the willow shoes

When the Carver was young, he dreamed of marrying his garden. Even as a child, he could spend hours staring into the depths of a rose, carefully pruning the bushes so new buds could grow, and he took the snipped buds home to wilt in tall vases filled with water. Once he grew, the Carver took fallen branches from the forest, and he used the silver, the shears, and knives, to shape the fallen branches into beautiful things. He poured oils into the wood and polished it for so long that when touched, the wood was softer than skin. 

He sold his carvings at the local market, and that was how he made his living. One day, the forest dropped two sister branches of wood from the weeping willow tree. The Carver found the fallen branches, took them home, and dried them properly in the sun. He watched them while they dried until he knew what was inside them, waiting to be carved. Painstakingly, he shaved the smallest scraps of wood from each branch, one strip at a time. He could spend hours engraving the smallest divot, but the time did not matter to him. The Carver only paused in his work to sleep and eat when the daylight had gone and left him unable to examine his art. 

From the branches formed the most exquisite pair of shoes. Once worn, the wood would form like roots over the foot placed inside their cage. In between the delicate roots that made the shoes look as though they had grown from the ground, little leaves and berries grew and tiny insects flitted, cast as frozen in the moment the Carver had set his blade to the Willow wood. He saturated the shoes in an oil he had extracted from the wild roses in his garden. So fragrant were the Willow Shoes, and so realistic were the tiny blossoms gracing the sculpture, even the little honeybees could not help but pause at the Carver’s work to inspect the shoes for the possibility of nectar. 

When he knew he could do no more to perfect his most recent creation, the Carver took the shoes to the town market to hear what the highest bidder would offer for them. It did not take long for barterers and merchants to approach him in the hopes of taking this newest treasure for their own.

But whatever price the Carver heard; he could not relinquish the shoes. His other, smaller carvings sold easily, and he ate and drank thanks to his earnings, but he did not part for the shoes or fold into bargaining. Instead, the offers grew higher as days at market turned into weeks, and travelers came from afar to see the glorious shoes as rumors spread of the disagreeable Carver. 

Travelers said that the shoes would be fit for no less than a queen. So, it was no surprise that the prince with a cruel face and a penchant for taking what his constituents found valuable came to bargain for the shoes. 

Entranced by the beauty of the shoes, the prince, like those before him, offered to empty his purse to trade with the Carver. Unlike those before him, the prince’s purse was a good deal heavier. 

He told the Carver, not only would the gold be offered, but the shoes were too great to be worn. The Willow Shoes would be placed upon a plinth in the castle, and all who came would know of the Carver’s name and prowess. The Carver only hesitated for a moment before conceding that this was the best offer he was likely to get. There was little time left in the season that could be spent on the market, and this above all necessitated his acceptance of the prince’s offer. 

The Carver agreed to package up the shoes for the prince, and this was only his first mistake. As his fingers touched the wood of the shoes for what he believed to be the last time, a knock came at his door, and as it swung inwards, she stood before him. 

Rose stood in the entryway, the innkeeper’s daughter, and in meeting her gaze, the Carver was swept back to the hours spent in the garden as a child, staring into the depths of the flowers. He offered to show her the shoes before she could ask. 

As dowry for marrying his daughter, the Carver told the innkeeper that she would be the sole owner of the Willow Shoes, the shoes fit for no less than royalty. So prestigious were the shoes that the innkeeper agreed on the spot, and in place of a diamond ring on her finger, the Carver got down on one knee and slid each wooden shoe onto her feet. 

It had to have been fated by the gods, for each toe fit perfectly into the shoe, and the back snugly hugged her ankle. The shoes could not have fit Rose so well if they had been made for her, and just as the Carver loved Rose, she loved the shoes that hugged her feet, as well as the passion and dedication that had forged them.

The messenger waiting to carry the wrapped shoes to the palace was dismissed without so much as a note. He was forgotten in the merry festivities of a quick wedding. So comfortable were the Willow Shoes, Rose found no need to remove them from her feet. She wore them while she gardened, while she picked apples, while she slept, and even when she and the Carver made love. Even when she went to bathe, she did not part with the shoes. Instead, she dove into the river headfirst and walked the shoes along the rocks and stones that littered the river floor. 

It was many months before Rose thought to take the shoes from her feet, but when she made to part with them, she found she could not. Painlessly, the wood on the shoes had wound its way under her skin, and now indeed the wood that was shaped into roots and vines looked as though it had not only taken root in Rose but grown from her. The wood ran its way across her skin in tandem with the blood running underneath. 

The garden flourished under Rose’s green thumb so that even as the Carver spent his daylight hours crafting new wares, the seeds she had planted in the spring were bursting into bloom in the summer. 

