CHAPTER 78

The sky shone golden and pink as the Grandmother wheeled the bier out of her house and into the Wood.

He walked alongside, his hand placed upon his body’s chest with such longing.

The Grandmother and Red Riding Hood stopped at the base of a mighty oak tree whose gnarled roots ate the ground and whose grand trunk could only be surrounded if ten tall men stood hand in hand. There, the Grandmother and the child transferred the body to the earth.

They stood respectfully as the Woodcutter knelt at the side of his own being.

A phantom tear slid down the Woodcutter’s cheek, and it fell, landing upon the earth.

The Woodcutter buried his face in his sleeve.

But where the tear touched, a small mushroom emerged, a mushroom of red with small dots of white on its cap. It stretched and yawned and shook off the dirt and then shrank back as another tear slid from the Woodcutter and landed wetly upon its head. It shook off the tear like a dog come in from the rain, and where the spray of the second tear landed, a second mushroom emerged, waking and shaking as another tear fell. Around and around the mushrooms grew, until the tears stopped and the Woodcutter looked up.

A circle of mushrooms gazed back at him from all sides, a circle of mushrooms grown into a complete faerie circle.

The Grandmother gave the Woodcutter a gentle smile as she placed her hand upon her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Do you think they would forget your kindness?”

A clear note sounded through the Wood.

A silver note that rang through the trees and seemed to cause the wind to laugh.

It chased the sorrow from the Woodcutter’s still heart and filled it with such gladness, with such hope.

Pinpricks of light grew closer, dancing in and out of the tree branches.

A faun tripped lightly into the clearing, blowing sweetly upon the pipes that played that single note. He stopped before the Woodcutter and gave him a wink. The faun turned back to the Wood and played another tune.

The pixies were first, like brightly lit fireflies. They darted toward the Woodcutter and giggled at his sadness, and he felt it melt like a dream at dawn. They turned back to the darkness and beckoned to other creatures waiting in the trees. Shyly stepped the greater faeries, with wings of gossamer and halos of blue and pink and yellow. The trees opened their hearts, and the long-limbed dryads smiled upon the Woodcutter.

And then Titania and Oberon entered the clearing, sitting upon their carried litter.

Between them sat a girl whose hair was as black as ebony and whose skin was as white as snow. Her lips were red as blood and her name was Snow White.

Titania and Oberon gave her their hands as she stepped from the litter, giving the hands of the King and Queen to the young Princess.

Her eyes had lost the pain of losing her innocence. They held now a deepened wisdom of understanding.

She stepped into the faerie circle and stood before the Woodcutter, her small lips parted in a smile of knowing. “Woodcutter, lay thee inside thy body, for thou hast been parted from one another too long.”

The Woodcutter looked at her, and in his heart, something lived.

He lay down upon his body and felt himself sinking into the empty flesh.

Snow White knelt beside him and rested her hand upon his cheek. She whispered so quietly that only he could hear. “I offer thee the kiss of true love.”

Within her eyes was the gratitude of the thousands of souls that knew him. He saw them. He saw the faces of the fae, the faces of the Wood. He heard their voices as they whispered in his ear of their thanks for what he had endured, for the sacrifices he had made. He felt in his being their emotions, those feelings that words could not describe. They were here because he loved without thinking.

They were here because he was loved.

Truly loved.

True love.

And he felt her lips upon his. Her lips that held the love of a million souls he had loved without knowing it, loved in each moment he breathed in and out. Loved and was loved in return.

They had survived.

And he felt his heart stir in his chest.

A pleasant thump.

And then another.

And the Princess’s lips lifted from his own, and he gasped. His lungs ached for air. He sat up, gulping the oxygen. Wheezing it in. Gasping. Tasting it. Allowing it to fill him as the heat returned to the tips of his fingers, to the tips of his toes. He felt the touch of his clothes upon his skin, and he felt the pulse beating within his veins.

He was alive.

Alive.

The tears that fell were not ghosts.

They were real.

The Princess sat back on her heels and laughed.

As she laughed, the trees overhead opened their blossoms, and new pixies flew from their flowers, born to chase away the darkness.

Snow White threw her arms around the Woodcutter, and he held her.

Held another human tight.

She finally broke away and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Go forth knowing that all is set to right, all because of thy love on this blessed, blessed night.”

She gripped her hands upon his arms and helped him unsteadily to his feet. The Woodcutter leaned against the tree, unused to his own eyes. They saw colors he never remembered, saw details in the leaves and the roughness of the trees. He leaned upon the trunk, unable to comprehend the beauty of it all.

