Lily Pad Boy

These are the lies my father told me: that when he first saw me, I was lying on a lily-pad, perfectly naked and crying; that I had golden skin which faded when he removed me from my floating cradle; and that perhaps I am not really fully human. I had always believed my father until the day I played with the boy who lives in the next land-holding.
We were catching frogs in the rushes and talking about everything and nothing as boys will when not supervised. I told him about my earliest days and how my father found me. He looked at me like I was attempting a joke but had forgotten the punch line.
“Let me get this straight,” he said finally. “You were born on a lily pad?”
My ears burned red because his voice clearly indicated the impossibility of such a thing. I shrugged.
“Don’t you even know where babies come from?” he asked.
I shrugged again.
“Babies don’t just appear; they come out of a mother.”
“How?”
“They grow in their bellies and fall out of there,” he said proud of his specific knowledge. I was ashamed and wanted to run home to cry. My lip trembled and then I was angry.
“My father wouldn’t lie to me!”
“My father says that your father is nothing but a drunken shepherd! Why do you think the villagers call him ‘Red Nose’?”
I hit him then and he ran home crying. I ran home too. I needed to ask my father the truth.
I found him with our flock high in the common fields. He was playing a reed and making the kind of noises on it that sound like bodily eruptions.
“Hoy, my boy!” he shouted. “What brings you here?”
Through my tears, I blurted out all that the neighbour boy had said, except for the villager’s opinion of my foster father.
He smiled warmly and rubbed the tears from my eyes. “Never once have I lied to you, my boy. It is all true.”
“Do I have a mother?”
“Every creature has a mother,” he said simply.
“Where is mine and who is she?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “All I can tell you is that I found you over yonder hill where I once drove my flock for winter feeding. There is a pool full of lily pads in the center of a glade. That is where I found you.”
That night, while my father snored, I came to a decision. I would go over the faraway hill and find my mother.
===
My muscles ached by the time I had reached the glade and night was coming on quickly. I was getting cold and starting to doubt the wisdom of my plan, when I saw a little fire twinkling in the glade. I quickly ran over to the light. Around the fire were three badgers holding sticks with chunks of meat over the embers.
“Finally,” said the largest badger. “We were beginning to think you’d never get here.”
“You k-knew I was c-coming?” I stammered. But badgers don’t talk said a little corner of my brain.
“Esmeralda knew. She told us to come to the pool and meet you,” said the second badger through a half-chewed mouthful.
“Manners, Percy,” said the largest badger. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“Sorry, I forgot,” said Percy, spitting meat with every syllable.
“Shall we go?” asked the smallest badger. “It’s getting dark and some folk don’t see as well in the dark.” Some folk meaning me, I guessed.
“Who is Esmeralda?” I asked the largest badger as we started to walk through the forest.
“She’s the Mother,” he said. “Anyway, that’s what everybody calls her.”
“Everybody?”
“All the forest folk. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”
The thought struck me; could Esmeralda be my mother?
===
“There you are,” said a blinking owl as we came to a clearing in the forest. “She’s been waiting quite some time.”
“We came as fast as we could,” said the largest Badger.
“Well, don’t waste any time jawing with me, Bert. I tell you, she’s waiting!”
With that, the owl flew over to a small hut in the center of the clearing and landed gently beside it. He walked over to the door and gave it a peck. The door opened and I gasped; I had never seen such a beautiful woman.
But was she human? Humans don’t have translucent wings. Neither do they have silvery eyes or hair so brilliantly golden. It hurt to look at her in the dark; she was so bright.
The badgers kneeled before her and automatically I did too.
She smiled at me like she knew me. “At last, little Sebastian. Here you are.”
“Are you my mother?” I said stupidly.
“No, my dear,” she said. “Your mother was from the North, one of the Mountain People.”
“What happened to her? Why did she leave me on a lily pad?”
“She had her reasons, dear heart.”
“If she’s still alive, I have to find her.” My chin jutted out. I would do this thing, though I was but a child.
“I will send the badgers with you,” said Esmeralda. “They know the way. Now let me just look at you! You do favour your mother.” She lifted me up in her arms and hugged me close to her. She set me down and smiled a sad smile. “For whatever reason she left you, you must never think that she doesn’t love you. She had her reasons...”
