Shiloh

by Helena Sorensen

  That night Simeon dreamed again. He stood in front of an immense bonfire, taller than the height of a man and very broad. He could hear the snapping of twigs and branches as they were eaten up by the flame. He could feel the heat of the blaze. It burned his eyes.

  At first, there was only the bonfire and the dense, enveloping darkness that surrounded it. Then Simeon saw the black silhouette of a bird, wings spread wide, talons drawn in tight. Its eyes flashed green, burning hotter than the flames. He could feel the rush of hot wind on his face. The ashy fumes made him cough. But he could not look away. The bird’s gaze held him captive.

  Just when he thought he could bear it no more, the bird transformed. The level of its eyes remained steady while the form of a dark, tall man took shape. He towered over Simeon, shielding him from the heat and smoke. But there was no escape from the raging fire in his green eyes. When Simeon woke, panting and sweating, the image of those eyes stayed with him.

  Nineteen

  The dead rabbit was heaped on the floor, forgotten.

  “She hasn’t eaten anything.” Phebe had whispered the words, glancing furtively at her mother, when Amos came home with his kill.

  “Still?” Amos had asked.

  “Not since . . .” Phebe’s voice had fallen away. There was no need to speak of it again. When the cats had killed the flock, and Phebe had rushed out, Wynn had been hysterical. She’d wearied herself with muttering and pacing, then sat down in her rocking chair and taken up her spindle. When Amos left in the early morning hours to meet Mordecai by the wood, she was there, rocking steadily and gazing into the fire. When he returned in the deep dark of evening, he found his mother as he had left her.

  “Ma, I’ve brought a rabbit,” Amos said, walking over to his mother’s chair and placing a hand on her shoulder. “Phebe can make a stew. It’s yer favorite, isn’t it?” He sat down on the hearth.

  Wynn was growing steadily weaker, steadily thinner. The square bones of her jaw and brow stood out sharply in the fire light, leaving room for shadows to creep into her sunken cheeks and eyes. Her shift hung loose and limp over her shoulders. She was fading away.

  “Everything’s goin’ ta be alright, Ma.”

  Her eyes flickered to her son’s face. Amos waited for her to smooth his hair, to touch his cheek, to pinch his chin. But, as quickly as it had come, her gaze returned to the orange-gold light of the fire. She carried on with her spinning as her chair creaked out a weak pulse.

  Amos sighed and looked around the cottage. His father’s chair sat in its usual place by the fire, empty and haunting. Abner’s quiver and bow were propped against the wall beside the door, and his cot had been neatly made, his extra tunic hanging from its usual hook. The other cots were neat as well, with gray blankets folded at the feet. The stone floor was swept, the woven rugs freshly beaten. The table had been wiped clean. Only the rabbit seemed out of place.

  Phebe pushed past him to stir the broth that simmered in the kettle, and Amos moved to the wooden trunk against the back wall. That trunk held everything of any value they owned: his father’s tools, the embroidered shift his mother had worn on the day she became a wife, the silver glass he’d found in the Whispering Wood, the smaller bows his father had carved for him through the years, and other odds and ends from his parents’ past. All were packed neatly and put away: a box of memories bearing the sign of the Fire Clan.

  “Just a little today, Ma, alright?” Phebe said. “Just a little broth, fer Amos’s sake?” She held a wooden spoon to Wynn’s mouth as she pleaded. But Wynn only rocked and stared, spinning all the while. So Phebe laid the spoon on the hearth, sat down in her father’s chair, and sang. It was her last and greatest weapon against the despair that hung like a shroud over the cottage.

  “Listen, can ya hear them?

  Voices all around

  Carried on the breezes

  Rumblin’ in the ground

  Fallin’ from the branches

  Slidin’ over stone

  Turn ta find the whispers

  Suddenly they’re gone

  Do the beasts o’ Shadow

  Plot against their prey?

  Do the trees remember

  Somethin’ they must say?

  Does the mother cry out

  Fer her little daughter?

  Do the shifters wait

  The Seekin’ Clan ta slaughter?

