The Sleeper, The Singer - Part One

Part One of Two - Fantasy Short Fiction

Welcome, friends, to an unplanned short fiction experiment!

For this week’s piece of short fiction, I challenged myself to write something “Off-Island” (not related to Ferris Island in any way; though, as you'll see, still island-based—I have a type!) and this piece of fantasy popped out. And not only did it pop out, but it decided to be double the length that I expected! So!

Please enjoy Part One of what I am guessing will be a two-part fantasy short story. 

Click here for Part Two!

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Photo by Mark de Jong on Unsplash

The little oaken boat dipped and swayed as Pim pushed against the oars. She had tried, as much as she could, to stay close to the rocky cliffs of the island, looking for an obvious landing place. But the open ocean was not to be tamed, even so close to the land, and kept trying to drag her out and away, to dash her upon the reef of smaller, knife-like rocks she knew was lurking like a guardian fence around the island. 

These were things she had wished she could have asked the monks about, the ones who had agreed to bring her out to the archipelago on their ship steered only by God. But because she was a woman—and one who works with leaves and bones and emblems, at that—they would not speak to her. They were gracious, even kind, but busy in their twelve-times-daily prayers and ritual offerings of hair and beeswax upon the top deck. She might as well have been a ghost, haunting the ship.  

It had been a very lonely few weeks of voyaging, and there had been no answers to her questions. How will I find the Sleeper’s Island? How will I get to it? How will I land upon it? 

These certainties were not afforded to her, and this was agony. 

When the monks’ ship had reached the only habitable island in the archipelago and they left her there before heading on their way to further miracles, the island’s villagers—tough and windworn as lichen clinging to stone—showed her the rowboat she was to use, and pointed out the Sleeper’s Island among the others on the gray horizon, and wished her well. 

“When you return from what you must do,” they said, “you will find a homeward ship waiting for you.” 

But no one had warned her that it would be so difficult to find a place to land in the wind and mist and weather.  

Now, at the base of the Sleeper’s Island, she was so close to the end of her journey that she could almost weep with the sheer exhaustion of it. But the rocky island was bearded with cloud and the sea and stone were nearly inseparable from one another, and Pim grew more and more despairing that she would ever find a place to pull up the little boat, tossed like a toy on the tide. 

But just before she was about to turn back, to head for the village and try again another day, she saw it: a lighter sweep of shore, a pebbled beach nestled below the cliffs. 

By the Swan, by the Swan, there it is!

Pim adjusted her satchel over her shoulder—her things safely stowed inside—and rowed with renewed purpose, pushing hard so that her arms ached and her hands screamed raw. Slowly, slowly, the shore drew nearer, despite the effort of the ocean to pull and pull and pull her away. 

But the unseen rock, lurking under the water, was obscured by the boiling waves and a colony of barnacles and when the little boat struck it, it was at a speed and an angle that threw Pim instantly overboard. 

The shock of the cold and the heft of her satchel and thick winter woolens, layer upon layer, conspired against her, and Pim lurched fruitlessly toward the shore, but was dragged inevitably down, and down. 

The sight of land slipped from view, and all was dark. 

*******

When she woke, it was in a hearthside warmth that brought a shiver to her soul, remembering the cold of the salt-sea and how it had burned against her skin. 

Pim lay still for a time, slow in waking. She could feel a branch-built bed beneath her, cushioned with what smelled like heather. The stale echo of game that had been roasted the day before lingered in the air. She was no longer wearing her thick woolens, just her simple linen underclothes, but she was warm under a blanket of stitched animal pelts.

When she finally turned over to look around her, Pim found herself in a stone hovel, barely enough space for a man to stand up in, with a dirt floor and more hunted pelts hung along the walls to dry.  

There was, indeed, a peat fire along one side of the space, the smoke rising up through a hole in the stone roof, through which a scrap of gray sky was visible. In the middle of the room was a slab, a stone table, and upon it sat the strangest beast Pim had ever seen. 

