CHAPTER 59

He woke, covered by his own jacket and reclining upon his pack. His wound ached, but not like before.

The girl crouched by a fire, feeding the flames dry sticks. Her hands were stained with dirt.

She heard him stir and turned. Her chestnut eyes were lined with worry and concern. The Woodcutter stiffly pushed himself to a sitting position. She came to his side and helped him adjust until he was comfortable.

He moistened his cracked lips and his voice croaked, “You have saved my life, and I do not even know your name.”

She smiled as she tucked his coat smartly around him. “It has been so long since I was called anything, I am afraid I no longer remember.”

“It is the same with me,” he said. “Those that know me call me Woodcutter.”

She held out her hand. “You may call me Iron Shoes.”

Her dirty hand, covered in his sap, stuck to his.

She rubbed her hand upon her skirt. “I am afraid that your blood must be magic, for it does not wash off my skin and it turns my hands brown instead of red. I hope you are not an evil faerie.”

“No, Iron Shoes,” he said as he regarded her. He could feel nothing menacing in her ways. “I am not evil, and I am not fae. I am one with the trees of this forest. My blood is the same sap that is theirs. That which flows through them flows through me.”

She pulled back the dressing of his wound to see how it was healing. “I am sorry to have assumed. I had never seen anything like this before,” she said as she pointed at his injury.

It had hardened, and around the cut, instead of a shiny pink scar, a knot of bark had grown and puckered.

“Is this normal for one who is one with the forest?”

He took her hand away and covered himself back up. “Indeed it is. You have helped more than you will ever know. I am in your debt.”

She turned back to the fire. Balanced upon the coals was a metal pot, which spewed forth steam and lovely smells. She slid her feet out of her clog-like shoes as she stirred the pot. She looked over her shoulder at the Woodcutter’s inquiring gaze. “My shoes heat when I stand too close to the fire.”

“Why is it that you wear them?” he asked.

She paused before speaking, her gentle tone never changing, but her words seemed to come from far away. “I was married years ago to a great white bear and lived with him in a castle by the sea. He was, in fact, a man, but he was cursed by a witch he’d once offended. Each night, he would transform from a beast into my husband, but in the morning, he would return to beast again. After almost a year as his wife, I told my mother about his transformation and how it pained me to be parted from him during the hours of the light. She told me I must tie a golden thread to his ankle so that he might stay a man forever.”

She heaved a heavy sigh.

“I did this, but when he woke that day, he cried out that if I had only been patient for three days more, the enchantment would have been broken and he would have been free forever. With these words, a great wind broke through the windows and stole my husband away.”

She ladled the food onto two plates and brought one to the Woodcutter. “I went to an old seer to learn what had happened to my love, and she told me that the Sun would know where the wind took my husband. She predicted I would wear through three sets of iron shoes and an iron walking stick before I saw his face again. So I commissioned a blacksmith for such shoes and a stick and proceeded to walk to the Sun. But the Sun did not know. He thought that the Moon, who traveled so much closer to the earth, would have heard where to find my husband, so I walked to the Moon, but she did not know either.”

Iron Shoes sat down beside the Woodcutter. “The Moon thought that the West Wind, who has traveled far across the ocean, would surely know of my husband, so I walked to meet the West Wind. But the West Wind had never heard of my husband or his new home. The West Wind kindly offered to carry me upon its back to meet the East Wind, since the East Wind could go places where it could not. But alas, the East Wind knew nothing of my husband. The East Wind thought perhaps the South Wind could help. The South Wind said it had heard from the North Wind of a strange journey involving a man who was a bear. In the coldest reaches of the earth, I met the North Wind, who said he had once been asked to carry a man to a land east of the sun and west of the moon. So the North Wind gathered me up and brought me to this forest, which is where you find me now, having worn through two pairs of iron shoes and with the last pair upon my feet.”

There was a look on Iron Shoes’s face, a look of such determination and love…

They had glared at each other in the great room of their cottage the night she learned who he was, the night she learned of his duties to the Kingdoms and that they could never have a child. She had shouted at him as he told her he would understand if she no longer wished to be his wife. She had clung to him, her face pressing his tear-soaked shirt against his heart, trying to get him to understand that she could never leave his side.

She picked them up and wiggled a finger through their soles. “I have worn through the third. So I must continue. I know my husband lives here somewhere. I must continue until I find the man I love.”

His wife’s sleeping face in the morning light. Even resting, she wore a smile…

He missed her so much it ached, and he saw the same ache in the lines that etched Iron Shoes’s face.

“I shall help you through the Wood,” the Woodcutter promised.

She shook her head. “Woodcutter, you should not have to involve yourself with my sorrow.”

He stopped her. “I shall guide you until you reach the other side.”

She rested her hand lightly upon his forearm. “Thank you.”