The Youth With No Name

In those days, the youth most often found himself beneath the old willow slumped over the outer river. He liked to listen to the water’s clear song in the shade more than the growing racket back home. Sometimes, he wished he could abandon himself in his reflection and let the water carry him away.

“Water, do you see me? River, do you hear?

Or do you, too, forget me? Will you leave me here?”

Every day, his drone would sound beneath the river’s bubbling tune. In return for its soothing melody, he would let at least one tear drop into the water to float away forever. “If I come back every day and do this,” he told himself, “one day I will have nothing left to drop. Then, the river will take me away, after all.”

A heavy sigh behind him echoed his own, cradling his heart as he neglected it to plummet in his chest. He examined his calloused hands, tracing the bumps and cuts in his palms. He didn’t know a single person who had bark for skin at his age. The De-named who tried telling him that he was better off never earning a name were either fools or liars. At least they had been someone for a time, unlike he who had never been anyone at all. He squeezed his fists then knocked them against his head to mask the sound of his pitiful sob.

Once again, his exclamation echoed behind him, though with a deeper, more woody tone. He squirmed forward to peer over his shoulder. The willow trunk was bulging outwards with its grains flowing down as though it were made of liquid. Blinking did nothing to stop its growth. As it moved closer with a low hum, he was hardly able to keep himself from reaching up to touch its smooth surface. The wood swallowed his hand yet although he was able to remove it, he found he did not want to. The willow knew him. The willow understood him.

“Do you have a name, willow?” he murmured. The streaming grains were mesmerising.

“Come,” flittered the drooping leaves around him. “Come, find me.” Then a rush of wind silenced them, and the willow breathed out to stillness.

The youth was left staring at his smooth-skinned hand with a smile sitting in his chest.

His feet had never felt so light as he skipped back to the cottage he came to sleep and eat in each night. A girl sat in the garden plucking the strings of a small harp to make a dance out of the crickets’ evening shrill. He used to know her until the previous year when she had joined ranks with the rest of their family as Gyda. Even her familiar freckled face had become near unrecognisable since he had to call her that.

“You’re back,” Gyda said, without looking up at him. She must have felt his eyes upon her as he stood by the steps up to the door.

He nodded.

“A little earlier than usual, don’t you think?” When she spoke, she didn't needed the harp to make music.

He bit his lip and nodded a second time, then stiffened as Gyda ran over to him, leaving her harp on the garden bench.

“Why don’t I help you tonight?” She didn't wait for him to agree, but reached past him to open the door, pulling him inside.

They stopped at the dining table as the youth tugged his arm free from his sister's grasp. There was nothing different about it. Its bare, wooden surface sat in the pooling shadows of the living room. The table was always waiting – waiting for light, waiting for laden dishes, waiting for company. He wondered if he had more in common with it or Gyda.

He looked up as he received a light poke from the candelabras Gyda had already retrieved. “I said I'd help you not do it all myself,” she teased.

“You wouldn't remember how to set everything out even if you wanted to do it all yourself,” said the youth. A grin creased his left cheek.

Gyda scoffed and poked him harder. “It hasn't been that long.”

“Even I have trouble trying to put the cutlery in the right spots and I do it every night.” He tried to keep a straight face, but with his sister's bright gaze bearing down on him, he broke before she did.

For once, the youth regretted finishing to set the table. When the rest of the family marched in to take their places, his sister became no more than Gyda again. His own little bowl of soup hardly did much to comfort him. Putting his head down, he plunged into it half a spoonful at a time. There was a three-course meal and ten-course conversation he had to sit through.

Seven mouthfuls in, his mother turned to him while reaching across to grab a slice of bread. “Are you ready for Saturday?”

A shudder overtook him, forcing him to balance the bowl on the table to avoid spilling it. Then he shrugged, more to rid himself of the shudder than as an answer.

Yet Inga wasn’t attentive enough to notice that and she threw a scowling glance upon him. “Well, you should be,” she said. “You’ve had more preparation than any of us ever had.”

“It’s always the last stage that gets him,” Svanhildr chimed, inviting herself into the conversation as always. “Which is odd because everyone always says it’s the easiest part.”

“Svanhildr,” Father growled. “We do not speak of the challenges. Do we?”

“I never said anything about what happens,” Svanhildr retorted. “And besides, he’s done it more times than any of us, so I’m hardly spoiling anything.” Then she flicked her head towards her brother in the corner and flashed her eyes at him with a sardonic grin.

He held her gaze, freezing it mid-air until it shattered over the table. Nobody could withstand the shrapnel, but the youth. As everyone shielded their eyes in their plates, he lowered his bowl. It was interesting to watch them now when he could see the person behind the label ascribed to them. There was the young woman stabbing her lamb as though she had a personal vendetta against it. Across from her sat the quiet little gentleman wiping his mouth after every bite. He was trying his best to ignore the ravenous wolf cub beside him, who was shoving half his food into his mouth at a time. In stark contrast, the bored princess prodded her unloved morsels from one side of the plate to the other. At either head reigned the aggressive chewer and the frequent sipper. Then there was her… the one who could not pretend. She merely stared into her lap, flinching at every screech of cutlery and loud gulping. At this particular moment, she annoyed him the most.

