Without thinking (which never happened to him) Foxbrush said, “Can I come with you?”
Dragon’s teeth! What was this? Could his slouching cousin’s secret enthusiasm for who-knows-what truly be that catching? What about algebra? What about the economic patterns of the last three decades? What about that enormous history of the second-class farmers’ tax records, which he had only just begun? What about—
“No.”
And Leo was gone.
Foxbrush stared as the breakfast room door swung shut.
He rose and, telling himself he wasn’t really interested, stepped to the window, which overlooked part of the garden. Craning his neck, he saw his cousin, beanpole in hand, march resolutely across the lawn before he disappeared from sight.
A boy climbed one path and a girl, some distance off, descended another, each hoping to meet again and neither certain whether or not to expect such a meeting. The mountain was quiet, but it observed them with an interested, even eager gaze.
All the eyes of the wood, both visible and invisible, both friendly and not so friendly, watched the children’s progress. Some watchers trembled. Some merely wondered. Neither Leo nor Rose Red was aware of this, however, and each pursued his or her path with blissful ignorance and hope. The morning grew bright around them.
Rose Red, the boy’s floppy hat jammed on her head, her veils draped beneath, carried two pails as she made for a mountain stream a short ways from the cottage. Her large pails had iron handles and were heavy even when empty. Yet they did not encumber Rose Red, despite her tiny frame. If her gait was awkward as she hauled them along, it was no more so than at any other time.
As she reached the stream, a wood thrush sang in the branches above her. Looking up briefly, she half smiled, though none could tell behind her grimy veil. She waded out to the middle of the creek, where it was deep enough to quickly fill her pails. Her soft shoes, stockings, and skirt were soaked up to the knees, but she made no attempt to remove them to keep them dry. She filled both pails and, with no apparent strain, carried them back to the bank. But instead of returning home, she set her pails aside and settled herself down on a moss-covered stone to wait.
And to listen.
Beana, back in the cottage yard, dozed contentedly most of the morning but came suddenly awake when she realized the girl had been gone much longer than necessary. Grumbling, she trotted into the forest, following the unmarked trail down to the creek, and there found Rose Red sitting on her stone, twirling the floppy-brimmed hat about one finger.
The goat bleated in relief. “Going to take all day, are you, Rosie?”
Rose Red spared her not a glance. “I’m waitin’ for Leo.”
“That boy you met yesterday?”
“Yup.”
“He’s not coming to visit you. Is he?”
Rose Red shrugged and continued as she was, doing nothing with all that was in her. Beana grumbled again and went to browse the underbrush along the streambed, flicking her tail and shaking her ears to ward off mosquitoes. “Fool girl will daydream her life away!”
But Rose Red wasn’t daydreaming.
She was listening.
Rose Red did not listen like other children her age. For one thing, she was significantly better at it. She heard all the regular sounds of the forest around her. She heard the babbling creek, the hum of a million mosquitoes. Beana’s hooves squelched in the muddy bank and clicked against pebbles. The wind blew in the trees, rustling the leaves in soft shushing, and the birds chattered to each other back and forth in their many bright voices.
But Rose Red heard more.
While she sat still as the stone beneath her, her eyes closed behind her long veil, she listened to the songs.
There were hundreds of songs all over the mountainside, playing constantly for anyone who had the ears to hear them. When the birds sang, Rose Red did not hear sweet chirpings and chatters; rather, she could understand the melody and complex harmonies of an entire chorus. When the trees sighed, she heard them whispering songs of longing, songs of love, songs of sorrow for bygone days.
And this morning, when the sun broke through the canopy of the forest and fell upon the creek in blinding, sparkling light too bright for her to gaze upon, the wood thrush began to sing, and Rose Red recognized the voice of her Imaginary Friend. His song blended with the sound of water in a harmony beyond description, and she understood the words without quite realizing that she did.
Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
Will you answer me?
She did not answer. She only listened. But Rose Red listened so hard that soon the other sounds faded away, Beana’s grumbles, the creek’s trickle, the birds’ caroling, and even the mosquitoes’ whining. The gold and silver music filled her ears and warmed her heart so that even her loneliness backed into the far corners of her mind.