{"id":115,"date":"2011-09-27T04:35:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T04:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=115"},"modified":"2023-11-04T15:06:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T15:06:32","slug":"ravensdaughters-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"Ravensdaughter\u2019s Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ravensdaughter liked Novembers best. That was when the rains came and slicked the leaves down into a tar on the rooftops and made the whole world smell like wet. She\u2019d get trapped in her dry spot in the bell tower days at a time, wrapped up in the blanket the miller had left out for her, but when it was over, those were the best days. Like today. <\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter held her arms out like a scarecrow as she balance-walked along the backbone of the roof between the keep and the kitchens. The cold was only just enough to pierce her dress and make her fingers sting yet, but it was winter enough that the sky was cold and gray as the castle stones. The sound of one of the kitchen boys tending to the pigs drifted up from the courtyard. She laughed. The slates on the roof were still wet from last night\u2019s rain, but she never missed a step.<\/p>\n

She knew the castle roofs better than the humans ever would. She\u2019d named every gargoyle. In the summers she\u2019d climbed the rafters of the bell tower and watched the cuckoos come and lay their eggs in other birds\u2019 nests. She knew how you couldn\u2019t trust the gatehouse, since its roof was rotten with moss and about to fall in, but the roof over the kitchens was a good place. There was a good shot there for throwing bits of slate at the kitchen boys when they went out. They\u2019d put their hands over their heads and beg her not to hex them, so naturally she\u2019d dance back and forth and yell ooga-booga until they screamed and ran back inside. The humans all smelled funny, anyway.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter knelt on the slates and ducked her head under the kitchen eaves. Down on the windowsill there was an offering: a bundle wrapped up in cloth on top of a plate. The kitchen lady was trying to get her to leave the boys alone again. Just in case, the shutters were locked up tight with an iron horseshoe to keep Ravensdaughter out.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter grinned, then swung her legs over the gutter and dropped down to the sill. She hoped it was a saucer of milk in there. Or a bit of fish, raw, the way she liked it. Or even bread. Her fingers were stiff with the cold, but she managed to undo the knots in the bundle. <\/p>\n

A dolly? Like the little human girls played with? Why? She crouched there holding the dolly by the neck, brow furrowed. It wasn\u2019t even a very good one. The stitching was all lumpy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019d been a dolly in the little house in the village.<\/p>\n

Burnt porridge and Bible sermons. That sour human stink everywhere. Fake brothers and sisters and her fake parents all crammed into one wooden room. That was before her ears had grown in pointy and Fake Mother had run her out of the house with a broomstick. Ravensdaughter picked at the dolly\u2019s frayed-yarn hair. Back when everybody thought she was a little human girl.<\/p>\n

Changeling,<\/em> people whispered. Wild girl. Look at those ears.<\/em><\/p>\n

She threw the dolly down and leapt back onto the roof.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The castle folk all left food out for her because they were afraid of her, but taking things from Dr. Beadle was tricky. Somehow he always seemed to know her favorites. Rose petals when they were in season, sometimes even spiders. He\u2019d leave the plate out on the balcony outside his workroom, then he\u2019d go inside and pretend he wasn\u2019t looking. If she got too close, he\u2019d try and do things like teach her how to read. So it wasn\u2019t really her fault when she got caught.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d climbed down to the balcony to see what he\u2019d left for her this time, and there was Doctor-Man. With a jar of honey. She grabbed for it, but he swiped it away and the next thing she knew he\u2019d jammed a sweater down over her head. She shrieked and twisted but he was stronger than her and forced her head and arms into the right holes. He was touching her! It wasn\u2019t allowed!<\/p>\n

Once her head was clear she could see well enough to kick him in the shins. He grunted and she headed for the railing.<\/p>\n

\u201cRavensdaughter!\u201d Doctor-man looked sort of sad as he reached for her, but she\u2019d already gotten a foothold on the rails. A grab for the gutter and she was up and out of there.<\/p>\n

She fumed as she hauled herself onto the roof over Doctor-Man\u2019s room. She\u2019d thought she kind of liked him because he left spiders out for her. But he\u2019d touched her. It wasn\u2019t allowed.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d show all of them. Someday her magic would come to her, and then the fairies would come and take her away to the hollow hill where she was born. There\u2019d be midnight revels and dewdrop cups instead of all these stupid people who couldn\u2019t tell a toad from a toadstool.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate you!\u201d she leaned over the gutter and yelled.<\/p>\n

But the sweater did keep out the chill. Fine, then, she\u2019d wear it. But that didn\u2019t mean she had to like it.<\/p>\n

