There was part of her that was defensive. Everyone liked her stories. Meg and Will loved them. Talis thought they were divine. So who was this boy to say that her stories weren’t as good as others’ stories?
Callie didn’t know the word competition, but it’s what she knew was missing. There were no stories to compare hers with. She’d never heard of a traveling storyteller, those men who walked about the country, going from rich castle to an even richer house to tell stories for food and a bit of gold when they could get it. Those men compared their stories with one another’s, and their audiences certainly compared their stories to ones they had heard before.
For the rest of the day the three of them were silent. Will didn’t want to admit it but their silence bothered him. He was a quiet man himself but there was nothing he liked more than the happy chatter of his family. Now the three of them sat at the supper table looking at their food in thoughtful silence.
After supper they sat in front of the empty fireplace, Meg with her mending in her lap, the children staring into space. “Come, Callie-girl,” Will said, “tell us one of your stories.”
With a frown of concentration, she turned to Talis. As always, she looked to him to make decisions. “What would you like a story about?” she asked tentatively. Her self-confidence had been bruised by that boy today.
“No magic,” Talis whispered, then, slowly, he turned to look at her. “I want a story with no magic in it.”
Callie could only blink at him as her mind raced with thousands of thoughts. How could a story have no magic? How could a boy kill a dragon without magic? Dragons were big; boys were little.
When Talis saw the wide-eyed expression on Callie’s face, he began to perk up. All his life he had been trying to stump Callie on a story. It annoyed him that she was so very clever. No matter what he gave her to make a story out of, she easily did so. Now, he smiled with more assurance. “No magic, no dragons, no witches, no horses that fly. No anything that isn’t real.”
Callie had the very oddest expression on her face. It was as though her mind had flown away to some distant land. Her eyes were seeing nothing; they weren’t focusing. “I must think of this,” she whispered after a while, then made no further response. She didn’t even react when Talis began to dance about in glee. He wasn’t subtle in his delight that he had finally, at last, confounded her.
For two days Callie said not a word. She ate only when Meg put her in front of food. She did her chores only because her body seemed to remember how to do them, but her mind was somewhere else. Meg would have been very worried had it not been for the smug, overweening, self-satisfied, superior attitude of Talis. He was so pleased with himself for having stumped Callie that Meg felt a longing to shake him. She began to root for Callie just to take that young man down a peg or two—or four.
On the afternoon of the third day, Callie came out of her trance. She came out suddenly. One second her mind was not there and the next she had come back to them. She opened her eyes, blinked at all of them sitting at the table as though she’d just awakened, then she looked at Talis, gave a smile that was mostly smirk and said, “No magic.”
For the rest of the day she went about her chores with a spring in her step, ignoring all of Talis’s hints to tell him what she was planning. It wasn’t often that either of them kept a secret from the other for even seconds, but Callie kept her story secret for that whole afternoon.
By the time night rolled around, all three of them were anxious to get supper over so they could hear Callie’s story. Will pretended he didn’t like all the fuss and didn’t care one way or another, but Meg noticed that he didn’t eat his usual third helping before taking his seat before the empty fireplace. There was a soft rain coming down on the roof, and when Callie began to tell her story, there were three people listening with great anticipation.
Slowly, Callie began to tell a story about two children who loved each other very much, but he was very handsome and came from a family connected to the queen, while she was plain-faced and only one of many, many daughters of a man who wanted to get rid of all his daughters.
At this statement, Meg and Will looked at each other over the children’s heads. It had to be coincidence that Callie’s story was so close to the truth.
Her story was of politics and marriages made for money, not for love. While the children were still very young, just barely adults, the girl is told she must give up the boy for his own future happiness. If he marries another woman he could become king, and thereby become wealthy beyond all comprehension. If he marries the girl he loves, his father and hers will disown them both and they will be cast out with no money.
At first the young people agree to this because it is a very sensible thing to do and because they want to please their parents. But on his wedding day the young man runs away, goes to the girl he loves, and carries her away with him.
Since they have no money, he becomes a woodcutter, as there are no jobs for an almost-prince. They live in a tiny house deep in the woods. The winter is hard for them because they have little food, but the people of the village know their story so they help this poor young couple who gave up everything for love.
Sometimes when the young couple wake up in the morning, there are scraps of meat on their doorstep. Or maybe a handful of beans. But when the spring comes, everyone in the village is hungry and the young man knows he cannot support his bride. She is very thin because she gives all her food to him so he can have the strength to chop wood.
After thinking about it a long time, the young man decides it is better to die now than to watch his beloved starve. He plans to kill her in her sleep, then walk with her body into the river and die with her in his arms.
That night, he tells her how very much he loves her, then he gives her something to drink that will
make her sleep, as he does not want to hurt or frighten her. When she is asleep, he kisses her and arranges her hair prettily.
As he raises his axe to bring it down on her, tears are streaming down his cheeks. He knows that when she dies, his soul will die with her.
But hark! What is this? He hears a horse coming at a gallop. He puts down his axe to go to the horseman. It is a messenger coming to say that his father and elder brother have died and the young man now owns everything.
After he hears this, the young man gives thanks to God, not because his father and brother are dead, but because now his beloved can live and have enough to eat.
With great happiness in his heart, he wakes her, takes her onto the messenger’s horse, and rides to the castle with her.
Once he is lord of the manor, he repays all the villagers for their many kindnesses by giving a great feast. And he sends many bad men who worked for his father away and in their place hires good men from the village. And for the rest of his life he shares all the crops and no one in his village ever goes hungry again.
And the young man and his bride have many children and live happily ever after.
When Callie finished this story Meg and Will wiped away tears, but Callie only glanced at them. Her true interest was in what Talis thought.
For some time Talis sat still, not looking at her, but very aware that she was watching him, her breath held. After a long while, he turned to her and said softly, “I like no magic better.”