The Songbird

There was once a woman named Wren who travelled anywhere and everywhere singing. Her voice brought a hush over any crowd. Like the songbird she was named after, she charmed everyone she met with her music.

Her looks were almost as striking. Her bright, blue eyes, paired with olive skin, drew in hordes of men. Still, she rejected all their offers.

“I’m sorry,” Wren would purr. “But this gypsy will never be tied down.”

If only those words had held true.

One day, Wren travelled to a dank town like many she’d been to before. She passed a laundress who scrubbed furiously with knobby-boned, but deft hands. Men covered in soot emerged from the nearby mines after a long day’s work just to feel a kiss of warmth before the sun dipped beneath the horizon. More than half the streets were mud rather than cobblestones and even the horses looked tired of trudging through it.

Wren found a ramshackle town square. Several chunks of brick were missing from the surrounding buildings. Some of the windows had been busted, and others were boarded up. The square was centered around a broken fountain that might’ve once been beautiful—an angel statue stood in its center—but water no longer poured from the angel’s lips and one its wings was broken, like it’d been clipped when it was cemented in such a dreary place.

Wren was determined to brighten it.

Undeterred by the crowds of people who passed without a glance, Wren stood on the wide rim of the fountain’s pool.

She took a deep breath and sang.

One-by-one, people stopped to listen until a crowd gathered before her. The melodies she weaved brightened the dingy town square—her songs twisted the grimaces of the hard-working townspeople into smiles. They loved her soprano voice so much they gave what little money they had to tip her.

The beautiful, dark-haired girl gracefully accepted their small displays of gratitude. Her pleasant smile faltered when a clean, leather-gloved hand set a large sum of gold before her. Attached to that gloved hand was an even nicer coat, and an even more handsome face.

“Hello,” the stranger greeted. “How blessed am I to hear your sweet call.”

Wren was unmoved by his words. She knew how fickle men were with pretty things.

But his generous amount of money, well, that was far from fickle.

So Wren plastered on a shy smile and dipped her chin in phony bashfulness. Her dark curls fell over her shoulder and framed her face.

“Thank you,” she crooned. “Perhaps you’ll hear it again at my performance tomorrow.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you for dinner tonight?” the stranger replied with ease.

“Perhaps tomorrow night,” Wren returned, though she knew there would be no tomorrow night either.

The stranger gave her a knowing grin, as if he saw right through her half-truths. It didn’t matter if he did. He’d be back.

They always came back.

Men like him saw something wild and beautiful like her and were suddenly apes with suits on. They wanted to possess her—tame her. She would never allow that. That was why she felt no guilt for bleeding them dry before moving on to a new town. New rich, stupid men.

This one would eventually grow tired of her games. He’d stop coming to her shows after his wife noticed his empty pockets or he grew bitter with her games. She would move on before the bitterness turned into violence.

The next day, she gave another lovely performance in the dull courtyard. It might as well have been a grand amphitheater for the people she sang to. More than anything, that’s why she sang—to brighten every place she went, if only for a few moments. The men and the money were just tools for her to keep singing.

The rich man was back, as she knew he would be.

“Darling,” he pleaded. “Please, just tell me your name.”

He dropped several coins before her.

“Why don’t you guess it?” Wren suggested. “And I’ll tell you if it’s right.”

“Ah, give me at least one clue.”

She considered his words.

“How about this,” she said. “I’ll give you one letter and you can guess the rest, but you only get to learn one letter every day.”

“Perfect,” he agreed. “It will keep you in town longer.”

But not too long, she thought.

She told him the first letter of her name. He pondered it and mouthed the sound several times as if it contained hidden clues. Finally, he guessed.

Wrong.

He guessed incorrectly again and again. When he finally guessed the right letter, nearly half an hour had passed. The courtyard had emptied except for them.

Wren choked her fear and mentally chided herself for being so foolish. Women of her outcast standing were not protected in courts of law against attacks of men. No one would notice a missing, single gypsy.

“Good night, mystery woman,” the man said, as if he sensed her unease. “I better be going.”

And just like that, he prowled out of the courtyard.

