The Threads Between Us

Geoffrey remembered it as a cloudy night that veiled the stars when his father called him to the library and spoke his fate. He thought it must be a god-like power, to speak and see the words cast themselves into reality.

“The Emperor Lord has called for men to fortify the garrisons at the border. You will travel north to work under the Lord Ambassador at the frontier garrison within the week. I have arranged it with officials there.”

“Yes, Father,” Geoffrey had replied. What else could he have said? Memories of his childhood darted through his mind, wrapping gentle vines around his heart. His thoughts turned to the future that awaited him, and the tendrils tightened until he felt an ache where they laid hold. From his youth Geoffrey knew he would inevitably face this day; his father’s ambition was an unquestioned reality. It had pervaded the background of his upbringing, infiltrating every movement, every word. Such a day could not have been avoided for long now that he stood upon the threshold of manhood at seven and twenty years. A lifetime of training had prepared him. He accepted his commission. Even so…

“Shall I go with him, sir?” Nathaniel’s voice broke through the mire of his thoughts, drawing him back to the room. He had not noticed Nathaniel entering, had not realized he’d reached through the bond in their minds for Nathaniel’s comfort. He was not surprised, nonetheless. His boyhood companion had always had a talent for listening at doors.

“No. You will remain here.” Leo lowered his eyes to the piece of parchment on his desk and began to write, the scratching of his quill the only sound breaking the silence his words left behind. The youths understood themselves to be dismissed, bowed, and left the room.

The next morning dawned on Geoffrey like any other. It did not feel as though the world had shifted. He shook Nathaniel awake, who, without a word, followed him to steal away from the house and tack up their horses, as Alice-Marie chased them to the door to shove two meat pies unceremoniously into their pockets, as was her custom.

Wisps of pale sunlight snaked thin gold through a canopy of leaves, still damp with dew. The chirping of birds penetrated the sleepy air as the earth shook off the dredges of night to greet the dawn, and pale white flowers drifted to the forest floor as some flitted from branch to branch in the trees, carried upon a gentle breeze. The forest impatiently cast off its last remnants of sleep as two horses burst through the edges of the forest.

Across the vast meadow of flowering stalks of untended grass, the horses seemed to all but fly as the sparrows did above them. One chestnut with a black mane galloped at a slightly quicker pace than the white, speckled companion behind. Each bore a rider, silent and unsmiling to one another, yet a closer spectator might note hints of mirth teasing the corners of their eyes. Onward they rode, the only sound the wind in their ears, the heaving pants of their stallions. The grazing sheep in the field, still dull with sleep, scattered in alarm at the rumble of approaching hooves.

When finally it seemed the horses could run no longer, their riders reined them to a halt. In the distance a curving gate encircled the land. Though they could not perceive it, both knew a number of guards stood atop the ramparts.

Geoffrey held himself straight and poised atop the chestnut. His facial features seemed carved from stone, not necessarily in the sense that his visage resembled a marble statue, but that they reflect an attitude of gravity toward the world. “I wonder how far these fields span.”

Nathaniel smiled. Stray strands of raven black danced across his face, given life by the mountain breeze. “Are these not your father’s lands? If you are ignorant of its breadth, how can I know it?”

“‘Tis a wonder our nannies never thought to acquaint your hind side with their palms for sheer impertinence,” Geoffrey said.

Nathaniel answered with a chuckle, “You know very well that I had my fair share of thrashings while you feigned innocence. And as for you, I marvel at how you fail to see the humor in anything.” He mused, the corners of his mouth tilting up into an impish smile. “Still, if a lifetime of sharing a roof with me has not cured you of your sternness, I cannot imagine anything ever will.”

“I have heard it said that humor is a balm, but in my experience, it can more accurately be named an affliction,” Geoffrey said.

Nathaniel laughed again. “How fitting then, that you are soon to escape such an affliction.”

