Chapter 1

In a patched house, under a thatched roof, a lopsided chimney blew grey smoke against the midnight-blue sky dusted with glimmering, glinting stars. Two small windows flickered gold. A wonky door hung on its rusty hinges, unable to stop the icy draft sneaking in, threatening the small fire burning in the odd hearth. Occasionally, a flurry of excitement and muffled voices snuck out of the abode like whispers into the silent night.

Here lived a small family the others called the "Silvertongues". No one knew their real name, nor where they came from, or even how long they'd lived there, in that tiny house, on that tiny road that went nowhere just beyond their village—forever a gaudy eyesore.

One day, it was an overgrown field, littered with nothing but weeds. Nothing special. Nothing worthy. Then the next, the earth burst forth with a clap of loud thunder and a rumble that shook the beds, chairs, or the ground beneath drowsy villagers, lulled to sleep by something strange in the air at the stroke of midnight.

In the light of the next day, there it was as if it had always been, and always shall be—in its perpetual state of crumble—the Silvertongues' distinct round cottage no villagers ever remembered being without. Over many seasons and many moons, many deaths and many blooms, the truth was simply forgotten—that this strange house, with its strange facade, and its strange clay wall had magically appeared one night and with it, brought the family with their stranger, yet wondrous talent. The gift of the tale. For no one spun a tale as well as they. The Silver-tongues.

Their house resembled a small, round cottage. A cottage with no rooms and no privy, not even a place to call a kitchen, nor offer any privacy.

The Silvertongues were a poor family, as poor as they come. Their house leaked in the rain and fumed in the heat. Their bodies shivered with chills in winter, and the yellow flowers of a most despised weed pushed through their clay and cow-dung patched walls on the outskirts of a small village named Elsevier. But they needed very little.

These wordsmiths cared only for three things in their lives: family, enough food to fill their belly one time a day, and their long-standing family business of telling tales. They were the story weavers and the storytellers. The finest this world had seen—some so good they could speak things into existence with carefully chosen words. A few villagers said angels resided on their tongues, speaking beautiful things through them. Some murmured, "it's a gift bestowed upon them by fairies and magic". Others still called them frauds or witches and shunned them; others spat things too mean to mention. And some even looked upon them with nothing but pity, tossing them bread, burnt, or soured milk in the name of charity.

All except one. A girl named Nessa.

A ten-year-old child once abandoned at the Silver-tongue's door when she was all but two years and one week. A scrawny child then, and a scrawny child now. Scraggy, with pocked and freckled cheeks; dark eyes surrounded by darker circles; and an unevenly cut fringe that fell across her small forehead in a zigzag.

She called the Silver-tongues "family" for they were the only family she'd ever known, strange and wondrous as they were. She did not remember the ones who brought her into this world, nor did she care to go look for them. They weren't her family.

And it was Nessa dashing as fast as she could to the other side of the fire by the hearth now, as their eighty-four-year-old, hunch-backed, and nearly toothless granny shuffled along the floor to her old rocking chair, in service of their nightly ritual.

Nessa dropped herself on one of the floor cushions fashioned out of recycled garments the villagers had thrown away in their garbage just as Granny reached her chair, clapping her knotty hands together to signal to the smaller kids, of which there were three, and to the bigger kids, of which there were also three. "Gather round, my darlings. It is time."

"What are you gonna tell us tonight, Granny?" the youngest Silver-tongue, Mawsie—for how mousey he looked—at six-and-a-half-years, dropped himself on the cushion next to Nessa and wove his arm through hers, jittering with excitement. "Oh, tell us the one about the tin man!"

"No. Tell us the one about the princess made of ice! I like that one," Vanylla—named for their mother's favourite flavour—a sister of eight, chimed in, licking her batter-covered finger as she walked over to the basin to rinse them off. Their mother, a woman who aged as slow as wine, Mrs Silvertongue—though her name was Rita—was baking a vanilla pound cake to celebrate Nessa's tenth birthday. The children had been fed—soup of carrots and celery with some bread for dinner. And now that the older children, Attin of fourteen, Ursa of sixteen, and an almost-eighteen-year-old Amer, helped clean up the kitchen, Mrs Silvertongue's mother was doing what she did most nights while her daughter, the children's mother baked the cake.

She was going to tell a story.