===
“How much longer?” I asked Bert. He didn’t even turn around; he just grumbled something.
“He’s not very happy with our assignment,” mumbled Percy, who was chewing something sticky. His pockets were full of snacks.
“How come?” I asked.
“He’s been mooning for a certain young lady badger and he don’t like to leave her alone with some of the other male badgers coming round her.” He winked at me and stuffed something green into his mouth. “Ol’ Bert’s the jealous kind.”
“You talk too much,” snorted Bert keeping a rapid pace in front of us.
“I eat too much,” laughed Percy. “Anyway, that’s why ol’ Bert is rushing this assignment. He don’t want to come home to see the lovely Lucinda surrounded by eligible bachelors!”
“To answer your original question, we are about six days march from the mountains,” said the littlest badger from behind me.
“Maybe at a normal pace, Win, but the way Bert’s tearing it up, more like a five!” chortled Percy belching gently. He took a stick from his rucksack and began picking at his teeth as we continued to march.
===
We lit a fire in a likely clearing and watched the stars begin to come out. I thought I would die from the loveliness of being warmed by the fire surrounded by furry friends and watching for falling stars in the immense blackness over us. I must have fallen asleep sitting up because I suddenly awoke huddled against the sleeping Percy. I could hear something prowling around the fringes of our clearing. I reached into the fire and pulled out a stick that was still burning.
I lifted the burning stick on high and walked around the clearing. All noise abruptly ceased. I looked at my hand, my skin was beginning to glow faintly. At first, I thought it was reflecting from the burning stick but as the glowing increased, I realized that it was no reflection; my skin was turning golden again. It was very odd.
“Come on out,” I said in a voice that was deeper than my usual voice, I hoped.
“No!” said a voice from the thicket.
“You idiot, Bran!” said another voice. “He didn’t even know we were here!”
“Than why did he tell us to come out?” said the first voice reasonably.
“He was bluffing! We was as quiet as mice!”
“I did hear you,” I said. “But why won’t you come out? I won’t hurt you.”
“Ha!” said the rather disagreeable voice. “Humans is nothing but trouble for we little ones.”
“But I’m not human. Look! My hands are golden and all.”
“He’s right Nil. Humans don’t glow like that,” said the first voice.
“What is he then? And what’s he doing on our turf?”
“I’m just passing through on my way north to find my mother,” I said.
“Where in the north?” said the disagreeable Nil.
“I don’t really know; the badgers are taking me to find the Mountain People.”
“You hear that, Nil? His ma is one of the northern folk!”
“How do we know he’s not lying?” asked Bran. “How do we know he’s one of the northern Folk?”
But Bran was tired of Nil’s suspicion; the thicket trembled and out sprang a little man with massive hands, a bulbous nose and wild red hair, tangled in a mop on his head. As soon as he stepped toward me, his pale skin started turning as golden as mine.
“You’re glowing too,” I said.
“So I am,” he chortled, his blue eyes twinkling merrily. “Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head no.
“He’s one of us, Nil! Now will you just come out?” Out stumped another little man as like the first as peas in a pod. He had his mouth open to grumble when he noticed that he was glowing golden too. His mouth opened even more widely and his eyes about popped out of his head.
“What do you say now, Doubtful Dilly?” said Bran with his hands on his hips. “There’s no denying that he’s kin!”
“He`s one of the Folk, alright,” nodded Dil. He turned to me and offered me one of his outsized hands. I shook it warmly, touched to meet my kin, even if they looked rather odd compared to me.
“If I’m not being rude, what are you?” I asked.
“Some call us Brownies, some call us Sprites, and I’ve even heard us referred to as Gnomes,” said Bran. “We just call ourselves the Folk.”
“So I’m a Brownie?”
“Oh my, no!” chuckled Bran. “How can you ask?”
“You don’t look much like us,” said Nil, as though talking to a very stupid child.
“Well, I know...but if we are all of the Folk...”
“Oh there’s Folk and there’s Folk,” said Bran warmly. “But we’re all of the Faerie! We’ll help you find your people!”
“Yes, we will,” said Nil but perhaps not as enthusiastically.
===
We woke up the badgers and Bran offered to take over the job of leading me home. I was sure that Bert would leap at the chance to run back home to the Lovely Lucinda but I was wrong.
