Mysteries Too Marvelous by StarSpray

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Mysteries Too Marvelous

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. - Mary Oliver, “Mysteries, Yes”

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The first time Tim stepped out of his world and into Faerie, he almost didn’t notice. It was a bright and warm day and he was out apple picking with other boys and girls from Wootton and Townsend, the ones big enough to climb the trees to reach the higher fruits without fear of falling. They had all been laughing and joking, and occasionally singing. Tim continued on down the rows until he came to a part of the orchard that bordered the forest, where the neat rows were encroached upon by honeysuckle and blackberry brambles, and other trees sprouting up—walnuts and oaks, and maples and a few dark firs. Tim hummed to himself as he stepped across a small stream, looking for a good tree to harvest from. He found one almost immediately, laden with the most beautiful golden-red apples he’d ever seen. As he set his basket down the branches lowered, all within easy reach, and practically shivered the apples into the basket themselves. Somewhere close by a lark trilled a merry song, and in the distance Tim heard other voices, fairer than he’d ever heard before—except perhaps for his uncle Smith’s voice—singing and laughing, though they were too far away for him to make out any words.

When he turned to call out to his friends, he found that they were nowhere to be seen, and in fact the orchard was gone, too. But somehow that was not alarming. He knew he only had to go back the way he had come to get home again, and there were also wildflowers growing there that he knew his mother would love. He gathered up enough to make a bouquet, tying them together with a bit of string he found in his pocket, and set on top of the apples. He wanted to linger, for this place was fair and lovely, all the colors more vivid and the sounds sweeter to his ears, and even the air was different, cleaner somehow, somehow more , but it would be getting late soon.

He crossed back over the stream and before long came back to the apple picking party. Smith and his son had joined them to help load the baskets onto a wagon to take back to Wootton Major. “Those are some excellent apples there, Cousin Tim!” Young Smith exclaimed. “Look at the color!”

“They’ll taste sweeter than the rest, too,” Smith said, looking at Tim with a strange look in his keen, bright eyes. Like he knew something that Tim didn’t. “Tell your mother not to let those go to waste now, Tim.”

“Yes, Uncle,” said Tim, as he hoisted the basket up. He took one of the apples and bit into it. The taste was somehow unlike any apple he’d ever had before, and more apple-like than any of them had ever been. It burst on his tongue like laughter, or music, and Tim was so struck by it that he had to race to catch up with everyone when they began the walk back to the village without him.

 

The second time Tim stepped into Faerie, it was evening, and he was out for a walk under the stars. Ever since he had been a young child he’d love the twilight, when there was still just enough daylight left to see, but the stars were also coming out, diamond-bright against the darkening sky. He walked down a familiar path into the woods, and soon found that the lands had changed again. The purple of this twilight was a different, deeper shade than that of home, and when he looked up through the trees he found that the stars were different. They were brighter, too—bigger somehow.

He did not turn back immediately this time, and instead went on, curious where the path would lead him. It seemed to shine faintly in the gloaming, and after a little while he heard merry voices up ahead, and smelled fresh bread and roasting meat, and something else sweet, like apple blossoms. His feet quickened seemingly of their own accord. The trees grew closer and more tangled as he went on down the path, but all of a sudden they opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers blooming beneath the stars and the moon (which hung low and bright in the sky, and in a different phase than Tim was sure it should have been). There was a pond there too, lush with lilies on the surface and cattails waving along the banks.

There was also a party going on. Many folk were there, of all sizes and colors and kinds, and dressed in all manner of clothing both plain and outlandish in colors bright as butterfly wings. They had musical instruments of the like Tim had never seen or heard before, and had several fires going over which they roasted game, and cooked potatoes in the coals, and on blankets spread out among the flowers there were many more plates and baskets filled to overflowing with breads and pastries and fruits and vegetables, cakes and pies and cheeses, and pitchers of wine and beer, and all manner of other things.