His companion did not respond immediately, but turned to let his gaze fall across the vast field. A silence fell between them, one that differed from the usual ease they rested under. The horses, ignorant of unspoken words filling the air between them, stooped to tear at the overgrown grass beneath their feet. Yet I could have chosen no better way to spend this day. Geoffrey’s thoughts crossed the barrier of spoken word, soft yet laced with a hardening as of clay drying upon a potter’s table. He did not know if he had intended Nathaniel to hear.

Nathaniel looked at his companion. His playful manner faded as sudden as a cloud passes over the moon; a tense silence took its place.

“Nothing will change, Nathaniel,” Geoffrey said aloud.

Without answering him, Nathaniel pulled at the reins and rode back towards the woods whence they came.

Geoffrey’s head turned to watch him ride away, a dark figure already too far for his eyes to discern the details he knew well of Nathaniel, but his mind filled in the gaps: the teasing petulance in the slight upturn of the mouth that only those dear to him might be able to distinguish, the coarseness of his manner betraying a preference for climbing (and tumbling) from the forest trees, or the tempest that had flickered across his dark brows for an instant before he cantered away.

A stillness fell, upon his departure. Geoffrey remained, his eyes still gazing into the distance even as the object of their searching had long vanished from sight.

He knew Nathaniel would not thank him for returning too soon, that he would need time to rein his face and manner into its usual gaiety. Pausing in the space between, Geoffrey filled his lungs with the air of his childhood, the only world he had ever known. He stretched invisible fingers through his mind as a gentle caress, sifting through the memories to find ones he could cling to once he left it behind. His eyes lingered on patches of flowers, crushed beneath the horse’s hooves. He imagined imprints of two boys’ bodies, formed when they had rolled down the nearby hill, imagined them lying with their faces to the expanse above them, breathless with laughter. He thought he saw their ghosts, leaping through the grass as wooden swords clashed against each other.

His eyes traveled further to the edge of the woodland, though they could not discern its details clearly from where he stood. There, he knew, stood a small chapel. It served no purpose now, and none seemed to know when it had first been constructed. It was left neglected, a playground for nature to have its way with. Time had worn away parts of the walls, exposing dusty red brick beneath. An old oak tree towered over it. The only tree of its kind for miles, it seemed to have simply landed beside the dilapidated building as a gift from the heavens. Its dark, winding limbs stretched in every direction, unsure of how it wished to grow, some branches bending ominously over the building as though determined to consume it, others stooping low and running near-parallel to the ground. Tangled vines of ivy crept from its base along its trunk, clothing it in shades of green, red, and purple.

It was an alien of a tree.

A memory drifted to the surface of his mind from when his years numbered ten or eleven: a story told by one of their more tenacious nannies, who had remained far longer than others that had been driven to distraction and out of their employment by Nathaniel’s many pranks. Hempie was an elderly woman even then, whose rounded frame betrayed her love for Alice-Marie’s sweet-pies. But Geoffrey, having neither, had fashioned her into grandmother and mother both. He loved to sit at her feet by the fire as she knit, plucking at the threads on her simple skirts until she scolded him for ruining them. He would watch the flow of her hands as they laced yarns together, hands adorned by curled, inky black lines matching the ebony of her hair trailing across the fingers and up her wrists until they disappeared beneath her sleeves, marking her as a Groth. But what he loved best were her stories. She wove them with words as she threaded her needles through the dyed wool, braiding them together until they formed a perfect tapestry, her voice low, infused with a lilt that Geoffrey now recognized as of Lyos origin.

“Long, long ago, more than a millennia past, (‘That must have been when you were born, Nurse!’ Nathaniel shouted from the dining room), magical beings we called Elves used to walk among us, and other lesser magical creatures still danced across the earth. The pathways between this world and theirs were still open then. Humans were as mere children to such creatures, and they delighted to visit us with little trinkets—pots that never needed cleaning, pottery works that shone from within on their own, jewelry that never lost their glow. But mostly, they toyed with the workings of the earth as their playthings, turning the roots of trees, bending the rivers and lakes to their will, carving the world to their liking. No maps existed then, for the land would be changed just as soon as a map-artist might put her quill to paper.

