‘And horses,’ the queen added and was gratified by the Cyclops, who gave a little shudder.
‘Frightful creatures.’
‘So.’ The queen placed her hands neatly in her lap, feeling strangely at ease. After all of it, after everything, to sit in the light of the moon and talk to one that others might run from was a sort of comfort. ‘What did you wish to speak to me about?’
‘We – my sisters and I—’
‘Sisters? There are more of you? In here?’
‘Yes. We have learned that you plan on cutting the forest down.’
The queen was not expecting this. ‘Oh. Well. My husband plans for it, not I.’
‘Why?’
‘He wishes to grow our home.’
‘But our home is here. And has been since Gaia walked these lands.’
The queen did not know what to say. ‘What do you eat?’ she asked instead.
‘Bark. Grass. Star shine. The smell of the rain.’ She paused and then, ‘I am also partial to spiders.’
‘But not people?’
The Cyclops wrinkled her nose. ‘Not we. Some of the others, our males mostly, they do. But you do not nourish us. You would be a … mean choice.’
The Cyclops shifted one foot and then the other. She seemed impatient and the queen was amused.
‘We would build in the other direction, towards the cliff path. But we are blocked by a formation of rocks that not even a horde of our strongest mules can move.’
The Cyclops regarded her. Her one eye was unavoidable. It was large and even in the light of the moon, which turned all things to a livid wash, it glowed the green of bright sun through leaves.
‘If we move the rocks, you will leave the forest to stand as it does?’
The queen thought. It would mean awakening the sleeping self that could barely rise to look upon the life before her, so different from her expectations.
‘You and your sisters. Are you good to each other?’
The Cyclops blinked her one eye deliberately. The queensuspected that the creature found her equally as strange. ‘Yes. Of course. We are sisters. Lovers. Daughters. Mothers. We are everything to each other.’
The queen nodded, as if satisfied. ‘For this, I need two things from you.’
‘Yes?’
‘First, once you have moved the rocks, you must construct a fort. A grand fort with high stone walls and tunnels.’
‘The people of your kingdom will see us and chase us.’
‘You see well in the dark?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we will do it by the new moon.’
The Cyclops nodded. ‘And the second thing?’
‘Find me as much saffron as you can.’
