_ASTER’S STORY._
Once more Eva and Aster, hand in hand, wandered, as they both had
feared they would never again be allowed to do, through the forest,
by the light of the fair young moon, which looked down upon them from
the sky. And nothing came now to disturb them; no hideous faces mocked
at them from behind shrub or tree; no hostile beings, in shape of
spider or of frog, strove to take Aster from his young guardian. Nor
were they limited, as before, to the narrow path which had previously
confined their steps; but they might wander, unmolested, as their
fancy led them, through the forest. Shadows still surrounded them,
yet these shadows were fair and lovely to look upon: groups of sweet
child-figures at play, or fair faces which smiled on the two as they
passed.
Flowers, too, more brilliant and beautiful in hue than any they had yet
found, bloomed wherever they looked. Not the pale, scentless blossoms
they had seen before, but flowers which greeted them with rich perfume,
and whose bells and chalice-like cups, touched lightly by the dress of
the children as they passed, rang forth in bright and joyous melody.
In the bells of the flowers sat and swung tiny and beautiful shapes,
which Aster told Eva were the Flower Fairies, the gentlest of the race,
whose sole duty was to carry perfume to, and color the flowers. Some
bathed in the dewdrops on the leaves, others rode, seated on beautiful
butterflies, but all seemed gay and happy.
The light shed by the growing crescent of the moon seemed brighter;
the soft music which hailed her coming more joyous and triumphant; the
clouds, reflecting the moon’s light, wore a rich, rosy tint, reminding
Eva of the light in the Valley of Rest; the grass was green, and soft
as velvet,--the little sparkling brooks which they occasionally
crossed all sung the same song:
When will Eva’s task be done?
When will Aster’s flow’r be won?
When his robes from stains are free,--
When the moon’s orb round shall be,--
Then the trial will be done,
Then shall Aster’s flow’r be won.
For a few days, however, Eva noticed that Aster seemed dull and
spiritless. He scarcely ever spoke, but walked quietly by her side.
Nothing seemed to attract his attention, nothing made him smile; but
every now and then, when they would cross one of the little brooks, and
it would sing its song, he would look down upon his dress, and say,
sadly:
“It will never be bright again!”
Yet Eva noticed that he was careful never to trample on the flowers,
or to hurt anything in their path. And as, day after day, the moon
brightened and broadened, and Aster grew with her increase, Eva saw
that the sad, mournful expression in his eyes vanished, and they
regained their former starlike brilliancy. By slow degrees the spots
and the stains upon his dress disappeared; and, as they faded away,
Aster became once more his own playful and happy self. Never before had
he been as gentle or as docile and affectionate as he now was, though
he was very silent; and Eva thought, could he only be always as he was
now she would be content never to leave him; and she began to think,
almost with dread, of their approaching separation.
On and on they went, till they came to a place where a tiny spring,
bright as a living diamond, gushed up joyously, singing to itself for
very gladness. Soft green mosses and pure white flowers grew around it;
and when Aster saw it, he sprang forward with a joyous cry, and seating
himself near it, he beckoned to Eva to follow his example.
Then, for the first time since the two had been together, for he had
never before mentioned the past, so that Eva almost thought he had
forgotten it, Aster asked her to tell him how she ever had found him
again.
And once more Eva told the story,--this time to an interested
listener,--how, after she missed him, she had sought him, but in vain,
among the marked holes, and, seeking him, had climbed the rock to the
door of the Valley of Rest; how she had been admitted, and had dwelt
among the Happy Children till, the day of their absence, the little
brook had brought her the piteous cry, “Eva! Eva! help me!” How this
cry had recalled all she had forgotten, how the Dawn Fairies had given
her the magic boat, in which she had gone through the cavern and down
the Brook of Mists,--and then, leaving the boat, had gone, all alone,
up the Enchanted River to the grotto of the Toad-Woman behind the
Cascade of Rocks; how the woman had advised her, and how she had served
the Green Frog; what the moth, the mouse, and the bird had done for
her; how the skin covering the little green bird had been torn; and
how, after the Frog was carried away by the friendly Fish Fairies, she
had known that the worst was over, and the search nearly done.
Aster listened, and when Eva paused, he began; and it seemed to her
that, as he told his story, he spoke as he had never before spoken,--as
if he was older, and more matured.
“I can tell you now,” he said, “now that it is all nearly over, who
THEY were of whom you used to wonder that I spoke. The Green Frog and
her servants were the visible forms of THEY to whom my punishment was
committed. Yet, had I obeyed you,--which was part of my trial,--you,
under whose care my friends, who advised you in the shape of the toad
and the Toad-Woman, were allowed to place me, but little of this
trouble would have come upon me. If I failed in obedience to you,--such
was the condition,--if THEY gained the slightest hold upon me,--I must
fall wholly into their power, and then only, if you really wished it,
could your Love have power to overcome their Hate. And you know, Eva,
how I fell into their hands.”
