The Silent Servants: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, on an evening when the rain danced on the window panes, the wind howled, rushed, raced and whirled outside, and the last light of the day had faded to gray darkness, a tall, thin-faced man sat alone beside a little florescent lamp. He had papers in his hands, but he was not reading them.

      Now this man had a daughter, a little girl, who was not so very little, and she had a very bad temper. She’d stomp her feet, roll her eyes, whine, and sometimes even pop her hip out of its socket when she got especially upset (which, by the way, should not actually be possible, but sometimes you can do what you shouldn’t be able to do when you are angry). The father named his daughter Abigail, a name she did not live up to at all. She treated her father terribly, taking the many gifts he gave her from his hands as if she deserved them. She would hit him when he tried to help her, scream at him when he did not do what she wanted, and often ignore him when she came back from school at the end of the day.

      The worst of it all was that her father was in fact a very poor man, who worked three jobs to pay the house rent (and the house was still in a bad part of town), get all of the bills and taxes paid, and put food on the table. He was not a strong man either, and had a thin face, thin hands, and a thin body, which were always getting thinner. But he loved his daughter, more than life, more than himself, more than anything else in the world. What little money he had left after he had paid the rent, the bills, the taxes, insurance and food, he lavished on her, keeping nothing for himself.   

Such ungratefulness and unkindness in the daughter might surprise you, but you must understand that they lived in a very strange, far away country, where people often care more about themselves than about those close to them. In fact, in that faraway place it is relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters that hurt each other most—the young ones are especially cruel. It might surprise you, and it is certainly very shameful, but I’m afraid to say that it is true.  

You can imagine that the father had had a very hard time of it, especially since he was raising Abigail all alone; his wife had died soon after their daughter was born. But as I said, he thought nothing of himself. He cared only for Abigail.

So on this evening when the rain danced, the wind howled, and darkness reigned, there was a sudden, terrifying CRACK! and a jagged streak of lightning flashed across the window, while an enormous drum of thunder followed obediently behind it. The thin-faced man looked up and waited, and listened, and his little florescent lamp dimmed and flickered for a moment.

There was a shriek and a tumble from the other side of the house, and in the room rushed Abigail, wild-eyed and disheveled, her hair sticking out in every direction with terror and electricity.

“I’m so scared, Daddy!” she cried, trembling in the doorway.    

Her father stood, and held out his arms for her to run into them and be safe. And for a moment, she seemed about to do it. She took a few steps, saw his dusty, greasy uniform, and stepped back again with a look of disgust. “You’re dirty,” she said, shaking her head and turning away. 

Her father’s face fell, but of course Abigail was looking the other way, and did not see it. Her father only sighed, and looking down at the floor littered with pink plastic castles, dolls all furry-haired from rough use, stuffed animals with the stuffing out of them, broken teacups and sparkly dresses and shiny bead necklaces and light up shoes, began carefully putting them all away.

There was another huge CRACK! and Abigail jumped into the air, stifling another shriek. Her father turned again, watching her, ready to hold her close if she ran to him. And again, for a moment, he thought she might do it.

“Abigail,” he began gently.

But Abigail jumped back, shook her head angrily, and ran out of the room, leaving her father with a Barbie in his hands, and tears in his eyes.

She flew back to her own bedroom, slammed the door, and leapt into her bed, pulling the sheets over her head, as if to shut out all the world, the thunder, and her father. A little part of her still wanted strong, safe arms around her—the bed sheets were limp and cold, and not very comforting. But he had been so dirty, and probably smelly, too. Soon she forgot about him entirely, shivering for several moments in a ball, willing herself to sleep.

CRACK! Blinding light, even through the sheets, and an explosion of thunder struck at the same moment, so loudly that Abigail’s scream was drowned out. She threw her sheets back, and stared.

A man stood inside her bedroom in front of her window; behind him lightning and wind and rain slashed and swirled, but everything directly around him was as calm and still as a late summer’s day. He was a giant of a man, with a stern face, black eyebrows, wild gray curls of a beard and hair, all tangled up together, and a massive, heavy-looking silvery robe that enveloped him like a dark storm cloud (which was actually what the robe was made out of).

