The Silver Spoon

©2009 Ian G Hobson

This story is about you. Yes, you! Though it happened long ago, before you were born into the world you know now; so only in your dreams do you have any memory of it. Let me take you back to that time. The time when you were a happy child, playing in the sunshine on the banks of the River Stonesthrow. The river was aptly named; at least as far as an eight-year-old child was concerned, because you could just manage to hurl a stone from one side of the riverbank to the other. Though you preferred skimming stones to throwing them, and it was while looking for a suitable flat stone to skim, that you found the spoon.

It was a shiny spoon, fashioned from solid silver; and there it lay, amongst the white pebbles and sand at the water’s edge. You reached for it and felt its weight and smoothness, and marvelled at the intricate design engraved on the handle: strange symbols interwoven with each other, like the leaves and stems of ivy climbing a small but sturdy tree.

‘What have you got there, Syllabyb?’ a familiar voice asked.

‘Nothing!’ You quickly slid the spoon into your sleeve and then reached for a flat stone before turning to face your mother as she picked her way across the wide ribbon of rocks and pebbles. ‘Just this.’ You turned and skimmed the stone across the water and it bounced seven times before joining its siblings on the far bank.

‘Oh, well done!’ your mother exclaimed. ‘I could never get them to bounce more than a couple of times.’ She searched until she found a suitable stone and then, bending low, sent it spinning towards the water where it bounced only once before disappearing beneath the surface.

You grinned, found another stone, not as flat as the first, and said, ‘like this, Mother.’ And then, as much to your own amazement as your mother’s, you again skimmed the stone all the way to the far bank.

‘You are too good for me, Syllabyb,’ your mother said, turning away. ‘Come now, it’s almost time for your lessons.’

***

In the dry season the daily lessons were held in the centre of the village, under the old ragamore tree, and Brylig was there early, as usual. Brylig was the son of, the village headman, Gryleg, and though he was a clever child, often answering questions before any of the other children did, he was a bully.

‘What was that you were looking at?’ he asked. You had slipped the spoon back up your sleeve again, but Brylig must have seen you looking at it in your cupped left palm as you entered the dusty village square.

‘Nothing,’ you replied. You had not even shown your precious find to you mother, so you were definitely not going to show it to Brylig.

The boy looked over his shoulder. Three other children were approaching but, as yet, there was no sign of Raseldorf-the-elder, the old man who conducted the daily lessons. ‘Show me!’ said Brylig, stepping towards you, menacingly, and holding out his hand.

‘There’s nothing to show,’ you replied, defiantly. You had never dared to stand up to Brylig before, but today you felt a strange surge of confidence. With a smirk, he made a grab for your collar with one hand, and for your left sleeve with the other. But, with snake-like speed, you snatched the fingers of both of his hands from the air and, gripping them tightly, bent them viciously backwards, pulling him forwards and down onto his knees. He cried out in pain and tried to pull free, but suddenly you were the bully, and he was the victim; and you were going to teach him a lesson he would never forget. Taking your weight on your left foot, you raised your right knee sharply, catching Brylig under the chin, turning his cries of pain to a muffled sob as he bit his tongue.

‘Stop that!’ Raseldorf-the-elder was crossing the square, his walking stick raised in anger.

Immediately, you let go of Brylig’s fingers and fell away from him, somehow making it look as if he had pushed you, and tears welled in your eyes as you looked up at the old teacher. He seemed confused, looking first at you and then at Brylig, who was massaging his jaw as he got back to his feet.

‘What were you doing, Brylig?’ the old man asked. ‘Making trouble again?’

‘It wasn’t me, it was Syllabyb!’ Brylig accused, his face red and angry.

‘It never is you, Brylig; and yet you are always in the thick of any trouble. Do I have to speak to your father again?’

‘But it wasn’t me, it was…’

‘Enough!’ shouted Raseldorf.

‘But…’

‘I said, enough! Now get your slates, and get to your places, all of you!’ Four other village children had arrived and three more were hurrying across the square, making twelve in all, and you all hastened to your places on the three low benches beneath branches of the ragamore tree, while Raseldorf took his place on the higher bench against the tree’s wide and sturdy trunk, and Ellabera, the eldest girl, handed out the slates.

***

‘How were your lessons today?’ your father asked, as your family took their places for the evening meal. Your elder brother, Dryston, now learning to be carpenter like your father, pulled a face; he had never enjoyed lessons.

Your little sister, Flysal, looked at you expectantly, she was just four years old and not due to start her education until the following year. ‘Syllabyb hates lessons,’ she said.

‘No I don’t,’ you responded, remembering every detail of the lesson, and how you had been the one to answer all Raseldorf’s questions correctly – and how Brylig had looked at you with a mixture puzzlement and hatred.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ your mother said as she brought a bowl of steaming hot soup to the table. You watched her as she ladled out the soup, filling the five bowls around the table, before taking her place. The soup was thick and filled with chunks of meat and vegetables and, without thinking, you slipped the sliver spoon from your sleeve and began to eat with it.