Tim stopped at the edge of the trees, suddenly unsure. He did not want to intrude, but when he was noticed the fair folk all called out to him in glad greeting, welcoming him with open arms. “Come, join us Star-child!” they cried. “Welcome!” They drew him into their fold, and there was more laughter and much music, and Tim found himself feasting and dancing and never growing tired, and singing new songs that he hadn’t known before that night, and yet could find the words on the tip of his tongue. The night passed with amazing swiftness and yet seemed to stretch on forever, until at last he found himself alone in the meadow with no trace of any party to be seen around him—not even a crust of bread or a speck of ash from their fires—and the sky was brightening with the coming morning as he breathed deeply the crisp cool air, and felt the dew gather in his hair.

When he returned home his sister Beth was in the kitchen kneading bread, and she looked at him curiously. “Where have you been all night, Tim?” she asked. “There’s something odd looking about you this morning.”

“I don’t know where I’ve been,” said Tim as he sat down at the table. He had eaten and drunk his fill the night before, but suddenly nothing sounded better than a plain, simple cup of hot tea. He poured himself a cup and sipped at it slowly. He told Beth all about the party and the singing and the music. “I wish I could play an instrument like that,” he said wistfully, remembering the sweet notes of the flutes and the enchanting melodies of the viols and the lutes, and the steady quick rhythm of the drums.

“You can sing well enough,” said Beth as she set the dough into a bowl and covered it with a towel. She wiped down the table. “Ever since that last Twenty-four Feast, do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” said Tim. “That was the best slice of cake I’ve ever eaten in my life. Or ever will, I daresay—even the cakes last night didn’t come close. But what’s that got to do with the mysterious party, or the music?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was after that that you started singing more, and dancing—and you used to be so clumsy. I think maybe there was something special about that cake.”

“Not my slice,” said Tim. “I didn’t find anything in it—and I only had a small one. You were the one who found a gold coin.” Beth was a year older than Tim, and they’d both been lucky enough to be invited to the feast. Granddad Nokes had been very happy about it, though he kept saying how much of a shame it was that they’d missed out on the cake he had made.

 

It was some time before Tim had time to go walking again, let alone try to find his way back to that place where the stars were strange. But when he did, he set out in the evening; it was turning towards autumn now, not quite cold enough for a frost, but the trees had begun to change color. This time he left home with the desire to find his way back to that place, and after walking some miles he felt the change in the air—from the coolness of autumn to the coolness of spring, and the scent of sweet flowers. Tim laughed out loud and quickened his pace, jogging down the moonlit path through the woods. This time he did not turn back; he wanted to see how far he could go, wanted to know what lay beyond the wood where the fair folk gathered to sing and feast together.

Beyond the forest he found wide open lands, rolling hills glowing green under the sunrise. And beyond them were mountains—tall mountains with sheer faces and snowcapped peaks, forested and stony, grey and green and brown, some reaching so high into the sky that their peaks were hidden by clouds. They beckoned and warned all at once, and Tim stood for a long time watching the lands before him shift under the growing sunlight. Then he laughed aloud for the sheer joy of the beautiful sight before him, and ran down the hillside, startling a flock of birds into flight before him, whirling up in a rush of feathers toward the impossibly blue sky.

Tim did not go very far into the fields that journey, for he felt guilty for leaving home without knowing when he would return. But when he returned his mother only kissed him and asked him to sing for them after supper, and his father only smiled and sent him on errands into town. Beth looked at him keenly, but whatever she saw in his face she kept to herself. When he went to run his father’s errands he met Smith near the butcher shop. Smith also looked at him with bright keen eyes; he seemed to approve of whatever he saw, and gave Tim a friendly nod before ambling way to meet his wife down the lane.

 

Eventually, though, Tim did find himself at the feet of the mountains, following paths that were sometimes well trodden, sometimes overgrown and hard to find. On these journeys sometimes he met some of the fair folk who lived in that land, but mostly he wandered alone, seeing only beasts or birds, and often then only at a distance. He climbed into the mountains, following streams to their sources high on the slopes where they bubbled up out of the earth in frigid springs.

Once he met a very old man by one of those springs, seated on a stone, comfortable as a cat in the sunshine, with a wide-brimmed yellow hat and a long white beard into which were braided many flowers. He told Tim many tales, and sang many songs in a language that Tim didn’t know, but which felt ancient—ancient and filled with strange joys and sorrows. It filled his heart, and when he went home his family found him thoughtful and quiet for many days after. Even his grandfather noticed when he came to Townsend to visit, though he poked and prodded at Tim, and warned him that dreamers and wanderers rarely amounted to much.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tim’s father mildly. “Smith over in Wootton-Major did a great deal of wandering in his day, and dreaming, and he’s amounted to quite a lot.”

