_WHAT ASTER DID._
The farther the progress which the children made into the forest,
the wilder and more singular became the country through which they
passed. Shadows cast by no visible forms went before them in the
path,--shadows which shook, moved, and trembled; which seemed as if
they might all at once become real forms; shadows which had something
dreadful about them, so that Eva was glad they were always in advance
of her, and that her foot never had to touch the ground on which they
lay. The color of the moon’s light was changed. She shone with a pale
greenish lustre. No green plants, no beautiful flowers, grew in the
stony, rocky soil through which their path now lay. It produced things
like sticks full of thorns. Under the stones lay hidden long, slender
lizards, or coiled-up serpents with forked and fiery-red tongues;
things like dry twigs, which would suddenly display many legs and run
away. Slow-crawling, hairy caterpillars, and round, fat, slimy worms,
lay everywhere. Things like insects, which yet had no life, grew,
instead of flowers, on the thorny sticks which stood among the stones.
One of these things, in shape like a dragon-fly, Aster picked; but he
immediately dropped it, and said that it had stung him; and from that
time Eva thought that he became more and more perverse, and that he
was every day less like the gentle, affectionate boy she had been so
glad to receive as a companion. She saw, too, that, while her own dress
retained its spotless whiteness which nothing seemed to affect, his
became every day more and more soiled and stained.
She missed, too, the low, sweet songs which had been sung by the
flowers. To be sure, she had not always been able to distinguish their
words; but they had been friendly, and had warned her of every danger
before it came; but this was all over. Every night, as soon as the
moon was gone, creatures like bats, with shining heads, came in great
numbers, flying around, and moaning in a sad, mournful way which was
most pitiful to hear.
As the moon neared the full, stranger shadows and shapes came near.
Yet the two went on, following the path, though Eva sometimes imagined
that the inhabitants of this strange country were opposed to their
passing through it. The music which had been always heard at the
rising and setting of the moon grew fainter and fainter, till at last
her ascent and fall came in perfect silence. Then the strange shadows
disappeared, but the path led through a stonier and more rocky country,
where all was wild and barren, and where, after the moon was gone,
little, dancing flames played on the stones. Sometimes it was hard,
indeed almost impossible, for the two children to climb over the rough
places in their path; and Aster was very often discouraged; but Eva
persevered, for she felt that the flower they sought could never be
found in this barren and dreary land.
I have said that Aster became every day more obstinate and perverse.
Sometimes Eva thought that the strange flower, like a dragon-fly, which
he had picked, and which he said stung him, had changed him, and that
was the reason why he tried to annoy her in every possible way. He knew
how uneasy she was when he was not with her; yet, knowing this, it was
his greatest delight to hide himself behind some large stone, and after
she had looked for him for a long time without finding him, afraid that
his enemies had carried him off, he would jump out upon her with a loud
mocking cry; he would pull her hair, he would try to soil her white
dress, by throwing mud and dirt upon it, to make it, as he said, like
his own, which was all stained and soiled, and then, when he found that
he could not discolor its whiteness, he would throw himself down on the
ground, and kick and scream, and tell Eva that he hated her, and that
he wished THEY would come and carry her away.
One day, when Aster had been worse than ever, and the way had been
stonier and harder than it had ever been before, Eva began to think
that it was of no use to go on, or to look for the flower lost so
long ago by the imp-like boy, whose powers of annoying her seemed to
increase as he grew smaller with the moon. She sat down upon one of
the rough stones, and great tears gathered in her eyes. And as, one by
one, they rolled down her cheeks and fell to the ground, everything
around her seemed to grow vague and dim; and at her feet, just where
the tear-drops fell, there came a bed of round green leaves, under
whose shelter bloomed and nodded a multitude of tiny purple flowers;
violets, whose sweet fragrance, rising, made a misty cloud, through
which Eva caught faint glimpses of a pond, and a house near it, and
then the house seemed to change into a cosy parlor. And by the window
of this parlor a lady was sitting sewing, and rocking a cradle with
her foot, and singing to a baby boy who was kicking and crowing in the
cradle; and then the child heard her mother’s voice calling, softly,
“Eva, Eva!” But before these memories came fully back, Aster came up,
and angrily crushed and trampled the sweet violets under his feet; and
as he did so the cloud and its pictures disappeared, and Eva forgot
them; only she was very sorry for the dear little flowers that Aster
had killed.
