"Sarah's Stone" by Joan L. Savage

Joan L. Savage

Sarah held her papa's hand all night as he tossed and moaned. His hand was so hot she was almost scared to hold it in case she made it hotter but at last, long after the moon set, he finally sighed and settled. Happy, she snuggled beside him and clung to his hand. As it got cooler, then colder, she chafed it and added more wood to the fire, then fell asleep still clinging to him.

She startled awake when the cottage door slammed open and Aunt Essie bustled in. Auntie froze on the doorsill and stared at Papa with her mouth fallen open. Her basket fell from her hands and fresh bread tumbled over the dirt floor.

"Get away from him, Sarah!" Her voice was high and shrill, like goat-bells peeling through the fog. She grabbed Sarah's shoulder and yanked her away from Papa.

"No, Auntie, he's better, he's cooler, the fever's broken."

"The goblins've taken him. Sarah!" she shouted as Sarah ran to Papa's side.

"Papa, Papa!" Sarah shook his shoulder but no matter how hard she shook, he stared past her with half-closed eyes and did not wake.

Aunt Essie half-carried, half-dragged her towards the door. "Stay away from him, or the goblins will take you, too! Like when they took..."

Sarah heard the unspoken words: Like when they took your mama and then came back for the baby, but Aunt Essie stopped herself in time from speaking of them aloud. The living didn't speak of the dead. It was unlucky.

Sarah's heart pattered hard in her chest. "He's not dead! The goblins can't have him!"

"Goblin-cursed. That's what your family is." Aunt Essie propelled Sarah out of the cottage and none of Sarah's shouting or crying would stop her. Papa's half-open eyes stared at Sarah as she left, as if he was pleading with her, but she didn't know what to do and couldn't stop Aunt Essie from slamming the door, or piling wood from their woodpile against it, or drawing a circle in the dirt in front of the cottage with many lines crossing through it so everyone would know to stay away.

"Goblins came last night, goblins came," Aunt Essie called, her hand encircling Sarah's as she marched down the lane that led to the village where cottages clustered close together, their shutters open to the sunshine that danced across the road and made the dust sparkle. The whisper spread ahead of them, faster than fever travelled.

"Goblin-cursed." Sarah heard the whisper as women bustled their children into the cottages and bolted their doors and shutters.

Beside the village square, they passed old man Tuckner's cottage, with the bones of his profession piled in his yard in twisted sculptures, sculls in one pile, arm-bones in another. Lonely bones, Sarah had always thought them. All robbed of their names and who they'd been and who'd loved them.

Old man Tuckner took the dead away and burned them to keep goblins from coming back. As they passed his cottage he came out, with his wheelbarrow all blackened from the burning pits, and turned towards Papa's cottage.

"No, no!" Sarah screamed and caught old man Tuckner's arm and dug her heels into the dirt. "You can't burn Papa and pile his bones! You can't! If you do I'll never see him again!"

Old man Tuckner kept walking as if he didn't notice her hanging off his arm.

"Don't touch him!" Aunt Essie grabbed Sarah's hands away and held her until old man Tuckner rounded a bend in the lane, out of view. Only then did she let Sarah go, muttering, "That man's half-goblin himself. It's the only reason he can touch the dead and they don't come."

Sarah thrust her hands over her ears and ran. It didn't matter where. Anywhere. Away from Aunt Essie. Away from old man Tuckner and his 'barrow.

Only when her legs burned and her lungs ached to bursting did her head begin to think. If goblins had taken Papa, there must be a way to find him and bring him back. She needed him. He had to tuck her in at night and sing her lullabies. Had to hold her, with his beard so scratchy against her cheek. The goblins might have taken him, but she would not let them keep him.

She turned into the lane that led out of the village, towards Big Hill and the forest beyond it that she'd heard stories about but never seen. Yet even thinking of the long lonesome walk to the woods where the old men said the goblins lived, made her as cold as if the waterlands of her nightmares licked her, waiting to drown her.

She walked faster and clutched Papa's stone in her pocket. Papa'd said the stone would cure her water fear 'cause it came from water. Even though it hadn't, she loved it. Papa had given it to her.

"Over water, under trees, cold as ice and hard as stone, very near but all alone, can you find a goblin's home?" She sang the rhyme under her breath, hoping it would make her feel bigger, like a grown-up who always knew what to do.

It didn't.