“Abigail,” he said, in a deep, but strangely breathy voice. “Come with me.”  

Now, if Abigail had been more sensible like the rest of us, she would have seen straight away that though the tall man in front of her was stern and scary-looking, he was good, safe, and utterly trustworthy. He had the same gaze of firm tenderness when he looked at her that her father had. But we have already seen that Abigail did not really know, or properly appreciate her father, and so I suppose it is understandable that she responded the way she did.

—Terrified, she clutched the bed, clenched her teeth, and shook her head in an emphatic, silent no.

Electricity crackled and snapped in the room, and the man’s robe became darker and darker, and his eyes flashed. A breeze kicked up in the room.

“Abigail,” he said again, in an even deeper, stronger voice. The wind was getting stronger and stronger, and the rain was getting nearer, even starting to fall in the room.

“I won’t, I won’t!” shouted Abigail, and she stood up, about to make a leap for the door.

 Quicker than her, the man threw up the massive folds of his great storm-robe, tossing them like lassos, and expertly swept her up in them. Then he whisked her, screaming and struggling, out the window and into the storm. But Abigail was soon too numb to scream or struggle.

She half-clutched, and was half-clutched by, the storm robe, as they sailed up into the clouds, as lightning zigzagged near them and the wind rushed by. And though she could see rain falling, see the wind blowing and watch lightning striking all around her, wrapped up in the man’s robe, she felt nothing—only soft and warm. Abigail did not know, of course, that she had been caught up by Auster, the South Wind, and that he was the one creating the storm, causing the thunder, lightning, wind and rain, cleansing the earth, setting free the flowers—and the one sheltering her in the protection of his robe.

      She was carried higher and higher, and the higher they went, the quieter it became; the wind was now a gentle breeze, the clouds became lighter and less angry-looking, there were only occasional flashes of light, and the rolls of thunder became ever more distant. Even in the moonlight, Abigail could see massive clouds billowing and climbing into the sky on their left, right, above, behind and in front of her—some looked like towers, castles, or skyscrapers, others like dragons and angels with sweeping trains and wings. Though they were all magnificent and grand and wonderfully mysterious, there was something so powerful and incomprehensible about them that Abigail shivered and clung even tighter to Auster’s storm robe. As she was then, Abigail could not yet appreciate or wonder at beautiful and powerful things that were beyond her understanding or control—she could only be afraid of them.

       Soon they were approaching a smooth stretch of cloud that looked a like a plain of freshly laid snow, and there were little bunches of white and gray clouds hovering and running over it, and sometimes disappearing beneath it. That was when Abigail heard the laughing, and she realized—it was coming from the little bunches of clouds! Now she could see they were merry, flighty forms—some slender and swift, others rather chubby and jolly. There were faces in the forms, too, but they were constantly moving into so many different shapes and expressions, that she could not tell which ones actually belonged to them. The laughter hushed as Auster approached, and as Abigail was gently unwound by the silvery robe and deposited on the smooth cloud. She let out a squeak, expecting to fall right through the cloud; but it was like the robe, soft like feathers or powdered snow, but as strong and firm as rock. Abigail sat where she had been dropped, staring at the cloud bunches and their hilariously and hideously morphing faces, and tried to decide if she should laugh or cry.

      Auster turned to the gathered clouds and spoke. “I am grateful for your service, but I must return to my work,” he said. “The night is not yet finished.” He then turned to Abigail with a troubled face, looking so penetratingly at her that she hid her face from him, ashamed. “I leave her in your care,” she heard him say. When she looked up, he was gone. A little shock of regret ran through her, and she sensed that she had lost something, but did not know what it was. This feeling made her annoyed, and she scowled up at the clouds beginning to gather around her.

      “Stay away from me!” she warned, in a shrill voice.

      The nearest cloud, a chubby one with a prominent nose as its only permanent feature, seemed offended.  

      “No need to be like that,” it chided. “We’re not going to hurt you.”  

