In the old days of a certain country, there lived a young person who liked to sit in the afternoons, after their daily chores, in the shade of a large tree that grew on the border of the fields behind their home. They would do various things beneath this tree—nap, draw in the dirt, watch the clouds—but what they did most often was sing. You see, this young person wanted most of all to be a singer, to leave behind their humble home and travel the world, wooing peoples with the songs they had written and the tremor of their newly husky voice.
One bright, warm afternoon—like all other afternoons in this country—the young person was in the midst of composing. They tucked their lyre under one arm, and beat a rhythm on their knee. This is what they sang:
Morning, cry the moon
Hold her in your sparkling tomb
Don’t let her go for nothing
Don’t try to cease her . . .
They were trying to find a word to rhyme with “nothing,” but couldn’t think of anything. What did the moon feel when she found herself stuck in the gentle pinks and blues of early morning, unable to return to night? The young person squinted up into the sky for inspiration, but was greeted only by the cheerful sun and a few tiny, perfectly comfortable clouds. Perhaps the line about “nothing” would have to go . . .
“How about suffering?”
“Oh, that’s perfect—” said the young person, “thank—” They paused, then leapt up from the root upon which they had been leaning and ran a few feet from the base of the tree, clutching their lyre to their chest. “Um, who said that?” they asked, trying not to sound fearful.
“Oops. We are sorry if we frightened you.”
The voice was raspy and soft, and it seemed to hold many small voices chiming within it. The young person stared at the tree in terror.
“Oh no, not quite,” said the voice.
The young person looked up at the sky.
“No-no-no, we could never,” laughed the voice. “The clouds are quite friendly though, you’d like them.”
The young person squinted at the ground, frowning hard at a rock near one of the tree roots.
The voice sighed good-naturedly. “Well, let us try to show you—”
At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew through the tree top, and all at once the calm, dappled gray-green shadows beneath the tree came to life, shimmering and shivering and waving all over the ground in a dazzling display of light and dark interplay. “See?” said the voice.
The young person nearly dropped their lyre. They gaped at the shadows, then up at the green leaves that fluttered prettily against the high blue sky. “You—you’re the wind? No. The leaves?” asked the young person. “Or . . . the shadows?”
“Yes!” sang the shadows of the leaves, “you’ve got it.”
The young person carefully approached the shadows. “But I was just sitting . . . in you,” they said, feeling slightly nauseous.
“Oh it doesn’t hurt us,” said the shadows, “we actually quite like it. It’s rather lonely out here.”
The young person looked around the landscape and found it to be true. All the other trees were far on the other side of the field. The sight struck a chord within the young person’s chest, and they turned back to the shadows with a new sense of compassion. “I’ll keep you company,” they declared, pushing their shoulders back, “I’ll come back every day.”
The shadows trembled in delight. “Really? And you’ll sing, too?”
The young person agreed. They returned to sit against the tree and began to strum experimentally on their lyre, watching the shadows of the leaves dart and flow over the grass with each new note. “Why didn’t you talk to me before?” they asked.
“Oh, well, we were perfectly happy listening to your music. But then it seemed like you needed help, and we got so excited that we forgot we weren’t supposed to talk to you.”
“Why not?” asked the young person, but the shadows danced along to their music so beautifully that they soon lost their curiosity to the enchanting spell of composing song.
***
True to their word—and, frankly, enraptured with the shadows of the leaves’ earnest praise—the young person went daily to sing beneath the lonely tree on the edge of the field. One evening, after a long session, the young person returned home eager to soothe their throat with a bowl of their parent’s special cold soup, made from a satisfying combination of indigo flowers, lemongrass, spotted quail eggs, and the milk of the sweet, L-shaped tree nut that grew in the grove on the far side of their field.
The young person was sitting at a table, taking a long, creamy drink from their wooden bowl, when their parent came in through the door. Silently, the parent set their burdens by the door and leaned their staff against the wall. The young person knew they were serious by the set of their shoulders and the line of their mouth as they unbuckled their shawl and hung it on a hook next to the doorway.
“Child,” they said quietly, “do you see how late it is?”
The young person glanced out the kitchen window. The mint-white moon glowed incriminatingly from behind a few wispy gray clouds.
“And not one of your chores finished. You spend too much time out there,” accused the parent, waving one hand in vaguely-directed exasperation, “talking to yourself. Doing nothing. You need to make some friends.”
The young person set down their bowl. A wet swipe of lavender-colored cream bubbled softly over their upper lip. “But I’m not talking to my—”
“I won’t hear protests,” said the parent. “So much time alone isn’t good for your mind. The healer said so. Don’t try to argue.”
“The healer?” The young person groaned. “They don’t know anything about music. You don´t understand, they—it helps me, it’s the only time I can work on my music.”
The parent frowned. “I am not forbidding you from your music,” they explained, softening their voice. “But you best heed me. Tomorrow, go play with the miller’s child, in the village.”
The young person knew further argument was pointless when their parent used that final, uncompromising, bedrock tone. Sighing, they gazed apologetically at their lyre, resting in a corner by the stove, and drank the rest of their soup.
***
The next day, the young person gathered up their lyre, and the lunch their parent had tied up in a cloth for them—soft nut-cheese and soup-soaked bread—and made the morning-long trek to the village, dragging their feet all the way. When they went grudgingly to quench their thirst at the well in the village square, they found the miller’s child waiting for them, perched lightly on the edge of the well.
“You’re the farmer’s kid?” asked the miller’s child, tearing off a huge hunk of berry bread with their large front teeth.