“Yes, I know,” Eva said; “but I do not yet see why you crept into the
crevice in the rock.”
“How could I help it?” Aster asked. “After all I had done, and all that
had happened before! Because what must be, will be, and THEY made me.”
“And then, after you went into the rock?” Eva asked, eagerly.
“Remember, I know nothing of that.”
Then Aster told her how, in the crevice of the rock, he had found that
the Green Frog lay in wait for him. How she and her servants had taken
him, bound and tied with the same spider’s web from which Eva had, once
before, in the forest, released him, to her hut in the field of mud.
And how, when there, he had to lie in the mud, as a footstool for the
Frog,--and that every night she made him stand before her, and would
laugh at him, and ask him why Eva and his friends did not come to help
him.
“I was too proud,” Aster said, “and too angry, to call for you. I
thought I should, by myself, be able to escape. I tried, but the power
of THEY who kept me was too great for me, and I never once succeeded
even in passing the strange fence around the hut.
“But all the time, Eva, I knew--and it was part of my punishment--that
an appeal to you could be heard, and that you would come to help me.
But that I--I, a prince,--powerful at home, and only weak now because I
had lost such a trifling thing as a flower, should be compelled to ask
help of one who was able to help me only because she was gentler and
kinder than I was,--I could not do it. Meantime, the Green Frog laughed
at my efforts to escape. Yet, do what she would to me, I never called
for you. She might hang me up in the spider’s web,--she might threaten
to crush me,--I was silent.
“At last I could stand it no longer, I must help to carry heavy stones,
and when their weight nearly crushed me,--for though only shadows to
you, they were realities to me,--I would have rested, the spider would
sting me and scorch me with his poisonous breath,--the jackdaw peck
me,--and the Green Frog would threaten to swallow me, and tell me that
now you never would come to me, for the Dawn Fairies had made you
forget me. And not till then, when they told me you had forgotten me,
did I speak; and the only words that I said were these, ‘Eva! Eva! help
me!’”
“Yes,” Eva said, “those are the same words that the brook brought me.”
And then she told Aster about her dream: how the faces had asked why he
lost his flower; and the frog had spoken of his coat; and the spider
asked why he crept into the rock; and how, between it all, had come
the wailing cry of “Eva! Eva! help me!”
Then, too, Aster told her how they had spoken of what she must do, and
that they thought she never would do it, or know what was to be done.
And then he went on:
“But at last the Green Frog grew angry, when she found that, no matter
what she said or did, I only answered, ‘Eva! Eva! help me!’ For then,
making her servants strip off my coat, she touched me with a stick, and
said to me:
“‘You shall never let Eva hear you. I will silence you.’
“And, as she spoke, I was changed all at once into the little green
bird in whose shape you found me. And then the Frog, putting me in a
cage, said:
“‘You can never get out till your friend gets the piece of your coat,
the coat itself, and then finds you. If she does these things, you may
be free; but these things she cannot do unless others help her; and not
till after all these things are done can she hope to find your flower
again.’
“The rest, Eva, you know.”
As Aster spoke, Eva looked at him. And she saw that, on the rich, green
velvet of his dress, only a few tiny spots and stains were left; and
then she began to wonder what would happen when the moon would again be
full, and the flower they had sought so long should bloom and be found.
Would Aster then return to his home? and, as for herself, what would
become of her?
But she did not wonder long, for the soft music which attended the
disappearance of the moon thrilled through the forest, and Eva and
Aster, by the side of the spring, lay down and slept. And, once more,
as on the first night that Eva, holding the tiny form of Aster to her
heart, had slept on the mossy bed where once the golden fountain had
played, the two fair white forms bent over the sleeping children, and
one said:
“The punishment is over.”
“Yes,” was the other’s reply, “Love has overcome Hate, and Aster has
been led back, through its gentle influences, to his true self once
more.”
Yet, even as they spoke, two figures, with the hateful faces Eva had
seen, crept slowly up through the darkness to where the children lay.
But the white forms, hovering over their sleep, spoke:
“Go back, oh, evil fairies! to the dark shadows among which ye dwell!
Here your power is over, and our Prince is a prince once more.”
And, with a low cry of disappointment and rage, the two, turning away
from the bright forms, shrank into the darkness, and were seen no more.
Then, with a smile on their beautiful faces, the two bright forms bent
caressingly over the sleepers; and a moment later they, too, were gone,
and Eva and Aster were alone.
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