The Faeries' Harp

6: A Whole New World

“What have we done?” Rhys whispers, looking around in disbelief. The trees still look like trees, but the leaves have a silvery sheen to them, and the bark seems to be tinged purple. He hears birds singing in the treetops overhead, but the birdsongs are unlike any he’s ever heard before, and they seem to clash with the faint lilting voices that fade in and out of his hearing.

“I think we’re in another world,” Saoirse breathes, completely awed by the notion. Bergljot shifts nervously; the horse shares Rhys’ unease in these strange surroundings. “It’s all right, Bergljot. We wanted an adventure, right? And what an adventure we’ve found.”

“You wanted an adventure,” Rhys corrects, panic rising in his chest. “I need to go back, to take care of my mother.”

“I’m not stopping you.” Saoirse breathes deep and closes her eyes, listening to the faint ethereal voices carried to her on the breeze, which is scented with flowers she cannot name. Something about this place is familiar to her, like a memory from a dream.

Rhys turns to go back the way they came. He’s loath to leave Saoirse behind in this strange place, but he knows Evelyn will be worried sick about him if he doesn’t return home soon. He doesn’t even try to convince Saoirse to come with him; he and his mother cannot afford another mouth to feed, and he imagines there’s nothing for a woman like Saoirse in his village, anyway, or at least, certainly not the adventure she so clearly craves.

To his shock and dismay, Rhys finds that behind them is now an impenetrable wall of trees and foliage, so thickly grown together that he doubts even a mouse could squeeze through. Vines wind over and around and through it all, seeming almost to spell out words.

“You may not be, but that is,” Rhys replies to Saoirse, trying fruitlessly to find a way through the barricade of vegetation. Saoirse turns Bergljot to see what he’s referring to and gasps involuntarily. Bergljot prances in place, not liking this idea one bit.

“How is this possible?” Saoirse wonders. She swings effortlessly off Bergljot’s back and, after giving her horse a gentle pat on the nose and a few reassuring words, joins Rhys in investigating the barrier that’s grown up, seemingly out of thin air, to block their way back into their own realm.

“I knew we should have turned back earlier, when the fog started thickening. When we still had the chance."

“I’m sorry. Truly, I am. If I’d had any idea this would happen, I never would have invited you to come along.”

“Why did you invite me in the first place?” Rhys blurts out, genuinely curious and genuinely resentful.

Saoirse shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know. You seemed…like it was something you would want to do. And I didn’t mind the idea of having company for at least a little while. I had no intention of taking you away from your life. How could I have known….” She stares up at the sky and turns in wide, uneven ellipses, searching for answers.

Try as he might, Rhys cannot stay angry with her. While it was her recklessness that led them here, wherever here is, he followed her willingly. And of course, she’s right; how could anyone have expected something like this to happen?

“That blue light you said you saw. Any sign of it here?” Rhys inquires after several moments of silence between them.

“No,” Saoirse replies, stopping her spinning and turning unsteadily to face him. “It disappeared with the fog.”

“Of course it did.”

“Rhys…. The wall. Come look at it from here.” Saoirse stands on the far side of the clearing and is studying the vine-covered wall of trees intently. Rhys joins her after only a moment’s hesitation, wondering what she’s seen from there that they missed up close.

“Looks like the vines are trying to tell us something,” he observes, shading his eyes against the pinkish sunlight to see if it helps, “but I can’t read it.”

“Nor can I. But there, in the middle…. It almost looks like a harp, doesn’t it?”

Rhys tilts his head, examining the vines more closely. He’s only seen a harp once or twice before, at the major harvest celebration that his village and its neighbors have in autumn, and admittedly the harp wasn’t of any great interest to him in the midst of the festivities, so he’s not entirely sure he knows exactly what a harp is supposed to look like. However, the more he looks at the way the vines are arranged in the center of the barricade, the more he seems to see the basic shape of what might be a harp.

“I guess it could be. I’m not overly familiar with harps.”

“Such a strange thing to see. Of all the things, in a wall of vines—”

“The wall of vines is strange enough, not to mention this wonky world we’re in.Whatever shapes you’re picking out of the vines are the least of our worries.”

“Maybe it’s a clue of some kind. We came through that way, so we should be able to go back that way. Maybe a harp is connected to it in some way.”

“Or maybe you’ve lost your mind. You hit your head during the jump between worlds?” Rhys remembers the knife at his belt and a moment later has it in hand. He starts hacking at the vines, but as soon as he slices through one, it grows back as green and vibrant and sturdy as before.

“What in blazes?!” he exclaims, stepping back from the vines.

“Magic,” Saoirse whispers, fascinated by the idea.

“Magic,” Rhys repeats, suddenly overwhelmed by a crushing feeling of defeat. “How in the world are we to contend with that?”

“Unless you have a better idea, I say we try to find a harp.”

“Because some vines told you to?”

“The vines laughed at your knife. I know it sounds crazy, and I don’t know where we might find a harp in the middle of a forest, but finding a harp in the middle of a forest with magic vines seems more plausible than chasing a blue light through a forest and into another world.”

Rhys stubbornly hacks at the vines some more, to the same effect as the first time he tried, then sighs heavily and sits in front of the wall, head in his hands. Saoirse approaches him slowly, Bergljot a couple steps behind her.

“The knife’s not working, Rhys. We have to find another way to get you home,” Saoirse says with unnerving calm, laying a hand on his broad shoulder. “Do you have a better plan than trying to find a harp? I’m open to suggestions.”

“I guess if we look for it and don’t find it, we’re no worse off than we are now,” Rhys relents eventually. “And you’ll get more of an adventure out of it. Let’s go find a harp.”