Excerpt: Minstrel of the Water Willow - Marking Time

 

To step from shadows is to know light

  

Storms came and went.

A fire swept through the valley and annihilated great swathes of land. Many of the trees on the fringes of the forests all around succumbed, although the deep regions remained untouched. Drought was supreme for two summer seasons. The coldest winter in all memory followed.

Erin remained despite every tribulation. She had chosen to remove herself from her society. After the death of her daughter she lost all interest. He no longer cared much for his social circle either. The unhappier she became, the more he withdrew from others close to him, including his parents. Most days he hunkered, watching Erin. It was a senseless obsession, but truth was there was no Fay woman who drew him as much as she did.

While he was older than she was in years, he appeared far younger, and thus kept his distance. She would see him as a youth and would not understand the years already in his mind.

How utterly unfair. He wished he was human.

His music suffered. More correctly, his reputation as a minstrel suffered, for he rarely took to the circuit to play for others.

He played for Erin, softly, on the edge of hearing.

Kell watched her gradually regain her physical strength and her purpose for life. He saw how she tended her vegetables in the fields in view to him and noticed fat and healthy chickens roaming freely. She was successful at both growing and rearing and soon had excess with which to trade for other goods. Twice a month she loaded her small cart, and set off to market.

Often he would then head into the smaller villages and make music for his own keep.

When Erin turned forty, with fine lines at her eyes, he noticed how she gazed across the river as if sensing his presence when he merely watched her, when he made no lyrical sound. Was she as aware of him as he was of her? If she was, never did she say a word, although once or twice she did smile secretly.

His heart set up an uneven rhythm when she did so.

Many of the Fay moved into the highlands in those years, for more humans had entered the valley. His parents too chose to relocate, but he was determined to stay and thus took possession of his childhood home as his own. His mother was sad, reading in him the signs of unrequited love, knowing also the choice was his. He was considered adult among his kind.

Humans, however, would regard him as a youth.

On the banks of a river, a boy sees and hears a girl laughing, the most glorious music, and falls in love. Time, however, is not the same for them. Erin is human; Kell is something other.

 Kell watches her from the shadows under the willow at the water’s edge, refusing to surrender to their differences. For Erin he plays the most beautiful music, for he may never speak to her and she cannot ever see him. Music becomes their words.

 Love, however, cannot measure time. The minstrel maintains his vigil; his muse listens for his song, and both move through the years alone, until the day something changes …

MINSTRELMINSTREL