“I look like a toad?” he asked.
“No! You look nothing like a toad.”
“I did not think so. I have held one in my hands. They are slippery . . . and quite unpleasant.”
“I’ve always liked toads,” Ghisla said meekly, trying to fix her blunder.
“Did you compose it for me?” he asked. “Just now?” Hod’s voice did not sound wounded. Only curious.
“No. It is a silly song my brother used to sing. Gilly was always crafting songs about funny things. Regular things.”
“Surely he did not know a boy named Hod.”
“No,” she said. She sang the song the way Gilly had sung it, using the original words.
I’ll sing you a sad little ode,
About a sightless toad,
He croaked and he hopped
To escape the pot,
And ended up squished on the road.
“That is a sad little ode,” Hod said, smiling. “Sing me another. Sing me the one you sang in the sea.”
“I sang many songs in the sea,” she whispered. He had circled back to his original question.
“Why?”
“I wanted my family to hear me. I wanted Father Odin to hear me . . . and let me join them.”
“You sang his name . . . Odin’s name. I heard it. It is a song the keepers in the temple sing.”
“Father Odin, are you watching?” she sang, knowing what song he spoke of. He nodded, eager, and she continued. “Father Odin, are you watching? Do you see me down below? Will you take me to the mountain, where the brave and glorious go?”
“That’s the one. Sing it again,” he whispered.
She did, adding in verses, supplicating Odin. She did not fear death, so she knew death would not come. Fear was like that. Fear called out to fate, and fate always answered.
When she was finished, her song still echoing through the cave, she looked at Hod. He had closed his strange eyes and his back was rigid.
“Hod?” she asked, startled. She reached out and grasped his hand. “It is a death song. I should not have sung it,” she apologized. “Mayhaps you believe in such things. I did not mean to frighten you.”
His hand curled around hers. “I was not afraid . . . but I could see the mountain. Your voice paints pictures in my mind. I thought your voice was a gift from Odin himself and listened all night in the storm. I could hear you. But I did not see pictures. I did not see . . . colors. It’s . . . wonderful.”
“My voice paints pictures?” she gasped. She had never heard such a thing. But . . . she had never sung to a blind man before.
“Will you sing more?” he asked, still holding her hand.
She sang him the song of the harvest—the gold of the apples, the red of the wine, the blue of the sky, and the leaping orange of the flames they danced around. As she sang, Hod’s hand grew tighter and the other joined it, until he was gripping her arm like he was afraid she’d escape . . . or leave him behind. His face was suffused with wonder, and the firelight glowed in his cloudy eyes.
“I did not know what they were called. The colors . . . I see them in my mind . . . but I did not know what they were called. Will you sing it again so I can see them?”
How could she refuse him? She sang it from the beginning.
“The gold of the apple,” he marveled. “That is gold? What else is gold?”
She thought about that. “My hair is gold.”
He touched it, rubbing a strand between his fingers, his brow furrowed in concentration, like he was memorizing it.
“And your eyes?” he asked.
“Blue. Like the sky in the song.”
“Blue like the sky,” he repeated. “Blue . . . is a glorious color.”
“Yes. It is. Sometimes the sea is the same blue as the sky. But it changes its color. Sometimes it is green with white mist . . . like your eyes.”
“My eyes are like the sea?”
“Yes. They are like no eyes I’ve ever seen before.”
“Do you know a song about the sea?” he asked, hopeful. “I should like to see it.”
She thought, and it came to her easily, the melody that rolled like the waves and reflected the grays of the sky and the purple of the mountains. Throughout, Hod sat, facing her, his legs crossed and his body still, turned to stone. Everything was frozen but his hands. She did not tell him to loosen his hold. His grip was a distraction from the agony of the songs. His wonder distracted her too.
“Please don’t stop,” he begged when she slowed, and she sang herself raw like she’d done on the sea. If she could not sleep, she might as well sing.
Hours later, she crawled onto the nest he’d built for her and left him sitting by the fire, his legs crossed and his appetite—at least for now—sated. She’d sung him every song she’d been able to conjure.
“Good night, Hod,” she whispered, but he said nothing in return. It was almost as though he hadn’t heard her at all.
When the sun rose, it lit the cave from the entrance to the first curve for several minutes before the angle changed and the light retreated once more. It was enough to rouse her for good. She groaned, unable to ignore her thirst and her discomfort any longer. She was sore, achy, as though instead of being tossed on the sea she’d swum to shore. She could see the prints of Hod’s fingers on her skin. He must have bruised her while she sang to him. The marks were a deep purple like the circles beneath his eyes, and he was in the same position he’d been in when she’d retired the night before.
“Did you not sleep?” she said blearily, sitting up from her circle of stones. He shifted and shuddered, but he heard her this time.
“No. My head was filled with new things.”
He didn’t ask her to sing or reach for her arm again, but his hands trembled like he wanted to. He forgot his staff when they left the cave and stumbled like he was suddenly afraid. He’d been as sure footed as she the day before—more sure footed than she. He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he turned back to the cave, retrieved his stick, and walked beside her to the creek.
“You said your hair is gold and your eyes are blue. I know you are small and that you’ve been ill—your bones are frail and your skin is soft. You are bristly, like a rose, petals and prickles with a very distinct . . . scent.”
“It is not kind to tell someone they smell.” She was teasing him. He’d been nothing but kind.
“Is it kind to call someone a sightless toad?” he asked, tone mild. “I did not say you smelled bad . . . not anymore. I said you had a distinct scent.”
“What does that mean?”
“Every living thing has its own fragrance, some more marked than others, but a scent is impossible to hide. I am not around people often enough to identify regions, though I suppose I could do that based on my knowledge of the flora and fauna from whence they came. I have been to all the lands of the clans—Berne, Leok, Adyar, Ebba, Joran, and even Dolphys—though I have been to Adyar and Leok most. They are closest. Each land and each people have a scent, and the scents merge from border to border, some notes fading, some strengthening.”
“What do I smell like?”
“You smell of grain and grass and berry juice, though those smells are hidden beneath that moldering rag.”