Water Witch

by Carol Goodman

  “We’re at the headwaters,” Soheila said, sniffing the air and lifting her heavy dark hair off the nape of her neck. “The water bubbles up from a deep natural spring – the coldest, clearest water you’ve ever seen. Not many ever get to see it because it’s carefully hidden.”

  Although I was still disturbed by the idea of going anywhere near a watery passage to Faerie, the sound of the stream was making my parched mouth water and my sweaty feet ache for a cold dip. If I could help the undines without getting into the water I wanted to do it. After all, they were harmless juvenile undines.

  Only when I’d agreed to follow the three women further into the woods did I remember just how volatile teenagers could be.

  We scrambled through thick tangles of shrub, following the sound of water deeper into the thicket. Pushing the vines aside, we dislodged the bones of small animals and birds. I’d seen remnants like these around the door to Faerie, the remains of creatures that had gotten stuck in the Borderlands and died there. I actually felt the pressure of the vines on my skin as we passed and heard the creak of fiber and pulp as the thicket contracted around us – like one of those Chinese finger puzzles.

  “Are you sure we can make it through this?” I asked, struggling to keep my mounting sense of claustrophobia at bay. It felt like we were in a wicker basket that was contracting around us.

  “Don’t worry,” Soheila said matter-of-factly. “Liz knows a spell to keep the thicket from closing in on us.”

  That’s when I noticed Liz and Diana were silently mouthing words as they walked through the woods and that the vines were curling away from us as we approached. I felt reassured until I looked back and saw that they were also intertwining behind us. Just when I thought I couldn’t stand the claustrophobic woods another second we emerged into open air: a glade encircled by ferns. I felt and smelled the coolness of water before I saw the pool, which was the same deep green as the surrounding woods. When my eyes adjusted to the murk, I saw that the burble that had drawn us came from a spring bubbling up from a cleft in a giant boulder and falling into a wide basin hollowed out of grey-green granite. The women formed a circle around the basin and then crouched down beside it to scoop handfuls of water to their mouths. In this age of bottled water and rampant pollution it went against most of my instincts to drink from a hole in the ground, but thirst overcame my reservations. I knelt beside Soheila, cupped my hands beneath the ice cold trickle and brought a handful to my lips …

  A mineral chill filled my mouth, my throat, my belly … then spread outward, plumping every desiccated cell in my body. It was like drinking pure oxygen. I took another sip and it was like sipping the ether of outer space. After my third long draught I bathed my face, resisting the urge to plunge headlong into the shallow basin. Instead I sat back on my heels to take a look around.

  From the basin the water spilled from rock to rock: a granite stairway leading down to a green pool scooped out of the stone. Wild irises grew on the edges of the pools; water lilies floated on top of them. I made my way down to the pool where Soheila, Liz and Diana were bent over, gazing into the water. I crouched beside them and stared into the pool, through crystal clear water down to the moss-covered stones at its bottom. I leaned further … and found myself looking into a pair of moss-green eyes, the same color and shape as the stones at the bottom of the pool. I flinched and the eyes blinked – then vanished in a whirlpool that splashed cold water in my face.

  “They’re quite frisky,” Liz said handing me a bandana to wipe my face.

  “They’re ready to migrate,” Soheila said, pointing to the far side of the pool. At first all I could see were rapids spilling into a fast flowing stream, the clear water twisted into skeins of transparent silk where it braided over the rocks, but as we moved closer I saw that those transparent skeins were actually long thin bodies, slender as eels, slipping over the rim of the pool and into the stream.

  “Those are undines?” I asked, recalling the illustrations of the winsome maiden Arthur Rackham did for the German fairy tale. She had looked far different from these eel-like creatures.

  “Immature undines,” Soheila replied slipping her fingers in the water and tickling the underbelly of one of the undines. It flipped over and stared at us with its large mossy eyes. Up close I saw that it did have arms, but they were loosely clamped to its sides by sheer, web-like netting. On some undines the netting had frayed to long streamers, freeing their arms. “Their arms start to separate from their bodies to help with their passage, but their legs won’t form until they get to Faerie. That’s why it’s so important that they get to Faerie. If they’re stranded here …” Soheila shook her head sadly. “They can’t survive past the summer here in this form. Poor things. During the last migration we found several dead ones stranded in the woods.”

  While I knew Soheila was ancient, it still unnerved me when she spoke about events that had taken place a hundred years ago as though they had just happened yesterday.

  “Let’s hurry,” Liz said, striking out down the narrow path beside the stream. “The first wave will be reaching the junction pool by now.”

  I followed the women who now walked single file – Liz in the lead, followed by Diana, then Soheila – trying to keep up with their accelerated pace, but I found myself distracted by the activity in the stream. If I hadn’t known about the undines I might have thought the water was just running fast – as these mountain streams ran during the spring thaw or after a heavy rain. But it was the end of June and it hadn’t rained in a week. Nor could the water pressure explain the way the stream leapt over its banks, spraying bright arcs into the air, or the way the stream sounded. Beneath the rushing water was the sound of laughter – the raucous, wild twitter and screech of excited teenaged girls.

