The Fishwife

The 2024 Fiction Gift Exchange

A big thank you to Emily S Hurricane for organising this spectacular Fiction Gift Exchange for 2024. What a brilliant idea!

For other pieces written for the Fiction Gift Exchange, check out:

Scoot, Erica Drayton, A. C. Sanders, Paola F. Caravasso, Joseph L. Wiess, Alexandra Hill, Andy Futuro, Jude Mire, Thérèse Judeana, Nick Buchheit, E.K. MacPherson, Aysun G. (She/Them), Michael S. Atkinson, ☕ KimBoo York, Keith Long, Jack Nagy

This piece is for Aubrey at Ink & Poesy Publishing. Aubrey is an Author and Illustrator with a penchant for the fantastical, something I very much relate to. Aubrey, I hope you enjoy this cozy folk tale.

Yours sincerely,

Jessica

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The Fishwife

A dark figure trudged through the moonlit snow, towards a small wooden cabin lit warm from within. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney in the frigid air, passing high into the sky. The cabin was surrounded by stacks of cut wood, and further still by stands of pine trees. The figure stopped briefly and peered into the bright night of the path behind him, taking in the white capped mountains through which he had passed, and adjusted the large bundle on his shoulder before making the last steps to the door of the cabin.

The man was about to knock, but then noticed a small bell hung from the eaves above him. He looked curiously at it, reaching out to caress the cold metal shaped in the form of a fish. The rope from which it hung was tied around the tail so that the head pointed down. Inside the open mouth, a small round clapper was nestled.

By the tail of the fish, the man gently rang the bell. He stepped back, hands clasped in front of him.

After some moments, an old woman opened the door with an expectant smile.

“I was wondering when you might arrive,” she gestured him in, “and please, sit by the fire. Your journey must have been hard.”

The man opened his mouth as if to reply, furrowed his brow, then nodded once before stepping inside. He took in his surroundings, the two careworn chairs by the hearth the centrepiece to a room where life was lived. In one corner, a small wooden table was pushed neatly to the side, upon which a basket of winter apples stood, a bowl too, knife, spoon and fork. In another, a small low bed was heaped high and neat with knitted woollen blankets. Dried herbs hung along one wall, the others taken up by tapestries embroidered in the red and white threaded pattern of the region. On each piece of furniture, the man noticed a small fish had been carved into the blonde wood.

The old woman peered up at him, pleasure gleaming in her eyes, and made to take his cloak. He handed it heavily to her, which she grasped with sure hands and bustled over the hearth to hang the damp cloth from a hook to dry. Now relieved of his outerwear, the man hefted the wide leather case from his shoulder. He gently leaned it against the chair which he took to be his. The other stood with basket next to it, a sock hanging over the lip in the midst of darning.

While he settled into the warmth, the old woman ladled a bowl with soup, deep magenta in colour and topped with soured cream, and brought it over to him.

She smiled and said, “Sorry there is no fresh dill,” and with a wink, “wrong time of the year for it.” Settling into her own chair, the old woman sighed and looked down at her hands, “It’s been a hard winter. I think we will all be the better for seeing the back of it. Although I am very glad for your company.”

The man looked up from the soup he had been savouring and directly into the old woman’s eyes. They were a cerulean blue, the colour of the snowmelt tarns he had passed in the mountains on the way to this place. They held each other’s gaze, but he dropped his eyes first.

She chuckled, “You’re a handsome young man. Shame about the—”, pointing at her tongue to indicate his lack of one. His eyes widened at the gesture, and his eating slowed.

“I’ve heard of you, knew you were coming. It’s been the talk of the mountain for months. One of the Listeners! I didn’t know if you would really make the journey to me in time but perhaps I still hold a little pride for I hoped you might be intrigued by the fishwife in the mountains.”

At this, the man looked up again and hesitantly nodded.

The old woman said, “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

Again, he nodded.

The old woman smiled wide. “Before I tell my tale, I want to ask you some questions, see if I can get to know your story a little before you know mine. Would that be okay?”

The man showed surprise but smiled gently and nodded for a third time. No one had asked him that before.

“Okay, good. I know a little of your kind, the Listeners. We had our own who lived in the village I grew up in by the Dark Sea. He was very old himself when I knew him to sit and listen to our old ones, taking down their stories before they passed on. If what I know of him is true, then you are an orphan.”

Nodding slowly, the man shrugged his shoulders.

She pressed on, “Were you young when you lost your parents?” He nodded again, but in a matter of fact way, as if to say he did not remember a time without them. The old woman continued, “I am sorry for that. Although I have a sense that you have a gentle heart despite it all. You must have only recently finished your time as an apprentice and struck out on your own if you are as young as I think you are. Less than a year, perhaps?”