It was a human-sized creature of all-over hair, thick ears and soft, dark eyes, and pawlike hands and feet with long fingers and toes. It wore rough trousers patched many times over but no shirt, and while its wide shoulders and hunched position gave it the overall impression of a badger sitting upright, it had the dexterity and concentration of a man as it toiled away at a task that Pim could not see, sitting cross-legged on the table. While the creature worked, it hummed softly to itself in a rich, lilting baritone. 

Pim stared, her heart beating hard under the blanket. She had heard tales of the Sleeper, of course, but in all of her imaginings of what this encounter would be like, she had expected him to be, well…asleep.

The beast turned to look at her, and Pim sat up involuntarily, pulling the pelt blanket around her like a shield. 

“I greet you, Sleeper,” she whispered, hoping the formality would not be lost on the creature. A sharpness in her throat told her that she had swallowed more seawater than she had first thought and she coughed, the pain of it burning up to the base of her ears.    

The creature did not return her greeting, but climbed down off of the stone table and approached on wide, cautious feet, presenting her with the task that had so occupied his attention: a rough wooden cup, freshly whittled with a sharpened piece of shale. 

With this creation in his paw, the creature left the hovel. He was only gone for a moment or two before returning, the cup now full of fresh spring water. 

Pim took the cup gratefully and drank, while the Sleeper sat back on his haunches and watched her, not unkindly, ear twitching as he waited, humming softly.

In the quiet, Pim looked around at the hovel, again. The place had been lived in for quite some time; evidence of long hours toiling at simple, homespun projects was everywhere. Wood and stone carved into tools and utensils, pelts turned into cloaks and clothing and tapestries and blankets. Small bones of rabbits and seabirds lashed together, and intricate designs etched into the walls. 

How long had the Sleeper been awake? And how was it possible? 

Beside the fire—looking remarkably out of place among the handmade tools and piles of furs—there was a large latched trunk, and Pim’s heart leaped when she saw the contents of her own satchel lying out to dry on top of the trunk, alongside her woolens: her books, her bag of emblems, some small trinkets, and her extra clothes.

She wondered if the Sleeper had seen the emblems, if he had understood why she was here. 

“Thank you,” she said to the creature as she handed him the emptied cup. “I am grateful for your help.”

The Sleeper watched her lips as she spoke, a strange curiosity in his gaze, like a child's. But he did not respond except to blink and move slightly closer, tugging the blanket upward, as if to insist that she lie back down and rest.

Pim had no argument. She nestled back down into the heather-bed, the low melodic humming of the creature in her ears, and she slept. 

******* 

When next she woke, the Sleeper was nowhere to be seen. 

Pim sat up and carefully slipped her feet into her boots, which were sitting beside the branch-built bed. She quickly re-braided her hair, just-greying at the edges as a mute witness to her sorrows and roughened with the seawater dried upon it, and coiled it up onto her head, out of her face. She stood on shaky legs, crossed to the fire, and was pleased to find her woolens mostly dried, stiff under her fingers; she must have been resting for longer than she thought. 

Pim quickly packed her satchel back together, pleased and amazed that her books had not been ruined and that the emblems were all in place, and put on her wool tunic. 

As she slipped her satchel over her shoulder, it occurred to her for the first time that she recognized this room. She had seen it in the books: this was certainly the Sleeper’s Tomb. But the creature had turned it into a home, humble as it was, using whatever he could find. The stone table upon which he was supposed to be sleeping his centuries-long sleep was cluttered with his work, craft half-finished, wood shavings spilling onto the floor.

How long have you been awake, Sleeper? she thought again, and the thought gave her no pleasure. The last worker to have traveled here to perform the emblems would have been two hundred years prior. Why had the emblems not held? 

Pim left the hovel, then, curving around the carved staircase up to the island’s rocky soil, and found herself in the dim light of a late wintery afternoon, the invisible sun setting behind a veil of cloud. This island had seemed a barren rock from a distance, and yet even here there were signs of life: patches of hardy, leaning trees peppered the hills, and meadows alive with bright peat-grown grass furred the peaks. 