Poor little flowers, which tried to do her good! For it seemed to her
that with their last breath of perfume there came a low voice, which
whispered. “Beware of the stones,”--and that was all. And then she
asked Aster why he had destroyed the harmless flowers, which had only
come to warn them.
“They only came to do me harm,” Aster said, angrily. “They would have
taken you away from me, and I should never have seen you again. You
shall not go away from me yet, for I can never get home without you;
after I have done with you, why, then you may go.”
“Where?” Eva asked, pained at this selfish speech.
“Into what is to be,--out of Shadow-Land into what is to come, but is
not yet.”
“I do not understand you.”
“You will know when the time comes. I crushed the flowers because they
were part of what is to come; they had no right here.”
Nothing more was said; but Aster seemed restless and uneasy until they
left the place where the violets had bloomed. Yet nothing disturbed
them, and on they went, till Eva began to wonder where the stones
could be of which the voice had said, “Beware!”
At last, when there was only a tiny crescent of the moon, like a faint
silver line, floating in the sky, and Aster’s figure, like it, was
once more reduced to its smallest dimensions, the forest through which
they had wandered for so long ended; and as they passed from it, a low
cry of surprise from Aster made Eva look down, as she saw that his
eyes were fixed upon the earth; and then she saw with equal surprise
that, while she walked along the rough, stony path without leaving any
impression, every step that Aster took left a deep, plain track, and
that in each of these tracks there was either a frog or a spider, which
would disappear while she looked at them.
Then a sudden turn in the path brought them to a place where a huge
pile of rocks, like an immense stone wall built by giants, rose up
before them. A faint breath of violets seemed to come, and then pass
away, and as it did, Eva knew that these were the stones of which she
had been warned.
At that very moment there was a flash of light, and a star fell from
the sky, near the moon.
“A falling star, how pretty it is!” Eva said, as she watched the bright
thing, which seemed to fall behind the stone wall. “Did you see it,
Aster?”
“You don’t know anything, Eva,” was his reply. “I told you once before
that everything which was lost in the moon fell into Shadow-Land, and
that was something bright which fell just now.”
But this had nothing to do with the wall, which must be climbed. How,
Eva did not know. She was almost afraid to try it; and so she stood,
looking at it, when Aster, who, ever since he had crushed the violets,
had followed her in silence, except when he had spoken of the shooting
star, with his eyes bent on the ground, suddenly ran forward to the
wall, and began to look eagerly into every crevice between the stones.
“What are you looking for?” Eva asked him. “Come back to me, Aster; it
is not safe for you there without me.”
“I will look,” Aster said. “The bright thing you called a star was my
flower. It is here, and I am going to find it.”
“Don’t!” Eva said, imploringly, as the boy tried to creep into one of
the crevices between the stones. “Remember Aster, that the moon is
nearly gone, and if she should disappear, you will go to sleep, and
then you will have to stay in there until she returns.”
“I don’t care!” Aster said, crossly, “If, as I know I shall, I find my
flower in here, the moon will have no more power over me, for I shall
then be myself; and you may go on alone into what will come. Besides,
the piece which was torn off my coat is in there, and I am going to get
it. If I do go to sleep, I can lie down in here, and rest; you can mark
the place and wait for me, if you choose. I don’t intend to obey you
any longer; you are nothing but a little girl, and I am a prince.”
Eva’s hand was on Aster’s shoulders and when he found she would not
remove it, he raised his own, and struck her. Not till then did the
child unwillingly release him, seeing that all her efforts to detain
him would be in vain. Then, without saying another word, Aster crept
slowly into the crevice. And Eva, picking up a white stone which lay
at her feet; made a mark over the place with it. As she did this, the
faint silver light of the moon faded from the sky; there was a loud
croaking as of frogs, and then she heard the shrill cry of the spider
which had spun the web around Aster; and then it grew very dark, and a
sudden drowsiness came over her, which she could not resist; and, lying
down upon a stone under the crevice into which Aster had crept, Eva
fell asleep.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]