The man nodded, sitting up a little. He took a breath and leaned forward to rest elbows on knees.

The old woman smiled kindly. “I thought so. That is good. I hope to give you a story worthy of carrying for the rest of your life, may it be as long as mine has been.” She paused. “Do you enjoy it? Listening to the stories of other people’s lives, that is.”

The man seemed to ponder her question and looked thoughtfully into the fire. Then, he leaned forward again and took one of the woman’s old hands into his. She noticed how delicate they were, pale and long, still cold, against her small knobbed ones. He remembered something with a start, then took out a small leather-bound book from his pocket and slowly turned the pages, looking for something. He stopped and looked up, passing the open book to the old woman. On the page, she squinted at each word to read, My life is dedicated to the collection of our histories, for those who have lived the lives of ordinary people. Every story is special, worthy of an attentive Listener. I only hope to live up to that.

Her eyes stayed on the page for a long moment, then with a small catch in her voice, said, “I suppose many might feel nervous to host a Listener, knowing that the end is near for them. But not me. I have been waiting for this day for many years now. Do you have a name?”

The man tilted his head and pointed to the little book in the old woman’s hands, indicating that she should turn the pages towards the front. She did so, finding a name inscribed on the first page. Dimityr.

She smiled down at the page. “That is a lovely name. I suppose you might like to know mine? It is Olena. But everybody likes to call me Olia. Will you write my story down, after I have told it to you?”

Dimityr nodded once more and leaned over the arm of the chair to take up the leather case, slipping out a beautifully crafted instrument which came to rest easily in his arms. The stringed kobza produced a high clear sound as a chord was lightly struck. Dimityr then sat patiently, hands ready and gaze steady on Olia. He began to play a quiet melody, over which Olia began to speak.

“Dima, I told you already that I grew up near the Dark Sea. My parents were fishers, and good ones too. My ma, she had a way with the nets. She would wade slowly into the mouth of the estuary by our house that coursed out into the sea and lay her nets like a spider casting its gossamer web. They would come out a few hours later full up with silver glistening fish. I used to think the fish were drawn to a shine only they could see, then my ma finally told me that she would delicately thread worms along the net before placing them out. She was clever like that. My pa always admired her knack for a lure—he used to say that’s how she caught him.”

Olia smiled, remembering. “He adored her. He used to sing to her every morning, a special song he made just for her. And she loved him more than I could ever describe. I remember I used to sit at the kitchen table while they danced and twirled, and then they would each take up one of my hands and swing me around. They were like that till the end, took pleasure in every moment together, and it was a beautiful thing to be in their company.

“I wished so desperately for a love like that. When I was old enough, my ma decided it would do me good to explore the world around me. I had never expressed a desire to go anywhere from the water’s edge upon which I’d grown, but ma knew deep down that I would be better off to find my own way through the world. They had taught me all they could.”

Olia paused. The melody of the kobza started to grow, finding more rhythm.

“On the morning I left my parents’ home, my ma took me in her arms and squeezed so tight, I felt the bands of her limbs on me for days afterwards. I knew I would see her again soon, that I was only going a day’s journey to where my aunt lived. But I still felt a pang as I looked back to see her silhouette in the door of our cottage.

“I stayed with my aunt over the summer where she lived on an inland turn of the river which flowed out to where I had watched my parents catch fish. There were more trees here, and mountains rose in the distance, and there were more people than I was used to. One of these was a young man, only a year older than I, who lived with his parents behind my aunt’s house. I started to spy on him as I worked in the back garden, noticing the small kindnesses he bestowed on his little sisters. One day, he noticed me looking and smiled. I ran inside.

The fire crackled under the lilt of the strings.

“Dima, I am not shy now but I certainly was back then! I would run away anytime it looked like he would come and talk to me, until he finally cornered me in the market. He came straight up to me and introduced himself.” Olia smiled and looked at Dimityr, “His name was Losha.”

“It was all over from there. For the rest of the summer, we were inseparable. When it came time for me to go home, Losha came with me. My parents adored him. He was so interested in learning everything he could from them, he took to the nets like a fish in water, learning to weave the coarse strands into a strong blanket and to make sure they never snagged on any of the rocks on the river bed.”

Olia paused while she levered herself up and moved to pour steaming tea into two mugs, leaving one on a small table by the arm of Dimityr’s chairs. He paused too, to take a sip, then started again from where he left off. Olia hummed along to the tune, now familiar to her. “You play so beautifully”, she said.

“I admire mastery. That curiosity to keep with something, even when it trips you up over and over again until you can see its inner workings. My Losha loved to tinker, but most of all he loved to watch things grow, to understand the life around him. After we had married, we moved further up the river, to where the fish lay their eggs. Losha and I would pick our way down to the banks and collect the eggs, careful to only take enough to sell to support ourselves. We respected the fish, as we had been taught. He always knew what I was thinking, and I he. You know, we spent every day in the garden together, lying on the grass and holding hands after digging in the manure and harvesting the vegetables. Just feeling the world move beneath us, and knowing that we would one day join it.

