Fabulous Creature (7 page)

How could he have forgotten so quickly and completely the thrill he had felt when, after days of quiet observation, he had realized that the deer had been aware of and accepted his presence. And now, after his week-long desertion, would he still be tolerated? Or would the valley be deserted, the deer gone forever? Increasing his pace, he slipped and slid down the last stretch of loose shale to the valley floor.

There was no sign of the stag in the first small grove, nor in the clearing; but in the heavy stand of fir near the spring, James came suddenly upon him. Although he bounded to his feet at James’ approach, he stood his ground, his head held high, his delicate black muzzle twitching as he tested the air. Closer now than ever before, James could clearly see the caplike patch on his forehead and how the massive antlers, which had seemed only dark and heavy from a distance, were actually covered with what looked like gray-brown suede. Sweeping up and out to almost twice the width of his body, the antlers branched and rebranched into six separate points on each side. Twelve prongs in all.

An unpleasant association twitched at the back of James’ mind—a sea of sad dead eyes in a forest of antlers. Irrationally, the twinge of guilt returned, as if the lustrous living eyes of the stag could look into his mind and see it too: the long wall hung with the remains of so many of his kind. like him and yet—not really like. With a thrill of some unnameable excitement, James realized that there was nothing on the wall in the Jarrett’s trophy room—not even the head that Jarrett had presented as his own personal record—that came even close in size and symmetry. This stag was obviously one in a million. A wise and noble prince of the forest.

Digging into his pockets, James took out an apple and several slices of bread. He put them on the ground and backed away slowly and carefully, taking care not to make any sudden sound or movement. He hadn’t gone far when the deer moved forward to accept his offering.

The apple went first and then the bread. The deer chewed calmly, his lower jaw working from side to side. Between bites he regarded James thoughtfully. He was still watchful, but obviously less wary and suspicious. When the last scrap was gone, he turned with calm dignity and retreated into the shadows of the grove.

James went back then to his favorite observation post on the flat-topped boulder. For almost an hour he sat quietly absorbing the ongoing dramas of the wilderness community, the teeming life of what might seem at first glance to be a deserted valley—the naively joyous energy of large families of birds, the timid bravado of chipmunk rivals and the constant half-seen, half-sensed, life and death scurry of the tiny, many-legged things beneath the grasses of the valley floor. He was lying on his stomach with his head hanging over the edge of the boulder watching a small army of ants attacking an enormous beetle when some mysterious sensing, not connected to ears or eyes, told him to raise his head.

The stag had returned. No more than fifty feet from the boulder he stopped, looked in James’ direction and then, lowering his head began, calmly, to graze. Now and then he raised his head, looked again and went on grazing. It was almost like a conversation.

It was a very strange thing. Even more remarkable when you realized that a buck that had lived so long in an area overrun yearly by hunters must be not only cleverer but also more wary than others of his kind. Was he unafraid now because he somehow sensed that James meant him no harm? Or had he, perhaps, always lived safely in this almost inaccessible valley and never needed to learn fear in order to survive?

But, of course, the valley wasn’t really inaccessible. The western end of the small box canyon seemed to have been blocked off, probably centuries before, by a tremendous landslide, so that the only entrance was by way of the cliff above Peter’s Creek. But although the narrow path, high up on the cliff face, was dangerous, it was not impassable. Where James had come, others could come. And then, too, it seemed likely that the food supply in the small valley would be insufficient in the dead of winter. It seemed most probable that the deer came to the valley by way of the path at certain times, at the times perhaps when tourists and hunters invaded the mountains.

There was no way of knowing for sure. What did seem true, however, was that this deer, James’ noble stag, was wiser and cleverer than others of his kind. Wise enough not only to have managed to stay alive for a long time, but also to know that James was a friend. The thought was suddenly and surprisingly eye-tingling and throat-tightening. James blinked, swallowed hard and said out loud, “You don’t have to worry about me, old man. I won’t betray you.” A little later, when he got to his feet, the stag raised its majestic head and watched with calm curiosity as James saluted, bowed, slid down off the boulder and headed for home.