Despite his gentlemanly behavior, Wren vowed to herself to never be put in such a disadvantageous position with him again, no matter how charming he was.

The rich man returned the next day. And the next.

Wren knew she should’ve left town by then. She’d stopped accepting tips from the too-kind townspeople and had earned enough from her rich fan.

But something in her chest wanted him to know her name—she wanted him to remember her.

And maybe she wanted more of him to remember herself.

“Wren,” he said. The name rolled off his tongue with affection. “A fitting name for you, my songbird.”

I’m not your anything, Wren thought.

“Well,” she sighed. “It’s time for this songbird to fly away.”

Wren turned to leave.

“Wait!” the man pleaded. “If you stay, I can help you perform in front of more people—richer people—in grander venues, in amphitheaters so large, the whole world will hear you sing!”

Wren paused.

She’d never gotten an offer quite like that.

After some titillation and a payment in advance, she agreed to attend one of these venues he spoke of.

She promised herself to return to her normal travels soon enough. This was just another adventure.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You’ll find out eventually.”

Wren rode in a fine carriage with the rich man. The driver avoided any muddy streets. She felt more and more out of place among the finery—the leather seats deserved better than her old, simple dress. The upholstered walls were a rich, red color. As they travelled farther, the land outside the carriage became brighter too.

Rolling green fields turned into a bustling town. Buildings taller than she’d ever seen towered over them.

When she thought she couldn’t take feeling like an ant a second longer, they rolled out of the city and up a steep hill. What could only be described as a castle came into view. Its windows and golden spires gleamed in the setting sun’s light. Its tan stones were so bright, they too shined. The castle was so breathtaking, Wren thought it might be a mirage, but it loomed larger and larger as the carriage drew closer to its iron gates.

“You-you live here?” Wren asked.

“My family owns it,” the rich man said with a coy smile. “Well, technically, it belongs to the Crown, but as the royal family, its ours.”

Wren had charmed a prince.

When she arrived at the palace, she was shown to a spacious room with a ridiculously large bed and a closet full of ridiculously expensive gowns. Servants assisted her into them and tied the corset so tightly, she wondered if she’d even be able to sing in it.

Wren was shown through a secret passageway for servants and performers. It was so narrow, her skirts touched the walls. When she arrived backstage, she heard the loud murmuring of a crowd—louder than any she’d ever performed for. It made her want to stay in the crammed darkness of backstage with only the scuffling servants to see her.

She was shoved forward, to the center of the stage, closer to the cacophony of voices. Wren tried to turn back, but a white curtain blocked her path.

I am no coward, she thought.

As heavy, red velvet curtains were pealed back, Wren faced the crowd.

A stark light hit her face.

The crowd paused.

An audience of finely dressed people gazed upon her. They sat in rows of plush seats with expectant expressions and stiff postures. Wren was grateful for the jewels on her collarbone—their weight grounded her.

She opened her mouth and sang.

Sang and sang and sang until people wept at the beauty of her song.

Her single performance at the castle turned into a week of performances. Then two weeks. Three. Every day, the prince visited her. Her stony heart grew soft in his presence—so soft that when he asked her to stay indefinitely, she agreed.

She rehearsed with the finest piano players and sang songs more difficult than any she’d sung before. She grew to love the castle’s vibrancy and the awed faces of the people within it. She got high on their well-versed praises, even though she missed travelling. She missed bringing life back into the poor.

I can always go back to that, Wren thought.

When she agreed to marry the prince, she still believed it.

Their wedding was a grand affair of beautiful strangers. Wren fell deeper in love with her new life.

For months after the wedding, Wren lived in bliss. She shared a spacious suite with her prince that was just as lovely as the rest of the castle. Every day, she admired its polished tile floors, plush bed, and personal bathroom. She spent even more time picking through her very own closet stuffed with finery.

The façade of perfection only crumbled when she told her beloved that she planned to put on a concert for the servants.

“No,” he clipped.

Her steps across their suite faltered.

“What?”

“No,” the prince repeated. “Darling, I’ve built you quite the reputation. I won’t have it fall apart. If you became so accessible, no one will want to hear you. Think. If everyone had gold, would it still be so prized?”