  “Are all the undines female?” I asked, watching a slender shape break from a wave and pirouette in the air before gracefully diving back into the stream.

  Soheila paused and looked back at me. She seemed unsure if she should answer, glancing nervously ahead on the path toward Diana, but then she answered in a low voice. “There used to be male undines, but during the last spawning there were only a few. We fear there might not be any this season. We’ve noticed that many of the indigenous species of Faerie seem to only produce female offspring – and a few only produce males and others simply can’t reproduce anymore. It’s a source of great concern in the fey community because it means, of course, that many species will die out unless …”

  “Unless what, Soheila?”

  “Unless they are allowed into this world to find a mate. Every hundred years, when the juvenile undines run downstream into Faerie there are mature undines on the other side waiting to come through the door to find a human mate. It’s their only chance to reproduce.”

  “So these undines …” I pointed to the roiling mass of bodies in the stream, “are the offspring of an undine and a human?”

  Soheila tilted her head and gave me a curious look. Instantly I was ashamed of the surprise – and the little bit of horror – in my voice. Soheila, after all, was an otherworldly being who had fallen in love with a human, the folklorist Angus Fraser. Perhaps she had hoped for children from the union. I myself had made love to an incubus many – many – times. Could I have gotten pregnant with Liam’s child? I felt myself go hot with the thought. A splash of cold water brought me back into the moment – and my body temperature back down to normal.

  Soheila finally answered: “We believe they’re the children of an undine who came through the door in the summer of 1910 and a fisherman by the name of Sullivan Trask. Sul, as he was known. In fact, the pool we’re heading for is known as Sul’s Eddy.” Soheila had resumed the cool, dispassionate voice of a lecturer. If I’d offended her, she wasn’t letting on. “The spot is famous in local angling lore. Come, I’ll show you the sign.”

  She turned to go, but I stopped her by laying my hand on her arm. I was startled by how cold her skin felt. While I knew that Soheila was always cold in
the winter, since she had forsworn feeding off the life force of humans, it was shocking to discover that she was still frigid to the touch on a broiling summer day. “Soheila, was there something else you were going to tell me?”

  Soheila sighed – a sound like wind rippling through the pines, reminding me that in the centuries before she became flesh Soheila had been a wind spirit. “Hmm. Well we were going to tell you later after we saved the undines. There’s a meeting on Monday, the day of summer solstice, of IMP and the Grove.”

  IMP was the Institute of Magical Professionals and a much more liberal organization than the Grove, a conservative witches’ club that my grandmother belonged to. I had joined the Grove myself a few months ago in exchange for learning how to lift a curse from one of my favorite students – a fact of which my friends at Fairwick were unaware.

  “I’m surprised that the Grove would meet with an organization that includes fairies and demons.” I was also surprised – and not a little put out – that my grandmother hadn’t told me about the meeting.

  “So were we. They said they want to improve relations with the witches of Fairwick. The governing board of IMP thought it was prudent to take them up on the offer of a meeting. The Grove has been growing more and more powerful.” I could tell by Soheila’s expression that she certainly wasn’t happy about the prospect.

  “What do you think about the meeting?” I asked.

  Soheila sighed again, but this time the sound was more like a gust of wind before a storm.

  “I’m afraid that IMP will be helpless to stop the Grove from pushing their own agenda, which is to close the door between this world and Faerie.”

  I knew that the witches of the Grove didn’t like fairies. It was an age old feud that went back to the time of the witch trials. The Grove witches believed that it was contact with the fairies that had caused the persecution of witches. But I hadn’t realized that they took the enmity so far as to want to bar the fey from this world. “Can they even do that?” I asked.

  “We’re not sure. We know that over the last hundred years every door but the one here in Fairwick has closed. Some believe that it’s a natural process, that as this world grows more crowded and polluted the avenues between the worlds become … clogged. But we believe that the witches of the Grove have been working spells to close all the doors, and that they intend to close this one. If they do, all of us who came from Faerie will have to decide which world we want to live in …” A look of pain flickered across Soheila’s soft brown eyes.

  “Why?” I asked. “I mean I thought you already had chosen to live in this world.”

  Soheila let out an expulsion of breath that shook the branches of the trees and rippled the water in the stream. “Many of us have, but we still need to go back to Faerie every few years to refresh our power. Otherwise we begin to fade. If the last door closes, those of us who live in this world will have to decide between going back to Faerie or eventually fading and dying in this world.”

  “What a horrible choice to make,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Soheila, “but at least we have a choice. The ones who would really suffer would be the creatures who need to come to this world to breed – like the undines.” She waved her hand toward the vibrant stream teeming with young, boisterous creatures. “Without access to this world, their species will die out.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  WE CONTINUED TO follow the stream through the woods, its gurgle accompanying us like a fifth companion. I had known when I agreed to join the Grove that my loyalty to my friends at Fairwick might be tested, but I hadn’t known that I’d be thrust into a conflict so soon. If the Grove was really coming here to close the door to Faerie, would I be compelled to take a side?

  It was true that I’d seen some pretty dangerous creatures come through the door to Faerie, but I’d also seen harmless ones. Many of my closest friends had originally come from there. Which of them, I wondered now, would choose to leave this world if they knew it was their last chance to go back there?