Cousin Aaron, Aunt Essie and Uncle Hamm lived in the last cottage before the road dove down between waving grasses that, when the wind petted them, would bend so far as to touch her shoulders. Aaron sat swinging on Aunt Essie's gate. The smell of mincemeat tarts baking came from their cottage.

Papa'd told her never to go farther than Aaron's cottage, though often she dared to run past it and let the grass touch her before she pelted back to safety. This time, she walked right past the cottage without stopping.

Aaron jumped off the gate. "Where you going, Sarah?"

She didn't answer him.

"Sarah!" He ran after her, out among the waving grasses.

Still she didn't answer but he stomped his foot like Aunt Essie sometimes did and said, "If you don't tell me where you're going right now I'll pick you up and carry you back."

She eyed him from the corner of her eye. He wasn't that much bigger than her, but she didn't dare to take the chance that he could lift her. Hunching her shoulders up to her ears, she said, "I'm going to the goblins."

"What?" He stopped walking. "Are you stupid? Only dead people go to the goblins. No one alive who goes into their woods comes back. Ever."

She ignored him and kept walking. Even though Aaron was older than her, he didn't know everything. She'd bring Papa back.

"Sarah! Where you really going?"

It felt unlucky to tell Aaron she was going to bring Papa back—like telling a secret wish you made, when the telling would make it not come true. She thought after a few steps he'd get bored and go home.

He didn't.

Around the third bend in the road and at the foot of a hill bigger than any she'd ever seen, she turned and glared at him. "Whatcha doing?"

"Coming with you."

"Why?"

"No reason."

"You don't do nothing for no reason."

"Someone's got to look after you."

"I don't need looking after!" Though she knew it was a lie. She needed her papa to look after her.

"You do. You're just a will-'o-wisp who don't know nothing 'bout the world."

"You don't know nothing neither!"

"I know the neighbours said old man Tuckner was going for your..." He broke off and scrubbed in the dirt with his bare toe. The living did not speak of the dead. It was unlucky, and brought goblins.

She turned her back on him and scrambled up the hill. What if she was too late, if once old man Tuckner burned Papa there wasn't any bringing him back, if she really was all alone.... She couldn't bear to think of it and made her feet go faster, faster, until Aaron had to run to keep up.

At the top of the hill, she stopped. Spread below her, at the foot of the hill, a mass of trees huddled together with their bristling branches thrust towards her. Branches curved like the knife Papa used when it came time to kill the goats' kids. The trees stretched so far over the hills that in the distance they looked more like grass than trees. She'd never imagined the woods would be so big. How would she ever find Papa in there?

Her feet hurt too much to take two more steps, and she collapsed into the grass beside the road.

Aaron sat beside her and touched her arm. "Sarah. Remember when my old dog... last winter..."

Aaron'd had red eyes for days after old Blue died. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He looked like he was going to say something, then shrugged. "Let's go home. I'm hungry."

"I can't go back 'til I've found what I'm looking for." The trees waved angrily, standing straight and thin and cruel, their leaves sharp and pointed. They would beat her with their whip-like limbs. She should not dare to go that way. Water-chills prickled up her back. If Papa were here, she'd have run to him and touched his rough goat-hair coat and been safe.

"Whatcha really think you're going to find out here, Sarah? There's nothing but sorrow in them woods, my papa says."

Sarah stuck her chin out and started down the hill while Aaron trailed after her. The whole way, he repeated all the terrible goblin stories he knew until she thought her feet must turn and run back to the village all of themselves, but she rubbed Papa's stone and told her feet to keep going and somehow, they obeyed.

At the bottom of the hill, the road curved sharply left, hugging the hill so it could stay as far as possible from the trees.

"Goblins'll kill you if they find you trespassing," Aaron said.

The trees thrashed and she cringed, but the trees wouldn't beat her any more cruelly than they'd beat Papa. She stepped towards them.

Aaron stared at the trees with wide eyes. "You really going in there?"

"I have to find Papa," she confessed, and marched into the woods.

"But Sarah, you're not going to find... he's dead, like Blue, and your.... Sarah, wait! Dead things don't come back to life!"

She didn't wait to hear him tell her things she couldn't bear to know but ran from his words and crashed into trees and tripped over roots. Aaron ran after her, calling her. She pushed her hands over her ears and ran faster.

The air here smelled sweet, with the sickly sweetness of decaying leaves. Thick undergrowth hid Aaron. Once he stopped yelling for her, she stopped running. It was so quiet, without even any bugs buzzing near her ears. A branch struck her cheek, then more branches writhed after the first, reaching for her, as hungry to eat her as the waterlands of her nightmares. Greedy leaves swallowed sunshine before it could reach her, but further ahead, there was light. She pelted towards it.

