful face fell into confusion.
She smiled a small and crooked smile at him, and reached out to touch his chest, right above where his lonely heart might be. There was no answering beat beneath her palm - but then, she had expected that.
"This, here," she said. "Will not be cured by all the gilt and glitter you gather. No more than you can fill a cracked bowl."
"Then.... what am I supposed to do?" he asked, the brittle-ice of his voice splintering.
*There are many paths*, Vanja had said, *and some may lead you astray*. Perhaps, thought Alva as she brushed silver hair from pale and worried brow, you needed to [[stray]] a little sometimes. ... and Alva woke up in her bed, with the sun high in the morning sky. She pushed her blankets aside and sat up, cradling her heavy head in her hand. She could not recall falling asleep, but she must have - and in all of her clothes, no less.
She crawled out of bed and went about her day slow and tired, finding strangeness everywhere she turned. A lantern on her nightstand; a heavy nail in her apron pocket; her muddy boots left sitting on the stoop; her favourite rolling pin on the counter with cobwebs and damp clinging to it.
And all day, she felt a strange and aching absence she could not quite name.
When the evening mists rolled in again, she locked her door, drew the curtains on her window, and wrapped herself up in the warm, sweet world of rising dough and baking bread.
Tomorrow was another day, and there was work to do before the winter.
[[(begin again)->Beginning]]It struck him like burning coal.
Where the nail touched his palm, the pale skin turned sooty black and split, spilling silvered blood and mist into the cold night air. He howled like a wounded animal, high and thin and piercing - so loud Alva flinched and covered her ears. The nail tumbled from his fingers, blazing brightly as it went - and where it struck the water, the river seemed to *boil*.
The river-spirit stumbled back and seemed to crumple, unsteady on his feet - and when he turned to face her once more, his handsome face had twisted into something vicious and ugly. Where before he had been all silver and sweetness, now his delicate face was jagged and sharp. The softness seemed to slough off him, laying bare the thing that lived beneath it.
"You!"he spat, lips peeled back from teeth that now looked like fangs. "You *dare* - !?"
"You have taken enough from us," Alva said, and wrapped a hand around the heavy rolling pin she'd carried with her. [["No more."]]"You cruel girl, do you know what you've done?" he demanded, his voice climbing to a shriek.
"I have carried iron," said Alva and hefted the rolling pin in one hand as she watched him become blurry and indistinct - less a person, now, and more a reflection in the water. "And I have come to end this."
He snarled like a wild thing, all teeth and claws and rage, and surged up towards her like a wave. She swung the rolling pin - and it passed right through him, trailing water and mist. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact -
- and felt the misty water-mirror of his form pass through her entirely and soak her clothing through.
His furious shrieks echoed all the way down the river as he [[fled]]. In his wake, the tug on her bones that had pulled her from her bed and up through the woods, faded quietly away. The sun was rising above the trees as she walked back into the village, dripping river-water and mud. In her arms, she cradled every lost trinket and bauble and beloved thing she had managed to dredge out of the riverbed, and all around her, the mist was fading away.
All would, once more, be well.
... and if she could still hear the faintest echo of the river-spirit's song on the edge of her hearing, well - she would just have to carry that with her.
[[(begin again)->Beginning]]"You have to stop," she said firmly. "No more calling the villagers from their beds in the night. You must let them rest. No more stealing their belongings - those must be returned. This has to end. Will you promise me that?"
"... If I do, what will you give me in return?" he asked, low and a little bit sullen.
"In return.... I promise to come back tomorrow," she said, and tucked a strand of his hair behind his pointed ear. "And the day after that, and for other days to come, to visit you. And you won't have to pluck any strings to keep me here."
For a moment, there was silence - and then a smile broke across his face like [[sunrise]]. He swept up and embraced her, silver-bell laughter in her ears, and Alva could not help but smile as on the breeze, the sorrow-song changed tune. And in that small village where the vast forest gave way to the river, life went on. The warming sun of late summer gave way to the cooler winds of autumn, and little by little, the strange malady that had beset them faded way. No more did people wake hollow-eyed and weary in the mornings. No more did they find their treasured things gone missing in the night. Perhaps some of them still dreamed strange dreams, but for the most part, the sun rose, and the sun set, and they spent each day much as they always had.
Thea sewed her clothes, the bright gold of her best needles glinting once more in the sun. Hilde tracked her quarry through the dark eaves of the woods on silent feet once more, her favoured arrows in her hands. And in the orchard, Vanja's hive still buzzed and sang their humming song, whispering little truths that only they could hear. Alva, for her part, rose each day in the dark hours before the sun, to knead the dough and bake the bread.
Some days, when the bread was made and her work was done, she took her little lantern in one hand and her rolling pin in the other, and walked the long and twisting path up the river to the waterfall, where she sat upon the old stone bridge, and smiled at someone with eyes of silver and a voice like water, who played the fiddle like a dream.
... and if she sometimes went into the water, well.
No one had to know.
[[(begin again)->Beginning]]