Setting his jaw, he scraped his stool across the floor, regaining everyone’s attention as he marched over to Gyda. “You’re done, I assume?” he murmured in her ear, reaching past and grasping her plate. A slight tremor ran around the table, as though the plate itself had upset the balance that kept all in order. He paused for a moment to assess the damage, then sauntered around to the princess. Her plate, too, got lifted up to Gyda’s where its contents got emptied onto. Several gasps burst out in response yet the merciless youth wanted more than that. Passing by the kitchen door provoked some murmurs. Leaving behind his stool at the corner earned him a heated rebuke. Yet when he stopped at the empty chair between his least and most favoured sisters, the uproar as he sat down was beyond compare. For one last touch, he picked up Gyda’s abandoned cutlery and began eating the stolen contents.

“Put that down,” Father ordered, pointing at him with his fork.

He swallowed to feed himself another mouthful. “I’ve decided I won’t go to the tournament on Saturday,” he announced. He didn't forget to catch his mother’s priceless look of horror. “And I won’t go to it next year, or the year after that, or ever, in fact.”

Svanhildr let out a short laugh. “I’m surprised they let you come back for the past six years. I would have given up on you long ago.”

“But-but they can’t do that!” Halli protested, spitting over his food. He wiped his mouth hastily before anyone else could but in. “They’re not allowed to stop anyone from entering, no matter how many times—”

“They’re not stopping him, blockhead!” Fólki roused. “He’s just not going.”

Halli blinked in confusion. “What?” he stuttered, and the youth wasn’t the only one who wondered how he had ever passed the challenges. “But-but-but why?”

All heads turned towards the youth, but he was too engrossed in his meal to meet their curious gazes.

Inga seized the silence. “Because he’s a fool, that’s why.”

“And a coward,” added Father.

Svanhildr laughed again. “No, he’s neither of those,” she crowed. “He’s just an imbecile – an incredibly stupid imbecile. And I pity him.”

At this moment, the youth finished his last crumbs and sat back with a long, satisfied sigh. “Well,” said he. “Goodnight all. I daresay one of you still remembers how to clean dirty plates, and whoever that is, I bid you good luck.” Then, he pushed the chair back, bowed low and strode out of the room towards the front door.

Out into the night he ran. His ragged breath masked the slapping of his feet on the cobbled road to the village square. He reached the fountain, dunked his head in and out of the icy water and emptied his lungs again and again and again. Even those without names wondered at his chilling cries. With the hope of a first or second chance at earning a name days away, none could fathom his matured desperation. His quaking hands brushed over his shaved crown. It was all he could do to keep from retching at the ideas shooting from his heart to his head. He would become someone before Saturday, and he might take a few names with him to give out to others while at it. A soft groan escaped his quivering lips as he realised where he was heading.

It was better to run there rather than listen to his voice of reason while walking.

There was only one house in the valley between the inner and outer rivers. No one ever went there save for one week in the year – the week that was to begin in three days’ time.

At the top of the winding pathway down to the turret-topped manor, he slowed to a stop. Even looking at the house from above, its silver-glossed walls were towering over him. If the moon were ever to fall to the earth, he imagined the last moments before it engulfed him must be just like this.

The glowing door was unlocked, opening all the way without a creak to welcome him into the hall. There were no shining walls to brighten the night once the door closed, leaving him to feel his way forwards.

He walked until his legs became sore.

“I don’t remember this ever taking so long,” he murmured. Two steps later, he slunk against the right wall – or he would have if it had not given way. He fell right through as though he had stumbled over the edge of a cliff at night. Luckily, the ground was not too far away, treating him with a light bruise on his tailbone.

The injury last no more than a second, for a glowing bowl caught his eye. He found his feet again and tiptoed towards it. Peering over the edge, he saw a pool of little silver lights floating in what looked like liquid glass. The moving patterns enticed his hand forward, but something clutched his wrist before his fingers passed the rim. His head snapped to the side and his mouth gaped but the silver figure standing over him seemed to absorb his cry.

“None of those belong to you,” the tall figure breathed. If ice could speak, the youth imagined it would sound like that slithering voice. “You have seen me before.” As though he were watching an iceberg melt into water, the figure transformed into a woman – the woman. Gentleness, strength and clarity were her most outstanding features rather than the colour of her eyes or the shape of her figure. Something of a smile lit up her familiar face, and she stretched out a hand to his forehead. “Somehow, I always knew it would be you who would come in here,” she mused. “I am not disappointed.”

Even if the youth could find his voice, he would hardly know which question to ask first.

The woman gestured towards the bowl. “You never reached this stage in the tournament. Neither did I. It is where a name is given according to how each person fares in the challenges. For a long time, I have been the one to give them out, but from now on, that will be your task.”