At the edge of the clearing, she stopped. Her heart pounded like it wanted to escape from her chest because a river sliced the clearing in half. It frothed at its banks like a mad dog and there was no bridge. No way to cross it.

Trees that beat her, goblins that might eat her, those she could face. Not this. Not hungry water that would swallow her, silence her screams, drown her. Her papa had laughed when she wouldn't play in the puddles with the other children. He hadn't understood about the water fear. He didn't know how water would tug, gently at first, then more and more insistently until it pulled you down and held you, helpless, beneath its heavy arms until you smothered there and the goblins came for you at last. You couldn't save yourself from water.

Aaron crashed out of the bushes and stopped beside her. Blood ran from a cut on his forehead where a tree had whacked him.

"Sarah. We don't have to cross that. Come home, and I bet Ma'll let you have a tart, all fresh and hot from the oven."

Sarah's belly rumbled, but she clamped her hands across it and said, loudly, so her voice wouldn't tremble as much as her knees, "In the stories the goblins always live across the water from us."

She hadn't thought of that, when she'd set out. Hadn't thought of having to face the water fear.

Aaron caught his bottom lip between his teeth. "Let me take you home."

"The stories always say, to cross running water, give it something precious and it'll let you pass." But Sarah didn't have anything precious. She and Papa had never had any coppers. Not even shoes, this year.

In her pocket, her fingertips brushed the stone Papa had given her. Slowly, she pulled it out. It lay on her palm, shiny and heavy. Worthless to trade with, but she loved it. Did that make it precious, because it was precious to her?

Nothing was more precious than Papa. She closed her eyes and tossed her stone into the water, heard the splash as it disappeared. Tears burned behind her closed eyelids. She wanted Papa's whiskers to rub against her cheek. Wanted to smell him, how he smelled of smoke and leather and goats. But she smelled only the muddy river smell, and now even the stone he'd given her was gone.

"Look!" Aaron shouted.

She opened her eyes. The water slowed until it became as quiet as a deep well.

Aaron backed away. "Don't. Sarah. We can't go into the goblins' land."

She hurried to the riverbank. Wet mud squished between her toes, but she couldn't make her feet step into the water. Then a rumble rustled under her feet, as if the earth was shaking like a dog with water in his coat. Upstream, the water gathered in a foaming torrent that fretted in one big wave before it started rolling towards her. Her stone hadn't calmed the angry water for long.

"Look out, Sarah! The water!"

This was her last chance. She took a deep breath and plunged into the water. The cold of it shocked her breath into gasps as it splashed over her knees, over her thighs. It licked her, hungry, tasting. The muddy bottom sucked at her toes. The approaching wave rumbled against her ears. Aaron yelled.

The wave hit her, knocked her breath away, and threw her into the churning water until she couldn't tell which way was up and which down. Her arms and legs flailed, but there was nothing to cling to. Her chest ached with the water pushing her down. Water had her. She was never going to find Papa. He was gone.

She opened her mouth to scream his name and water poured in, burning her throat. She couldn't breathe, just like in her nightmares of the waterlands.

Something grabbed the back of her dress and pulled. Air struck her face and she gasped, coughing water and tears. Hands laid her down but it took long moments before she could breathe properly and smell not mud but air, sharp with the taste of clover and leaves and sweet grass.

She sat up and rubbed water from her eyes. A man stood looking down at her. Though he was almost as tall as Papa, he was as thin and taut as a rope and looked as if, if he moved quickly, he would vanish. This goblin looked too thin to have ever eaten a child, like in Aaron's stories.

He spoke with a strange accent. "What are you doing here, child?"

"I came to bring my Papa home." Every part of her tingled in anticipation. She would race into Papa's arms and pound her fists against his chest and cry: Why did you leave me? Don't ever leave me again!

The goblin gripped her hand and pulled her to her feet. His touch was as icy as the river water, as cold as Papa's had been, and she had a sudden rush of the water fear that left her heart pounding. She wished Cousin Aaron were here and glanced back across the river, but couldn't see him.

"I want to see my papa now," she said.

The goblin looked at her with dark eyes that made her shiver. "A goblin grants you one request, but only one. Look! See your papa."

Papa sat on a stump near the river. His hands lay empty and upturned in his lap, with his head bowed over them.