“Oh, you only say that because his Nell is your Ann’s sister,” Old Nokes scoffed. But he had no other argument, for it was well known in all of the villages in the region that if you wanted truly quality smith work, whether it was for something fancy or something as simple as a box of nails, you went to Wootton-Major. He did mumble something peevish about a star and about Alf, who had been Master Cook after him, but he was always grumbling about Alf.

All the same, Tim did not go wandering for some time after that visit. He busied himself working with his father, who was a carpenter and almost as sought after in his own right as Smith of Wootton-Major was. Tim thought woodworking a far more pleasant job than smithing—at the very least there wasn’t the heat of the forge to deal with, or the stink of hot metal. He liked the smell of the sawdust, and the satisfaction of sanding a piece of wood to a satiny finish.

But the mountains called to him again, and the next spring found his feet following the paths through the wood and over the plains, hurrying along as he sang quietly to himself, trying to mimic the songs that the old man by the mountain spring had sung, but never quite managing it. This journey brought him to small hidden valleys tucked away at the feet of the mountains where flowers of all kinds and colors grew, so numerous that there was scarcely any grass to be seen on the hillsides. He encountered a party of fair folk in another, and they drew him into their dances from dusk till dawn and then until dusk again, and he left feeling dizzy and breathless from spinning and from laughing. Like the folk in the wood they seemed to know who he was, though they never used his name, calling him Star-child instead.

Tim didn’t understand the name until he caught sight of himself in a stream on his way back home. There upon his brow gleamed a star, as though someone had plucked it from the sky and pressed it into his forehead. He rubbed at it, but it remained, and felt no different than the rest of his face.

 

His next journey he undertook in the summer, and he wandered away from the mountains that time, following their line as they marched into the distance, until all of a sudden the world ended and the sea began. The sky grew very dark as it stretched away from the land, but there were no stars in it, and the moon did not shine there. Great white-tipped waves rolled silently out of the sea to bear down on the strand, covered in smooth stones and fine sand. Tim had never seen the Sea before, though former sailors had come through Wootton-Major or Townsend, and told tales of adventure and storms and pirates. But their stories were nothing like this, and never had they described the sea as silent . Yet these waves made no sound at all, not even a whisper upon the sand. Tim knew what flowing water sounded like in brooks or even the lapping of gentler waves against lake shores. Not to hear anything now was strange, almost frightening.

He went down to the strand anyway, leaving round footprints behind him in the wet brown sand, the crunching of the stones under his feet the only sound to be heard. There was a ship there, pulled up onto the beach. Waves foamed around it. It was made of pale wood, and its sails were furled, the oars drawn inside. There were scorch marks on the hull, and a patchwork sort of look to parts of it that suggested damage that had since been repaired. Tim did not draw too close, in case its owners were nearby, but he stood and gazed at it for some time, wondering who had sailed it and from where—and what sort of battles it had seen, and what lay beyond that strange and dark horizon. After a while he saw light flicker in the far distance—a storm, though no lightning rolled over the waters after the lightening, and the air remained very still and very quiet. From behind him clouds rolled up, pale grey, covering the sky but not quite threatening rain.

After a while he heard singing, faint but growing louder, from somewhere behind him. He turned and found a small party coming down from the hills, carrying tools and pulling a wagon with crates and other things piled in it. They were tall figures, and broad-shouldered and bright-eyed. One of them spotted Tim, and held up a hand in greeting.

“Well met, Star-child!” he said when they drew closer. The cheerful voice seemed very loud against the silence of the sea. “What brings you to the shores of the Sea of Windless Storm?”

“Is that what it is called?” Tim asked.