  Listen, can ya hear them?

  Voices hushed and fey

  Linger not, oh trav’ler

  ’Til the close o’ day”

  The last note hung in the air after Phebe stopped singing. Amos stared at her, marveling at the light that shone from her skin. The little rag doll on her cot, its apron adorned with colored yarn, belied his sister’s strength. After all she had endured, she burned with a radiance as bright as her brother’s had once been.

  When Wynn failed to react to the song, Phebe left Abner’s chair and sat beside Amos. “How’s Sim?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “What do ya mean ya don’t know? Haven’t ya been spendin’ yer days with ’im, in the village?”

  “No.” Amos didn’t want to talk about his last meeting with Simeon. And he didn’t want to breathe a word about Mordecai, or his newfound power. Better that Phebe not know.

  “What’ve ya been doin’, then? Why haven’t ya been here?”

  “What I’ve been doin’, I’ve been doin’ fer you, fer both o’ ya!” he snapped back.

  “But Amos,” she continued, “whatever you’re doin’, how can ya do it without Sim? He’s like yer brother. He’s family.”

  “I don’t want ta talk about Sim.” He would no more understand than Phebe would. Amos opened his mouth to speak again, but he was interrupted by the sound of a feeble cough. He and Phebe turned to Wynn. Could she have thinned and faded still more since he’d come home? Was it possible? She looked almost translucent.

  Amos knew what was coming. He felt it in his bones. And he didn’t want to watch it happen. He left the cottage, running out into the darkness, running hard, pushing himself until his lungs burned for air. He gritted his teeth and pressed on, faster, faster. On the bank of the River Meander, he fell to the ground and cried until exhaustion overcame him and sleep took him.

  When Phebe woke the next morning, her mother was dead. Her vacant eyes stared into the ashen remains of the fire; her thin hands still grasped the drop-spindle. Phebe took one of the now-cold hands in both of hers, then collapsed to her knees, sobbing. Like a candle flame before a strong wind, her light wavered violently. It guttered, faltered, fighting for life until Phebe wiped her eyes, wrapped a blanket over her shoulders, and took the lantern from the table. She stepped out into the lane and headed north, toward Emmerich.

  She was not yet ten. Her father and mother were dead. She could have wept long in the cottage, wallowing in the cursed misery of her condition. Instead, she bolted shut the door of her heart and willed her mind to take control. We’ll have to burn the body today, she thought. And I can’t lift her. I’ll need someone strong. A man. Where Amos had gone, she could not tell, and she knew of one house in the village where she was sure to find help. I’ll go to Darby, she decided. She’ll know what to do.

  Darby did indeed know what to do, though at first she gave an anguished cry of grief and wept, drawing the dry-eyed Phebe into her arms.

  “I fear fer ya, little nightingale. ’Tis too much. ’Tis too much ta bear, I know. Yet ya mustn’t give in ta despair like yer mother. They’ll come fer ya, they will, sure as the endless night o’ this wretched country, they’ll come.”

  Darby quieted after a time and stood. The stones at the base of the loom were uncommonly still as the two stepped out into the road and made for the blacksmith’s shop. Some of the villagers watched as they passed. Caedmon emerged from his usual seat in Payne’s shop to see what
new calamity had befallen. Lark peeked from behind the counter where she measured wicks. She kept her bitter words to herself, perhaps guessing what had happened.

  Orin sent word to Jada and Simeon. They all hurried back to the cottage with Phebe and Darby, and without ceremony, without even a song, Wynn was given back to the light. Phebe stood rigid as the fire burned. Darby stayed close, the light of the flames reflecting strangely in her milk-white eyes. Orin and Jada watched without a word. Simeon gripped Phebe’s hand as if he would never let go. There was no sign of Amos.

  Phebe was the first to leave. As Wynn’s bones blackened on top of the mound, the others followed her to the door.

  “You’d be welcome ta stay with us, Phebe,” Jada said. Darby echoed her invitation.

  “No. Thank you. I’m alright,” she replied.

