The Luckiest Night, Part 3, the Finale

His eyes continued to follow her as she worked, but despite the distraction, his tasks proceeded more smoothly than before...

Kalle woke with renewed enthusiasm, greeting Master Tuenne with an idea. “Today, I will fix our leaky roof.”

The master’s eyebrows arched in surprise. Kalle gathered supplies and set to work, banging spare boards into place along the sleeping room’s wall. Lisse had to mend a couple of his smashed fingers throughout the day, and Kalle got lost while fetching nails from the village market, but he managed to accomplish his goal.

That night, when the evening rains came, Kalle could barely contain his anticipation. “Well? Do you notice anything different?”

Lisse gasped. “You really did patch the roof! Thank you, Kalle.”

“You’re welcome, Lisse.” For the first time in many nights, Kalle drifted to sleep with a smile on his face.

***

“Kalle, your cot is still in the center of the room,” Lisse observed the next morning. “Did you not repair your own side of the roof?”

Kalle’s cheeks flushed. He pushed the dish of collected raindrops aside with his toe. “I’ll work on my side today.” He glanced up in time to see Lisse’s smile and found that he could not look away.

His eyes continued to follow her as she worked, but despite the distraction, his tasks proceeded more smoothly than before. He used his supplies efficiently and found the market without getting lost even once. He hammered his thumb less frequently, too, though he might have asked Lisse for a numbing salve more often than was strictly necessary.

By the following week, the healer’s hut seemed to stand taller, with a less cockeyed roof and no more leaky holes. Master Tuenne was pleased. Kalle expanded his efforts to repair other off-kilter things in the healer’s shop: the tilting shelf, the sagging bench, the placard that hung askew above the door. When Master Tuenne complimented his skill, Kalle warmed with pride. When Lisse praised his accomplishments, his heart ignited in joy.

***

One evening, Kalle slid his shoes under the cot and bent to rub his perpetually sore feet. A new blister had erupted on his big toe.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had blisters?” Lisse demanded.

Kalle started, pulling his blanket to cover his abused feet. Lisse rolled her eyes. “Why do you insist on these foolish shoes?”

Kalle glanced at the hard, unforgiving leather shoes and winced. “My Destiny Scroll prescribed them.”

“How very odd.” She handed him a tin of her special numbing ointment. “Now your soft feet are covered with calluses and blisters.”

“My scroll has a mean sense of humor,” he replied. Then his forehead wrinkled. “Wait. How do you know my feet were soft? Were you studying me?”

“No, of course not. Well, maybe,” Lisse stammered.

Kalle laughed. “I knew you were peeking through the screen.”

“I wasn’t peeking!” Lisse blushed. “But, when we first came here, it was obvious your hands and feet had never performed any taxing work.”

Kalle sighed and opened the tin.

Lisse watched him dip his fingers into the ointment. “That’s why I put extra effort into learning the recipe for this numbing salve,” she said gently. “I don’t know why you wear the False Face, but I won’t judge you.”

Kalle contemplated Lisse as he smeared the heavenly goo on his toe. The soothing herbs did their job quickly. “Your medicine is like magic,” he said. “Would you go for a walk with me?”

Lisse paused. “All right, but you must let me lead. I don’t want to be lost when the rain comes.”

Kalle nodded and shoved his foolish shoes back on, and they set off through the early evening mist.

“You’re right,” Kalle said as they approached the village orchard.

“Of course I am,” Lisse responded. “About what?”

“My background,” Kalle said. “My Destiny Scroll advised me to keep my identity secret, but it’s time for me to put aside the False Face.”

“Oh?” she said, turning toward him. “Who are you, then?”

Kalle paused, then took her hands in his. He drew in a shaky breath. “I am the Prince of the Twin Moons.”

Lisse’s eyes widened. “I assumed you were of a noble house, but I didn’t imagine you were royalty.”

“Are you upset with me?” Kalle asked. His heart pounded like a festival drum as she studied him.

“I suppose not,” she finally said. “After all, watching you sort herbs was so very entertaining.”

Kalle smiled, relieved that she wasn’t angry about his deception. The rain clouds drifted apart, revealing the moons. They lit the sky, not with the radiance of his birth night, but with a more tranquil shimmer.

“Have you discovered why your scroll sent you to a common healer’s hut?” she asked.

He paused, and then nodded. “I think I needed to live as Commoner Kalle, instead of Prince Kalle, so I could understand myself better,” he said. “And to recognize what is truly important.”

“And what is truly important to you?”

Kalle’s breath caught, and then, in a butterfly voice, he replied, “You.”

Lisse smiled and brought her fingertips up to caress his cheek. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

Kalle laughed. The perfume of springtime plum blossoms laced the air.

“I believe this is the luckiest night of the year,” he whispered.

***

And so, the Empire of the Twin Moons entered a golden age.

Empress Lisse established formal healing schools throughout the land and decreed each village should have its very own royal physician in residence. Emperor Kalle led an unprecedented building plan, ensuring that no citizen had to sleep under a leaky roof ever again. Further, he dispatched the royal mapmakers to mark each intersection in the empire with helpful street signs. And, best of all,

uncomfortable shoes were outlawed forever.

****

Myna Chang is the author of The Potential of Radio and Rain, an award-winning collection of flash and micro stories set in the shortgrass prairie. Her fiction has been selected for the 2023 Locus Recommended Reading List, W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction America, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction; her poetry has received an Honorable Mention in the 2024 Rhysling Awards.

She is the winner of the Lascaux Prize in Creative Nonfiction, as well as the New Millennium Award for Flash Fiction. Her work has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Horror of the Year, and has made multiple appearances on the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist.

Myna serves on the editorial staff of several magazines and anthologies. She hosts the Electric Sheep speculative fiction discussion group, as well as the Drop the Mic(ro) reading series, and she publishes MicroVerse Recommended Reading. She is a member of SFWA, HWA, and SFPA.