Daughter of the Forest

by Juliet Marillier

“Faith in myself,” he said simply. “To do what’s right, and not falter, no matter how hard it gets.”

  “It was hard enough today,” I said, thinking of Father’s cold eyes, and the way they’d made Finbar look.

  It will be much harder in time. I could not tell if this thought came from my own mind, or my brother’s. It sent a chill up my spine.

  Then he said aloud, “I want you to remember, Sorcha. Remember that I’ll always be there for you, no matter what happens. It’s important. Now come on, it’s time we went back down.”

  When I remember the years of our growing up, the most important thing is the tree. We went there often, the seven of us, southward through the forest above the lakeshore. When I was a baby, Liam or Diarmid would carry me on his back; once I could walk, two brothers would take my hands and hurry me along, sometimes swinging me between them with a one-two-three, as the others ran on ahead toward the lake. When we came closer, we all became quiet. The bank where the birch tree grew was a place of deep magic, and our voices were hushed as we gathered on the sward around it.

  We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the Fair Folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life—not to say you’d meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who’d strayed too far into the forest, and disappeared; or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms, and gone away for a while, and come back subtly changed. Strange things could happen in those places. Gone for maybe fifty years you could be, and come back still a young girl; or away for no more than an instant by mortal reckoning, and return wrinkled and bent with age. These tales fascinated us, but failed to make us careful. If it was going to happen to you, it would happen, whether you liked it or not.

  The birch tree, though, was a different matter. It held her spirit, our mother’s, having been planted by the boys on the day of her death, at her own request. Once she had told them what to do, Liam and Diarmid took their spades down to the place she had described, dug out the soft turf, and planted the seed there on the flat grassy bank above the lake. With small, grubby hands the younger ones helped level the soil and carried water. Later, when they were allowed to take me out of the house, we all went there together. That was the first time for me; and after that, twice a year at midsummer and midwinter we’d gather there.

  Grazing animals might have taken this little tree, or the cold autumn winds snapped its slender stem, but it was charmed; and within a few years it began to shoot up, graceful both in its bare winter austerity and in its silvery, rustling summer beauty. I can see the place now, clear in my mind, and the seven of us seated cross-legged on the turf around the birch tree, not touching, but as surely linked as if our hands were tightly clasped. We were older then, but children still. I would have been five, perhaps, Finbar eight. Liam had waited until we were big enough to understand, before telling us this story.

  …now there was something frightening about the room. It smelled different, strange. Our new little sister had been taken away, and there was blood, and people with frightened faces running in and out. Mother’s face was so pale as she lay there with her dark hair spread around her. But she gave us the seed, and she said to us, to Diarmid and me, “I want you to take this, and plant it by the lake, and in the moment of my passing the seed will start to grow with new life. And then, my sons, I will always be there with you, and when you are in that place you will know that you are part of the one great magic that binds us all together. Our strength comes from that magic, from the earth and the sky, from the fire and the water. Fly high, swim deep, give back to the earth what she gives you…”

  She grew tired, she was losing her life blood, but she had a smile for the two of us and we tried to smile back through our tears, hardly understanding what she told us, but knowing it was important. “Diarmid,” she said, “look after your little brothers. Share your laughter with them.” Her voice grew fainter. “Liam, son. I fear it will be hard for you, for a while. You’ll be their leader, and their guide, and you are young to carry such a burden.”

  “I can do it,” I said, choking back my tears. People were moving about the room, a physician muttering to himself and shaking his head, women taking away the bloody cloths and bringing fresh ones, and now somebody tried to make us leave. But Mother said no, not yet, and she made them all go out, just for a little. Then she gathered us around her bed, to say good-bye. Father was outside. He kept his grief to himself, even then.

  So she spoke softly to each of us, her voice growing quieter all the while. The twins were on either side of her, leaning in, each the mirror image of the other, eyes gray as the winter sky, hair deep brown and glossy as a ripe chestnut.