      “I didn’t ask to be brought here,” Abigail reiterated in the same shrill voice. “That awful man took me away. I hate him!”

      All the clouds simultaneously jumped back, their faces showing one collective expression of horror and pain. “No, no, no, don’t say that,” a little, wispy one whispered, as if Abigail had said spoken about it and not the South Wind, and suddenly dove through the cloud floor and disappeared. The other clouds began murmuring and whispering together, glancing over at Abigail with sad, puzzled faces. Then the chubby one stepped forward again.  

      “We ask that you not talk that way about our Master while you are with us,” it said seriously. Then, trying to smile, though the rest of its face remained sad, it added, “Now, we were about to tell each other about our experiences in the storm when you arrived. If you would like to listen, you may.”

      Abigail, who had been terribly startled by the little cloud that had disappeared, only shook her head, grabbed her knees, and buried her face in them.

      There was more murmuring, and then one voice rose louder than the rest, but Abigail could not hear what was being said over laughing and giggling. She was furious at first that they would leave her, but after a while she raised her head, gnawing with curiosity, and making sure to keep her back to them so it looked like she didn’t care, scooted closer in order to hear the cloud’s story.

      “Stop, stop, just let me tell it, will you?” it was saying, laughing. “Okay, okay, so it was right before the storm started. Some and wind and I were beginning to stir things up. We saw a student jogging, right under a glorious red maple (which I helped to grow from a sapling twenty years ago, I might add), and she didn’t even notice it; she had ear buds in and was looking at her phone. We decided to change that; I got some of my mist in the wind, and we rushed by her into the tree and got all the fallen leaves to join in the fun, and she was simply covered in red and orange, for a full ten seconds! You should have seen her. Maybe she’ll actually notice that red maple on her run next time.”  

      The clouds all did their version of clapping, which sounded more like rumbling and swishing, and then a high voice piped up.

      “Oh me next, me next!”

      “Go ahead, little one,” an older-sounding, deeper voice said.

      The little voice became very serious. “Right when the rain started, I found a man who was crashing and stomping through a bed of flowers, tearing them all out. I thought that was unkind, and so I spilled some drops on a few young bulbs that hadn’t quite bloomed yet; my rain got them to peek open, and freshen themselves up a bit. I thought that maybe if the man saw them, he would spare them. And what do you think? He did see them, and even stopped for half a second. But then he seemed to think better of it and hacked them all to bits with the rest. They were brave, those little ones. I was sad to see them go, but I did try to help them.”

There was murmuring and agreement among the clouds.

“I was even tempted to really dump some rain on him and get him soaking wet,” it added impulsively, and then sighed. “But I didn’t. I don’t think he really understood what he was doing.”

“Let’s hope so, let’s hope so,” the others mumbled and there was a moment of silence. A small, smooth and hesitant cloud came shyly to the middle of the circle (you see that Abigail no longer had her back the clouds, and was actually getting closer to them every minute).

“I found an old lady working in her garden when the rain began to fall. She kept looking up at us and scowling, because we were getting her hair wet. I couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t thank us instead for helping her garden to grow. Then she tried to stand up to go inside, and had a hard time doing it. The wind and I tried to help her, but it all ended with her shouting at us, and so we ran away as fast as we could.”

“That reminds me,” said another thoughtful-faced cloud, entering the circle, “of a man I saw walking home from work before we clouds had really formed in order to begin to rain. It was really hot in the afternoon, you’ll remember, and he kept shedding layers of clothes and wiping sweat out of his eyes, and I thought he looked terribly miserable. So even though it took some effort, I got some clouds to form up as quickly as possible to pour out as much rain on him as we could. They did a marvelous job, and the droplets were superb. But we were shocked to see him begin shouting and shaking his fist up at us and positively growling like an animal—but then of course the animals never treat us like that; they are always grateful for the rain we bring.”

There were more murmurs of agreement, and Abigail, who had crawled to the very edge of the circle, stood up, and blurted out, “Then why do you do it?”

The clouds all became silent, fixing their eyes on her in astonishment and surprise.

“What do you mean, child?” the chubby one asked.