‘Where has that come from?’ Flysal asked. She had never seen a metal spoon before. Every spoon in the house, as well as every bowl, and every stick of furniture, had been made from wood by your father. As far as she knew, only knives, and some of your father’s tools, were made of metal.

You were unsure why you had used the spoon, but the lie tripped off your tongue easily enough. ‘Raseldorf-the-elder gave me it, for answering all his questions correctly.’

Your father and mother looked at each other with bewildered expressions. They had never heard of Raseldorf giving the children anything but the sharp edge of his tongue. ‘Let me see it,’ said your father.

‘Its’ mine!’ you exclaimed, glaring at your father and then licking the spoon clean and slipping it back into your sleeve. ‘I’ll use this one.’ You reached for the wooden spoon that lay on the table beside your soup bowl, and began to eat again.

Your father looked angry but said no more, while your mother and siblings eyed you curiously, sensing a change in you.

***

That night, as you lay in bed, with the spoon under your pillow, you could not go to sleep. In less than a day, your view of the world had changed, and the thought of living your life in the same village, like your mother and father and their parents before them, seemed abhorrent. You wanted more; much more.

And so, during the next few days, you made plans to leave; and one morning, in the early hours well before dawn, you crept out of the house, taking little more than the clothes on your back and, of course, the silver spoon.

When you were younger you were afraid of the dark, but not now, as you crossed the village square; though soon the sun's rays were painting the sky a misty orange, and lighting your way as you ran down to the riverside footpath and set off, upstream. Why you chose to go this way, you were not sure, except that it led away from your village and the larger village downstream. Though it seemed that there was something pulling you in this direction and, where the river hurried noisily over its rocky course, it seemed to be egging you on by calling, 'rush, rush, rush, rush, rush!'

By the middle of the day, with the sun high overhead, you were beginning to get thirsty and hungry too. But, after stopping to drink a little water from the river, you kept on, hurrying further and further away from your home and family until, eventually, you were too tired to continue, and you stopped and sat beneath the shade of a huge tree to open a small cloth bag that you had brought with you.

Inside the bag there was a half loaf of bread, a lump of cheese and a pot of honey that you had taken from your mother's pantry. You ate some of the cheese and bread, and then used your precious spoon to eat some of the honey, before closing your eyes for a moment and dreaming about all the places you might visit, and all the wonderful things you would find, now that you were free of village life.

'Who are you, and why do you sit beneath my tree?' said a high pitched voice from above. Startled, you jumped up and turned to look up into the branches to where a very small man with beady eyes and a long pointed nose, sat staring down at you.

'Who wants to know?' you replied, annoyed at the intrusion into your daydream.

'Ah!' exclaimed the little man. 'You are just like her; answering one question with another. I suppose you are the one. Keep on, you are going the right way.' And with that, the man made a strange chattering sound and then scrambled higher into the tree and disappeared.

'What do you mean, I'm the one?' you shouted. But there was no reply, so you put what was left of the food back into your bag and continued on along the riverside.

Before long, the sun was dipping towards the far horizon, and you began to think about where you would spend the night. It was summertime and the weather was warm, so the thought of sleeping outdoors did not worry you at all but, as you rounded a bend in the river and entered a steep-sided valley, you saw ahead a tiny house, built of sticks and leaves and moss. And outside the house there sat the very same little man that you had seen up in the branches of the tree. He beckoned to you and you walked cautiously towards him, wondering how he had managed to overtake you.

'Have you seen my brother?' he asked.

'I've seen no one but you,' you replied.

'Ah! So you have seen him,' he said with a smile. 'He's my twin, you see. And he lives in a tree down-river a way. I suppose he told you that you're expected?'

'Expected?' you said. 'How can I be expected? I've told no one I'm coming.'

'You are expected by the necromancer. She told us to look out for you. Err, do you have it with you?'

'Do I have what with me?'

'Ah!' said the little man. 'You are just like her. Answering one question with another.'

'Perhaps I should answer you with this!' you exclaimed, making a fist of your right hand and waving it in the little man's face. 'Now tell me who this necromancer is, and why I am expected.'

'But who she is I cannot tell. She changes you see; first one thing and then another. And why she expects you I cannot be sure, though she did – or was it he? - tell us that in one hundred years someone would find it, and that the finder would wish to return it.'

'You talk in riddles, you silly little man!' Suddenly your exasperation turned to tiredness, and you were so exhausted that you could hardly remain standing.

'Ah, I can see you wish to rest. Come inside.' The little man made that odd chattering noise then, just like his brother had made, before turning away and disappearing into the house and, despite your mistrust of him, you followed him inside.

***

In the morning you awoke, for a moment forgetting where you were. But then you remembered and got up from the little bed, on which you had slept, and made your way out into the sunlight. But there was no sign of the little man.

You hurried back into his tiny house, worried that your precious spoon had been stolen. But your bag was still there, lying on a small wooden table, and inside it was your spoon and the food you had taken from your mother's kitchen the day before; though, oddly, there was more than there should have been, as if you had not eaten any, and even the honey jar was full to the brim.

'It's magical,' you said out loud realising, at last, that the silver spoon had supernatural powers. You ate some honey and some bread - which seemed to be as fresh as if it had been baked that very same morning – and then you left the little man's house and went on your way, still following the course of the river through the narrow valley as, gradually, it became a steep-sided gorge.