  “Conor, dear heart,” she said. “Do you remember the verse about the deer, and the eagle?” Conor nodded, his small features very serious. “Tell me then,” she whispered.

  “My feet will tread soft as a deer in the forest,” said Conor, frowning with concentration. “My mind will be clear as water from the sacred well. My heart will be strong as a great oak. My spirit will spread an eagle’s wings, and fly forth. This is the way of truth.”

  “Good,” she said. “Remember, and teach it to your sister, when she is older. Can you do that?”

  Another solemn nod.

  “It’s not fair!” Cormack burst out, angry tears overwhelming him. He put his arms around her neck and held on tight. “You can’t die! I don’t want you to die!”

  She stroked his hair, and soothed him with gentle words, and Conor moved around to take his twin’s hand in his own, and Cormack grew quiet. Then Diarmid held Padriac up so Mother’s arm could encircle the two of them for a moment. Finbar, standing next to her pillow, was so still you could have missed him entirely, watching silently as she let her sons go, one by one. She turned to him last of us boys, and she didn’t say anything this time, but motioned to him to take the carved piece of stone she wore around her neck, and to put it on his own. He wasn’t much more than an infant—the cord came down below his waist. He closed a small fist around the amulet. With him she had no need for words.

  “My daughter,” she whispered at last. “Where’s my Sorcha?” I went out and asked, and Fat Janis came in and put the newborn baby in our mother’s arms, by now almost too weak to curl around the little bundle of woollen wrappings. Finbar moved closer, his small hands helping to support the fragile burden. “My daughter will be strong,” Mother said. “The magic is powerful in her, and so in all of you. Be true to yourselves, and to each other, my children.” She lay back then, eyes closed, and we went softly out, and so we did not witness the moment of her passing. We put the seed in the ground and the tree took form within it and began to grow. She is gone, but the tree lives, and through this she gives us her strength, which is the strength of all living things.

  My father had allies as well as enemies. The whole of the northern land was patchworked with tuaths like his, some larger, most a great deal smaller, each held by its lord in an uneasy truce with a few neighbors. Far south at Tara dwelt the High King and his consort, but in the isolation of Sevenwaters we were not touched by their authority, nor they, it seemed, by our local feuds. Alliances were made at the council table, reinforced by marriages, broken frequently by disputes over cattle or borders. There were forays and campaigns enough, but not against our neighbors, who held my father in considerable respect. So there was a loose agreement between them to unite against Briton, Pict, and Norseman alike, since all threatened our shores with their strange tongues and barbarian ways. But especially against the Britons, who had done the unthinkable and got away with it.

  I could hardly be unaware that prisoners were sometimes taken, but they were closely housed and guarded with grim efficiency, and none of my brothers would talk about it. Not even Finbar. This was odd, for mostly he kept his mind open to me, and my own thoughts were nev
er shut away from him. I knew his fears and his joys; I felt with him the sunlit spaces and the dark mystic depths of our forest, the heartbeat of the goddess in its dappled paths and spring freshness. But there was, even then, one part of himself that he kept hidden. Perhaps, even so early, he was trying to protect me. So, the prisoners were a mystery to me. Ours was a household of tall armored figures, curt exchanges, hasty arrivals and departures. Even when my father was away, as for the best part of the year he was, he left a strong garrison behind, with his master-at-arms, Donal, in iron-fisted control.