“I promised I would see you safely home and badgers keep their word,” he said, regret on every fold of his face. “If we get cracking, we’ll be there in no time!”
We followed the shore of the sea until we found a delta carved out by a slow green river.
“Now we follow the river,” said Nil. The river led us into another pine forest which slowly began to slope up. Soon my legs ached with the climbing.
“Tired, eh?” said Percy. “You need to eat more to build your strength!” He gave me a slip of dried fish which was smoky and chewy. It seemed to help because I stopped lagging behind as we steadily climbed.
The path led us around massive boulders and up scree-filled slopes. I clutched at vine maple roots and pulled myself up, grunting and groaning. Slopes to Bran and Dil were like a river to fish. They raced up without any hand holds as though gravity did not apply to them. The badgers were less light-footed except for Win who had a knack for finding the slightest crevice in the sheerest slope. Eventually, Bran and Dil brought out ropes and hauled us up the most difficult climbs.
Eventually, the path seemed to stop rising and we found ourselves walking along a high plateau going ever northward. I noticed that it was not as warm now and was glad for my leather vest. Around that night’s fire I huddled close to Percy and Win.
That morning, we came to a gate. It was painted a glossy black. Bert opened the gate and we filed on through.
“This is your country, boy,” he said.
It was a curious feeling to come back to a home that I had no memory of. Overhead there were raspy jays flying. They were calling something that sounded like “Chosen, chosen!”
“What a racket!” I said, plugging my ears, but Bran just gave me a funny look.
As we walked through green fields, the sun rose high in the sky. Every so often, birds would fly overhead, chirping and calling. I feel like we were being heralded. Each bird sang a variant of “Chosen, chosen!”
“Why are they all singing that?” I asked Bran, but he only grinned like someone who has told a joke and is waiting for the audience to get it.
Eventually, we came to a beautiful manor house. Outside on the spreading lawn was a welcoming committee of every sort of small person. Some had wings, some had claws and fangs, some had feathers,and some had hands and feet. Each was about my size and each one was glowing faintly.
A withered little man stepped forward and bowed deeply to us. “Welcome home, Sebastian! We have counted the days until your prophesied return. Blessed is the woman who bore you for this hour!” At this everybody bowed and called out “Welcome, Chosen One!”
“Why are you calling me that?” I asked.
“Because that is who you are,” he said simply.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You are the one who will defeat the Ravers!” he said.
“The Ravers? Who are they?”
“They are the sharp shadows who steal and destroy. They are fear and pain. But, as Chosen One you will drive them from the land!”
“How am I to do this?” I asked. My heart was pounding like a drum. I felt every eye on me and would gladly have slunk away and gone back to my safe life with my father.
“Ah! The poor child!” said a fat woman with dark black hair and pale skin. “Look how fearful he looks!”
“Hush now, Glennie!” said the old fellow. “You are embarrassing the Chosen One.”
It was true, my cheeks were surely scarlet. And then, even as I felt overwhelmed, I could feel a flicker of bravery spring up in me. “I will do what I can,” I said. At once my skin flamed into gold and all around me hushed. They all glowed back at me.
===
Around a fire, the old one told me more about my life before my memories started.
“Your mother was a bonny lass, Sebastian, full of life and wise beyond her years. She was a Listener, one who strains her ears to hear what God might whisper. One night, she had a dream. In it, she found herself fighting an invisible enemy to protect something precious. When she awakened she knew three things: that she was pregnant, that her baby would do a work of surpassing greatness and that she would die to preserve his life.”
I was speechless and could only ball up my fists and try not to cry.
“The time has come to speak of your mother’s brave decision,” said the old one. “Telling no one about her dream she began to make a plan. She knew that the Ravers would soon know about her pregnancy and demand the child.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The Ravers know the ancient prophecies. They know that God would send a deliverer to us, the Chosen One, so they stole all of our male babies as soon as they were born to subvert the prophecy.”
“What did my mother do?” I asked.
“She left us and went south to have her baby and hide him away from the Ravers.”
“How did she die...” I could not finish the painful sentence; tears were spilling onto my cheeks.
“The Ravers smelled the blood of your birthing on the wind. They flew south; dark clouds intent on destruction. Your mother hid you away and went out smeared in blood so that hers was the only smell they could smell. They demanded to know where you were but she held her tongue. They lost temper and slew her. But her work was accomplished and now you have returned to do God’s work and deliver us!”