“Why do you bring them rain,” she repeated in complete bewilderment, “when they treat you like that? Why do you do it?”

The chubby one chuckled, and the rest began to laugh, too. “It’s what we do!” it said, drawing Abigail more closely into the circle. “It is the task our Master has given us. He serves you and us, we serve him, and serving him we also serve you.”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Abigail pointed out.

“‘Fair’ has nothing to do with it,” said the thoughtful-faced one very seriously. “We do not speak about such things here.”

“I don’t understand,” Abigail said, shaking her head.

“It is not a matter of understanding,” the chubby one said, now beginning to look thoughtful, too. “It is simply a matter of doing. And don’t worry—I promise that we enjoy our work. We do. We don’t need anyone to notice us. That’s not why we do it!”

There were rumbles and swishes from the rest of the clouds. “No, that’s not why we do it!” piped the high voice.

“Then why do you do it?” Abigail asked.

The clouds all smiled sadly at her, as if they knew something she could not understand, and that they could not explain to her. And that was certainly true. During the rest of the clouds’ stories on that soft cloud-plain in the moonlight, Abigail laughed and giggled and cried with the rest of them, but deep down inside she kept wondering—“Why do they do it? Why do they do it?”   

This was the question on her mind when she finally fell asleep, unable to keep her eyes open any more. As everything became dim, she thought she saw the chubby cloud smiling down at her, though Abigail wondered that it looked strangely thinner and taller than before.

When she woke, she found herself once again wrapped in the gloriously soft and warm storm-robe of the South Wind. She sat up and looked around, at the clouds rising and falling around her, and realized that Auster was watching her. “Hello,” she whispered, not knowing what else to say.

Auster smiled—it was the first time she had seen him smile—and then chuckled. “I was wondering when you were going to wake up.”

“It’s just so soft…” Abigail murmured, and then with a jolt, suddenly remembered the bunches of clouds, and looked around wildly. “Where are they?” she cried, turning to him angrily. “I didn’t get to say goodbye!”

“You will see them again,” promised the South Wind.

“When?” she asked impatiently. “Today? Tomorrow?”

“When the time is right,” he said.

Abigail opened her mouth to say something nasty, as she always did, and suddenly remembered the little cloud that had disappeared and not been seen again. She shut her mouth.   

“Where are we going?” she asked timidly, after several moments of silence.

“Somewhere,” Auster replied.

Abigail shrugged and glanced down through the clouds and saw something dark and grayish brown hugging the earth, like a big, dirty blanket, so that you couldn’t see through it to what was on the ground. “What’s that?” she cried out, alarmed, having never seen smog from so high up in the air before.  

“That,” said Auster, turning away, “is what is left of many of my servants, who have succumbed to the greed and carelessness of humans. They no longer bring rain and cleansing—only sickness and death.”

“That’s just like the people who were cruel to the clouds,” Abigail said angrily, remembering the clouds’ stories. “They don’t care about you or them, do they?”

“No, many of them do not,” said Auster slowly, and Abigail was so preoccupied with her own thoughts, she did not see him looking at her questioningly.

Abigail had not noticed that they were beginning to descend, but she could feel cool mist brushing her face, and she began to hear beautiful sounds wafting to her over a light breeze. She listened hard, and realized it was the sound of water—roaring and rushing, trickling and dripping, tinkling like glass, gurgling, giggling, and singing. She caught a glimpse of a waterfall falling from the crook of a mountain, and a deep, crystal-clear lake rushing past beneath them. Everywhere there were tall, slender trees, reaching up into the air with stately grace, their branches touching one another, almost like arms linked to begin a dance. And dancing they were, indeed.

The South Wind swept down to a small grassy meadow beside a rushing stream; the meadow was surrounded with trees, dancing and swaying in a rhythm at once hopelessly complex and incredibly simple—so simple a child could have done it. Abigail watched them fascinated, and nearly forgot to give her hand to Auster, who gently drew his robe to towards the earth and helped Abigail to step out of it onto the ground.

“Thanks,” she said automatically, and then blushed when she realized how thoughtlessly she had said it. Seeing his serious and tender gaze fixed on her, she blushed even more.