Olia stopped, took a breath, “We lived like that for many years.”

She looked around, at the chair on which Dimityr sat, at the walking sticks and fishing pole piled by the door, at a small charcoal drawing of two smiling faces set above the mantel. Dimityr followed her gaze to the last of these, which she nodded to and said, “My granddaughter drew that for us. It is a good likeness.”

The strumming slowed and a single note held as Dimityr gazed into Olia’s blue eyes. She took another sip of her tea. Dimityr began to play again, his fingers plucking like trickling rain, slow and then a little faster, and faster again.

“One summer day, when our children had grown and left, there was a storm. A terrible storm the likes of which I had never seen. Losha was out walking when it hit and I couldn’t shake this terrible feeling that he was lost.” Olia put both hands on her cheeks and closed her eyes. “I had this vision of him running through the woods, branches crashing down around him, the sounds of the storm rattling through his bones as he tried to find shelter. I waited, looking out from the kitchen window for what felt like hours until I finally saw him. I cried out and ran out to him. Losha had broken his right ankle, but had managed to use a broken branch as a crutch to hobble home.” She lowered her hands into her lap.

“I was so relieved that he was alive. My heart felt like it would explode as blood rushed all through my body from fingertips to toes. I fussed and made him lie down, then bound his ankle with a splint. I made him promise to never go out without me, that if he were to go then I was going too.”

The kobza moved into a mournful procession of chords.

“Several days later, our son was at our doorstep. He had heard about the storm which had passed his mountain home, but ravaged our river one. He stayed with us, helping to clear the debris from the garden, all but the potatoes destroyed in the pelting rain. Worried for us, he convinced my Losha that we should move closer to his family in the mountains so that they could look after us if anything like this ever happened again.” Olia shook her head a little, “I didn’t want to go, I loved our little cottage and the life we had lived there together.”

The old woman leaned forward and poked at the hot coals of the fire, grasping at a small log and placing it on top of the flames. “I love the mountains now and its clear lakes, but I have never quite gotten used to the cold up here. If you stray too far from the warmth, it leaves your bones forever.” She looked again at Dimityr, as he continued to play a slow sad melody.

“Now Dimityr, it is time for the ending, and I want you to play something happy, like birdsong in the high forests of the mountains. When we arrived here, several long days walk from the home we had lived in for forty summers and winters, something changed in me. Coming through the mountain pass, with its pines and wildflowers and little rivers of snowmelt, and these great big thrusts of stone high above our heads, I felt so insignificant, so small, so fleeting. But it was the most wonderful feeling. I had already lived a long and full life, but walking through the forest and high into the mountains, I felt a rending within me that opened my heart and my eyes to this extraordinary place. I remember smiling up at Losha, and he down at me. Our son had walked a little on ahead, having guided us here once Losha’s ankle had healed, but I could see in the way he looked up and faced the mountains, slowly taking it in, that he felt the same way. We each three stood for a time, basking in the magic of the place, then walked on to the village ahead.”

The old woman had closed her eyes, remembering the feel of the mountain air across her cheeks, the blanket of bright blue sky above her, and the glistening torrents of water cascading far, far away down the mountainsides all around her. “I missed the fish, and the rushing sound of the river, but it was easy to slip into the pulse of life here. When I was homesick, I would pick my way down to the small lake nearby early in the morning to fish with a pole, the way my ma first taught me. Losha would take to the garden, preparing it for winter or planting seeds for the spring. In the afternoons, we liked to sit outside and watch the robins flit between the branches, then fly away in a rush as our grandchildren ran up the path towards us.”

Olia opened her eyes again, looking tired, and said, “I think that is where we will leave it tonight.” She moved to stand, but then thought better of it and settled back into the cushions. Eyes closed again, the old woman murmured, “I have a mind to sleep here in my chair tonight. Please take the bed, your young bones haven’t the grit of mine and need the extra comfort.” She started to doze.

Dimityr sat for a moment, then gently laid the kobza back into its case. He contemplated the inviting blankets of the bed and stood to take two, resting one over the old woman and the other over himself. He did not take the bed, for he thought that if Olia awoke, he would want her to take it.

As the fire crackled low, Dimityr’s eyes slowly closed.

***

Birdsong woke him. Shoulders, back and legs stiff with sleep, he blinked and yawned wide enough to crack his jaw. The fire had banked low and only embers remained. He looked over to the other chair and found that the old woman was not there. He looked to the bed and found that it was untouched. He looked to the door, and noticed that the fishing pole was gone.

The old woman had gone home.

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