Sitting down in one of the stuffed chairs beside the shelves, she cracked open the cover, the stiff binding protesting just a little. What Seren found inside astonished her. Crisp, cream-colored pages filled with brilliant dyes and neat, black symbols unfamiliar to her eyes took up all the empty space. She didn’t know how to read. Living in the Weald under Cernunnos’s protection and isolated from the rest of Eile, none of the Fahndi found much use for such a skill. Still, the symbols and colors captivated her, and she turned one page after another.
“Seren, where are you?”
The sound of the small, quiet voice made Seren jump. In her surprise, she slammed the book shut and stood. Her blanket, as well as the tome, fell to the ground. While the blanket pooled softly around her feet, the book made a distinct thud as it hit the stone floor below. Feeling her face flush in mortification, Seren knelt down to retrieve the book. She shot a glance at the boy. He was carefully pushing the door shut behind him, his clothes dripping water onto the stone floor. How did she not hear him come in? Was she that absorbed in the book?
“Are you reading?” Rori asked again, moving forward in that careful way he had done before.
Using his hands to guide him, he found the edge of the desk in front of the two stuffed chairs and followed it until he stood before her, staring up in her general direction with those beautiful, sightless eyes of his. Although she knew he could not see her, the boy’s attention was unnerving all the same. She was a deer at heart, and never really liked to be heard or seen by those she was not yet familiar with.
Rori must not have been deterred by her continued silence, for he spoke again as if she had answered him the last two times. “If you describe the cover and the first page for me, I bet I can tell you what volume it is.”
He smiled, ready for this little game.
Seren flushed again. She stood there, the blanket still bunched around her feet, and the recently rescued book clutched to her chest. She wanted to melt away into the walls so Rori would go away, but a little voice inside her head wouldn’t let her.
Stop being so afraid of these people. They are not going to hurt you, and they are the only souls you know outside of the Weald. If you are to survive, then you will need friends. This is a good place to start.
Taking a small breath, Seren slowly pulled the book away, so she could study the binding. She swallowed back her trepidation, then opened her mouth and said, “Th-the outside looks like leather. A dark, forest green color, with golden marks on the front and side.”
Her voice sounded as dry and cracked as her lips, but at least she had overcome her fear.
Fear of a small boy, her inner voice remarked sarcastically. Seren gritted her teeth. Her conscience was right. She was being ridiculous.
“Oh!” Rori piped, his face lighting up with joy. “I know that one! It’s my favorite. Fae Tales of Eile.”
He grinned, his expression oozing with pride as he crossed his arms and took on a haughty air. For a small moment, he reminded her of the awful Fahndi boys back in the Weald who had been so cruel to her while growing up. But this little boy was nothing like them. She could tell even having known him for such a short amount of time. In spite of herself, Seren felt her mouth curve up in a small smile.
“Well?” Rori stated. “Am I right?”
And just like that, Seren’s light mood vanished. She had no way of knowing whether or not he was correct in his guess. Did those beautiful marks spell out the magical tales of the Fae? Or did they tell an entirely different story? Seren glanced over her shoulder. There were other books in similar shades of green resting on the shelves. Maybe his favorite book was among those.
“Are you still there?” the boy pressed, looking a little glum.
“Yes,” she murmured, gathering up her courage, “but I do not know if you are correct. I cannot read.”
There. She’d said it. Now, he would want nothing to do with her, and maybe he’d leave so she could continue to admire the book in peace.
What happened next took her by surprise.
“Oh,” was all the boy said. Then he shrugged and moved closer, his fingers outstretched, acting as his eyes.
Once he found the armrest of the chair beside her, he pulled himself into it and sat with the ease of someone familiar with his surroundings.
“I bet it is, though. None of the other books have gold-leaf on them.”
He seemed to want to say something more, but he remained motionless, his arms folded over his chest, his feet swinging idly. Seren studied him as he sat there, his unseeing eyes fixed on nothing in particular. She decided he looked a little like his uncle, in the bone structure of his fine face. His hair was a different color, though. A lighter shade of brown, pale enough to be considered blond. Or maybe it looked darker because it was damp from the rain. He was mostly clean except for a smear of dirt under his chin, and his pants were damp from the knees down. The long-sleeved linen tunic he wore looked dry. Probably because he had been wearing a coat outside. His eyes, a clear, brilliant blue, fascinated her the most. Although blind, he still moved them around the room as if trying to remember what everything looked like. Seren couldn’t imagine how awful it must be to be blessed with the gift of sight, and then to have it taken away, and at such a young age.