And because Wren was happy—comfortable, even—she nodded.

One day, I’ll sing for them.

Weeks passed and Wren grew restless. The prince became busier and busier, so she sought friends in the ladies of the court. She’d seen them attend many of her shows, yet when she spoke to them, she received a cold shoulder. They spoke differently from her and they spoke about different things than her. Wren sought out the cooks and maids of the castle instead. They were all workers, just as Wren was, and from places other than wealthy houses and far-off palaces.

One day, Wren returned to her suite to share a new joke with her personal maid, only to discover she’d been replaced.

“She was getting too friendly,” the prince told Wren. “I thought it was time for a replacement.”

“She was my friend,” Wren said.

“Servants aren’t friends, darling,” the prince corrected. “But if you’re having trouble fitting in with the ladies of the court, I’ll find someone to tutor you in etiquette.”

Wren’s days became filled with etiquette-training and rehearsal and performances. She reached out to more ladies and stopped visiting the kitchens. Soon, she walked on eggshells so well, she actually made a few friends.

Wren still craved adventure so she looked into learning other kinds of music to entertain the court—music of her people and of other cultures around the world. The prince popped into one of these rehearsals.

“What is this?” the prince shouted.

The musicians silenced.

“No, no, no,” the prince went on. “The court won’t like this. Why don’t you learn another aria instead?”

“How do you know the court won’t like it if they’ve never heard it?” Wren retorted in front of the musicians and the guards.

The prince’s handsome face became granite-hewn with thinly concealed rage.

“Come with me, darling.”

His words weren’t cruel, but there was a glint in the prince’s eye and a stiffness in his jaw that made everyone but Wren cower.

She did as he said and hurried off the stage, down the hall, and into their suite.

Bam!

Shock hit her before the pain did.

The prince had shoved her into the wall.

Wren tried to stand, but her knees were too shaky, as if her body nor her brain could recover from this new, horrible side to the prince.

“How dare you disrespect me in front of all those people!” he seethed. “How dare you disrespect me at all! After all I did for you! You were nothing but gypsy trash before me!”

The prince picked Wren up by the shoulders and slammed her into the wall again, only this time, he held her pressed against it.

“You said I’d be heard across the world,” Wren spat. “But I won’t sing if it’s only your songs.”

He punched her in the stomach. He didn’t want to mar her pretty face. Wren slumped helplessly against him. Pain throbbed through her body. The prince was high on his power. With a dark chuckle, he kneed her.

“Then you won’t sing at all.”

For weeks, he kept her locked in their suite. No one entered, except for the prince and the servants who dropped off her meals. One day, she tried to rush past them, if only to catch a glimpse of anything other than her suite, which had once seemed so spacious. Guards had hauled her back inside, though their touch had been gentle.

The prince was not so kind.

It was worth it, Wren thought, if only to feel something other than stillness.

Wren contemplated jumping from the balcony and seeing if she’d fly—if she really was the songbird the prince claimed her to be.

But she remembered the dreams of a wild gypsy woman who would not be tamed or broken.

She would not make it easier on him and break herself.

Instead, Wren played nice. She asked him about his work and praised him for his achievements. She nodded and smiled at all the right times. Eventually, she was allowed to peruse the castle’s halls. A few weeks later and she took strolls through the garden with the company of well-respected ladies.

“Why don’t you go for a ride?” the prince suggested one evening. “You used to enjoy that, didn’t you?”

Yes, I enjoyed that before you locked me up, Wren thought.

“That’s a fine idea, my prince,” Wren said.

When Wren arrived at the stables the next afternoon, a lovely, bay mare was saddled. She mounted the horse and took off at a gentle trot, until they were out of sight of the barn. She picked up a canter into the trail through the woods. When she arrived at the part of the trail that bent back to the castle grounds, she urged the mare through the brush instead. Branches and burs lashed at both Wren and the mare.

“I’m sorry,” Wren said to the creature, “but I’m getting us both free.”

During all the smiling and nodding, Wren had listened to the prince describe one of his main roles at the castle—leading the guards. She knew the border’s weak points.