The young person sighed and nodded. Before they could say anything else, the miller’s child grinned, hopped down from the well, grabbed the young person’s wrist, and dragged them off to a series of extremely dull and aggravating adventures.
Except, the young person found that they actually sort of liked learning how to turn the miller’s wheel and watching the grain spray out like a fountain of golden seeds. They liked the rhythm of the miller’s child’s brown, skipping feet as, on the way to lunch, they led the young person over a crumbling stone wall by an abandoned house at the edge of the village. And sitting with the miller’s child in the open pasture just outside the village, on the quilted blanket the miller’s partner had given them, embroidered with red-feathered quails and wildflowers, the young person laughed as the miller’s child pointed to the clouds rolling overhead and made up stories about each one. After they’d shared the young person’s cheese and another chunk of the miller’s famous berry bread, the young person was surprised to realize that they liked the miller’s child—liked their quick smile, bright eyes, and too-big teeth.
“So, are you going to play that thing for me or not?” teased the miller’s child, stealing another piece of the young person’s cheese.
The young person looked down, feeling shy. “It’s called a lyre,” they muttered. But they unstrapped the instrument off their back and brought it onto their lap. They ran their hand fondly over its smooth wood. “What would you like to hear?”
“Oh, anything,” said the miller’s child, lying back against the quilt and folding their arms beneath their head. “Musicians rarely come through here, so it’ll be a nice change.”
Musician. The word glowed softly in the young person’s mind, pulled a smile across their face. Their fingers heard and came alive, and all the newness and discovery of the day came rushing out of the young person’s warbling voice and onto the languid, listening wind.
And by the end of the young person’s time in the village, the miller’s child’s starry, approving gaze had chased all thoughts of the shadows of the leaves from the young person’s mind.
***
A few days later, the young person felt too tired to walk to the village. They were lounging in bed, writing a song to bring to the miller’s child the next day, when their parent asked them to pick ten bushels of nuts from the grove behind their home by the time they returned from doing business in the village. The young person bid their parent farewell, and embarked on their task. It would take much of the day, so they wanted to get an early start. But on the way through the field to the grove on the other side, the young person passed by their tree, and forgot their quest entirely.
“Shadows!” cried the young person, running beneath the tree, “You’ll never guess what happened.”
The shadows of the leaves stopped moving, even though the wind was blowing.
“We already know,” they said, and their rustling voice took on the chilling cadence of a hiss.
The young person rubbed their arms, suddenly cold. “What do you mean?”
“The wind told us all about it,” hissed the leaves, “how you sold your song for no more than a piece of bread. To a child.”
“What? The miller’s child is my friend.” The young person frowned, shivering. They didn’t understand why, all of a sudden, the bright grass surrounding the tree and the sun shining on the field felt so far away. “I thought you were my friend, too.” The young person tried to step out from the shadows, back into the warming sun, but it was hard to make their legs move.
The shadows of the leaves were silent. Then they began to sway again, drifting over the grass in a slow, hypnotic dance. “We are your friend,” they crooned, “your only friend. No one else appreciates your music like we do.”
“That’s not true,” said the young person, jutting their chin, trying again to step back into the light, “the miller’s child said—”
“The miller’s child has no idea what they’re talking about!” snapped the shadows of the leaves, jerking wildly across the ground. “Do they sing with the wind, like we do? Do they turn sunlight into song? They do not know you like we do!”
The young person froze with terror. Their calves itched, as if the shadows of the leaves were crawling up their legs, trying to hold them to the ground.
“The miller’s child probably told you how good your music is, how much they liked your songs. If you listen to them, you’ll never become a great musician. You’ll never improve. Your singing is no more musical than an infant’s cry,” sneered the shadows, “no good at all.”
The young person’s eyes pricked with tears. “But you said—”
“We know your potential,” interrupted the shadows, “and only we can help you reach it. Only we can teach you to sing like the wind. Stay with us, let us help you. Play for us, sing for us.”
The young person’s eyes fell on the waving grasses of the field, and the blue sky beyond the leaves, but they no longer knew what they saw. They were supposed to do something, out there, for someone, but they couldn’t remember what. The coldness of the shadows seeped into their mind, numbing their memories, icing away their fear.
Was it true? Was their singing really so horrible? All they had ever wanted was to be a good musician. That was all they had ever wanted . . .
Mechanically, the young person reached for their lyre, and began to play.
***
The young person had no concept of time passing as they stood beneath the tree, all of their body frozen except for their fingers and their tongue. The entire time they played, the shadows of the leaves would interrupt them to critique their tone or melody or lyrics. By the time the shadows finally let the young person stop, their fingertips were bloody and their heart was utterly convinced of their musical worthlessness.
“What can I do?” asked the young person hoarsely, clutching the lyre as tightly as they could. “Singing is my dream.”
“Join us,” rustled the shadows of the leaves, “and you will forever sing as beautifully as the wind. Join us, and turn sunlight into song.”
The young person’s body was stiff as wood, but they closed their eyes in assent. Their lyre fell to the grass. Hungrily, the shadows of the leaves fluttered desperately over the lyre. But they could do no more than send wind shivering noiselessly along the unplucked strings.
***
That evening, the young person’s parent came home from the village to find their house empty of both nuts and their child. Tired and annoyed, the parent waited, assuming their child had fallen asleep somewhere, as was their habit. They made dinner—without any nut-milk—and the dinner grew cold. Finally, when a rare, warm rain began to fall a few hours after sunset, and the young person had still not returned, the parent started to be afraid.
The parent ran out of the house. “Child?” they cried, as they searched the yard in desperation, blinded by rainfall, “Child, where are you?”
The only response was the distant, rustling song, the quiet screams, of leaves dancing in the wind.