She was going to go and play with the gargoyles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ravensdaughter knew she was the only one who knew the gargoyles\u2019 secret. They looked like they were just statues. Statues of gnarled things, goats with snakes\u2019 heads and birds with cloven feet, frozen on every rooftop from the chapel to the west tower. Some of them held up claws or fins to shield their eyes from something unseen. Every single one of them had a look of terror on its face. To Ravensdaughter, the reason was obvious. They were alive. Sometime long ago, a basilisk or a gargoyle slayer had come here and frozen the poor things into stone. When she got her magic, she was going to free them.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter gathered herself together, then dashed up to the ridge and balanced along it with her arms out. She was headed south, towards the bell tower. November days were good for walking among the gargoyles. She\u2019d peel away the bits of leaves that had gotten caught in the crevices, rub their poor frosted paws to warm them. And she\u2019d tell them their names so they wouldn\u2019t forget. Green Man and Two-Face, Haberdasher and Horned Toad. But of all of them, Sir Scott of the bell tower was her favorite.<\/p>\n

She ran a little further, then grabbed one of Two-Face\u2019s horns and pulled herself up onto his back. She jumped when something made a soft noise behind her.<\/p>\n

Somehow a drab little human girl had gotten up onto her roof and was standing there in the middle of it. She looked almost the exact same age as Ravensdaughter, but she had brown hair instead of Ravensdaughter\u2019s black, and brown homespun clothes instead of Ravensdaughter\u2019s red tatters. Most important, the girl\u2019s ears were rounded — human ears.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to be here!\u201d Ravensdaughter cried. It was the first thing that popped into her head.<\/p>\n

The girl stepped forward. She held her hand out a little, as if she wasn\u2019t quite sure whether she wanted to offer it or not. \u201cI\u2019m Beth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care what your name is. Didn\u2019t anybody tell you this is my roof and these are my gargoyles? I\u2019m the changeling! Arr!\u201d She stretched her arms over her head and stood on her tiptoes, but Beth still didn\u2019t run away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, fine. Maybe the girl was halfwitted. Ravensdaughter folded her arms. \u201cIf you won\u2019t go away, you can go play over there and I\u2019ll play over here. You smell like human.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed. Beth looked hurt, but she went over to the far end of the roof and sat down. Then she folded her hands and watched her. Ravensdaughter gritted her teeth. Didn\u2019t she have something else she was supposed to be doing, like looking after the pigs or playing with dollies like all the other children did?<\/p>\n

\u201cIs your name really Ravensdaughter?\u201d Beth said.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter pointedly ignored her. \u201cPah! The girl doesn\u2019t get it,\u201d she said into Two-Face\u2019s ear. \u201cI picked the name out for myself. It\u2019s a fairy name. My real parents are fairies, and as soon as my magic grows in they\u2019re going to take me away from this place that\u2019s full of iron and stinks. We should hex her to make her go away, shouldn\u2019t we, Two-Face?\u201d She leaned in closer, but made sure Beth could still hear. \u201cOh, yes, if only I had my magic, I\u2019d hex ice down her shirt and make her hear mice chasing her everywhere she went. She wouldn\u2019t like that, would she? Then she\u2019d leave me alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter looked up to check the effect. Beth was rapt. \u201cI want to see a hex!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter scratched her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, won\u2019t you turn me into a frog and then turn me back? I want to see magic!\u201d<\/p>\n

Somehow the ooga booga dance she gave to the kitchen boys wasn\u2019t going to be enough. Ravensdaughter suddenly felt trapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t actually do anything yet!\u201d she blurted, and fled.<\/p>\n

Quick as a squirrel she found all the footholds in the stone and the vines and scurried up to her dry spot in the bell tower. First the dolly and the sweater and now this — it was turning out to be a bad day. She needed to sit and think. She squatted down and leaned her head against Sir Scott\u2019s foreleg. There was a storm coming in. From way up here she could see clouds pass in and out over the sun, casting moving shadows over the roofs of the village.<\/p>\n

And then there was that infernal voice again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you talk to gargoyles?\u201d Beth shouted.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter scooted to the end of her ledge and looked down. There was Beth on the roof below this one, rumpled but happy. She waved.<\/p>\n

What was she supposed to do to make Beth go away? The girl headed for the bell tower stairs and Ravensdaughter rubbed her head. There was a magic spell that kept her separate like the gargoyles. Alone. She had to stay fey so the fairies could find her when the time was come. If she got too close to the humans, she might turn into one of them.<\/p>\n