She found the edge of the woods and the cobblestone street beyond it that led down a hill, to a town. She still remembered how large the world had felt when they’d passed through it, before she’d even known the prince’s identity.

Hope pricked her chest.

Wren urged the mare faster with her legs.

In the distance, merchants mingled. Their familiar, informal cadence was music to her ears.

She had made it. She was free—

An arrow pierced her shoulder.

Fiery pain spread from the wound and only worsened when she gasped at its force.

The bloody head of the arrow crept into her peripheral vision. Flesh—her flesh—was stuck to it.

Wren screamed in agony.

“Sing for me, darling!” the prince yelled.

The mare shot off beneath her. Wren snatched the reins and her shoulder was set ablaze with even more pain.

When she hit the forest floor, her flicker of hope died.

Black dots interrupted Wren’s vision, but the mare jetted off, away from the awful castle and into the lively town.

A ghost of a smile lit Wren’s face.

“You traitorous, gypsy trash!” the prince raged. “I knew you were up to something! You think you’re so smart, but you were nothing without me and you’ll be nothing again!”

His boots crunched on the forest floor. Each step grew louder and louder, until they came into Wren’s view. They were so shiny her broken image reflected in their black depths.

The prince snapped off the head of the arrow and ripped the rest of it out of her back in a few fluid movements. Wren’s scream echoed through the dense woods, but she knew no one could help her—not when she was a woman and her husband was her adversary, but especially not when her husband was a prince and she was a gypsy.

At least I’ll bleed out quickly, Wren thought.

The prince picked her up by the back of her neck and dragged her through the forest.

The sting of twigs and brambles were nothing in comparison to the fire in her shoulder. Her body ached from the impact of her fall, but it was just a dull echo of the pain from the arrow.

Water rushed nearby and the prince hauled Wren toward it. Some dormant part of her begged her to fight. She kept a dagger strapped to her leg, but it was buried under the layers and layers of skirts.

Wren scrambled, regardless of how it worsened the pain in her shoulder. She wouldn’t make this easy for him.

Maybe he could break her body, but he wouldn’t break her spirit.

He dragged her to the river without flinching, even when her nails drew blood on his arms. When he lowered her head beneath the water, she clawed him and her nails broke on his skin.

She screamed, but her voice was muffled by the water and the hands at her throat.

The last thing Wren saw was the prince’s mask of rage.

And the memory of him—the stain of him—followed her into death.

But as she’d promised herself, her spirit did not break.

In fact, it only grew stronger, even while her broken body decayed in the river’s slow-moving water and creatures snacked on her remains.

Eventually, Wren found her song again.

It was sweeter than ever.

Its audience was, in the prince’s words, not too accessible.

No, it only called to him.

At first, he only heard it at night. He’d thought it was their suite that was haunted so he moved rooms. It didn’t work. He became sleep-deprived, which was how explained the birds that followed him. He thought the flocks of wren were simply delusions.

The song grew louder.

The prince heard it at all hours of the day and night.

He couldn’t eat or breathe or sleep without hearing it.

Finally, the prince wandered into the woods. It was what the song beckoned him to do and he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

The once untouchable prince approached the river with shaky steps. Purple circles lined his eyes. His usually combed hair was a bird’s nest.

The song grew louder.

When he reached the river, the prince cringed at the broken man in his reflection.

Black wings slowly ensnared the image in the water.

The prince looked down and saw those onyx wings in the flesh.

The song hushed. It transformed into a soft coo.

Completely lost in the embrace of the wings and the song, the prince walked into the riverbed. He laid down with his head beneath the water.

Only then, did the song stop.

The prince thrashed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t rise above the current. He was cemented in the riverbed—cemented in utter, deafening stillness just as Wren had been in her last months of life.

His soul is still trapped there, beneath the current.

And he’s not alone.

Wren’s song calls to all those who put find joy in caging others. Abusive husbands, slave masters, and even wicked wives are trapped in her riverbed.

With every soul she traps, her voice only grows stronger.

One day, she might be heard all around the world, just as her prince once promised.