Eventually, Rori sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a huff so typical of children his age, Seren had no trouble picturing him as one of the many younglings she and her peers looked after when the adults in her tribe were off hunting or busy with tribal meetings. Feeling it was safe to move, Seren slowly sat back down in the other chair. She wanted nothing more than to continue looking through the book, but it seemed rude to do so with the boy sitting there.
“I used to read,” Rori said quietly, catching the Fahndi woman off guard once again. “Before I became blind.”
He didn’t sound overly sad to her, just mildly regretful, the way she might pine over a lost river stone she had found particularly pretty. Seren remained silent, unsure of what to say in response to his statement. Fortunately, Rori had no trouble changing the subject.
“I have an idea,” he suddenly said, his small frame shifting as he sat up straighter in his chair. “How about you look through the book and describe the pictures to me, and I’ll tell you the tale that goes with them?”
Seren blinked in surprised. Just a moment ago, she was content in sitting in the silence until Rori grew bored enough to find entertainment elsewhere. Apparently, she wasn’t going to get rid of him so easily. She thought about his offer and the fact he had yet to make fun of her for not being able to read. She had been so used to playing the victim for those around her, that she had expected nothing better from Rori. Instead, he had come up with a way for both of them to enjoy the book. This made Seren smile, more broadly than she had done so for a very long time.
“Alright,” she conceded.
This, in turn, brought an answering grin to Rori’s face.
Wanting to make this an enjoyable challenge for the boy, she cracked the book open to a page in the middle. This one wasn’t as colorful as the others and was instead filled up with hundreds of neat black marks, the garland design around the edges the only thing of interest to her. Furrowing her brow, she flipped a few pages carefully until she came upon one which was entirely filled up with a picture. In the brilliant colors that had captivated her earlier, there was a painting of two birds sitting in a tree. One was a raven, the black of its glossy feathers rich and dark. The other bird was one she had seen many times in the Weald. It was a little smaller than the raven, but its long, sweeping feathers were crimson and gold and deep blood red. She had heard people call it the forest flame, for when it flew through the trees, it looked like a spark of living fire. It was considered the most beautiful bird in all of Eile, and the artist of this book had captured its essence quite well. The forest flame in the picture looked proud and arrogant, and once again, Seren was reminded of her people back home. The raven, on the other hand, seemed quie
t and watchful.
Clearing her throat, Seren described the picture to the eager young boy.
“Oh! That’s my favorite one! It’s called the Raven and the Forest Flame. It’s about how Forest Flame, the most beautiful creature in Eile, spends all his days and all his nights boasting about how he is treasured above all the other animals in the Weald. He especially likes to point this out to Raven, who is solid black and, according to Forest Flame, the ugliest creature in the forest. All the animals admire and look up to Forest Flame because he is so radiant and charming. No one wants to be friends with Raven, but then one day, Raven overhears some hunters in the woods. Raven, being as smart as he is, can understand the Faelorehn language, and learns that the men wish to capture the most beautiful animal in the Weald. Raven returns to the others and warns them, but Forest Flame ignores him and continues his bragging. All the noise attracts the hunters, and they capture Forest Flame while the other animals are hiding. From that day forward, Raven has been respected for his cleverness, and Forest Flame has been admired only for his bright feathers and laughed at for his dimwittedness.”
The boy finished with a smile, and Seren sat dumbfounded. She glanced back down at the page, almost hearing the distinct, laughing call of a forest flame play through her head. Is that what reading was, then? A way to bring these pictures to life, to display them as a colorful performance of characters marching across her mind, just as Rori had done by retelling the words he had read before? True, the best storytellers in her village could do the same, but a book could be carried along with her, and she could discover the stories on her own. Seren had a sudden desire to learn how to read. Oh, to be able to escape into the pictures and places the words created and leave her troubled world behind, if only for a small while. What price, what power, could ever compare to that?