  That was one side of the household; the other, the more domestic, was secondary. What servants we had went about their tasks efficiently enough, and the folk of the settlement did their share, for there were stone walls to be maintained, and thatching to be done, and the work of mill and dairy. The herds must be driven to high ground in summer, to take advantage of what grazing there was, pig boys must do their best to track their wayward charges in the woods, and the women had spinning and weaving to do. Our steward took sick with an ague, and died; and after that Conor took charge of the purse, and the accounts, while Father was away. Subtly he began to assume authority in the household; even at sixteen he had a shrewd sobriety that belied his years and appeared to inspire trust even in the hard-bitten soldiers. It became plain to all that Conor was no mere scribe. In Father’s absence, small changes occurred unobtrusively: an orderly provision of dry turf to the cottagers in good time for winter, a set up for my use, with a woman to help me and take drafts and potions to the sick. When the little folk got to Madge Smallfoot’s husband, and he drowned himself in a long drop from rocks into the lake (which is how Smallfoot’s Leap got its name), it was Conor who made arrangements for Madge to come and work for us, rolling pastry and plucking chickens in our kitchens. These things were little enough, maybe, but a start.

  Finbar did not go on the autumn campaign that year. Despite Father’s orders, it was Liam and Diarmid and, to his delight, young Cormack who departed abruptly one bright, crisp morning. The call to arms was early, and unexpected. Unusually, we were entertaining guests: our nearest neighbor, Seamus Redbeard of Glencarnagh, and several of his household. Seamus was one of the trusted ones, my father’s closest ally. But even he had not entered the forest without an escort of my father’s men, who met him on his own border and saw him safe to the keep of Sevenwaters.

  Seamus had brought his daughter, who was fifteen years old and had a mane of hair the same startling hue as her father’s. Her locks may have been fiery, but Eilis was a quiet girl, plump and rosy-cheeked; in fact, I found her rather boring compared with my brothers. Our guests had been with us for ten days or so, and because Eilis never wanted to climb trees, or swim in the lake, or even help me with brewing and preserving, I soon tired of her company and left her to her own devices. I was amazed that the boys took so much interest in her, for her conversation, when she spoke at all, ran mostly to the immediate and superficial. This could surely be of little interest to them. Yet in turn Liam, Diarmid, and Cormack could be seen patiently escorting her around the keep and the gardens, bending with apparent fascination to catch every word she said, taking her hand to help her down steps I could have traversed with a few neatly executed jumps.

  It was odd, and grew odder—though the strangest thing was that it took me so long to realize what was happening. After the first few days, she showed her allegiance, attaching herself firmly to Liam. He, whom I would have thought the busiest, always seemed to have time for Eilis. I detected something new in his face, now grown to the long-boned hardness of manhood. It was a warning to his brothers to keep off; and they heeded it. Eilis went walking in the woods with Liam, when she would not go with me. Eilis, most demure at table, could sense when Liam’s dark eyes were fixed on her from across the noisy hall; she looked up shyly, met his gaze for a second, and blushed becomingly, before her long lashes shielded the blue eyes again. Still I was ignorant, until the night my father rapped the board for silence.

  “My friends! My good neighbors!”

  There was a hush among the assembled guests; goblets paused halfway to waiting lips, and I sensed an air of expectancy, as if everyone knew what Father was going to say, except me.

  “It is good, in these times of trouble, to make merry together, to drink and laugh and share the fruits of our pastures. Soon enough, at full moon, we must venture forward again, this time perhaps to make our shores safe once and for all.”

  A few whistles and shouts of acclaim here, but they were clearly waiting for something more. “Meanwhile, you are welcome in my hall. It is a long time since such a feast was held here.”

  He was grim for a moment. Seamus Redbeard leaned forward, his face flushed.

  “Sure and you’re a fine host, Colum, and let none tell you different,” he pronounced, his speech suffering a bit from the quality of our ale. Eilis was blushing and looking down at her plate again. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Cormack feeding slivers of meat to his dog, Linn, who had squeezed her long-limbed body under the table. He’d hold a morsel of beef or chicken very casually between thumb and forefinger, and an instant later the great whiskery muzzle would appear, and disappear, and Cormack would rest his empty hand on the table’s edge, his eyes fixed carefully elsewhere and his dimples showing just a little.

  “And so I charge you, drink to the happy pair! May their union be long and fruitful, and a sign of friendship and peace between neighbors.”

