The Stranger

A stranger came down the mountain on the last day of winter. Under a fur coat he wore fine but worn clothes, leading a mule through the engorged earth. His feet were cold and blistered, his footing clumsy over the melted snow. His beast of burden, weary of the road, huffed and tugged at its lead every so often.

Following the sound of guzzling water, he found a group of fishermen crouching by a shallow river. They eyed him curiously over the haze of dawn, dragging nets of bass and trout ashore.

“I seek the village of Osak,” he told them quietly.

“Follow the river East,” said one of them. Then, noting the weakness in the traveler’s gait or perhaps casting a net of a different sort, he added, “Our village is closer, not half a day’s walk, if you need a rest.”

The stranger thanked him but declined. The sun rose timidly as he walked, stopping only once to gnaw at a piece of dried meat while his disgruntled mule drank from the river. As usual, the relief of resting was soon clouded by the weight of his mind, no longer numbed by the distraction of pain and fatigue. He rose to his feet as quickly as he had sat down, focusing on trudging forward with fervor enough to leave all thoughts and feelings behind.

The sun was low on his back by the time he found goats. Watching over them on the hill was an old goatherd leaning sleepily on his crook. The goats grazed on as the traveler approached, and he found himself envying their blissful, empty life.

“I seek the village of Osak,” he told the goatherd.

“You’ve found it,” said the old man, roused and cautious in the face of a stranger. “What’s your business in Osak?”

He took off his hat, the intricate weave of straw held softly in his hand. Behind him, the sun burned its last light. “I seek he who sails the seas of time.”

“He who what?” asked the goatherd, whose unease grew some more. For all that the stranger had the words and appearance of rich folk, there was a stripped air to his voice, like a deep lake holding no water. “No sailors here. No seas either.”

The traveler looked to the North, to the mountains he had crossed under long, unrelenting rains. “There are tales of a wizard for whom past, present, and future are one. I was told his name is Arwa of Osak.” He fetched a copper coin from a pouch on his belt. “If you know where I may find him.”

The old man did not take the copper. “Arwa’s no wizard, she’s a witch and a wicked one.” He spat and made the sign to ward off evil, no longer impressed by a stranger revealing himself to be just another fool. “You should go home, m’lord. She’ll curse you like she cursed the others.”

“I cannot turn back,” he said quickly as the old man called for his goats. “I have no fear of curses, please.”

The old man considered. “Come along, then. I’ll take that copper in exchange for letting you stay the night.”

So they went down one hill and up another until they reached a farmhouse at the edge of a cluster of small, wooden homes. The night fell deep and fast, a single star peering through in the East. The old man cajoled his goats back to their pen and ushered the tired mule to the shed with some water and hay for company. Once inside, he called for his wife Mene to bring out some bread and cheese and wine. “We have a guest,” he said.

The traveler sat at the old kitchen table, grateful to be off his feet, too exhausted to think. When he got offered something that looked like wine and smelled of vinegar, he said, “Thank you, but I must not.”

“Whoever refuses a drink?” said Mene, who mistook his restraint for shyness and poured him a cup anyway. “A traveler, Mandi says. Oh, but you must tell me everything! Where have you gone, what you seen? What brings you all the way to our little village? How many stories you must have… You must tell me!” Her eyes were wide and bright, a flower thirsty for water. Her eagerness, he thought, looked like wine and smelled of vinegar.

“He came to see the witch,” said the old man, Mandi, as he broke the bread. “Why don’t you go fetch your sister, eh?”

Mene’s smile shriveled like an old grape. Without a word she left the table and disappeared behind a door. Mandi brought a knife to the cheese with the absent precision of habit.

“The witch is her sister?” asked the traveler.

“The witch cursed her sister,” said Mandi.

Words and hushed giggles came from the other room until Mene reappeared with an older woman in tow. The sister, with her softly wrinkled face and serene smile, was a sharp contrast to the sour Mene. “Oh Mene,” she said as she saw the traveler, “is that your husband? What a fine lad!”

Mandi chuckled but Mene did not. “Perish the thought,” she murmured, and made the sign to ward off evil. The flower she had previously offered him had apparently shriveled as quickly and as passionately as it had bloomed.

“You must be the farmhand,” said the sister, addressing Mandi. “You’re a great help. My husband can’t do it all on his own. Ah, I wish I could help, I wish I could. But the baby won’t have it!” She laughed and sat down, rubbing her belly which was not any rounder than that of a plump, old woman.

“How’re you coming along?” asked Mandi, seeming to relax further as his wife’s bitterness quietly simmered.

“Just right,” said the sister. “It’ll be soon now, I’ll say by the end of spring. He’s been kicking around, the rowdy boy!” She laughed some more, innocent and happy and, as the stranger began to understand, entirely delusional.

Mandi raised his cup and said, “Cheers to that.”

“Come,” said Mene, tugging her sister upright with a haste that was not quite kind. “The baby must rest, come.”

“Alright,” said her sister, but as she stood her eyes met the stranger’s again and she paused. “Oh, Mene, is that your husband? What a fine lad he is! But… when did you marry? You’re still so young…” She looked back at her sister, at the white in her hair, the lines on her forehead, the weary, heavy set of her shoulders. “…Mene?”

Mene said, “You’ve caught me in a bad light,” and ushered her sister out of the kitchen with a gentleness that broke through her anger. Neither of them came back.

Mandi drank his wine for a while before explaining, “Her husband and son died three years ago. Landslide while fishing at the river, they drowned. She couldn’t let go of them and so she went to see the witch, came back a happy fool, stuck in the time before she had her son. The poor woman can’t even follow a conversation for more than a goat’s bleat.” He put the last piece of bread in the traveler’s hand, then packed up the rest of the cheese and wine. “There’s space on the rug enough for you. Eat and rest, and begone by morning. Whatever curse you think you deserve, the folks around you don’t deserve it.”

The stranger was left alone in the kitchen, sitting in front of a cup yet untouched. The liquid was a deep red in the candlelight, almost black. He had indulged in it, once. In the deepest red and the darkest black, he had created his own landslide of mud and dirt and violence, had drowned himself in it night after night until everything he had cherished was gone, drowned alongside him, drowned by his hand and yet always with him as he drifted helplessly down the cruel currents of time.

He took the candle and left the house in the night. He did not bid farewell to his mare, the one who had accompanied him on his long journey, for there was no love left in his dead heart. Uncertain of his way but with the assurance of the bereft, he walked away from the village and into the woods. His candle soon burned out but on he went, seeing the trees with his hands, the path with his mind, until, at last, he saw firelight ahead.

A figure stood in a cloak of shadows. The witch, waiting for him.

He fell to his knees before her. “Arwa,” he said. “I come seeking relief from you.”

“I saw you coming, unnamed, unspeakable one.” Her voice grew closer as she remained still. “Speak your wish.”

“If I were allowed to sail up the river of time, to erase the passage of the years; if I could only save her from myself, I would pay any price.”

There was silence, during which the witch put a weak, gnarled hand on his cheek. “One can only travel one’s own time, child. She is lost to her own.”

He took her hand. “Then I want to be lost to mine.”

The witch said nothing. She ushered him inside, by the fireside, and it was the last that was ever seen or heard of the stranger who came down the mountain seeking the village of Osak.

On the first day of spring, a goat came up the hill. The old goatherd watched as it grazed among his own beasts, mindless, content. He patted its nape once, gently, then went back to dozing in the afternoon sunlight.