“But I’m only a child!” I whispered. Was he blind, that he did not see how small I was, how weak?
“Never say, ‘I’m only a child’! Instead say, ‘I am a child of God’! Indeed, none of us can say what we might do. But Sebastian, you are the Chosen One. Go ahead... say it!” He lifted me to my feet.
“I am the Chosen One,” I said in a faint voice. My skin glowed very faintly.
“Say it as again but like you believe it!” he urged.
“I am the Chosen One,” I said with a bit more faith. At once, I felt something within me register the words. I was the Chosen One. My skin brightened as though on fire and I glittered in my fully golden skin. I could see the glow even through my clothing.
The old one covered his eyes even as his own skin glowed.
“You are the Chosen One,” he smiled.
“But I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“You will,” he nodded.
“They’re coming!” The cry came from one of the treetops where sentries were stationed. It was as though a storm rolled in. A black cloud like an evil tide came rushing in and I saw dark spirits riding black birds. I faced them, quaking with fear. My glowing skin began to dull.
“I am the Chosen One!” I cried, shaking like a leaf.
“Come with us, Firefly!” called the spirits, flying in tight circles above me.
“Leave this place and never come back!” I said as loudly as my tight throat would allow.
“Come with us, Lightening Bug!” they chorused.
Suddenly, two of them flew directly at me and threw a glittering cloud at me. At once, I was covered with a pulsing, glowing mass, shot through with dark energy. It ran over my skin like muddy water. I was overcome.
I was held in the center of a glassy globe. The Ravers threw cords around the globe and supported by several squalling birds, I was removed from my people once again.
===
The Ravers set me up on a flat stone surrounded by standing stones. In my glassy globe, my skin faded back to pink. I knew that I was doomed. Any minute now, the Ravers would cast my globe into a huge fire that they were building beside me.
“Oh Mother,” I sobbed. “You were wrong about me!”
Having finished the fire, the Ravers danced around it in a frenzy of blood-lust, chanting and screaming. It was a horrible cacophony of sound and I was glad that I only heard it faintly from within my globe. One Raver was playing a huge ox skin drum and the others were leaping spastically around it as he sounded each angry beat. I fell to my knees inside the globe and prepared for the worst.
My globe was surrounded with clutching hands and rending claws. They bore me up and paraded me around the fire. Dimly, I could hear their harsh voices rise in mockery:
“He wants to be a firefly, we’ll give him fire!”
“This will make you glow, bright boy!”
I squeezed my eyes shut so I was shocked to hear another voice shouting against the ravening crowd.
“Stop! Let him go!” I felt my globe thud onto the ground. I opened my eyes to see who could have been my deliverer. I saw a dark figure shrouded in a dark robe with a metal ring around his head. All around me, the Ravers fall silent.
“Bring him into my house,” he commanded and turned on his heel. The Ravers cast dark powders over my globe and it melted away. Rough hands gripped me and bore me to the dark figure’s house.
He was seated at a dark wooden table set with glittering candles in tall silver candlesticks, drinking a deeply bowled glass of wine.
“Sit!” he commanded. I did so.
“Leave!” he commanded, and the Ravers melted away. He pulled his hood from his head and revealed his visage to me. His eyes were piercing, obsidian black in a finely-featured face. He was no Raver.
“Look into my eyes!” he commanded. I did so; there was no questioning him. You did what you were told. I felt myself tremble all over as his relentless eyes looked deeply into me.
“So it is true,” he said finally. “You are the Chosen One. You will be their death.”
“H-how can you know that?” I stammered.
“Never mind how,” he said. “What am I to do with you?”
He called for a Raver escort and I was taken to a stone cell and locked in. I looked around and wept quietly to see my surroundings: cobwebs, stone floor and empty shelves. I huddled into a corner and tried to sleep.
===
In the dim of night, I heard a scrabbling in the wall of my cell. One of the rocks began to shift and rock lightly. I went to the stone and found that I could work it free. I pushed it onto the floor and in popped a large brown mole.
“Thanks awfully, I was beginning to think I’d never get that slab out,” he said dusting his paws on his little round belly.
“Have you come to rescue me?” I said.