Rose, too, began to grow. Under the many hours outside, her skin had darkened, and she had begun to carry with her a glow as if the sunlight were emanating from her, too. Her waist thickened with a child, and the Carver, too, was delighted that their family would be expanding so soon after their union. While the Carver had forgotten his promise to the prince, the prince himself had not forgotten. The wise and benevolent King had grown old, and soon a new coronation would see the prince ascend into a role of power. 

Once his father could no longer restrain his son’s desire for power, the prince began to demand much more of his subjects than his father ever had. Taxes rose, and cruel punishments were dished out to those subjects who did not pay or could not please the new King. Every slight that the son had interpreted was against him was now to be paid in blood. 

The Carver was hesitant to leave his wife in the woods, but she could not accompany him to the town market since her belly had doubled in size. Instead, he woke early enough that he could travel and sell his wares with enough light left to return in the evening hours of the same day. 

He packed up and kissed Rose on the cheek. She did not stir from her deep slumber. As snake-like as the new King was, he sent soldiers to steal the carved treasures that he believed were rightly his while the Carver was away. These soldiers were as infected by greed and malice as the man they served, and ill intent fueled their actions. 

When the Carver returned from market to see smoke drifting in the skies over the woods he called home, dread filled his heart and quickened his pace. He dug his heels into the old mare he rode, and reluctantly she picked up her pace, panting as they drew nearer. Even as he rode, a storm broke and the skies began to pour down rain, softly at first, and then in sheets that blew into his eyes and muddied the road, causing the mare, much to the Carver’s frustration, to slow once more. The bargain he had struck with the prince, long forgotten, now returned to the forefront of his mind with his fear. 

When he finally returned, the rain had softened its fury, and there was no fire to be found. There was also no little wooden cottage, only ash. There were no roses in the garden, and there was no Rose. 

The Carver nearly fell off his horse and stumbled into the still steaming wreckage, desperate to find his wife, his love, the mother of his unborn child. Instead, all he found was a worn-out pair of shoes. The intricate carvings had been diminished with wear and stained by hours in the garden and river. They no longer held the evident beauty they had shown when new and unloved, merely admired. The shoes had evidently had to have been torn from her flesh. The unmistakable smell of cooked flesh clung to the singed shoes. Curiously enough, they had survived the flames, but it was evident why they had not been stolen. Now, as he held the shoes in his hand, the last remnants of the wife he loved, the Carver knew what he must do. 

Going to the forest, under the weeping willow where he had found the fallen willow branches, the Carver dug a hole in the shade of the branches. Moonlight flashed off the raging river beside him, the water high with the recent storm rushed past. 

He dug as deep as he was able before his limbs began to shake and his blistered hands made it impossible to grip the handle of the shovel, and even then, he managed to dig a bit more. He buried the shoes with the wet dirt. Every day he went to the grave of his wife, and he wept for what he had lost, and his tears watered the roots of the willow tree and the grave marked with a simple stone. 

He spoke to the grave as if it could hear, and one day the stone cracked, and a new sapling bore its way through the earth. 

Tending it as well as he could, the Carver moved the remnants of the headstone and let the new little tree stand in for the marker for his wife’s grave.

Months grew into years, years grew into decades, and the little sapling grew not into a tree, but into a body. Still as stone, it was as real to the Carver as any of his sculptures had been, and whenever he returned to the site, his words fed the sapling as much as any water or sunlight could. 

Instead of the child the Carver longed for, I grew instead, and when I pulled my feet from the earth, they wore the shoes that had been torn from my mother’s feet. They were not the singed and worn things that the Carver had buried so long ago. They were no longer worn, dull, or solid wood. Years spent in the earth had fed them resources of a different kind. The intricate details that the Carver had honed long ago, once again were pronounced, and now rimmed with precious metals so that even in the dim sunlight that filtered through the leaves of the forest, the Willow Shoes glinted back with hues of silver, copper, and gold. Where his tears had watered the shoes, they were no longer stained with blood, but with a fine crust of tiny gems. Deep red rubies and vivid green emeralds turned the carved petals and foliage around the shoe into vibrant facsimiles of the real things. It would have been difficult to distinguish the jewel tones of a tiny beetle crawling along the arch of one shoe from its 

As the Carver’s eyes slid down to the shoes, they once more filled with tears. But his gaze did not linger on the brilliance, instead they returned to my face. As I pulled myself fully from the earth and his hand rose to cup my cheek for the first time, I felt the roots binding me to my sisters snap, and I became something separate from the trees of the forest. I could still hear the sleep song that ran as an undercurrent through the network of roots beneath our feet, but I knew that it could no longer be mine. 

“Willow,” the Carver said, christening me with the name his child never had.