SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Oh mighty huntsman, I have a doe and kits to think of. They will starve without my watchful care. Please spare me!”

On the other hand, the hare certainly sounded like a Talking Animal. Indeed, it sounded remarkably like a dishonest tinker who had wandered through the village a few months before. Galen grunted and made up his mind. He stepped forward once more, drawing his knife and bending over the snare.

“Oh no oh dear oh please I will grant you three wishes if you spare my life …”

Galen put a strong hand over the hare, which struggled mightily. “Hold still, you foolish creature!”

Something in the timbre of the man’s voice got through the hare’s fright. Heart racing, breath panting, it froze in place.

Galen slipped the knife under the snare and cut through the cord. He then lifted his hand, releasing his prey.

Quick as lightning, the hare was off into the underbrush. Galen heard leaves rustle for just a moment, and then all fell silent.

He sighed as he collected the pieces of the cut snare. “Two hours’ work gone for nothing,” he muttered to himself.

“Not for nothing, kind sir!” came a voice from the underbrush. “I promised you three wishes, and three wishes you shall have.”

“No need,” said Galen shortly. “You’re free to go.”

There was a moment of profound silence.

“ What ?” asked the hare.

“I don’t need any wishes granted. I didn’t set you free for them. I make it a rule never to kill Talking Animals, for their meat or for their pelt or for any reason at all. It’s a good rule. Never steered me wrong yet. Off you go.”

“But…”

“Off you go, I said. Shoo.”

Silence from the underbrush.

Galen placed the pieces of his snare in his pack, carefully cleaned and sheathed his knife, and then turned to depart.

The golden-coat hare ventured a few inches back out into the open, just enough to show wiggling nose and bright eyes. “Are you certain I cannot interest you in any wishes?”

“Quite certain.”

“Not for wealth? Not for power?”

“Not for anything in the Empire of Zo.”

“But…”

“I have work to do. Goodbye.”

With that Galen left the clearing, the golden-coat hare sitting bemused and confused in his wake.

Naturally, that did not end the story.

By late afternoon Galen returned home, fresh herbs in his pack and a brace of thoroughly nonverbal rabbits hanging from his belt. “I am home, wife, and I have dinner.”

Katherine emerged from their cottage, brushing flour from her hands. “Good. I was just making apple dumplings. Bring some water in from the well, if you would.”

“At once, after I have skinned and cleaned these coneys.”

She nodded with a smile and went back inside, leaving the door open.

“A strange thing happened today,” said Galen, as he drew his knife and began to skin the rabbits.

“What was it?”

“I caught a hare in one of my snares. Very strange in appearance, it was. Pelt like gold.”

“That is strange. Do you say it was gold?”

“I doubt it. Beast with true gold for its fur would have a difficult time living. Would weight it down, make it hard to scamper. Still, ‘twas a remarkable sight to be sure.”

“Do you not have the beast?”

“No.” Galen finished skinning the rabbits, and began to clean and cut up the carcasses. “It spoke to me, and you know my rule about such things. I let it go.”

“Too bad. I would like to have seen it.”

“Aye. It offered me three wishes…”

Clang : the sound of a ladle falling into an iron pot. At once, Katherine stood in the doorway once more, staring down at her husband where he sat working. “Three wishes? How many have you already used?”

“None, wife, nor will I use any. It was no true bargain. I did not release the beast for the sake of any gain.”

“Galen!” She stepped around to confront him, hands on her hips, silver-grey eyes flashing in anger. “Such an opportunity, and you threw it away?”

He paused to give her a wary stare. “What opportunity? No good comes from wishing. Hard work and fair dealing are the only way for any honest man to gain.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Galen, sometimes I despair of you. We could have so much more than this cottage on the forest’s edge. We could have land, and coin enough for anything we might need.” She sighed, looking away from him in sadness. “We could have children.”

“We could also have sausages on the ends of our noses.” He glanced up at her. His hands were bloody, so he kept them at his side, but all the love of his heart lived in his eyes. “Katherine, I know our life is not easy, but at least we can rely upon it. We know this cottage will not fall on us while we sleep, we know the fireplace will draw and the roof will not leak, because we built all of it with our own hands. Wishes are tricky things, and no one ever came out the better for them. And children will come if the Lion sees fit to bless us.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said at last with a sigh. “You usually are.”

“I am sorry.” He set his work aside, walked down to the well and washed his hands in the trough, then began to work the crank to draw more water. “Perhaps the world would be a merrier place if it were not so. I wish…”

He stopped, because at once the whole world went silent, and seemed to be leaning over him, listening intently.

“Galen?”

“Never mind. I can see that I will have to discipline my words.”

Men considered Galen lucky. He disagreed, not believing in luck. After his encounter with the golden-coat hare, he found even less reason to believe in good luck.

No matter how much care and skill he applied when moving through the bluewood, dry twigs and hidden puddles seemed to seek out his feet. He set out snares, and found them broken and empty the next day. He drew and aimed at a magnificent stag, only to have his best bowstring break at the point of highest tension. A torrential rain positioned itself over the Fogwood and remained there, driving all creatures into shelter, for days on end.

Each day, he saw the hare at least once, sitting on a distant hill or vanishing into the undergrowth on a dark forest path. Watching him. Waiting.

Galen stubbornly continued to hunt, or at least make the attempt. He had a duty.

Of course, he and his wife still had the geese and chickens. They would not starve for a while, so long as the fowl continued to thrive.

Then some creature got into the yard in the night, slaying the rooster and half of the hens, all without making a sound. Not even the geese raised any alarm. Galen and Katherine only learned of the slaughter the next morning, when the rooster failed to crow. Whatever beast it was, it carried none of its victims off to be eaten. Katherine accounted for all of them in the morning, dead in a welter of their own blood.

It was simple murder.

The remaining hens, terrified, ceased to lay.

Late that afternoon, the hare sat on a nearby hill and watched, the golden sunlight shining on its coat. As Galen returned from another futile day in the Fogwood, he saw the creature and cursed it under his breath.

You are my enemy . You are the cause of all this misfortune .

Fast as lightning, his bow leapt to his hand, an arrow on the string, and he sighted on the hare.

It did not flee. Slow as an insult, it simply rose on its hind legs as if to offer a better target.

Galen stood still for a long moment, his bow at full extension, a single drop of sweat sliding down his face. Then he eased back, letting his weapon drop.