Looking out over the darkening sea, Pim was struck by the stark vastness of it, so different from the noisy, crowded harbor city she was born and raised in. Seabirds reeled overhead in the wind, and the archipelago stretched out from her, the closest island miles away, the village on the largest island not even visible at this distance. All was open and quiet, save for the calling of the gulls.

There was just enough daylight for her to investigate the stone shrine at the head of the staircase, counting the emblems tucked into the beehive-like openings in the shingles. 

One emblem was missing, the rest of them aged with the marine air and crumbling to dust, ready to make room for new ones. Her task.

Pim cursed under her breath. She was not certain—perhaps things had changed in two hundred years—but if she was correct, the Sleeper may have been awake and alone on this island for just over a century. 

The idea chilled her deeper than the wind could reach.

What a fate, she thought. Even for an immortal being, strange as he was. And there was no way to solve the mystery of the missing emblem. The previous worker of emblems was certainly long dead.

Under the wind, Pim heard the sound of low humming, and she turned in time to see the Sleeper approaching, climbing up the winding stone stair from the beach. Over his furry shoulder he carried a brace of rabbits, swaying with his footsteps. In the waning daylight he was quite the fearsome sight, indeed, though his dark, badger-brock eyes never lost their inquisitive softness. 

When he saw her standing by the shrine, he paused. Then, he raised the brace of rabbits, as if to show her, one thick ear twitching with something like pride. 

Pim’s heart sank. If the Sleeper did not know why she was here, how was she ever going to explain? And how was she going to insist that he go back to sleep, now awakened, now building a life in this isolated place?

But it would not do to antagonize him, so she smiled graciously and let him lead her back down into the hovel, where he proceeded to stoke up the fire and clean and prepare the rabbits with well-practiced ease while she sat on the branch-bed and watched, glancing up occasionally from the pages of one of her books. And all the time he hummed away over his work. 

Sleeper no more, Pim thought, wryly. I should call you Singer, for all the noise you make.

But she was not unmoved by his voice, for it was lovely, and the constant melodic hum was like a natural extension of his tasks.   

Soon enough he was finished, and until the rabbits were spitted and roasting, filling the air with scent, Pim had not realized how hungry she was.

The Sleeper and the woman ate in companionable silence; indeed, it was the only time the creature’s song ceased, and Pim was grateful for the food. Afterward, the Sleeper took away the rabbit bones to bleach in the sun for his future use, then he came back into the hovel and perched himself, cross-legged, on the stone table.

Pim sighed and stood from the branch-bed. If she was going to do what she came to do, it would have to begin now. 

The creature watched her as she respectfully approached him, drawing the emblems out of her satchel. 

“Sleeper,” she said, “note these?”

She raised one of the emblems before him, so that he could see it clearly, and he took it carefully from her. Treating it with utmost gentleness he investigated it in his long-fingered paws, turning it this way and that, and then—with a guileless gaze—he handed it back to her. It meant nothing to him.  

“These are…this is…” Pim started, and could not find the words. “You are meant to be asleep. Here.”

She mimed laying her head down on her hands, patting the stone table. The Sleeper watched her, carefully. 

Pim held up the emblem again, pointed to herself, knowing it was futile before she even said the words. 

“This is my work,” she said. “This is my task. It’s what I was trained for. It’s for the good of the future. Someday, you’re going to save everyone. It is certain. But until then, you must sleep and await the day you’re called upon. You’re supposed to be…sleeping.”

Again, she noticed the creature watching her lips as she spoke. There was something in the innocence of the action that stirred a sadness in her, a buried grief that was soil-deep and dirt-black; little hands reaching for her un-grayed braids, little green eyes watching her lips as she sang sweet songs she no longer remembered. 

Her arms full. Her arms full. 

That had been a certain future, too. But no more. 

Pim dropped her hands, put the emblem away in the satchel. The Sleeper did not understand her, it was plain. But she could not leave this place until the work was done. 

