Story) Amryn and the Nightingale . . .

A further picture book story from my new series:
THE STORYSPINNERS OF EVERLAND . . . 


                  Amryn and the Nightingale

              The Magic Where You Are

TIME WAS, WHEN the World was young and angels walked the earth, that there was a drought in the Land of Ever and Ever. Not so much a drought from a lack of rain, but a drought from a lack of hearing. The World had forgotten how to listen. People forgot that all things could ‘speak’ and tell them about the inside things of them, to help them where it was most needed and to make them happy and they no longer listened. So, a desert had appeared where once, were green meadows and flowing streams. It came to be called, the Looking-Glass Desert; for it would shine like a mirror under the hot sun. Much could be seen and heard in it; if, that is, there were any left who could still hear . . .

   Early one evening, a young boy could be seen, sitting on a rock, looking out over the Desert. Wherever he looked, everything was dry and empty. There were no watered places. No green living things, anywhere. The boy looked out and out. And the more he looked, the more he knew that what he saw all around him was just   . . . empty space . . . in an empty place. It was like a land waiting for something to happen; waiting something to fill it. It was yearning. It was the Wuthering Waste waiting for something to bring it life. It was thirsty.

   As the setting sun sank below the horizon a small brown bird flew by, near him. Amryn glanced up. He watched it circle above him. The little bird was singing as she flew round and round him. Soon she alighted upon the rock beside him and sang her sweetest song. As she sang, the boy listened, and her melody melted his heart. It came trickling through, like a stream running, and woke something in him. The little Night-Singer flew up again. It seemed to him that she bid him to follow her. So he rose from the rock and hurried after her. He followed her, a long way.

   After awhile she flew too far ahead for him, and she darted down, out of sight, behind a dry and dead-looking thorn bush. Tired and despondent, the boy sat down. Why was he following her, anyway, he wondered. He closed his eyes. Why had she wanted him to follow her, if she was only going to leave him here, where the Land was dryer than ever?

   All at once she was beside him again. She flew on to his knee and sang to him, once more. This time, her song was so sweet a light broke inside his heart, like a star shining. And at last he saw what she had wanted him to see; that the Looking-Glass Desert was not just all around him, but inside him, too, telling his own story, inside himself. Now he could hear her talking to him in the language no ear can hear, nor tongue, speak. 'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;' sang the Nightingale, joyfully; and she flew up into the air upon her bright wings of hope. 'In the wilderness... waters shall break out... and streams in the desert;' he heard, faintly, as she flew away.  

   The boy considered her words; and said: ‘Oh, but if that should happen there would have to be rain! And how can this be? For as everyone knows, there is no rain anymore in the Looking-Glass Desert. ...So this thing is impossible!’ But as the little Night-Bird flew up high into the evening air, he heard her sing once more her promise to the World. ‘The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;’ she said. And her words, which were no words, fell softly to the earth . . . like petals falling . . . and as they fell Amryn took them in . . . as thoughts.

   All at once, he got up and walked quickly to where he had seen the Nightingale dip behind the thorn bush. There he spied a hole in the ground. In the hole was a pattern made of many small pebbles. A picture? The gift of a mystery, here? For that the little Night-Singer had led him here, to see this thing, he was sure. Amryn stared at it for a long time. But he did not understand what the Nightingale had wanted him to see. Like all the Children of the Looking-Glass Desert, he, too, had forgotten how to hear the speech of all things.

   Next evening the boy could be seen again, sitting on the look-out rock, gazing out across the Desert . . . thinking and wishing . . . wishing and thinking.

   And again the Nightingale came to visit him! This time to see if he would understand and follow her, further.  And he did; up the low winding hills, through the crags, and on and up and up to the highest heights. Here there was a small cleft in the rock and Amryn and the Nightingale slipped, silently through.

   Once on the Other Side, the boy suddenly stopped. Here he smelt a wonderful fragrance speaking upon the Wind. ‘Listen, to the whisperwills!’ sang the little Night-Singer, darting on before him. And Amryn knew the beautiful scent of the herbs of the earth whispering a mystery, willing a wonder for him, drawing him onward through the Desert.

   Soon he came to the cliff at the end of the World. He lay down to look over the edge. There below, he spied a shining wonder: a golden rose, living joyfully, happily growing out of the dry bare rock, where no eye would ever see it; where no one would ever notice it, or admire it.

   ‘What you were missing;’ sang the little brown Nightingale. ‘...missing: missing!’ And all at once, Amryn remembered the pattern in the earth that he had seen behind the thorn bush. Here it was! Matched! Not an empty hole in the ground with a dry pebble picture. But a full-thing in his heart with the LIVING LIFE it had been speaking of. In a flash, the shine of the Rose was in him and he was full. It began to rain. And in him, and all around him, new life, and tiny green growing things appeared, and grew up everywhere; and the desert rejoiced, and blossomed as the rose! ‘Bloom where you are though no one will ever notice you;’ whispered the Nightingale, as she flew round the rose; ‘...the Magic where you are . . . where you are;’ sang the echo through all the earth.

   And the World remembered what it had lost and forgotten and began to hear again. The drought was over. The World was watered, inside, and out: in streams of water, living streams of joy! And the Nightingale flew by him and was gone: her work, complete!

           

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