Finally, your way seemed to be blocked as the stony path beside the river became almost too narrow to negotiate. But just as you were considering turning back, the river rounded a bend and you were met with an incredible sight: here the gorge was filled with a silvery mist, crowned with a rainbow, and through the mist you could see a beautiful waterfall descending from between a cleft in a wall of rock until, finally, it plunged into a deep, circular pool at the head of the river.

'Pretty, isn't it?'

You turned to find an old woman on the path behind you. She seemed bent and twisted, as though crippled by some disease of the bones, and yet her face was kind and, in its way, quite beautiful.

'Who are you?' you asked.

'Who I am is my business,' the old woman replied. 'But who are you? And what do you carry in that bag?'

'Nothing,' you answered, knowing instinctively that there was some connection between this woman and your magical spoon, and believing that she wanted to take it from you. And take it she almost did, for without being able to stop yourself, you opened the bag and offered it to her.

As she held out her hand to take it, her face changed from kindly to fierce, and her limbs became straight and she was no longer an old woman, but a tall young man. 'See how my youth returns!' he shouted, ‘without even touching the cursed thing!'

You stepped back in fear, but the young man shrank before your eyes, like a flower wilting for lack of water, and he became an old woman again. 'I have lived many lives,' she said. 'All of them wicked. Until one hundred years ago, I found the strength to cast the silver spoon away.'

'But why?' you asked. 'The spoon is so beautiful, and magical too.'

'Yes, I know well of its magic,' said the old woman. 'I still carry some of it within me; that is why some call me the necromancer. But there is evil in the spoon’s magic; for it was made by Avarice, the god of greed, to tempt the innocent and make them wicked. It would keep you young for ever, but it would make you covet all things of beauty. And you would do anything, any evil deed, to take those things from others.

'One hundred years ago, as I sat in this beautiful place, a young girl came to bathe in the pool. And she was so beautiful that I wanted her too. But she shunned me, saying that she was betrothed to another and, in my anger, I killed her and took her body for my own. It was then that I realised the depths to which I had sunk and, using the spoon's own magic, I called up a thunderstorm that made the waterfall flow as it had never flowed before, and I cast the spoon into the water and let it be washed away downstream, hoping never to see it again.

'But in a dream I saw that, one hundred years hence, the spoon would find its way back to me, carried by a child.' The old woman paused then, looking into your eyes to see if you had understood.

But you had not, for your only thought was to keep the silver spoon, and its magic, for yourself. 'It's mine,' you said, gripping the spoon tightly and holding it to your chest. 'I found it, so it belongs to me.'

'Who have you left behind?' the old woman asked, smiling. 'Your mother and father, perhaps?'

You remembered your family then. How strange; for a day and a night you had forgotten them completely, and not given a thought to what their reaction would have been to your disappearance. But none of that mattered; the only important thing was that you had the spoon; the magic, silver spoon. You held it in your hands and gazed at it, mesmerised by its beauty, and it was then that you realised what you must do: kill the old woman and cast her into the river.

But you never got the chance because, suddenly, a magpie swooped down from the sky, snatched the spoon from your hands and sped off with it towards the waterfall. 'Give it back!' you shouted, but the magpie took no notice, and let the spoon fall from its beak and into the centre of the deep pool. It was then that the earth began to rumble and tremble; disturbing the water in the pool and making it bubble and hiss as though it was a huge cauldron of boiling soup. And, beyond, through the mist and falling water, you saw the rock wall crack and begin to tumble.

'Quickly!' said the old woman, taking your arm and gripping it tightly, 'we must leave now!'

'But my spoon!' you protested, 'I must save it!'

'The spoon is gone for ever!' As the old woman pulled you away along the path, you looked back and saw the waterfall explode outwards as the wall of rock came crashing down and, were it not for the old woman dragging you up a steep path that climbed the side of the gorge, you would have been swept away by the resulting wave that sped along the course of the river.

***

From a rocky ledge, high above the gorge, you looked down to where once there had been a beautiful pool, but where now there was a huge pile of rocks. Beyond the rocks, a lake was forming, and beyond that there was another waterfall.

'In time it will be beautiful again,' said old woman. She stood beside you and, beside her, stood the little man from the house of sticks.

'I am sorry to have taken your treasure from you,' he said. 'Though it was nice to be a magpie again; very nice indeed.'

'Your days of stealing shiny and beautiful things for me are long gone,' said the old woman. 'But you and your brother can do one last thing for me before it is time for us to leave this place: see this child safely home, for I think that she misses her family now.'

It was true: you were missing your family, and feeling very guilty for going off and leaving them without a word. How could you have done such a thing? Tears filled your eyes then as you realised that you had almost lost the most precious thing of all: your family.

But soon you were back with them again, and they were much relived that you were safe. The whole village had been out looking for you, even Brylig. And though he never quite forgave you for that day in the village square, he never bullied you again.

Do you remember Brylig, or anyone from that time? Perhaps tonight you will dream of them. Though dreams are soon forgotten.

THE END