  I’d missed something; Liam was standing, rather pale but unable to keep a smile off his usually serious face, and then he was taking Eilis’s hand, and I finally saw the way they looked at each other and knew it for what it was.

  “Married? Liam?” I said to nobody in particular. “To her?” But they were all laughing and cheering, and even my father looked almost contented. I saw the old hermit, Father Brien, speaking quietly to Liam and Eilis amid the crowd. Clutching my hurt to myself, I slipped out of the hall, right away from the torches and candles and noise, to the stillroom that was my own place. But not to work; I sat in the deep window embrasure with a single stub of candle to keep me company, and stared out into the darkened kitchen garden. There was a sliver of moon, and a few stars in the black; slowly the garden’s familiar faces showed themselves to me, though I knew them so well I could have seen them in pitch darkness: soft blue-green wormwood, that warded off insects; the yellow tips of rioting tansy, dainty gray lavender with its brilliant spikes of purple and blue, the rough stone walls blanketed in soft drift of green where an ancient creeper flourished. There were many more; and behind me on shelves, their oils and essences gleaming in bottle, jar, or crucible, for cure or palliative; their dried leaves and blooms hanging above me in orderly bundles. A delicate healing smell hung in the quiet air. I took a few deep breaths. It was very cold; the old cloak I’d left on a hook behind the door here was some help, but the chill went straight to your bones. The best of summer was over.

  I must have sat there for quite some time, cold even amid the comfort of my own things. It was the end of something, and I didn’t want it to end. But there was nothing to be done about it. It was impossible not to cry. Tears flooded silently down my cheeks and I made no effort to wipe them away. After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

  “Sorcha? Can I come in?”

  I’d thought it would be Conor; but it was my second brother, Diarmid, who ducked under the lintel and entered, disposing his long frame on a bench near my window. The flickering candle flame showed me his face in extremes of shadow and light; lean, straight-nosed, a younger version of Liam’s, save for the fuller mouth so ready to break into a wicked grin. But for now, he was serious.

  “You should come back,” he said in a tone that told me he didn’t care, himself, about the
niceties. “Your absence was noted.”

  I swallowed, and rubbed a corner of the old cloak over my wet cheeks. It seemed to be anger I was feeling now more than sorrow.

  “Why do things have to change?” I said crossly. “Why can’t we go on the way we are? Liam was quite happy before—he doesn’t need her!”

  To his credit, Diarmid didn’t laugh at me. He stretched his legs out across the floor, apparently thinking deeply.

  “Liam’s a man now,” he said after a while. “Men do marry, Sorcha. He’ll have responsibilities here—a wife can share that with him.”

  “He’s got us,” I said fiercely. Diarmid did smile then, showing a set of dimples that rivaled Cormack’s for charm. It made me wonder why Eilis hadn’t chosen him instead of the serious Liam.

  “Listen to me, Sorcha. No matter where we are, or what we do, the seven of us will never be truly separate. We’ll always be the same for one another. But we are growing up; and grown up people do marry, and move away, and let other people into their lives. Even you will do that one day.”

  “Me!” I was aghast.

  “You must know that.” He moved closer and took my hand, and I noticed that his were large and rough, a man’s hands. He was seventeen now. “Father already plans a marriage for you, in a few years’ time, and doubtless then you will go away to live with your husband’s family. We will not all remain here.”

  “Go away? I would never go away from Sevenwaters! This is home! I would die before I’d move away!”

  Tears sprang to my eyes again. I knew I was being foolish; I was not so ignorant as to have no understanding of marriages and alliances and what was expected. It was just that the sudden blow of Liam’s betrothal had shocked me; my world was changing, and I was not ready for it.

  “Things do change, Sorcha,” said Diarmid somberly. “And not always as we want. Not all of us would have wished Eilis to be for Liam; but that’s the way it is, and we must accept it.”