“Not unless you can fit in my tunnel,” said the mole doubtfully. “No, I’ve come to encourage you.”
“I doubt you can,” I said. “The Ravers are going to kill me.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “They believe that you’re the Chosen One and they’re afraid if they kill you, you’ll explode or something. They think you’re like a time bomb!”
“How do you know that?”
“I have excellent hearing! Even underground, I could hear them arguing.”
“What are they saying?”
“Some want to kill you and scorn the thought of you blowing up, but your father, he’s adamant that...”
“What? My father? Who’s my father?”
“He’s the tall, dark one with the ring around his head. What? Didn’t you know?”
“No...but why is my father with the Ravers?”
“That’s a long story, my friend,” said the mole. “You should know that your father was not always as you see him now. When your mother vanished one day, your father blamed the Ravers and rode out to confront them, filled with wrath. They seduced him, turning his anger into ceaseless rage and bitterness and making him like one of them.”
“My father is a Raver?”
“No, but he is their king,” said the mole gently.
“What will become of me?” I cried.
“He won’t let them kill you,” said the mole. “He said that they would have to kill him first.”
“So, I’m going to be a prisoner here for the rest of my life?”
“Oh dear me,” said the mole. “I’m not being very encouraging, am I? Don’t lose hope, Sebastian. Your people are on the march!”
“What can they do against the Ravers?” I said.
“You never know.”
At that moment, I heard the distinct sounds of fighting: swords ringing, arrows firing and harsh cries. The mole smiled broadly and ducked back into his tunnel. I ran to it but could not even get my arm in. I ran back to the door of the cell and began pounding on it, crying out for deliverance.
I could hear footsteps pounding down the corridor and saw the handle of the door turning. Friend or foe, I wondered. The door opened and it was my father.
“Come with me!” he ordered.
“I will not,” I said crossing my arms and thrusting out my chin. “My true people have come for me!”
“Will they bring back your mother?” he said harshly. I felt like he’d hit me in the stomach. He seized me, bound my mouth with a kerchief and flung me over his shoulder under his black cloak. He ran with me out of the camp of the Ravers. Squinting through a tear in the fabric, I saw my people riding on the backs of magpies and blue jays storming the Ravers and causing havoc.
He leapt past all of the skirmishing and ran pell-mell into the dark forest. I bumped up and down on his bony shoulder wondering what he was thinking.
Finally, he stopped and dropped me to the ground. I was so battered that I just lay their looking up at the stars bravely shining on me.
“Your people are fighting for you,” he muttered. “Such a thing has never happened before.”
“They cannot beat your Ravers,” I said.
“Can they not? No one knows what can be done until it is attempted; they have never banded together against the Ravers. And one man was not sufficient to overcome them.”
“At least you tried,” I said. “I think my mother would have been proud of you.”
“We will not speak of her,” he said harshly. He went to building a fire for us.
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked when we were seated together before the flames.
“I don’t know... I don’t know.” He rose to his feet and started pacing to and fro. He cried out: “Everything I have become is fighting against everything I once was. Something dark and hard is fighting to escape from my heart!” He was confused and on the verge of madness; even a child could see that. I was torn between running away and comforting him, this odd man who was my real father.
Finally, I drew near to him and put my hand on his shoulder. Immediately my skin flared up as golden as the sun. He cried out as his skin also lit up. He tore open his tunic and I marvelled to see his heart almost leaping out of his skin with thunderous beating. He screamed as a dark sliver like a glass shard pushed its way to the surface of his skin so that he bled. He looked down, grit his teeth and pulled out the long glittering dart and cast it into our fire. “Enough of your poison, you cursed thing,” he gasped and collapsed to the ground in an exhausted slumber. I wrapped him in a blanket and drew him nearer the fire. I busied myself in making him a hot drink while he slept. I could see the sun beginning to show itself, rimming the mountains with gold and purple.
“When I went to the Ravers, I was ready to fight,” said my father from his cocoon. “They surrounded me, waving spears at me and laughing. I could not fight all of them though I tried. I spun around with my sword outstretched daring each one to advance. That is when my heart was pierced by that Raver dart. My body became cold and my heart followed suit. I became like one of them. You delivered me,” he said his voice finally faltering as he wept. I fell into his arms and together we laughed until we were spent.
We moved on from that place the next morning, my true father and I.