The Princess laughed again, and again another tree gave birth to life.

“’Tis not a dream, dear Woodcutter.”

Immediately he knelt down as Titania and Oberon stepped in behind the young Princess.

Oberon lifted the Woodcutter to his feet. “Do not kneel before us.”

Titania smiled. “Our entire world exists only because of you.”

“Did the Wild Hunt catch its quarry?” the Woodcutter whispered, his voice strange and glorious in his throat.

Oberon nodded. “Indeed. The Queen and her Gentleman shall not trouble this Wood again.”

And the Woodcutter did not need to ask any more.

A cheer rose forth from the faerie host, and a table erupted from the earth, formed of tree roots and rocks. One hundred nymphs danced into the clearing, carrying foods recognizable and not, foods of purple and gold and green.

Titania and Oberon guided the Woodcutter to his seat upon a throne that had naturally grown into the shape of a chair, and they placed upon his forehead a circle of uncut wood.

The Grandmother and Red Riding Hood stood at his side, crowns of red upon their heads.

The young blonde girl placed her chubby hand within the Woodcutter’s rough palm.

Stepping into the clearing came Rapunzel and Prince Martin. Maid Maleen and the Duke. Iron Shoes and her Prince. The Lady in resplendent Blue, gripping the hand of a young boy, a young boy with a mop of curly brown hair who had been woken from his sleep.

His little legs ran, eating up the distance between him and the Woodcutter. The Woodcutter opened up his arms, and Jack clung to the Woodcutter, wrapping himself tightly around the Woodcutter’s neck. He whispered in the Woodcutter’s ear, “How was true love supposed to find me in a briar patch?”

Music began to play from enchanted instruments crafted by faerie hands. Such was the music that blood that was not blue could have not endured it. The night was a swirl of dancing and voices. There was laughter, but most of all love, love as all those that inhabited the Wood came to the Woodcutter’s side. Some spoke gentle words; some remained silent.

But he understood.

Understood that the pain he endured thinking he was leaving them was nothing compared to the pain they endured knowing he was gone.

So together they rejoiced in life.

At midnight, he looked up into the sky and stared at the full moon as it shone upon the celebration.

Something shifted.

The celebration became quiet.

He looked, and the crowd had parted to allow two nimble dryads to step forward. In their slender arms was a single, sturdy piece of curved wood.

Behind them came Titania and Oberon, flanking Snow White, who carried a pillow, upon which lay a shining ax head.

They stopped before the Woodcutter, and Oberon spoke. “Woodcutter, you whom have never spilled the innocent sap of an unwilling tree, you have sacrificed yourself for us.”

Titania smiled gracefully at the Woodcutter. “You have faced even death to ensure the survival of our people.”

Oberon continued. “In doing so, you sacrificed an object you held dearest to free the soul of one of our own.”

“And so we thank you. We gift you this ax to replace the one that was destroyed; we gift you this ax, like the one we gave to your ancestor’s father so many years ago,” said Titania.

“An ax made of the same willing tree, an ax of the same mountain’s ore, shaped by the same hands that shaped its brother.”

One dryad stepped forward and took the pillow from Snow White. The other dryad handed the Princess the wooden handle. Snow White, shielded by her mortal side, picked up the iron ax head and fit the two pieces together.

Titania closed her eyes and placed her hands upon the instrument. Oberon placed his hands upon hers.

Their arms began to glow, faint at first, but then brighter and brighter until the light was blinding. Their lips mouthed silent words together, and a hurricane wind swept through the glade, wrapping itself around the two. The wind rose as their voices rose, and with a mighty cracking sound that shook the earth, light vanished.

The head and the handle were one, made and bound by the magic of both fae and earth.

Titania took the ax, trembling with exhaustion, and she and Oberon knelt before the Woodcutter.

The entire host followed in kind.

“Gentle Woodcutter, we ask you, once again, to pick up your ax and resume your rightful place as protector and steward of this realm. We ask you humbly and with gratitude for the service you have already given to us.”

The Woodcutter rose and reached out to grasp the ax.

He smiled at the Faerie Kingdom and spoke so that all could hear. “I take my place as your humble servant from now to the end of my days.”

Oberon and Titania stood up and spoke together. “May that day be far away indeed.”

He nicked his palm and his sap ran clear.

He held the ax to the faerie rulers, and they nicked their palms similarly, blue blood running down their hands.

Palm to palm, they renewed their vow to one another for one hundred centuries.

The hundred centuries after that would have to worry about their own vow.