PIRIN

Heading East

Heading East CHAPTER II

The next day Helewen continued his tale in the estate park, thanks to the particularly mild weather of that autumn day. The air was soaked with the perfume of the dew-dripping grass, little by little getting dried by the morning rays. Between the branches one could hear the harmonious choir of the songbirds, only now and then interrupted by the squawking of the ducks sliding on the river.

“At what point in my story did I stop, Domenir?” The fifteen-years-old turned the pages, rapidly scrutinizing each sentence, now looking as a flock of black sparrows, orderly resting on hay-coloured meadows. “You interrupted your narrative, my lord, immediately after saying Theoson left his father’s house heading east”. There the tale continued:

The young Theoson, loved by the Gods, walked for days without getting tired, thanks to the druid’s shoes he wore. He stopped, when he did stop, only because of hunger; or when it was too dark to proceed. The evening of the third day, Theoson stopped at an inn in the neighbourhood of the ancient village of Mastrithal. That evening, a hunchbacked little old woman entered the inn to ask for help. The young goldsmith offered to help her by asking the reason of her troubles. The old woman said she had lost a ring, much precious to her, on the bottom of a pool, and asked Theoson whether he could dive in to retrieve it. Theoson said the day after he would have to continue travelling, but since the old woman said he would be blessed by the Gods if he helped her, the young man was convinced, always mindful of his father’s recommendations, and told her to come again to the inn the next morning. At the break of dawn, the woman came once more to the inn, asking for the boy, who, having been told by the innkeeper, got dressed, took his things, paid for the night and followed her. The two of them headed towards a pool not too far away, close to the woman’s house.

The water was cool and slightly dirty, but Theoson dived in all the same. He emerged and came back underwater over and over, without any result, until eventually, after a last try, he surfaced with the shiny jewel in his hand. The ring had been stuck in a branch at the bottom of the pool. The old woman could smile again, and could not stop thanking the boy, inviting him to her house where he was given warm clothes and a hot beverage.

“To show you my gratitude, lad, I want to give you a very special item” she said, looking for something in a wardrobe. She came back with a bag in jute. From the bag she produced what looked like a common square mirror in silver, with a decorated handle. “Despite its appearance, this mirror is no common item, my dear lad”, the old woman began. “Time runs slower in there… the images you see therein mirrored do not depict what happens today, but only what took place yesterday”.

Theoson respectfully took the item from the gnarly hands of the old woman, and what he saw on the silver glass left him astonished: he saw himself travelling, and the landscapes he had left behind the day before. And that was not all: he could even hear the sounds he had heard along the path: the singing birds, the flowing of a stream, the breeze between the branches. He wanted to refuse such a gift, but the hunchbacked woman insisted that he took it because, she said, he was a good boy who deserved the benevolence of the Gods and only good luck in his destiny. Therefore Theoson, thanking the woman once more, put the mirror in the bag and the bag in his travelling sack.