She glared up at Sir Scott. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you do something about it?\u201d Of course, he didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

When Beth got to the top of the stairs, Ravensdaughter backed off to the far end of the ledge so the tower\u2019s bells were between them. Keep away,<\/em> she thought. Don\u2019t let her touch you. Don\u2019t even talk to her.<\/em> But ultimately the need to show off got the better of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not really gargoyles,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re people. Something froze them a long time ago to keep back the magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beth nodded gravely, as if she understood. \u201cHow do you undo it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter expected Beth not to believe her, or at least to be surprised. This was \u2026 odd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cNobody knows. It\u2019s been hundreds of years, and nobody\u2019s figured it out.\u201d Since she was supposed to be the expert, she needed to say something more. \u201cI think we have to find their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beth came forward and dropped her ear to Sir Scott\u2019s side. Ravensdaughter bared her teeth, and Beth backed away quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to break the spell, Ravensdaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter thought about this. \u201cOkay, you can touch him, but be careful. He\u2019s my<\/em> gargoyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beth pressed her hands against Sir Scott\u2019s flank and listened. Ravensdaughter watched for a little while, then she leaned in to listen, too. After all, she was the gargoyle expert. She shut her eyes tight and tried to feel every vein and flake in the stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir Scott, you\u2019ve got to wake up now. We know you\u2019ve been in there a long time, but it\u2019s time to come out. You can do it. Can you hear us? Wake up!\u201d<\/p>\n

And then something in the world shifted. The bell tower and the castle and the village, they were all still out there, as far as she could tell, but they weren\u2019t real somehow. The stone under Ravensdaughter\u2019s hands was alive. She could see into it, and there was something in there that didn\u2019t belong in a statue. There was no sound, no color, no texture to it, just the sense of a sleeping man. When her mind touched him, he mumbled and rolled over.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter gasped and opened her eyes. Her heart pounded like she\u2019d just run all the way from the east tower to the gatehouse. From the look on Beth\u2019s face, the other girl had felt the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s hold hands for more power,\u201d Beth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d Ravensdaughter yanked her hand away from her.<\/p>\n

Beth looked hurt. Ravensdaughter glared back, but Beth wouldn\u2019t back down. Red rags standing off against drab homespun. Beth wasn\u2019t going away, and they still had to wake the gargoyle, so Ravensdaughter was going to have to think of something.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get higher,\u201d Ravensdaughter said. \u201cThen if we yell loud enough, all the gargoyles can hear us.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/a>She pointed upward and Beth nodded. The bell tower roof was a tricky place. It was domed so there wasn\u2019t much to grip onto, not even ivy, and the wet tiles tended to slip away underfoot without warning. Ravensdaughter pulled herself up over the gutter and scrambled to the top pretty surely, but even for her it was hard. She waited while Beth struggled, but she didn\u2019t dare give her a hand up. She had to keep separate. Instead she called down and told her where all the good handholds were. Finally the human girl made it.<\/p>\n

There was no shelter at all here, so the wind from the coming storm whipped Ravensdaughter\u2019s hair into her eyes. She and Beth squatted down, set their hands on the roof\u2019s stone peak, and tried to reach the gargoyles. They\u2019d touched the edges of Sir Scott already. The spell was halfway broken. Now they were going to have to feel into the stone, feel the whole castle, and yell loud enough for every single one of them to hear and wake up. Ravensdaughter thought she could feel herself slipping again into that other place where the world went mute. As she sank in, she was just aware of Beth shifting position to get a better grip.<\/p>\n

It all happened very fast. There was a tile sliding, a shriek, then Beth disappeared. Ravensdaughter jolted out of the other place. She rushed over to where Beth had just been and found her clinging to the edge of the roof with a bad grip. Beth\u2019s hands and one leg were on the rain gutter, but she was doing it wrong, she didn\u2019t even know to swing herself up and out of it.<\/p>\n

Run and get Doctor-Man,<\/em> Ravensdaughter thought. But even as she thought it she realized there wasn\u2019t enough time for that. Beth was just too bad at climbing to hang on for that long.<\/p>\n

So Ravensdaughter did the only thing she could do. She leaned down and hauled on Beth\u2019s arms, gave her just enough momentum to swing her other leg up and scramble back onto the roof. They clung together there over the gutter a long time, both of them waiting for the terror to fade.<\/p>\n