The youth gripped the bowl to steady his trembling legs. “Wh-why me?” he stammered, and the woman bent down to place her face in front of his.

“Because no name can hold you,” she told him, “so you came here to find yourself. Now you must give others their own selves and take back from those who forget who they are.”

“But how will I know what name is right for each person? And what about you? What will you do if I take your place?”

Once more, the woman caressed his face, now with a look of empathy deepening her grey eyes. “Look within yourself. All your life you have seen the person beneath the name that contains them. As for me, the river will finally take me. You have already seen how I am almost one with it. There is not much left of me here now.”

She sighed, and for a moment, the youth heard the river’s bubbling song wash over him. He looked back into the pool of names, forcing his fingers to his side. “So, I will never have one?” He wished his voice didn’t grate so harshly over the mountain in his throat.

“You do not need one,” crooned the woman, and she didn’t need to extend her hand for him to feel her consoling embrace.

He sniffed once, then nodded firmly.

Come Saturday, the walls were rippling with silver patterns in the sunlight. The youth had taken his place in the tower. Looking over the crowds streaming down the winding path, he recalled his childhood impression of the shimmering manor. “It isn't a house at all,” he had whispered to Gyda long ago. “It's really a fountain caught in the shape of a house.” Gyda had believed him then, but he was almost certain of it now. Part of him could already tell who would become someone.

His heart skipped a beat as he spotted his sister’s flaming head floating down the lane. Gyda must know, he decided immediately. Why, it was obvious the way she was gazing up and down his great manor as she walked. She must be searching for him! Yet he could not go down to her, nor could he allow her to come up to him. If they had belonged in two different worlds before, now they barely shared the same nature.

The gaping doors swallowed her, and he couldn’t bear to watch any more people file inside towards their fate. By now, the house had learnt its way around him quite well, taking him to the great hall after a single flight of stairs. Everyone was settling down on the outskirts until the tournament began. He closed his eyes to dispel the shadow of dread that wanted to creep in at the sights before him. The topless tree that shot up from the centre did not look any smaller from his balcony than it had from the ground. Nor did the maze beneath the glass floor appear any clearer. Only the surrounding crowd appeared less menacing.

All had now gathered, and the elders were welcoming the contestants forward to the feet of the tree. “Find a way up, or do not come down.”

The youth knew those words all too well. He leaned forwards to scrutinise the contestants who strained to gaze up the monstrous trunk and beyond.

The elders then indicated the maze below. “Find a way through, or do not come out.”

Gripping the railing, the youth scanned their expressions for the slightest sign of comprehension.

But the elders were too quick, sweeping their arms out to the crowd. “Find who is looking at you, or do not see at all.”

Then the elders withdrew from the centre and went to sit on their seats below the youth’s balcony. Yet of the three chairs waiting there, the middle one was already occupied. A maiden sat with a raised chin and squared legs, her fiery hair fanning out as a shield about her. The youth turned pale.

After taking a moment to consult amongst themselves, the elders stepped forward. “Gyda,” said Oddvarr, the one whose seat she had stolen, “that is not your place.”

“Neither is it yours,” came the shocking retort. The entire crowd gasped, not so much in horror at what she did say, but of the vital part she had left unsaid – the elder’s name.

Oddvarr’s face hardened. “Do you challenge me… Gyda?”

Gyda rose from the chair and spat between Oddvarr’s feet, provoking an uproar around the hall. “For the sake of my brother whom I have lost on account of the customs you enforce without question. I challenge not only you, but all here.”

The youth felt as though he were about to melt into the floorboards. She didn’t know. There was so much she didn’t know, and he clawed at his throat in a vain attempt to retrieve his voice.

Oddvarr gripped his sister by the hair and thrust his face into hers. “On what grounds?”

Gyda remained steady. “For six years, he has been cast aside for being a refused a name. Now, he has fled, but I am still here, and I will not forget him. So, I say that if any go without a name, so should we all.”

“Challenge denied,” chorused all three elders at once, ripping their cloaks in disgrace. Never had they beheld such a scandal. “Except in your own case,” added Oddvarr, and threw her to the ground.

There was no use struggling after that. Gyda knelt, biting her lip and quaking at the scrape of Oddvarr's sabre biting through her hair.

The moment her long locks stained the floor, the youth raced to her side before Oddvarr could call for him.

His sister looked up at him, and her face fell. “You,” she gasped, then an ugly wail broke out of her, and she shrunk away. “But how…?”

The youth sprung forward, cupping his hand over her mouth to catch her voice. For the longest moment, his sorrowful countenance floated in font of hers, crystallising his apology in her memory. Then with a deep bow, he turned and scurried down to the chamber with the stone bowl. There he sat, staring at her name in his hands. Soon the first contestant would arrive for him to give the gift of being someone.

“It’s like water,” he whispered. “Why are the things which give life also the most perilous?”