Free If I Told You Once: A Novel by Judy Budnitz

splitting wood, in a regular rhythm, using an ax that matched his girth.
    She watched as he worked, his back and shoulders so graceful yet so heavy. She saw in him a solidity that matched her lightness, and for once she could not think of a question to ask.
    She returned again and again to watch him at his work. He was so practiced in his movements that he could stare back at her, lining up the chunks and letting the ax fall without ever looking.
    Watching him she felt as she did when she saw the moon clearly reflected in a pool of water, or rain dimpling the surface of a river, or a young sapling sprouting from the rot of a decaying stump. It was a sense of symmetry and completeness.
    She made her feelings known, without a word.
    The young man came to the village to speak with her father.
    The girl’s parents were pleased with his request. They had assumed no one would want to marry their daughter; she was flighty, an indifferent worker, and they had expected her to remain a light but troublesome burden the rest of their lives. The father was happy enough with her suitor, and the two laid plans and conditions and sealed it all with a firm handshake, both men testing the other’s grip.
    During the months and weeks before the wedding the girl became lighter than ever. She was not permitted to be alone with her prospective husband, so she watched him from a distance, savoring the musical sway of his body. She drifted through the woods, rose to the level of the treetops, and watched him from above. She swooped and tumbled in the sky, dove to earth and rose again, climbing the air as if it were a staircase. At night she darted batlike against a backdrop of stars, all the while humming her tuneless nothings or clucking her tongue like a falling ax.
    The villagers saw her skimming the treetops and muttered: Silly girl, she’ll break her neck.
    And: She should be home helping her mother.
    While she flew carelessly above, trouble came to the village down below. First it was flies, thick dark clouds of them. They settled everywhere, attacking with their stinging bites, feasting on anything left uncovered, burrowing into the hides of animals to lay their eggs.
    And then the yard behind the girl’s home began to collect water from an unknown source. The ground became sodden, the garden plants rotted, the earth sank. Within days the yard had become a swamp, and lugubrious black frogs had taken up residence. They moved lazily, their skins as slimy-black as oil. White clusters of their eggs made a scum on the surface.
    Thick clouds lumbered in, clogging the sky. For a week day was as dark as night.
    These were bad omens, and the villagers eyed each other suspiciously, wondering who was to blame.
    A week before the wedding, the girl woke in the night to find her window open, a sour breeze licking at her forehead. And then she saw the close-bitten fingers on the sill, two yellow eyes glowing in the dark, and a long pink tongue unrolling and creeping along the floor.
    The tongue reached the foot of her bed, lifted the sheet, and burrowed underneath. She felt the rough tip as it nudged its way up her legs, creeping upward to help itself to the thing she was saving for her future husband. She tried to scream, slapped at it with her hands, leaped up in bed. She snatched up a hairbrush and struck again and again, but the pink worm seemed to be everywhere, writhing and soiling the sheets. So she shot upward, toward the ceiling, and fluttered there mothlike, seeking an escape.
    The spirit let out a roar with his tender tongue. He sprang into the room, filled with a jealous rage. He had hoped to lure her into the spirit world with him, he had brought her a crown of hemlock and mistletoe, a wedding veil of spiderwebs.
    Now he snatched at her as she bobbed just out of reach. She sought an exit but the window had disappeared, as if it were a wound that had healed; the door was gone and even the cracks between the floorboards had sealed themselves.