But not just any story. She could tell you a story so grand one would see wisps of air forming shapes before their eyes, their very own private vaudeville. The figures would dance and creatures would snarl their teeth or bat their wings. The people would rejoice or battle magnificent beasts, almost alive—flickering in the fiery light.

Granny slowly rocked on her chair, her eyes dancing with flames. "I don't know, children. I told you the ice princess story just the other day. Besides, it's Nessa's birthday. Shouldn't she get to choose?"

Nessa, a child who wanted very little in life other than to laugh with her brothers and sisters, feel her mother's warm arms wrap around herself, and her father's safe paw upon her head—blessing her every night before he left to do his job as a night keeper for the village—didn't care what story Granny told. If Mawsie would be happy with the ice princess or the tin man story, she couldn't say no. "It's okay, Granny. Mawsie can choose a story tonight."

"Oh, Granny, what about the boy who can grow and shrink?" Mawsie jumped beside Nessa, pulling her arm excitedly. "Nessie liked that one, and so do I."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Granny's lips. "Yes, but today is not your birthday, little one, it's Nessa's. And it's tradition."

"I really don't mind, Granny," Nessa said, coughing a cough that sounded painful. "I can't think of any as it is."

Granny's smile faltered and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, watching Nessa cough some more. "That's not sounding good, my dear. Not sounding good at all."

"Can you tell us something new then, grandmother?" Vanylla, cleaned and unoccupied, came to join her siblings.

"Something new?" That old fire lit up in the aged eyes.

"We haven't had a new story from you in ages, Granny," Attin said, drying out dishes as Ursa rinsed them.

"You know how your father feels about making up new stories, Attin," their mother, quiet until now, looked up alarmed from the wood stove oven where she was checking on the cake—an oven that was also a heating furnace for the cottage. A furnace that had the oddest chimney, round and wonky, like a tornado made of bricks and mortar, or a twisted witch's hat, curving up to form a chimney right at the center of the conical roof.

"But mama—" said Ursa, interrupted by hacking coughs from Nessa—the poor thing had had bad lungs since she was a wee child. "Please." Ursa's gaze fleeted to Nessa briefly, before returning to their mother, speaking words she didn't need to. Words the young ones couldn't and perhaps shouldn't hear.

"No!" Mama held her ground, returning to wiping down the wooden bench top Amer had made her for her last birthday. "No new stories."

"Perhaps one wouldn't hurt, my dear," Granny said, watching her daughter expectantly.

"Mother—"

Nessa's coughs sounded again, deep and chesty. Mawsie jumped with fright, and Vanylla ran to fetch a pitcher of water.

In that kerfuffle, none saw the quiet Amer lean into their mother, whispering, "She doesn't have much time, mama. Let her."

At that moment, Mrs Silvertongue paled a little, eyeing Nessa, tended to by her younger siblings. Ursa too gave another pleading look, holding her sud-covered hands together—as if the two older Silvertongue children knew a secret the others did not.

When a particularly nasty cough echoed in the room, Rita warmed a kitchen towel against the oven and took it to Nessa to soothe her chest. That is when she said, "Fine, mother. Tell them a new story, but one you've already made up but they haven't heard of."

Granny sat up straighter in interest. "Which did you have in mind?"

"You know the one..." Rita Silvertongue stared at the top of Nessa's dark head, and sighed, taking the child deeper into her embrace.

"What is it called, mama?" Mawsie pawed at his mother till she pulled him into her arms too. Vanylla pulled her feet below her skirt and rocked with a smile. Attin's interest piqued for once—it had been a while. Bedtime stories were for children. He'd rather make his own. In fact, he'd been trying, not that anyone knew except Nessa. He wouldn't tell them unless he could weave. He had managed a wispy cloud the other day... but what good was a cloud next to Granny's immeasurable ability to breathe a story to life? On the other side of the hearth, Ursa and Amer exchanged worried glances—she might have even fought not to cry.

And Nessa? She simply looked up at Granny with her generous eyes as her mother soothed her back, and smiled. "Tell us, granny," she would have said if her throat wasn't dry and the moment she uttered a word, would have caused another coughing fit.

"Very well." Granny glumly turned to the fire. "Once upon a time..."

(Continue reading on ...)

(Wattys 2022 Shortlister, MG/YA Fantasy inspired by Hindu legends.)

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