She smiled into the gentle, dark eyes. 

“There will be a way,” Pim said. “And we have no choice but to find it. The future depends upon us.”

*******

A day passed, and then another. Pim walked the island’s meadows in the bare winter sunshine, watched the puffins and murres make their homes in the cliffs, and thought of her own harborside home far away, though it gave her little pleasure to do so. The silence in that far-away house was an empty thing, broken eggshells, as though the sound had all drained through a crack in the wall. For all her desire to fulfill her duty and leave this place, she did prefer this quiet to the one she was accustomed to. 

Singer—for she took to calling the creature Singer, despite it all, since he certainly never slept—was a gentle companion, solitary in his ways. He hunted and fished and gathered wild herbs for their suppers, and was a deft enough cook, though the food was simple. 

On the second day he took her down to the beach to show her that the rowboat had been fished out of the surf, largely unharmed, and he had repaired it for her and had fashioned a new oar out of driftwood. It was clear that he thought, perhaps, that she would want to leave, knowing that the boat was seaworthy.

He was bound to the place by emblems older than either of them. She was not.

When she did not leave, Singer betrayed no change in his demeanor, but his music seemed to take on a savor unique to his awareness of an audience, his songs sheering sweetly off the hillsides of the island. 

What Pim could not explain was that she had to stay, because her task was undone.

On the third day, when Pim was certain that Singer would be away fishing for a long stretch—as fishing always took the longest of any of his tasks—Pim could no longer avoid her curiosity, and she turned her attention to the trunk beside the fire.

She kneeled before the trunk and could feel the emblems burned into the lid before she even touched it. Powerful work, not something done by a novice. This was meant, she assumed, to keep the contents of the trunk from aging.

It was latched, but not locked, and so she opened it quickly, its hinges squealing with lack of use. 

Pim stared, unsure of what she expected to find. It was not this.

Inside the trunk was a collection of things, neatly packed as though for a journey: some folded clothes, old-fashioned and practical but finely-embroidered and clean, a stack of old books, a small mirror and comb, a quill and stoppered bottle of ink.

The only thing out of place was a pile of disheveled loose letter-papers, scrawled with panicked handwriting, thrown into the trunk without care. 

While some pages had long paragraphs of text, like screeds written in a state of madness, some others made Pim’s blood run cold: single lines of smudged words, scribbled and blotted, an ineffectual shout into the void.

I am awake. Awake. Awake. Awake. Where is everyone?

Alone alone ALONE alone alone

I was promised a prophet! Here I am…

I am forgetting. I am forgetting. I am changing. I am forgetting. 

CANNOT RETURN TO SLEEP

With these words, the landscape of what the last century had been like began to clarify, play out in Pim’s imagination.

Whether through carelessness or malice the emblems had failed. The Sleeper had awakened in his tomb and, finding no one there to guide him, had slowly forgotten himself. Whatever animal had been sleeping within him—for no one knew exactly what the Sleeper was anymore, or where he came from—had risen to the forefront, leaving what humanity he had once had behind. 

As Pim tidied the papers back into the trunk and closed it once more, the latch clicking sharply in the quiet hovel, a new idea rose into her mind, unshiftable, and would not leave her: if the Sleeper had once spoken, had once read and written words, had once worn clothes like a man and behaved like a man, he could do so again. 

Pim sat beside the trunk for a long time, considering. There were many things that she felt she had left undone, ghosts of the past clinging to her boots like trailing vines, crowds of empty eyes staring at her in her dreams, whispers following her on the wind. There was no offering of hair and beeswax she could make for any god to draw near. This task, this work, was supposed to be her saving grace, a way to take what she had lost and turn it to good, to legacy. Finally, and forever.

If she could bring the Sleeper back to himself, could finally explain to him her reason for being here, then she could finish her task, send him back into his sleep for the good of the prophesied future, and leave this place, as she was meant to. 

Of all this, Pim decided that she was certain. And certainty was better, sweeter than any song.

Thank you for reading!

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