Then came the sound of beating wings. At first Ravensdaughter couldn\u2019t understand what was happening. It was too big to be pigeons. And then Sir Scott rose into view, alive! She thought he would turn back into something else when he woke up, but no, stone was his true form. Living, moving stone. The hair of his mane blew in the wind, even though it was stone, and stone muscles moved under his skin as he beat the air with magnificent wings. He was beautiful.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter looked over at Beth. The funny human girl was beaming.<\/p>\n

Sir Scott passed low over their heads to say thanks, so close Ravensdaughter thought if she put her hand up she could almost brush the stone of his belly. All around the castle the gargoyles\u2019 bodies groaned as they stretched and looked around them, confused. Sir Scott rose, and the gargoyles galloped or swam or slithered out of the places they\u2019d been trapped, whatever way was best for them. The rumbling of all that stone made it sound like the castle was coming apart. They\u2019d done it! They\u2019d broken the spell!<\/p>\n

Then it hit her like a piece of roof collapsing under her feet. The fairies were only going to give her one chance when her magic grew in. This was it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait!\u201d Ravensdaughter pulled away from Beth and scrambled back up the dome of the tower. She was throwing tiles loose with every step but she didn\u2019t care. \u201cWait! Sir Scott!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRavensdaughter, be careful!\u201d<\/p>\n

What if they couldn\u2019t hear her? By now the gargoyles were only specks in the sky. What if they were already too far away and they couldn\u2019t hear her?<\/p>\n

\u201cSir Scott!\u201d she yelled until she was hoarse, tears pricking in her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRavensdaughter!\u201d Beth cried.<\/p>\n

Was one of the specks getting bigger? No. Yes! Ravensdaughter\u2019s heart leapt. She clutched the roof slates as Sir Scott dropped out of the sky. He came to hover in front of her, big, dark wings beating the air.<\/p>\n

She held her arms out. \u201cTake me with you! I want to be a fairy!\u201d<\/p>\n

But Sir Scott didn\u2019t answer and Ravensdaughter felt the first prick of doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut \u2026 the pointy ears\u2026\u201d she began.<\/p>\n

Sir Scott shook his head.<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter lowered her arms, then she sat down, and then she put her head in her hands. It wasn\u2019t fair. There was magic and gargoyles, why not fairies? Or maybe there even were fairies. But not her. She\u2019d broken the spell. She couldn\u2019t help it, she started to sob. She was going to be a human girl with pointy ears forever. And \u2026 with a little bit of magic, she thought, looking at her hands. But the spell was broken.<\/p>\n

Then there was something warm and heavy on her back. It felt strange, not quite like anything she\u2019d felt before. She looked up. Sir Scott was gone, but Beth had come and put an arm around her shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got anybody who looks after you, Ravensdaughter?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter swallowed. \u201cJust \u2026 Doctor-man,\u201d she managed. \u201cAnd the kitchen lady, sort of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we ought to go and find them. And then we ought to find my parents, and we can go somewhere warm and have — what is it that you eat? Flowers?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravensdaughter nodded, still too choked up to speak. Everything was all horrible, but it was oddly comforting to feel that somebody cared what happened to her. And, well, Doctor-man had given her that sweater, hadn\u2019t he? Maybe she could forgive him for making her wear it after all.<\/p>\n

Beth slipped an arm around Ravensdaughter\u2019s waist and gently brought her to her feet. Each supporting the other, they climbed down off of the roof, and then they took the bell tower stairs that would get them to the ground.<\/p>\n

Margaret Taylor<\/a> is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. Her previous works include two podcast novels, Grizelda, and The Confederacy of Heaven<\/a>. She is currently at work on a third novel.<\/p>\n

The Colored Lens is a quarterly publication featuring short stories and serialized novellas in genres ranging from fantasy, to science fiction, to slipstream or magical realism. By considering what could be, we gain a better understanding of what is. Through our publication, we hope to help readers see the world just a bit differently than before. <\/p>\n

If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt from the Autumn 2011 issue of The Colored Lens<\/a>, you can read the publication in its entirety by downloading it for only $0.99 in e-book format for Kindle or Nook<\/a>, or you can read a free sample of this issue<\/a> in your Google Chrome<\/a> or Safari<\/a> web browser by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ravensdaughter liked Novembers best. That was when the rains came and slicked the leaves down into a tar on the rooftops and made the whole world smell like wet. She\u2019d get trapped in her dry spot in the bell tower days at a time, wrapped up in the blanket the miller had left out for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,15],"tags":[1340,1337,16],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-fiction","category-tcl-1-autumn-2011","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-the-colored-lens-1-autumn-2011","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139735,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/139735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}