THE BLUE SPRING

by D. E. Bones

In a deep forest, there once lived a man who was content to live alone. Things had happened in his life that had left him with a great sadness, and though his bitterness had left him, he found it easier to live by himself and not see lovers laughing and children playing every day. He made a little money for the things he needed by gathering herbs and picking berries and mushrooms, digging medicinal roots and sometimes by carving a flute to sell in town. His needs were small and on his infrequent trips to town he would go quietly about his business, though he always had an easy smile and a kind greeting for a friendly person. But the most perceptive of the young ladies who would watch him from behind their long eyelashes saw the sadness in his face and sometimes, when he had stopped to watch the children play and laugh, he could be seen wiping his eyes and looking at something far, far away.

He made his home in the hollow trunk of a huge living tree, with two round windows that he had cut and a low door that he had to duck to go through. He had made a small table and a chair out of an oak that had fallen in a great windstorm, and his bed he had made of ash slats on a low frame. His mattress was moss, covered with a blanket. Bundles of herbs and roots hung from pegs around the walls and from poles across the ceiling. A small iron stove stood next to the table with its stovepipe going out through the trunk of the tree. On a shelf next to the bed was a small wooden box, elegant in its simplicity, tied shut with a long ribbon of black and green and yellow and scarlet. He had bought it years ago and it had cost him almost all the money he had owned, but he loved its simplicity and through all his hard times it was the one thing he had kept. It had always been empty but one of the few things he was certain of was that someday he would find the right things to fill it with.

It was peaceful in the forest, and he loved to hear the wind whispering its tales of faraway places, or to lie in the grass on the bald knob of a hill when the sun was warm and watch the soft clouds drift silently by. The night birds would sometimes see him in a clearing with his head thrown back, watching for falling stars on a moonless night. But his favorite place was a spring near his home, where he would lie on a flat rock that was inches above the water and dropped off into a deep pool. He would lie for hours on a hot day, watching the sparkle in the depths of the water and feeling the beauty of the blue colors that became darker as the pool deepened to the passage that fed the spring, a purple hole deep in the rocks. He would trail his hands in the water and watch the shadowy trout dart from place to place, listening to the laughter of the water as it spilled from the pool and became a small creek. Then he would lower his lips to the pool and feel the wonderful coolness of the water spread through him as he drank.

Sometimes as he daydreamed he imagined that he saw a beautiful lady in the deepest part of the spring, dancing with the sparkles in the water. She would smile at him with a gentle smile, and her long red hair would spread around her as she danced. Some days she would not appear, and on others she would come quite close, so he could look into her eyes. One day as he lay with his arms resting in the water she came very close and caressed his palms with her fingertips. Then she smiled and swam slowly down to the passage that fed the pool and disappeared into it.

The next morning he looked about his home for a gift to bring to the beautiful lady. He untied the ribbon from around the wooden box and as he walked to the spring he ran it through his hands, admiring the way it caught the sunbeams as they shimmered through the trees. He lay down in his usual place on the flat rock, watching the sparkles and the deep blue colors. As he drank he saw the lady watching him from the rocks at the bottom of the pool. He held the ribbon under the water and it fluttered in the gentle current. The lady swam up and took it in both of her hands, then wound it into her long red hair. She danced slowly through the pool and the water sparkled with black and green and yellow and scarlet. She drifted back to where he lay and hung in the water with her hair floating around her, the ribbon catching the light and accentuating her beauty the way a fine frame accentuates a wonderful picture. Her head cocked a little to one side, she looked into his eyes and lifted her arms out of the water to rest her hands on the back of his neck, then raised her face from the pool and kissed him briefly but unhurriedly on the lips. Her fingers and her lips were cool, and her eyes were the purple color of the deepest part of the spring. Then her fingers slipped away, and with little movements of her hands she sank to the inlet, where she looked at him as she pressed her fingers against her lips in a small kiss, then disappeared.