“Indeed.” The speaker was very tall, with dark skin and darker hair; against the darkness of the horizon he would have been nearly invisible. He gestured to his companions to continue on to the ship, which they did after politely greeting Tim. They struck up another tune as they climbed onto the ship; it was not in a tongue that Tim recognized, but he did know the cadences of a work song. “Soon we must depart again,” said one who stayed with him. He spoke grimly, his gaze straying toward the lightning still flickering on the horizon. “We lost many ships on our last foray into the dark, so more are being made and will come down soon to this strand, and then we will depart.”

“Where do you go?” Tim asked. “What is there past the darkness?”

“What we call the Dark Marches, though we do not always make a landing. There are strange and fell creatures that dwell there; they dislike the Light and seek to spread their Unlight. It is a war never-ending, but you need not worry yourself. We have beaten them back always, and we will again! For we have the blessing of the King and the Queen.”

“Oh.” Tim looked back at the water. He wanted to ask why it was silent, but he thought he knew already the answer—it simply was, as most things in Faerie were.

His companion went on to tell him a tale of their last great battle, when many many ships had sailed from the shores of Faerie and come to the ever-dark lands and waters, where great krakens rose out of the deeps to wrap long arms thick as tree trunks around their ships, if they were not speared first in just the right place. And there were other fleets of ships as dark as this one was pale, with strange shadowy mariners with spears and arrows that both pierced and poisoned. The tale was a great one to hear, and perhaps to tell, but it made Tim shiver as he imagined being upon one of the elven ships.

Suddenly a great wind came up out of the south, lending sound at last to the place, howling around the ship and whipping at Tim’s clothing and hair. He covered his face with his arms against the blowing sand that struck his skin like a thousand tiny darts. His companion threw out his arms instead, laughing in the face of the wind, which was chilled, and when it died down and Tim looked up, the darkness of the skies over the sea seemed to have deepened, or perhaps grown, inching closer to the shores on which he stood. He took a step back without thinking, wishing to be gone from that place.

“Come, Star-child!” said the mariner as his companions swung down off the ship and hurried toward them. “This is no place for you. Come back with us, for there is a merry feast waiting, and perhaps even the King or Queen will attend to bid us farewell!”

There was no polite way to refuse, and anyway Tim thought he needed a merry feast after an afternoon by a silent windless sea—windless until it wasn’t, at least. He followed the mariners, having to take two steps to every one of their long strides, as they passed away from the shores and went up into the hills, where no clouds hid the sky, and heather glowed in the golden afternoon sun. They came to a wide field next to the start of a thick and tangled wood with enormous and ancient trees, tall as towers. The shadows beneath them would, under other circumstances, have been daunting—but after Tim’s glimpse of the Unlight across the Windless Sea he thought the tree-shadows reassuring. They were dark, certainly, but a dark that waxed with the night and waned with the day.

A great company was gathered there in the field; tables had been set up on the grass beneath brightly colored pavilions, from which lanterns were strung, gleaming like golden stars in the gloaming. Fires were lit for the cooking, and music was playing somewhere, though Tim could not see the musicians no matter where he looked. His mariner companions drew him along with them until they came to one table set on a dais, where the most beautiful lady Tim had ever seen was seated on a chair that was more like a throne than anything else, with a canopy strung with silver and pearls above her. She was clad all in flowers, and gem-bright butterflies flitted about her shoulders. Her eyes were bright as stars beneath a diadem of gold and emerald, and her smile was blinding and very kind as she looked down at Tim from her high seat. He bowed along with his companions, feeling very clumsy and young and ridiculous.

“Welcome, Star-child,” said the queen in a voice like spring rain and summer laughter.

After that he sat with his mariner companions, and in the blink of an eye the tables, once bare but for the settings, were laden with food of all kinds, fruits and nuts and breads, and tureens of soups, and great bowls of salads, platters of roasted meats and vegetables, and wheels of cheese, and all manner of other kinds of foods that Tim could not name. He tasted all that was set before him, and all of it was delicious. Wine was poured for him that tasted sweet and light as sunshine, and loosened his tongue into laughter and song. And after the feast there was dancing and singing, and as the moon rose and cast a bright silver glow upon the party field, Tim found himself face to face again with the Faery Queen. She smiled at him again and took his hands, and they danced together around the largest of the fires, burning brightly against the night shadows. She had lost her diadem, but now her hair was adorned with sparling gems that were like stars themselves fallen down from the sky to nestle in her dark braids, and as she spun fireflies shone in her wake.