He solemnly bowed to her. “It is my joy and honor to serve you,” he said, smiling a small, sad smile, one that seemed familiar to Abigail somehow, though she didn’t know why.

She turned to the dancing trees again, and then noticed that the stream was dancing, too, rising up like a fountain, tumbling, twirling, jumping, skipping. And all the while she sang—for the stream was a woman, a beautiful lady, with a long, ever-moving skirt and train, and streaming, shining hair that flew in all directions—stepping on the rushing water in an incredible balancing act, each foot in place, each movement in perfect accord with the movement and melody of the whole.

Suddenly she leap from the stream, and was dancing on the ground across the grass. Before Abigail could move or say a word, the stream-maiden stood before her, beckoning to her. “Dance with us,” she cried. “Come!”

She was a beautiful creature, so graceful and gentle, that Abigail could only think of how awkward and uncoordinated and rough she must seem beside her. “Don’t think of that,” said the stream-maiden, as if she could read Abigail’s thoughts. “It makes no difference. All that matters is the dance—think only of that.”

For a moment Abigail considered it, began to feel the rhythm of it beating in her head and singing in her heart. But she looked again at the stream-maiden’s slender body and graceful movements as compared with her own, and shook her head. “No, no,” she muttered, stepping back.   

The stream-maiden moved on, dancing among the trees and sweeping over the meadow; flowers poked up where she stepped, and the trees that she touched became visibly greener and stronger. Inspired to give life of her own, Abigail knelt and reached down to touch one of the flowers that had sprung up in the stream-maiden’s steps. But as soon as her fingers touched it, the little thing completely withered up, and vanished.

Abigail recoiled, horrified. What had she done? She looked around wildly for Auster, but he was gone. When had he left? Where had he gone? Had she made him disappear, too? Standing in front of her was only the stream-maiden, watching her intently, as if she knew something that Abigail did not. Abigail found that she could not speak.

“Tell me,” the stream-maiden said gently, taking the girl’s hand and beginning to walk with her.  “Do you know why we dance?”

Abigail shook her head.

“It is the only way to live, and give life to everything else. If I did not dance, the trees would die, the flowers would stop growing—this place would be a wasteland.”

“Do you make up the dance?” Abigail managed to ask, peeking up at her.

The stream-maiden laughed. “Not at all! I do not make up the dance—none of us do. It has been around longer than any of us, and will continue long after we are gone. But that part is not our business. We are only meant to dance, to follow the beat, harmonize to another’s music, to give life where we can.” She turned to Abigail. “So, will you dance with me?”

“But you saw what I did…” Abigail protested, blushing furiously.

“That does not matter, not now,” responded the stream-maiden. “Think of the dance—the steps.”

She began to move, and Abigail gave herself up to it, watching the stream-maiden’s steps, following her directions, imitating her movements and turns. The rhythm of it was in her soul, a still, small melody—easy to miss at first, but impossible to fully deny. They were turning, turning, turning—“Look!” cried the stream-maiden.  

Abigail looked: from the ground a little spurt of water was gushing, a spring, bubbling out of the soil and flowing happily through the tall, lush grass. Elated, Abigail flew over to it, scooping it to her lips, cool and fresh and clean. A slender little form sprang up out of the water, dancing and laughing. She was a lovely, tiny girl, with sparkling eyes and swift little feet. Abigail was delighted, and it all belonged to her—it was her own spring. She had created it, brought it into being—and now she wanted to keep it for herself, just she had always so thoughtlessly taken and destroyed the many gifts and toys her father had given her.

The stream-maiden gave a cry of warning, but Abigail did not listen to her, and even pushed her back violently when she tried to come close. She began digging a trench for the water to follow, trying to change the course of it to go the way she wanted. But the little spring did not heed her, continued merrily the other way, breaking through the hastily built soil walls and reaching a little clump of clover to water it.

Abigail stomped her feet in fury. “No, no! Not that way, you stupid thing!” she shouted. “The other way! The other way!”