  “We could stay,” Simeon offered, gripping her hand more tightly than ever.

  But Phebe wanted to be left alone. It took some argument and many reassurances of her wellbeing to send Orin and Darby, Jada and Simeon on their way. But when, at length, their figures disappeared down the lane, she bolted the door, slipped off her boots, and untied her belt. She stretched her long legs under the gray blankets on her cot and stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling, remembering Darby’s words. It was too much grief, too much to be borne.

  And the worst was still ahead. The night weavers were coming.

  Twenty

  You didn’t come to the wood this morning,” Mordecai said and squatted down beside him.

  Amos was damp, disheveled. His body ached from sleeping on the stony riverbank.

  “I passed your cottage on the way to the river,” Mordecai continued. “I saw the flames from the pyre. Your mother?”

  He didn’t know that Wynn had died in the night, but he’d known it would be soon. He’d sat on the bank for hours thinking, remembering, raging. He’d made hard choices for her. How could she have given up so easily?

  “I could’ve taken care of ’er, ya know.” Amos’s voice rose as anger and wild despair bubbled up within him. “Why did she do it? What was she so afraid of?!” He needn’t have asked. He knew. She feared what they had all feared from their first gasping breath. The Shadow.

  “You’re stronger than her, Amos. Different from her. With your power, you never need fear anything.” Mordecai took a small cup from the leather pouch that hung on his belt, inside the folds of his long, black coat. He stood, walked to the edge of the river, and plunged the cup beneath the surface, filling it to the brim. He held it out to Amos. “Why not make an end of it now? Leave behind your father’s delusions and your mother’s weakness.”

  Amos stared at the cup and the inky liquid. “What do ya mean?”

  “Miri’s blood can be mother’s milk to you, too. It has much to offer.” Mordecai looked at the contents of the cup, tipping it momentarily towards him. “Let me give you a gift, Amos.”

  “What gift? Water?”

  “Yes,” Mordecai answered. “Drink deep, drink long. Leave the lake behind. Leave it all behind.” Mordecai’s eyes were bright as he spoke. “Forget the past. Forget the fear.”

  Through all the empty hours of the morning, Amos had pictured his father’s face as he told stories by the fire. Amos had sworn to remember them. “I’ll never forget, Da. Never.” The words rang in his ears, repeating themselves endlessly. “Never.” “Never!” “NEVER!”

  But the days of boyish adventures and fireside tales were gone. He had traded his glory for a bit of power. There was no going back. He reached out and took the cup from Mordecai’s hand, savoring the sweet taste of the black water as it touched his lips. He leaned back and swallowed the rest, emptying the cup to the last drop. Then he knelt by the river and filled the cup again. Again he drank, and again he emptied the cup. Amos drank deeply. He drank until he felt nothing at all, until the searing ache in his chest had vanished and the tormented rushing of his thoughts had stilled.

  After that day, Amos wasted no more time carrying water from the lake. Like the villagers, he bathed in the river, swam in the river, drank from the river. He imagined he had never felt better, never been stronger, never seen the world more clearly. He was wrong.

  The days ran together, one day holding no particular distinction from the last. The stillness inside the cottage was almost unbearable to Phebe at first, for Amos never came; within the cold stone walls the bright warmth of home and family were mere memories. She woke one morning to find that she could no longer stand to see her parents’ belongings lying empty and unused on cots and tables around the cottage.

  She indulged herself one last time, inhaling the scents of father and mother, of spices and earth and smoke. Then she cleaned and folded the blankets and clothes with tender care and packed them away in the trunk, stroking the aged wood of the lid as she closed it.

  But this labor hardly filled the long, quiet hours of one evening. Next day, she cleaned, scrubbing floors and windows until her back ached. She beat the rugs and mattresses. She mended the torn hem of her shift. She scoured the iron kettle and carded the last of the wool. And all this was but the toil of a single day. One day. Outside, winter was waning. The faintest breath of yellow brightened the branches of the nearest trees, and the grasses in the meadow across the lane were ripening to pale green. But inside the cottage, there was no time, no change, no relief from the oppressive, unending quiet.

