The Lady and the Gropuchik

A long time ago, when the world was still new, the Lady and the Gropuchik were friends. One day, they decided to grow a forest, a mark of their affection for each other. But it was not easy to make a forest from nothing. They had to learn the dance of growing first.

The Lady, so graceful and lithe, pirouetted in rapture to the music of creation. She leaped and spun and laughed and wherever her feet touched the ground, a shoot sprung up, tender and green. The buds grew and grew until they became beautiful Sun trees, broad and strong. Their boughs reached up for the sky and were soon laden with flowers of golden honeyed yellow, and bees hummed around relishing the bounty. And as the birds that crowded the branches awakened, their songs rang out joyous and clear. And the Lady was glad to have caused the Sun trees to be.

The Gropuchik watched in awe as the Lady performed, so lovely was her dance. Could he, so squat and so grave, dance with her fervour? Hesitant, almost unwilling, he tried. He clapped and he capered. He frisked and he frolicked. And his dance, though not graceful by any measure, was yet a dance. And whither his feet fell, there sprouted shoots as well that swelled and grew to become Moon trees. The Moon trees’ shadowed branches reached down, holding close to their trunks, refusing to spread and be vulnerable. And their leaves were needles piercing the air, demanding to be left alone. But as dusk draped over the sky and the air grew crystal sharp and the white moonlight shone down, the Moon trees’ needles, spun of exquisite silver, glistened. And the Gropuchik was glad too.

Then the two friends roamed their forest together, hand in hand, laughing in delight at their handiwork. They marvelled as their trees grew, so different yet so lovely. And they were content.

For a while.

For one day, the Gropuchik saw how rich with flowers and fruit the Sun trees were. And he saw how grateful were the creatures of the Forest for these bounties. And he heard the songs they sang to make the Lady glad.

But his Moon trees bore neither flower nor fruit. Only cones they gave him. Hard they were, these cones, little skeletons of brown that rattled with the seeds safe inside them. And the creatures of the Forest cared not for the cones and were not beholden to him and sang not songs of praise for him. And so in the Gropuchik’s heart grew the seed of envy, perilous and poisonous.

From that day, the Gropuchik and the Lady were ever unfriends. For in his jealousy, the Gropuchik hewed down a host of the Lady’s Sun trees and fled deep into the Forest. And the Lady remained, her heart aching for the loss of her creations and for her friend whom she had loved as herself. And as her bereaved cry rent the air, a seed of anger took root in her being, and she vowed to bring the Gropuchik to justice before the End of Days. Ever after she searched for one who would deliver the Gropuchik to her, a champion whose success she would bless with the granting of one wish.

***

Thus ran the tale of the Lady and the Gropuchik that a big sister named Usha and a little brother named Uday were told at bedtime one night. It stayed with them as they lay in bed looking out into the garden where, their boughs almost brushing, stood two trees. One vast and wide, the other shadowed and tall.

Uday loved the Sun tree in the garden. He would clamber from one branch to another, sending the birds into a clamour. And he would pluck the yellow flowers in spring, even checking them for bees sometimes, to make garlands for Usha whom he loved very, very much.

And as is the way with such stories, Usha's heart was with the Moon tree. She would sit in its shade sometimes, on days when the ache of missing Mamma was more than she could handle. And she would gather its cones for Uday, to make him laugh as they popped and exploded in the fire on cold nights, for she loved him very much indeed.

But this story Papa told them had brother and sister at odds. The Lady’s trees were cut down for no reason and the forest creatures had nothing to eat, Uday insisted. If you do a bad thing, he said, then you are Bad. In fact, if he saw the Gropuchik in their garden, he would skewer him with a tree branch. “Like so!” he said, stabbing the air violently with a twig. “And then the Lady will be happy and she’ll grant me a wish and I’ll wish for Mamma to be back and then everything will be perfect again!”

But Usha shook her head. She knew with all the wisdom of a seven year old who was in real school and read books with chapters that it wasn’t so simple. “He was just bad at dancing,” she replied. “And no one cared about his Moon trees. He must have been so sad.” But secretly, she knew that she would wish the same wish. What else was there to ask for?

And so they argued in the garden, a little girl and a littler boy. And as they squabbled, the Lady of the Forest watched the two children, hope rising within her, and she knew what she must do.

That night, Usha had a dream. In the garden, a beautiful lady with golden flowers adorning her hair, appeared before Uday and her. Her eyes were drawn to the ground around the Lady’s feet where yellow flowers were blooming in the grass. Uday hid behind her then, as little brothers are wont to do when grown-ups talk.

Taking her hand, the Lady asked, “Will you defeat the Gropuchik for me? He must pay for what he has wrought.”

“I don’t know how,” Usha found herself saying. She could feel the warmth of the lady’s touch on her fingers, like a ray of sunshine left behind.

“You will know,” the Lady answered. “Your brother will help me and you will help him. Then I shall have justice and you shall have your wish.”

And just like that, the dream ended.

The next morning, Usha woke up to the singing of a koel very near her. She stretched and looked around in confusion. Uday was sleeping at her feet on a pillowy tuft of grass. They were surrounded by trees. Where were they? There was no sign of their house or garden. Just trees and more trees. She shook Uday awake, and he yawned and crawled up next to her.

“I think Papa’s story came true,” she whispered. She didn’t like this at all. Magic like the Tooth Fairy and Santa was one thing because they were both nice and brought presents. But this kind of magic? It was scary. “What should we do?” she asked.

Uday yawned again. He seemed oddly comfortable with all of this. Or maybe that was because he was just five and didn’t realise that they were in a whole heap of trouble. She was the older one, though - she had to look after him. What should they do? Climb a tree to see which way was out of the Forest? No, it was too dangerous. What if they fell? She blinked back tears and hugged him closer.