Too angry to stop herself, she stepped on the place where the water was gushing out of the earth, and stomped on it, again, and again, and again, until mud was everywhere. The tiny stream-girl gave a pathetic little cry, whimpered, was silent, and then was no more.

Then Abigail noticed something strange—the muddy water was turning horrible colors, first brown, then yellow, then orange, and finally red—as dark and as thick as blood. Everything the red water touched withered and died and dried up—first the nearby grass and flowers and then several trees at the other end of the meadow. Abigail began to shake. Everything around her was dead. And she had killed the little stream-girl, with such swift feet and sparkling eyes.       

“What have I done?” Abigail gasped. Though she didn’t know why, she suddenly remembered her father standing before her during the thunderstorm, his arms wide open. “Abigail,” he had called to her, so gently.

She remembered the clouds’ stories, the ungrateful, thoughtless people and the rain.

“Abigail.”

Now Auster’s face was before her, stern and kind, his robe so soft and comforting and safe, and she heard her own voice screaming petulantly, “I hate him! I hate him!”

And she saw the little wisp of cloud, the flower, the stream-girl, falling into a terrifying darkness at her touch, at her voice. All of it was her fault, she had killed them all, by caring for no one but herself, by taking and ignoring and hurting and hating.  

Abigail threw herself to the ground and burst into tears. The stream-maiden was beside her in a moment, comforting her, stroking her hair. Abigail pulled away from her. “Don’t you hate me now?” she cried, pointing to the dead meadow, the dead trees. “I killed them, I killed her…It’s all my fault!”

She buried her face in her hands, rocking to and fro. The stream-maiden said nothing for a long time, and Abigail wondered if she had left her. “I would deserve it if she did,” she thought miserably, and shut her eyes tighter than before.

“I will never hate you,” came the stream-maiden’s voice suddenly, very firmly and tenderly. “You see, this is our task, little one. We are here to serve you and love you, whatever you may do to us.”

“No, no, no,” sobbed Abigail, feeling like something inside her might burst. “I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve it! Why are you all so kind to me? Why do you do it?”

The stream-maiden did not answer, but wrapped her arms around Abigail, and began to sing. This made the girl weep even harder, and then it began to rain, and it washed the tears from her face even as they fell. The stream-maiden then scooped the girl up, and bore her across the meadow, where the rain was steadily washing away the red stains on the ground, cleansing it and purifying it, as it has done so many uncounted and unnoticed times before and since.

Abigail did not know where the stream-maiden was carrying her, but she no longer cared. She glimpsed trees above and around her, and for a while they seemed to be climbing upwards. Presently, however, the stream-maiden stopped, and set her carefully on the ground.

“I cannot continue,” she said. “I am too far from my stream, and so too weak to carry you any further.”

“Are you going to leave me?” Abigail whispered.

“You will be safe,” the stream-maiden promised. “But you must do as I say.”

Abigail nodded dumbly, and the stream-maiden pointed to a little a little crevice in the side of the mountain. “Follow the passage where it leads you, even if it seems like it is going the wrong way, and the moment you think you are lost, you will find him.”

“Find who?” Abigail asked.

“The giant under the mountain,” she replied. And more than this she would not say. But she bowed to her, and kissed her.

“Remember the dance,” she called, disappearing into the trees, and beginning to sing.

Abigail sat, and listened until she could no longer hear her voice, but only the continuous rushing of water, and the dripping of rain. Then she picked herself up, and crawled into the crevice in the side of the mountain. At first it seemed to go down, and then turned steeply upwards, finally going back down again. Down, down, down—or was she going up, after all? Abigail could no longer tell. The dark, damp little passage simply went on, and on, and on. Once she came upon a larger kind of room with a faint gleam of light shining in it, so that she could make out little spiky points of rock sticking up out of the ground, and others coming down from above, rather like icicles. After what seemed to be hours, Abigail considered turning back—but she remembered the stream-maiden’s words.

“I must find him soon, because she said that I would, once I knew I was lost,” she said aloud to herself, and kept on. Her very next step gave way to nothing, and as Abigail tumbled forward, she suddenly saw light—very faint, but brighter than anything she had seen since she entered the mountain.