  My thoughts were interrupted by a loud splash. An undine had leapt over a boulder, her slim transparent body twisting in the sunlight as she performed a backwards flip. Immediately, two others copied their sister with their own flips, the second one adding a double somersault and a mid-air twist.

  “Great, now they’ll all have to do it,” Liz muttered, hands on hips. She clapped her hands briskly and called in a stern Jean Brodie brogue, “Come along girrrls, we haven’t got all day. No time for showing off.”

  In response one of the undines performed a triple axis worthy of the figure skater Sarah Hughes at the 2002 Olympics.

  “Very well,” Liz said, the ghost of a smile flitting across her face. “Get it out of your systems.” And then, noticing me on the path behind her, she added in a low voice, “Poor things. I can’t begrudge them their little bit of fun. They have a difficult journey ahead of them … and then this might be the last time I ever see an undine run.”

  Glancing at Liz, I noticed the smile had faded from her face.

  “Soheila told me about the meeting next week,” I said. “Do you think the Grove will really try to close the door? Will IMP go along with it?”

  Liz turned to me, her face looking suddenly older. The truth was I didn’t know how old she was. Witches could augment their life spans with magic. If Liz had seen the undine run before that meant she was over a hundred years old. Normally, she looked like a stylish, well-preserved sixty, but right now her eyes looked like they had seen a century of woes.

  “I believe it is what the Grove has been working tirelessly to achieve for over a hundred years. Before I came to Fairwick I taught at a girls’ school in the Hudson Valley. There was a door to Faerie nearby. The school was run by the witches of the Grove who believed that the creatures that came from Faerie were all evil and must be destroyed.” She shuddered. “Some of the creatures were evil. But some of us came to believe that not all the denizens of Faerie were bad. There was a rift, followed by a battle in which innocent blood was shed …” Liz’s voice trembled. She bit her lip and looked away until she had mastered her emotions.

  “I wasn’t the only one to lose loved ones. The witches of the Grove suffered losses they still haven’t recovered from. They closed the door to Faerie near the school and since then all the other doors to Faerie have closed, except for the one here in Fairwick.”

  “Soheila said that some people believe it’s a natural process …”

  Liz shook her head impatiently. “No more than global warming is a natural process. The Grove has been closing the doors with their spells. This door would have closed already were it not for the spells we’ve cast to keep it open, but over time it’s become harder and harder to keep the door open. We were afraid that it was closing for good … but then you came …”

  “If the Grove wants to close the door will IMP be able to stop them?”

  Liz sighed. “I don’t honestly know. There has been a growing conservative trend among the governing members of IMP. They’re concerned – and rightfully so – about the dangerous nature of some of the creatures that come through the door. Even some of the fey members of the board would like to limit future immigration. I’m afraid that it’s possible that IMP would vote with the Grove.”

  “If the vote went to closing the door, as doorkeeper would I be able to stop them from doing it?” I asked.

  Liz gave me a long, considering look. As far as I knew her magical powers didn’t include mind reading, but I felt that she could tell I had a guilty secret. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “You’ve demonstrated extraordinary power in opening the door, but you haven’t had to go up against a really powerful witch – and mark my words, the witches of the Grove are very powerful. The truth is we don’t know the limits of your power. The combination of fey and witch bloodlines makes for a powerful but unstable mix. You should have been trained from early on …”

  Liz looked embarrassed to have brought up this detail from my pa
st. My parents had died when I was twelve, leaving me to be raised by my grandmother Adelaide. Since Adelaide was a powerful witch she should have, by all rights, trained me herself, but she hadn’t. She later claimed that she had seen no sign of magical power in me and assumed that my half-fey ancestry had cancelled out my witch’s power. It wasn’t until I moved to Fairwick that I discovered I had any power at all – or even that such creatures as witches and fairies existed.

  “… and I have been remiss in getting you the proper training,” Liz continued. “I promise we’ll start your training this summer … as soon as we’ve got the undines settled. Your magical abilities need nurturing,” she said, turning to walk ahead of me on the path. I only heard her next words because they were carried to me on a gust of wind. “Heaven knows we may all be in sore need of them.”

  I caught up to Soheila, Liz, and Diana at the edge of a waterfall. They were watching the undines tumbling down into a wide pool. Another stream rushed into the pool from the south. In the distance I could make out several fishermen standing knee deep in the water casting their lines out over the sun-dazzled water of the lower branch of the Undine.

  “Won’t the undines be in danger of getting caught in those lines?” I asked. “And won’t those fishermen be … surprised to find a teenage girl on their hooks instead of a rainbow trout?”

  “The Department of Environmental Conservation has declared Sul’s Eddy off limits until the beginning of July,” Liz told me.

  “Officially to prevent overfishing on the Undine, but really because we’ve got friends in the Department who are giving us time to get the undines out,” Diana added.

  “But we have to act fast,” Soheila said, leading the way down the steep, rocky path to the junction pool. “The underground passage to Faerie is on the far side of the pool, but the undines get confused because of the different currents. They could head down into the lower branch of the river if we don’t help direct them.”