Then, Uday spoke up. “The Lady came in my dream last night and I said I would find the Gropuchik for her. He chops trees wherever he goes, you know, because he’s a baddie. So we’ll find him, I’ll stab him with a sharp stick and then the Lady will give us Mamma. Don’t be scared,” he told Usha, kissing her cheek.

Usha nodded. She brushed her tears away, remembering the flowers the Lady had had in her hair and at her feet. Flowers were good, weren’t they? Maybe everything would be okay. But how to find the Gropuchik? He ran deep into the Forest, Papa had said. She chewed her lower lip, watching Uday as he picked up a stick and slashed the air with it.

Just then, a creak echoed through the trees. There was an immense rustling and then a loud, groaning crash. Brother and sister stared at each other, eyes wide.

Heart thumping in her chest, Usha grabbed Uday’s hand and they ran towards the sound. A symphony of angry squawks and chirps guided their way through the trees. The birds were in an uproar and led them easily to the clearing where the tree had fallen.

As they came to a stop just outside the clearing, panting and out of breath, Usha saw that the ground was strewn with yellow flowers from the fallen tree. And amidst the mess, staring absently at the trunk, stood a creature. What it was, she could not say. It was more a feeling of something right there, at the very back of her mind. But for all that, it stood lost in thought, real enough, by the tree that had just fallen. Or been felled.

It has to be him, Usha thought. She stood silently, watching, wondering how to approach this. How to fight a creature that had sent an entire tree crashing down? The Lady said she would know what to do, but she didn’t. She didn’t know what to do at all.

Then suddenly, she felt Uday let go of her hand and charge off. Scarcely had her mouth formed a scream, when he stabbed the Gropuchik with his stick. Her eyes like saucers, she stared at her little brother as he faltered backwards and fell whimpering to the ground before the very monster he had vowed to defeat.

The Gropuchik, impervious to the boy’s audacity, turned and looked down at him. He shook his head with an unexpected tenderness, and glanced across the clearing to where Usha was. She stepped forward then - a Big Sister. She picked up Uday’s stick and put an arm around her little brother. Her jaw was set, her body stiff with tension as she locked eyes with the Gropuchik and pointed the stick at him. “I won’t let you hurt him,” she said.

And the answer came. “I don’t wish to, child.”

The Gropuchik’s voice was the grinding of rocks in the deep places. And yet, she heard kindness in it. And the immense exhaustion of someone very old, very tired and very sad.

And so, unthinking, Usha did what she always did when Uday was upset - she reached out and she hugged this Gropuchik who had created the Moon tree she so loved. “I’m sorry they didn’t care for your trees,” she whispered into his shoulder. And she held him with all the strength a little girl can muster.

And as they stood there, the Gropuchik felt an unravelling in his heart. A tightness left him that he had carried for ages beyond reckoning. And something rolled down his cheek and splashed into his palm - a tear, yet not. And it hardened and became a seed, green and malignant and unpleasant to behold. This seed he placed in Usha’s hand, entrusting her with the ills that had plagued him so long. “Do with it what you will,” he said. Then, picking up a flower from the ground, he walked off into the forest, his head bowed with the weight of things that could not be undone.

Barely had he left their sight when the Lady appeared. “Is it over?” she asked them. Her voice trembled and her hands were clasped together, the knuckles white.

Usha looked at Uday. Was it over? Yes. Yes, she thought it was. She looked up at the Lady and nodded.

The Lady took in a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. She doesn’t look happy at all, Usha thought. And they stood together in silence in that clearing, a girl with a snake-green seed in her fist, a little boy pressed up against his sister, and the Lady.

After a while, the Lady spoke. “Your wish. What would you ask of me?”

Usha breathed in. She yearned desperately to wish her own wish. Every particle in her body screamed out for her to reveal her heart’s desire, to make things perfect again. She had earned it and it was hers. She knew this.

She looked at the Lady who stood there, hands clenched, head bowed. And she looked to where the Gropuchik had walked away, a flower held tightly in his fist. The story of the Lady and the Gropuchik could not be allowed to end this way. This too she knew.

Tears streamed down Usha’s cheeks for the choice she was about to make. Holding out her palm where the green seed sat, she whispered to the Lady, “Give me yours. I wish to have it.”

And the Lady complied. She looked up to the sky and wailed, a banshee cry that bore within it all her fury and all her sorrow. And when at last she was done, Usha found on her palm, nestled next to the green seed, a red one. It flamed incandescent with a light that glinted off the tears still flowing down her cheeks. And she closed her fist on the two seeds and turned to hug her little brother. For although she knew she had wished the right wish, her heart was yet broken.

“Thank you,” the Lady said and walked away from them, following the same path the Gropuchik had.

Then the world dissolved around the children and they clung to each other as they spun timelessly through nothing and through everything. And just like that, they were back in their garden, safe and sound.

Holding Uday’s hand, Usha walked over to where the two trees grew. A short distance from them, she knelt and dug a shallow hole. There, she placed the two seeds, poison green and fire red. Covering them with a fistful of soil, she let out a soft, sad sigh. Then, brother and sister, still holding hands, walked back into their house.

The next morning, the children saw through their window a third tree in the garden. Its leaves were needles of silvery fire in the sun and on its broad boughs blossomed white flowers like stars come down. As they gazed upon it in wonderment, a familiar voice, one they hadn’t heard in an achingly long while, called out to them. And big sister Usha and little brother Uday raced downstairs, an inferno of hope and joy aflame in their young hearts.

And outside, deep within the Forest, a Lady and her Gropuchik walked together again, hand in hand, rejoicing in the friendship that was once more theirs to savour.

(NYCMidnight 2021 Short Story Round 1 Entry)