It was only ten or fifteen minutes later that James first saw Griffin Donahue. He had reached the highest point of the trail across the cliff face, a slightly wider spot where he usually stopped to catch his breath and enjoy the view, when he was suddenly aware of a strange sound. Looking down to the creek bed, he saw a mystifying sight. Someone was standing on a large rock at the edge of the water. He’d never before seen anyone on that stretch of the creek, a place where the water ran swiftly in a series of small waterfalls and then dropped in a long cascade to the lake below. At times the rushing water probably filled the entire gorge, but now, in the dry season, there was a narrow strip of boulder-strewn land on each side of the stream. It was a place where one might expect to see a determined fisherman or an adventurous hiker, but the person who stood on top of the large dome-shaped boulder obviously wasn’t in either category.

Dressed in a long, close-fitting sheath that shimmered as if it were spun from silver thread, the person on the rock seemed strangely elongated, her body too narrow for its height. With her arms outspread, she was standing so perfectly still that for a moment James actually wondered if she were alive, or only some strange statue or mannequin. But then she moved, lifting her head and tilting it upward, so that her face was more clearly visible—eyes closed beneath dark, sharply defined brows, wide cheek bones and a full-lipped mouth. The mouth was closed and seemed to remain so, and yet the singing went on, a high, clear wailing chant. Frozen to the spot in amazement, James felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to prickle.

Then suddenly, two more figures appeared from behind the boulder, and it all became, if not clear, at least explainable. It was some kind of game. Because these other two were obviously little kids, probably less than ten years old. They were plainly pretending to be involved in a ritual or ceremony of some sort. The first one, who seemed to be a boy, had a beach towel robe over his shoulders and was holding a large basket in front of him. The other was a little girl. James leaned forward, pushing his glasses back in place and squinting. The same girl, in fact, he had met in the grove near the west gate. The one who had helped him pick up groceries and who had said that her name was Laurel Jarrett. But now she was wearing something draped over her head and was carrying what seemed to be a large blue vase. The two kids walked in a circle and then approached the rounded rock where the silver figure still stood motionless. The mystery of the high-pitched chant was now solved. The kids’ mouths were opening and closing in time to the plaintive wail that had made the back of James’ neck begin to crawl.

When they reached the rock, the silver woman knelt suddenly and took the basket from the boy. Then she rose and, reaching into the basket, seemed to be scattering something on the surface of the creek. She was singing now, too, her voice soaring over the children’s, a high, clear, floating sound. Kneeling again, she returned the basket to the boy and, taking the vase from the girl, poured something into the foaming water below the boulder. A moment later she slid down off the rock, and the three of them moved slowly, in single-file, toward the cliff. It wasn’t until then that James noticed the cavelike crevice in the cliff face. When they had disappeared into the crevice, he hurried on across the cliff and down the long incline to the Peter’s Creek crossing.

He moved more quickly than usual, pushing himself until he crossed the stream, where he slowed to a thoughtful amble and then stopped altogether. Here at the crossing, the creek was wide and shallow, but he could see where, only a hundred yards downstream, the water was already beginning to foam and tumble. It would be a long steep climb down to the cave where the mysterious ceremony was taking place. He started down the bank, stopped and sat down on a rock to think. What, he asked himself, was he thinking of? Going out of his way to spy on some kind of silly game. It was late, and he ought to be getting home. The internal argument was still going on when he heard voices and looked up to see the game players themselves picking their way among the boulders a few yards downstream.

Watching them approach, James began to grin. He saw now that what he had taken to be a willowy woman—sylph, wood nymph, river goddess, or whatever—was nothing more than a half-grown kid. A girl at the age when some people shoot up a lot faster than they fill out—like James, himself, for instance. Except that this girl was obviously a lot younger than he—no more than twelve, perhaps, or possibly thirteen. Her odd, full-lipped, cat-shaped face had seemed quite mature from a distance, but from closer range it was clearly the face of a child. And the front of the slinky evening gown—no doubt borrowed from her mother—hung in two silver flaps over her very flat chest.