Crawling towards it, she soon found herself in a enormous cavern, shot with little beams of diffused light here and there. Peering into the half-light, she gasped. There was a face, looking down at her from a great height, and at first she thought it was the face of her father. 

But a second later she knew it could not be him, because though the face before her was thin and gray—a little like her father’s—it was in fact the face of a giant. She could have almost mistaken him for stone or rock, he was so still. But Abigail saw now that he was crouching down on his knees, his huge, long arms stretched out against the sides of the cavern walls, and his entire back and neck buried and invisible beneath rock and soil. His hair and beard looked more like moss or roots, and there was water slowly, gently dripping from their ends, shining like diamonds when the light struck them as they fell.

What held her attention longest were the giant’s eyes—like deep mountain pools reflecting moonlight or starlight. But they were also filled with terrible pain, so terrible that even Abigail felt like cringing inside. But it didn’t seem to bother the giant, for all that. There was infinite patience in his eyes, along with the pain, as if he had been hurting longer than he could remember, and would bear it forever, if needed. And then Abigail realized—it must be the giant who was holding the whole mountain together, propping up the earth, all alone and under the ground with no one to thank him for it. He was a willing prisoner there, under the mountain.  

Abigail did not know what to say, and the giant seemed in no hurry to speak. He simply studied her with those old, pain-filled, patient eyes, and somehow Abigail knew that he knew exactly who she was and everything she had ever done.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out.

“For what, little daughter?” rumbled the giant, in a slow, kindly voice.

“For everything,” Abigail responded, looking up at him with a desperate, pitiful face. “For killing the little cloud, being so cruel to the man with the soft robe, and the flower, and my little stream-girl, and the grass and the trees…and for...for…” She could not finish, not with the giant staring down at her with her father’s face.

But the giant already knew what she was going to say.

“You are forgiven,” he said gently. “You were forgiven long ago.”   

“But why?” Abigail wanted to know.

“Little daughter, though you do not realize it, you are greatly loved,” said the giant. “And that is why we gladly suffer, and serve, and die for you.”

“Then I want to die, too!” Abigail burst out, running to the giant’s knees and hugging them, looking up into his face. “Please,” she begged. “Let me die, too.”

“It will take time, and hurt a great deal,” warned the giant. “I am afraid you will kill a great many more things before you will be able to give life yourself.”

Abigail shivered, but nodded.

“Now,” said the giant, stirring ever so slightly. “Dawn is on its way, and we must return you to your father.”

“Yes,” Abigail said, blushing. “But how will I get back?”

The giant chuckled, and the whole cavern rumbled in response. “Yes, you shall see. Follow the staircase that you find just under my right hand, and it will lead you home.”  

“Will I see you again?” she asked.

“Now you know where to find me,” said the giant, smiling. “Whenever you get lost, I will not be far away.”

Abigail found the staircase was just where he had said, but before she entered it, she ran to the giant’s knees, kissed them, and then bowed to him. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I hope I can be like you, someday.”

And then she ran to the stairs, surprised to find that that they led down, instead of up, like one might have expected. But Abigail had learned quite a bit in one night, and knew that just because something does not look like you expect it to look at first, it does not mean that it will not bring you where you need to be, in the end.

As she climbed, Abigail soon saw stars above her, twinkling merrily, and lighting her way. They might have been starlight from the giant’s eyes, but she was not sure. Whoever had sent them, and whatever they were, Abigail found herself looking up and calling out joyfully, “Thank you!” over and over again. And then she kept on running, skipping, dancing down the steps. She found the trunk of a tree in front of her path, growing up out of the staircase with a great hollow in it, and so she climbed into the hollow and through it, and found herself in her own backyard, in her own oak tree. “You beautiful!” she cried, delighted, and kissed it. Abigail could see pink beginning to creep up behind her house, peeking through scattering clouds. It was still raining a bit, though the wind had calmed and there was no more thunder. Clouds, and rain…Abigail laughed and glanced up at the sky. “Thank you!” she called, as she ran towards her house, seeking her father.