Finally the eastern sky blushed rose with the coming sun, and it was time to depart—the mariners to their ships, and Tim to his own home. The Faery Queen took his hands once more and pressed something cool and smooth into his palm. “Fare well, Tim Nokes of Townsend, our Star-child,” she said. “Give my greetings to your kinsman, he that we call Star-brow.”

“My kinsman?” Time repeated, startled—most of all to hear his own name on the Queen’s lips. But she only smiled and kissed him directly upon the star that shone on his own brow. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them a moment later he stood alone in the field, with only a few impressions in the grass around him, and the Queen’s gift in his hand to say that there really had been a party there before. Dew shimmered like tiny lingering stars on the grass around him. A nightingale trilled in the nearby trees. Such was the way of things in Faerie. Tim opened his hand and looked down to find a pale white cockle shell nestled in his palm, polished shiny and smooth, and shimmering with its own faint light, like a star in the gloaming. Tim slipped it into a pocket just over his heart, and turned his feet homeward.

As he walked he found himself on a path that wound lazily through the foothills of those great snowcapped mountains. It took him to the edge of a valley in which nestled a very clear and still lake, like a mirror of the sky above. He did not go down into it, but stood for a long time just looking, and listening to the wind in the trees.

He passed through another valley filled with flowers. There were bluebells that rang like real bells, tiny and sweet sounding, whenever he brushed against them or when the breeze caught them. There were so many that all the hillsides seemed to chime in harmony. There were daisies there that nodded their heads as he went by, and fruit trees that lowered their branches to offer their fruits like vendors at a market hawking their wares. Tim ate his fill of apples and pears and the juiciest peaches he’d ever tasted in his life, and handfuls of the sweetest cherries. In return he dropped the cores and pits outside of that valley where they could take root and grow new trees, and someday feed other wanderers.

The road took him down out of the hills and along a wide river, upon which boats and barges drifted. The folk upon them called out merry greetings to Tim, and he stopped often to cool his feet in the shallows where tiny fish—silver and gold and copper—darted in to nibble at his toes. One morning he came upon a tower sitting at a bend in the river. A small boat was tied to a small dock at its base, but neither had seen use in a very long time, and were adorned with moss and cobwebs that glinted with morning dew. The morning mist drifted over the water and about the base of the tower, giving it a strange and ghostly look. From a high window he thought he heard a steady thump and clacking, as of someone busy at a loom. But no faces appeared in the windows, nor did any voice call a greeting to him, so he went on down the road. A group of elven knights in shining silver and golden armor passed by on great white horses, singing songs as their bright-colored banners fluttered in the wind of their passing.

Then the river took another turn, and Tim crossed it at a shallow fording, and found himself back in his own country on a bright summer afternoon. Bluebells and daisies lined the path back to Townsend, unmusical but no less pretty to his eyes. The shell was a comforting weight in his pocket. He passed through Townsend and came to his own house where his sister was harvesting peas in the garden.

“You’re back!” she said, looking up. “Your star is shining very brightly this time.”

Tim rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t know you could see it.”

“Only sometimes. Come help me with these and tell me all about it.”

Tim happily complied; he wanted to know who Beth thought their kinsman Star-brow could be. “Oh, well it’s our uncle of course,” she said. “Smith of Wootton-Major. He used to go on long journeys all the time when we were very young. Don’t you remember? And he’s always had such bright keen eyes, like yours are now. Yes, I can easily imagine Uncle Smith having the favor of the Faery Queen. Tell me again about her, Tim. She sounds—oh I don’t know.”

“She’s so much—so much more than I’ve been able to say,” said Tim. “She’s not anything like that little fairy figure that Granddad Nokes has in his house, you know the one that he put on his cake that one year?”

“Of course,” Beth said, rolling her eyes. “He loves to talk about that cake.” Then she began to giggle. “Can you imagine if Granddad Nokes found out that there really is a Faery Queen, but she’s nothing like the silly little figure he likes to make fun of? Oh, she’d surely turn him into a frog for his cheek!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tim. He didn’t think she would do that. Just seeing her would be enough of a chastisement, even for Old Nokes. “But Beth, look what she gave me…” He held out the seashell in his cupped palms, so that it was shaded and she could see the shimmer. Beth’s eyes went wide, and she was struck speechless for perhaps the first time in her life.