The three of them had been carefully watching their feet as they picked their way over the rough terrain, but at last the little boy looked up, saw James and let out a loud gasp. “Hey look!” he said. “Look Grif. Is that him?”

The girl in silver stopped, looked up, gazed at James intently for an embarrassingly long time and then nodded. Still nodding thoughtfully, she turned her back and, pulling the kids close to her, began to whisper. A long thick braid of dark blonde hair hung down the middle of her back, and below the hem of her dress, a draggle of frayed-out silver thread, her feet were bare. Both of the kids were looking excitedly from her to James and back again. When she came on toward him, the boy and girl were close behind, peeking around at him as if he were some kind of exotic beast. The girl in the silver dress scrambled over a last large boulder, a fairly graceful maneuver considering the tightness of her skirt, slid down directly in front of him and made a deep curtsey.

“Welcome,” she said.

Surprised into vocal paralysis, he could only stare in amazement as the two kids slid down beside her and did more or less the same thing—the boy bending stiffly from the waist, and the little girl, it was Laurel all right, pinching the sides of her blue jeans and curtseying. As she curtsied, Laurel said something that sounded like, “Welcome, Prince Person.”

“No,” the boy whispered loudly, punching her in the shoulder. “Not Person. Pwah-son. Pwah!”

“Welcome. Prince Pwah-son,” Laurel corrected herself.

Without taking her eyes off James’ face, the girl in silver said, “Poisson.”

“Fish?” James said incredulously. It was the first word he’d managed to say.

Laurel made a gasping noise, and she and the boy stared at each other, as if the fact that James knew a little French was, somehow, terribly significant. They nodded at each other knowingly, and then looked back at James, still nodding. But then Laurel’s mouth flew open, and she stared at James in broad screen consternation. “Wait a minute!” she said. “I’ve seen him before. Griffin! I saw him already. He can’t be Prince Pwahson. I saw him in the Nymph’s Grove—with some groceries.” She stepped closer, her face registering suspicion, but her skepticism was clearly directed at James, himself, and not at the girl in silver; as if she had caught James in some crass attempt at impersonation. “Didn’t I,” she demanded.

“I confess,” he said. “We’ve met before. Your name is Laurel Jarrett. Right?”

“Griffin?” Laurel was clearly demanding an explanation.

“Of course,” the girl in silver said. “Enchanted people get to return to their original form for short periods now and then. Like the prince in ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon.’ Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, yes!” Laurel was now doing
sudden enlightenment—
round-mouthed and -eyed. But then her face clouded again. “But he’d been shopping,” she whispered. “Do enchanted people—”

“Look, Laurel,” the little boy said. Except for bigger ears and more freckles, he looked something like the girl in silver, and right at the moment he was looking fiercely indignant. “If you’d been eating nothing but bugs and mosquitoes for a hundred years, I’ll bet you’d go shopping too, if you got a chance.”

The bigger girl put one arm around the little boy and gave him a hug. Smiling at him she said, “Shut up, Woody. You and Laurel go on and wait for me where the path goes into the trees. I have to talk to the prince alone for a minute. Okay?”

The little kids went off slowly with much stopping and looking back and whispering. When they were out of sight, the girl turned to James and examined his face. It was the kind of long level look that ordinarily made him feel very uncomfortable, only this didn’t. There was something about this girl’s strange-looking face that made mutual staring almost acceptable—a kind of open, unprejudiced curiosity that somehow invited a similar response.

“Hello,” she said after a while. “My name is Griffith Alexandra Donahue. But usually Griffin. What’s yours?”

James grinned. “Prince Fish,” he said.

She looked delighted. “It’s like this,” she said. “One hundred years ago an evil witch enchanted you and turned you into an enormous trout. And one day while Woody and Laurel and I were watching you swim around in a deep pool, way down there almost to the lake, you spoke to me and asked me to break the enchantment so that you could be a prince again. So today we did it. We had a spell-breaking ceremony, and just before you disappeared, you told me that the spell was broken but you couldn’t appear to us as a prince immediately because the witch was watching, but that you would very soon.”