She shrieked, jerked her hand from the goblin's grasp, and ran for Papa but, just before she touched him, the goblin caught her arm.

With her free hand, she tried to pat Papa's face but he was as cold and insubstantial as fog, and she jerked her hand back. "He's not really here. Why not? Where is he?"

The goblin's narrow eyes were as dagger-like as the leaves of the cruel trees. "Across another river. You came too late, child."

He lifted his hand and Sarah saw a shore with gnarled trees wind-twisted, and past them, a vastness of water so wide it stretched into forever, with waves bigger than her cottage. She couldn't cross that. It would drown her with less effort than a sigh and she'd nothing to give it—her stone was gone.

Her heart sank out of her, leaving her abandoned. She lifted a finger towards her papa's cheek. "Why is he crying?"

"He remembers a child left alone."

Me. He was thinking of all the terrible lone space between them, and the water she was too afraid to cross.

She knew, now. She didn't have to ask. "He's not with the goblins."

"No, child. Not any more. You came too late to catch him."

Dead. Like Blue was dead, and Mama, and the baby, and old Mrs. Spencer, and soon his bones would be in old man Tuckner's yard and she'd pass them every day but not know which were his.

"Then let me go to him. Across that water—to where Mama and the baby and Papa and Blue are."

The goblin shook his head. "Not until your head is silver and your children have children will I come for you, to send you there."

When she was old enough to have children... that would be forever. She fell to her knees and tried to touch her papa's lap. "Papa. Please don't cry. Papa!"

She couldn't leave him crying, thinking of her, like she was remembering him: how her hand felt in his; how she told him all her secrets, even the ones too terrible to tell.

She took a swallow to settle her courage back into her heart where it belonged, and looked into the goblin's hard eyes. "Goblin-man, with your magic, tell him not to cry."

The goblin shook his head. "While he thinks of you, nothing I can do will comfort him."

Sarah wrapped her arms around the terrible pain in her heart. It must be breaking. Only broken things hurt that much. "Then make him forget me."

The goblin's eyes went wide and round. "Why would you dare to ask me for such a thing?"

"If you make him forget, just 'til I'm big enough to go to him, he won't remember why he's sad, and he won't cry while he's waiting for me."

The goblin hesitated. "Forgetting goes two ways, child. You would forget him, too."

She bit her lip. Oh, that was terrible. Worse than losing her stone. More dreadful than not knowing his bones. More frightful than the waterlands. Not to remember Papa—how he lifted her so high in his arms she could see the whole world.... To forget him would crush her, break her, drown her.

But she couldn't leave him crying there for years and years 'til she found him. She'd come to the goblins to rescue him. So she would.

She knotted her hands and stood up straight, as tall and strong as Papa had been. As tall. She would make Papa proud of her. "I'll forget. But only—only 'til I go to find him."

The goblin stared at her, hard, for a long moment. Then something softened in his eyes, and he touched her forehead.

Though she tried to cling to her memory of Papa's face, the memory was vague and misted, like a picture she might scrape into the ice on the hides that covered the windows in the winter. The picture faded more quickly than melting ice.

Sarah opened her eyes. Cousin Aaron stood beside her on the road beside the forest. His voice shook. "What happened? We were in the forest, I was looking for you—"

She started to tell him about the goblin, but couldn't remember, really, and after a few stumbling words, she gave up trying and slipped her hand into her pocket.

Something was missing. She could have sworn she'd had something—oh, yes. A stone. Smooth and soft, and she'd loved it, though she couldn't remember why. It must have fallen from her pocket. She couldn't puzzle out why it made her heart hurt like a broken thing, that her little stone was gone.

Joan Savage is a writer and musician. She lives in Saskatchewan, Canada, with a household of dogs and cats most of whom get along, most of the time. Her short stories have appeared in On Spec and Dreams and Visions, and she recently completed her first novel.

Cover: "Blacksheep Dragon"

Of this illustration, the artist says, "I started this over a year ago, and liked the whimsy of a 'baby' dragon wanting to be a Knight who saves the Princess."

Melinda Reynolds is a self-taught artist and writer; drawing came first, writing second. Her writing is printed in "Better Fiction Anthology," and her art appears in "The Bleeding Quill," "The Sword Review," and "Better Fiction Anthology." Her favorite genres are fantasy and sci-fi because of the depth of imagination. She also designs original costumes, some of which were purchased by well-known fantasy artist Larry Elmore as reference for his paintings. She enjoys photography as time permits.

Sarah's Stone

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