“Sometimes if a human spoke the proper words in some precise order that moved an Elf to pity, they might even intervene in more significant matters than these. Of course, one could never be certain how an Elf chose to grant wishes, so the wording had to be precise. My mother once told me a story of a boy who begged to be rescued from an undesirable marriage. The Elf he called upon admired his youthful innocence and trapped him in her castle for the rest of his life.”

“But why did the doors between the worlds close?” Geoffrey asked, rocking on the balls of his feet as he resisted the urge to pull at her skirts.

“Oh child, that is a sad tale that I will tell you when you are older. But even though there is no more intercourse between us and the Elves, we must continue to respect the earth. Suppose some tree or mountain has a Dryad or Oread still sleeping in it. Even the little stream that runs through our very forest could be home to a slumbering Naiad. How terrible it would be to break what little connection we still have with the spirits!

“Trees, but oak trees especially,” she continued, “must never be cut. They must be permitted to grow as nature intends them, no matter their shape. Do you know why?”

Geoffrey could only shake his head, enraptured.

“My people believe they are a portal to the Other, the Elvish world. It is not for the sons and daughters of men to lift their hands and mar the divine doorways, not without incurring the wrath of the immortals.”

Wrath, Geoffrey silently echoed. His lips closed over the novel word, tracing its path from its inception, and then opened to unleash it before trapping it again between his teeth. He wondered at the marvel of words that sounded just as they meant.

“I hope the Elves return someday,” Geoffrey said with an air of wistfulness in his quiet voice. “If they did, perhaps the fighting would stop, and Father would not go away so often.”

“But Nurse,” Nathaniel interjected, poking his head into the room, “there are no more Elves in the world. Why should it matter if they get angry? They can’t come into our world any more than we can to theirs.”

“Do you suppose they have no eyes in this world? All the earth, the trees, the hills—they were once servants of the Elves. Indeed, throughout history there have always been rumors of an Elf making an appearance here and there,” she said with a slight nod to Geoffrey. “Child, it is folly to suppose that a door once closed may never open again. What is lost can always be found again.” With this vague and ominous warning, she turned her attention fully to her knitting, humming softly, her deep voice blending with the crackling of the fire. This was fortunate for Nathaniel’s hind side, as he stuck his tongue out at her before skipping away, shouting about not being afraid of any Elves.

Geoffrey could not tell if Nathaniel took their nurse’s words to heart. Whether he did or not, the oak tree on their land remained untouched. There it stood, beside the crumbling chapel, a monument of wonder to the boy who searched for immortals among its serpentine branches.

      Not long after Hempie had told them the myth surrounding oak trees, Geoffrey and Nathaniel had pushed open the rotted wood of its creaky door, finding only a tiny labyrinth of overgrown vines as the earth sought to return the building to its bosom. Disturbed by their intrusion, clouds of insects had flitted into the air, to the delight of both boys as they leaped over each other in frenzied but vain attempts to capture them. Pale sunlight drifted through holes in the roof broken by time and branches. So long had the oak stood beside the chapel that the two now intertwined as though each desired to consume the other.

The old chapel quickly became a site for their play, imaginations blessed with the abundance of time and freedom as only children can experience. Dragons were slain, maidens rescued, Elves spotted, all by the time Hempie called them back for supper. Occasionally they took their turns as heroes of Calatiel against Lyos. More often, these ended in bickering and bruised cheeks as each wished to be the conquering hero. Nathaniel usually rose the victor (Geoffrey had not yet learned that despite his seniority, it does not do to tussle with someone whose frame made him far more adept to win fights than he).

“Tis a labyrinth left behind by Elves when they made their escape before the doors closed,” Geoffrey had declared, but it was Nathaniel who gave himself over fully to the fantasy and dared to sneak out at night to rearrange the little pathways for the sheer delight of watching Geoffrey’s stoic face brighten with awe in the mornings.

An involuntary twitch of his fingers returned Geoffrey’s mind to the present. The sun had cast off the last vestiges of night, claiming its dominion over the earth and giving vent to its full array of light, a fiery display that just barely hinted at its earlier delicate hues of pale pink, blue, and yellow.

With a soft exhalation that was almost a sigh, Geoffrey turned his horse to follow.