Fancy pants's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The young man stood barefoot on the porch boards where the blood had dried. He had Thomas's jaw and none of his weight. He looked at the three of them like he was still learning how his eyes worked. Fancy Pants stepped closer. She had waited years for the stag. She had not waited for this. "I have a wife," he said. His voice was steady. "In the trees past the far pasture. A doe. Two fawns. They were mine before the curse. They are mine still." Thomas said nothing. The ginger princess set the bloody cloth on the rail. "You want to bring them here," the ginger princess said. "No." He looked past the cabin, past the ranch sign creaking on its chains at the track. "I want a piece of the far end. By the creek. I'll build it myself. They won't come near the house. I won't either, much." Fancy Pants felt the shape of it land. The stag she had tracked for years was gone. What stood here was a son asking for a corner of his father's land, and a life she had no part in. "You're sure," Thomas said. Not a question. "I'm sure." Thomas nodded once. "Take the creek bend. Take what timber you need. Take the spotted mare if you want a back for hauling." The appaloosa lifted her head at the hitching post, ears turning. "She pulls straight." The young man's mouth moved like he might say thank you. He didn't. He stepped down off the porch and walked toward the pasture without looking back. Fancy Pants watched him go until the grass hid his feet. Thomas's hand found her shoulder. The ginger princess came to her other side and did not speak. "He was mine to bring in," Fancy Pants said. Her voice came out smaller than she meant. "For five days he was mine. Now he has a doe in the trees." "He was never the wish," the ginger princess said. "He was the road to it." "The wish was granted," Thomas said. "The boy said so. The oracle said so." "Then why doesn't it feel done," Fancy Pants said. Neither answered. The appaloosa stamped once. Somewhere past the pasture a axe would start ringing by the end of the week, and a cottage would rise that none of them would live in. Fancy Pants turned her back on the far field. She looked at the porch, the two chairs still rocking from the herald's visit, the third empty between them. She sat down in the middle chair. She put her hands flat on her golden knees. "Then I wait again," she said. "For what the wish still owes us." Thomas sat. The ginger princess sat. The three chairs moved together, then apart, then together, and just like that, like the clicking of ruby slippers the wish payed what was owed to them…