  Sometimes Phebe found herself lying on her cot, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling, until a newly lit tallow candle had dwindled to nothing. Worse still, she came to herself with a start one evening as she sat spinning wool and gazing into the fire. It was just what her mother had done when she had forfeited all hope, and Phebe knew, with terrifying certainty, that she mustn’t allow herself to wander down that road.

  She would truly have gone mad, that winter and early spring, were it not for Simeon. He came to visit often, and when he stepped over the threshold the cottage seemed reborn. Those were the brightest hours for Phebe. Her face lit the walls with golden radiance, and she thought, If only Amos were here, we could have a grand time, all of us together. It would feel, perhaps, something like it had felt before the Shadow had fallen so heavy on their lives. In the darkest, secret places of her heart, she knew that it could never be so. Already, she felt that Amos was lost to her, but she clung to the hope of his return. There was almost nothing else left to cling to.

  Simeon plunged the tongs right into the heart of the embers and pulled out an axhead. At least, it would be an axhead when he was finished. He placed it on the face of the anvil, holding it firmly with the tongs in his left hand, and raised the hammer in his right. A resonating clang rang out with the first blow of the hammer, and the reddish skin that covered the axhead cracked and flaked onto the floor. Beneath, Simeon could see the golden yellow color of the heated iron. Over and over, he brought the hammer down with a clang, each blow bringing the lump of metal closer to its destiny.

  It was Jada who had pressed him to accept the blacksmith’s offer of an apprenticeship. She had seen his melancholy after Abner’s death, had noticed Simeon’s estrangement from Amos. Simeon knew that she grieved for the family, but he also sensed her relief. Skilled artisans could trade services for food. Many of them never even had cause to go into the wood.

  When he was happy with the shape of the axhead, Simeon put out the fire in the forge, hung his leather apron on a hook, and walked to the stable. Orin’s horses were there, munching on hay. Simeon had come to love Brand and Willa, the white stallion and the gray mare. He often went to the stable to visit them, stroking their necks and brushing them down before walking back through the village to the magistrate’s hall.

  That had been the plan for this night, but Simeon had been plagued all day by a nagging anxiety, a restlessness he couldn’t quite define. The dream-image of the owl’s eyes still haunted him, and he wondered if this dream might
prove to be some kind of warning as well. Instead of walking home as usual, he turned off the main road, cutting between Lark’s and Aspen’s shops and winding his way through the scattered cottages of Emmerich. The night was warm, remarkably so for early spring. Once or twice he caught the ripe scent of dung. He passed the open doors of several cottages and heard the chattering of families around their supper tables. He tripped over the low hedge of someone’s garden, and nearly collided with a woman holding a fussing child. What was I thinking? he wondered. What am I doing? There’s nothing to worry about.

  He was nearing the river, headed home, when he heard voices.

  “I know ya took it, Ferlin. There’s no one with stickier fingers in the whole village.”

  Simeon recognized that voice. It was Amos’s, though it sounded somehow altered.

  “I didn’t steal yer bow!” Ferlin shouted back.

  “I left it here on the bank last night. It didn’t walk away, that’s fer sure. Now hand it over!”

  Finally, Simeon got a clear view of the speakers. Amos stood to his left, hands clenched in rage. Without his bow on his shoulder he looked like someone else entirely. It’s not just that, though, Simeon thought. He’s changed. Something’s wrong.

  Behind Amos stood a tall man in a long, sable coat. His face was hidden in the shadows. Across from the two was Ferlin, shifting his considerable weight from one foot to the other.

  “I said I didn’t steal yer bow! I wouldn’t touch the cursed thing!”

  “Cursed?” Amos asked, daring Ferlin to explain himself.

  “Aye, cursed. I wouldn’t touch anything belongin’ to a madman who was taken by the Shadow.”

  Simeon expected Amos to attack. He would never stand to hear his dead father insulted. But Amos replied with total calm, and it chilled the blood in Simeon’s veins.