Auld Nancy stamped her foot. “You do not listen. We do not have such powers and cannot—”
The man slammed his hand against the branches of their prison. “You will do as I tell you, or you will remain caged like monkeys until the flesh falls off your bones.” He stalked off, shouting over his shoulder, “You will have no food nor drink until I get what I want. And if you remain stubborn, I will have you disemboweled, one by one.”
There was a short silence, and then, “I’m frightened,” Pansy said with a snuffle, “and terribly hungry. What do we now?”
“At the moment, there is nothing to do,” said Auld Nancy. “We are at that man’s mercy, may maggots build nests in his hair!”
Grayling considered their situation. Likely her mother would know what to do or rather what to tell Grayling to do, but her mother was partway to being a tree. Roots and rutabagas! Grayling herself would have to think of something. In frustration she shook the sides of the cage.
“Gray Eyes,” said a voice from above. A raven had landed on the roof of the cage. “Gray Eyes,” it repeated, “this Pook is with you. Is there aught he can do?” With a cronk and a shaking of his feathers, the raven became a mouse again. He fell through the bars of the cage and landed with a tiny ooof! at Auld Nancy’s feet.
Auld Nancy studied him. “Can you not change into something useful—a strong knife, mayhap, or a torch?”
“Or a joint of beef?” asked Pansy.
Ignoring them both, Pook asked again, “Gray Eyes, is there aught that this Pook can do for you?”
“Certes,” said Grayling, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I wish to be gone from here! How will you make that happen?”
After a moment of silence, the mouse said, “There are two things this Pook might do. One, turn himself into a mad bull and tear down this cage. Two, this mouse can remain a mouse and chew through it.”
“Oh, Pook, you can help me! Which will you do?”
More silence. “This mouse is compelled to tell the truth. He does not in fact know how to change into a mad bull, so he shall immediately commence chewing. A hole large enough for you to climb through should take”—the moon reflected in the mouse’s tiny eyes as they shifted this way and that around the cage—“a month or so.”
“A month? Oh, mousie, a month? ’Twill not do. We will be long dead ere a month has passed.” Grayling slumped against the cage.
“Nay, mistress, do not despond,” said the mouse. “Trust this mouse and wait here.” And he skittered away. Grayling smiled through her tears. Wait here? Where else?
The three sat together on one side of the cage. Grayling huddled against the warmth that was Auld Nancy, comforted by the familiar aroma of sweat and smoke and sausages. The others dozed, but Grayling, plagued with visions of disemboweling, could not rest.
Some time had passed when she heard a sound, the sound of the wind stripping the grain on a wheat field, or a thousand tailors scissoring cloth, or . . . or . . . or an army of mice chewing through hazel branches—chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff!
She peered through the darkness. Indeed mice beyond counting were at the other side of the cage, tumbling over each other, gnawing and tearing their way through the branches that served as bars. The noise grew louder as their number grew. Chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff.
Auld Nancy woke and assessed the scene. “’Tis well done, mouse,” she said, “but let us make some noise to drown out the chewing lest the guard hear.”
Pansy yawned and said, “Can you not call thunder and lightning?”
Auld Nancy shook her head. “Nay, nothing that would bring attention to us or illuminate what is happening. Nay.”
“My mother,” said Grayling, “has a song with chiff chiffs that she sings as she slashes chive blossoms from their stems. We could sing it loudly.”
The mice chewed on. Chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff!
“What be that sound?” called the guard. “What are you doing in there?”
“We,” Grayling said, “are but singing a song with much chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiffing.”
“Chiff chiff, chiff chiff,” sang Auld Nancy. She knocked Pansy with her elbow, and the girl shouted, “Chiff chiff!”
“I do like a song,” said the guard. “Sing so I can hear.”
So Grayling sang:
Do not go to the field, my girl, today.
’Tis August and the men are cutting hay.
Chiff chiff, chiff chiff
Go silvery scythes.
Harvest is underway
And I wish you would
Not go to the field today.
Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.
Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.
The mice went chiff chiff, chiff chiff, Auld Nancy and Pansy sang chiff chiff, chiff chiff, but Grayling was silent a moment as she remembered Hannah Strong singing while she snipped greens in the garden. The sun had lit streaks of bronze in her hair and roses in her cheeks, and her fingers were swift and supple.