That night he dreamed that the beautiful lady drew him into the spring and pulled him down to the passage where the water rose from the earth. She pulled him through the blackness until he found his head above the water in a cavern lit by a soft blue light. There were stalactites and stalagmites and ribbons of limestone that divided the cavern into pools, where he and the lady splashed and walked hand in hand. They sat in one of the warmer pools with their backs against a stalagmite, so close that their hips touched and he put his arm around her. Her eyes were as deep as the spring and her smile warmed him in places where he had been cold for a long, long time.

In the morning he went into the town to sell his herbs and a flute that he had carved from a cherry branch. He wanted to find another gift for the lady, but though he looked in every store, he could find nothing. Finally he spied a silver chain bracelet that caught the light like the sparkle in the water.

But though he waited by the pool all afternoon, the lady did not appear. The next day he went searching for roots and in the twilight he cleaned them as he sat on the rock by the spring. He was surprised at his patience, but somehow he felt certain that the lady would return.

The next day he went to the pool at sunrise. It was a warm morning with the birds darting over the water and squirrels chattering and chasing each other from tree to tree. He had no sooner taken a drink from the spring when he caught a glimpse of black and green and yellow and scarlet as the lady emerged from the depths. Holding the chain under the water as he had the ribbon, he could feel his heart beating faster as she rose through the water to gently take it from him and bent to fasten it around her ankle. Then she kicked her feet and turned slow circles in the water with the light playing upon the ribbon in her hair and sometimes throwing a bright flash from the silver chain. She swam to the shallow end of the pool and stood up, water cascading from her hair, wading until she was only in water to her knees. Her skin was the color of a pearl, with just the slightest blue, and he knew that she was the most beautiful sight that he had ever seen. He scrambled to his feet, feeling awkward in his rough clothes as she stood in her graceful nakedness. Still, he went to her, wading into the pool as he watched her smile become brighter and more radiant, until it warmed him as it had in his dream. The water bugs skipped over the surface and danced around her, and the trout nibbled at her ankles. He took her hands into his and asked, "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"I am the sprite of the spring. I have always been here, but for me to become whole, someone must notice and love the sparkle in the water and the blue and the wonderful coolness. I have waited a long time for you." And she kissed him easily.

"I have hidden myself from the world," he said, "But your smile has stolen the sadness from my heart."

"I see a man who has enough beauty in his heart to see me," she told him. She helped him pull his shirt over his head and dropped it into the water, then ran her cool fingers over his chest and wrapped him in her arms as they kissed.

They were lovers for many years. The man continued to gather his herbs and mushrooms and roots, and on warm afternoons they would lie in the moss at the side of the pool. In the winter she would visit him in his little home and they would spend the long nights in the ash-slat bed, entwined in each other's arms. The man grew old but the beautiful lady never changed, and the love that they felt for each other and the peace that they found in each others arms only grew stronger. He never grew tired of watching for her at the spring, when she would appear with a flash from the silver chain and the water would sparkle with the colors of the ribbon that she always wore in her hair. She knew that one day he would die and she would once again be just the sparkle in the water and the blue and the wonderful coolness, and her smile would grow a little sad as she rested her head on his white-haired chest because she knew how much she would miss him. One day when he was very old, the man looked at his wooden box and realized that they had filled it with memories and smiles and love.

That afternoon as he sat on the flat rock by the pool, the beautiful lady took his hands and helped him into the water, and drew him down into the purple hole where the water came into the spring, to a cavern that he had seen in a long ago dream. She helped him to one of the warmer pools, where he sat with his back against a stalagmite and she kissed his closed eyes and put his arm around her and sat very, very close, so that their hips touched.

In a deep forest there is a spring that comes up into a large pool, where the birds sing loudly and the squirrels chatter. If you come upon it and lie on your stomach on the flat rock that drops off into deep water, and you drink and feel the wonderful coolness, and notice the blue that darkens to a deep purple where the water rises from the earth, you may notice that the little creek that falls from the pool has the sound of lovers laughing. And if you look closely, you may see a flash as if from a small silver chain, and sparkles of black and green and yellow and scarlet. And just for a moment you might see a beautiful lady with long red hair dancing gracefully with a young man, and they are both wearing gentle smiles and looking into each others eyes as lovers do.

illustration "What a Change was Seen" by Warwick Goble, adapted by D. E. Bones