“Oh, Tim. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!”

They both startled at the sound of another voice, calling a greeting from the gate. It was their Uncle Smith, leaning on the gate and with an empty hand cart resting beside him. “Hullo!” he called cheerfully. “I had business in Townsend and thought I would stop by.”

“Hullo, Uncle Smith!” Beth said brightly. “Mama and Dad aren’t home, but they shouldn’t be long. Do come in and have some tea. How are Nan and the children?”

“Very well indeed,” said Smith as he followed them into the kitchen. His daughter had a gaggle of children running around Wootton-Minor, and his son was also expecting a child come the autumn. Tim sat quietly and listened to the exchange of gossip, doing his own catching up. He was a little surprised to find that he cared quite a lot about what was going on in their little cluster of villages, in spite of his journeys taking him to such wide and wondrous places. He wondered if there were little villages like theirs in Faerie, where there were no towers or Queens or Kings or strange shining knights riding through the square. Where folk went about their days like the people of Townsend and Wootton-Major and -Minor did, the biggest news being weddings and births…

“Tim?” Beth poked him in the arm.

“Hm? Oh, sorry.” Tim looked sheepishly at Beth and at their uncle. “I must be more tired than I thought.”

“Tim has been off on a journey again,” Beth said to Smith.

“Yes, I can see that,” said Smith. His smile was both knowing and a little wistful. “Did you go far on this journey, Tim?”

“Quite far,” said Tim. “And I met—I met a lady who asked me to bring a message back to someone.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. She wanted me to give her greetings to one she called Star-brow.”

Smith’s smile grew. “I know the Lady you mean,” he said. “Thank you, Tim.”

“So you are Star-brow!” cried Beth. “I knew it! Tim, show him the Queen’s gift!”

Tim set the seashell upon the table, and Smith picked it up with careful fingers. “How lovely,” he murmured, and set it down as carefully as though it were made of fine crystal. “Keep that somewhere safe, Tim my lad.”

“I thought I would carve a little box for it,” said Tim.

“Have you ever met the Faery King on your travels?” Smith asked as he prepared to leave a little while later, unable to wait longer for their parents to return home before he had to return to his own errands.

“No,” said Tim. “I first saw the Queen this last time. She was presiding over a feast before a great fleet of mariners set sail over the Windless Sea. Should I have seen him?”

Smith shuddered, gaze going faraway for a moment, perhaps remembering his own sight of that great and strange place. Then he shook his head and smiled. “I only wondered,” he said. “I think he is often out on journeys and business of his own. Goodbye Tim, Beth! Tell your mother that Nell is still expecting her to tea next week.” He picked up the handles to his little cart and strode off down the road, humming at first and then breaking into song. After a moment Tim recognized it as a tune he’d heard from afar through the woods of Faery, sung by many fair voices that always faded away and vanished before he could come upon them.

Later that evening, when he had a moment to himself, Tim went back out into the garden. Near the back fence he dug a small hole, and from his pocket he drew a cherry pit, the only other thing he had brought back from Faery, for cherries were Beth’s favorite. He dropped it into the soil and covered it gently, patting the soil down, and poured a bit of water over it, before going back inside.

The very next morning he went out and found a tiny sprout, with two leaves greener than the brightest spring grass. By the end of that summer it had grown into a graceful young tree, and the next spring saw it laden with fragrant cherry blossoms, and by the Midsummer festivities it was laden with fruit, and the pies and tarts that Beth and their mother made were the talk of all the region. Even their Grandfather Nokes proclaimed them the best he’d ever tasted. Smith caught Tim’s eye across the table and grinned.

For his seashell, Tim spent the winter carefully carving images of that dark shore into a small wooden box, and then polished it until it shone. Beth gave him some soft cloth to line the box with, and there nestled the shell, a shimmering surprise for any that opened it. Over the coming years Tim would make other boxes for other tiny treasures, but the seashell, given to him by the Faery Queen’s own hand, was ever the most precious.