For the remainder of the morning, the two of them sat in the stuffed chairs beside the book shelves, Seren flipping through the heavy book and describing the illuminated pages to the young boy, while Rori told her, with great fervor, what the story was about. Besides the tale of the raven and the forest flame, there was the one about the bull and the boar, the flock of sheep and the oak tree and the songbird and the weasel. Each story wove a deeper meaning within its simple structure, and Seren could understand why Rori might love this book so much.
Finally, she reached the last picture, one featuring a mouse and a deer. The young doe was standing on the edge of a swiftly moving stream in the center of the forest, and the mouse sat between the deer’s ears, holding tight to the tufted fur between them. For a while, Seren simply stared at the picture, her fingers delicately tracing the doe. In that moment, she thought of her mother, and it brought tears to her eyes. Did Daniela think her daughter was dead? Had the others taken their rage out on her instead of Seren? Would they go to Cernunnos about the issue, and if so, what would come of it?
Thinking of her mother brought a pang to Seren’s heart. She wished she knew the way back home. She would gladly risk facing her tormentors once again if it meant seeing that her mother was well. But the terrible truth was, she had no idea how to get home. When she had fled her tormentors, she had done so blindly, tearing through the woods and not paying an ounce of attention as to where she was going.
“What’s wrong?” Rori asked, in a soft voice.
Seren blinked away the tears and looked up at him. Those sightless blue eyes were fixed on her, and although he might not see the color of her hair, or the rich tones of her skin, he could sense the emotion in the air.
“The doe in this picture reminds me of my mother,” she said honestly, glancing back down at the illustration. She didn’t know why she told him. Perhaps because for the first time in her life, another person, besides her mother, was treating her like an equal. Maybe it was because Rori seemed to care.
“Where is she?”
“She is in the Weald, where I come from. I had to leave her behind.”
“Why?”
Despite her melancholy mood, Seren smiled. The never-ending curiosity of the very young.
“Because some people were trying to hurt me, and I had to run away, and I didn’t have time to go to my mother and warn her.”
Rori became very still. Across the room, liquid light poured in through the windows and spilled onto the patterned rugs. In the fireplace, a log crashed and sent a flurry of sparks up the chimney. The distinct crow of a rooster sounded from outside somewhere, and in the far distance, Seren’s sensitive ears picked up the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep. The sounds were comfortable and welcome, but they could not distract her from the tension emanating from Rori.
Eventually, the boy took a breath and said in a very small voice, “That sounds like what happened with my mother.”
Seren furrowed her brow, but said nothing, giving the boy the time and space he needed to continue.
“When I was smaller, some brigands attacked our house and killed my parents and grandparents. Uncle Brenn was on his way home, but he didn’t get here in time. I had to hide in the barn for three days by myself. I didn’t know who he was at first. He left for war before I was born and never came to visit.”
No longer did a carefree and curious child sit before her, but an old, damaged soul trapped inside a young boy’s body.
“Oh, Rori,” Seren began, pressing her fingers to her mouth.
Brennon had told her a fraction of this story, but it was much different coming from Rori himself. She could feel the tears prickling the corners of her eyes, but they wouldn’t fall. Perhaps because she knew they would do no good, or that too much shock and sadness had happened in the past several days that she didn’t have the energy to mourn any longer.
Seren made to reach out to the boy, but something large and streaked in brown, black and grey went flying across the floor, only to leap up into Rori’s empty lap. The Fahndi woman almost screeched, recoiling back against her own chair.
“Dear gods,” she breathed, trying to keep her voice down, so as not to anger the wild creature. “It’s that thing again!”
Rori, who had been so morose earlier, grinned, his mouth curving up on one side. “Nola’s not a thing! She’s a cat.”
“Cat?” Seren asked, her voice hinting at her uncertainty.
“Yes!” Rori insisted, his unseeing eyes doing their best to land on her face. “Have you never seen one before?”
Seren shook her head, then remembered herself. “No,” she said simply, “but there is a creature similar to it that lives in the Weald. Bigger with a shorter tail, but it has the same claws and ears. We call them lynx.”
“I know about those!” Rori piped. “They live mostly in the mountains, but some species prefer the woodlands of lower elevations.”
Despite her trepidation, Seren smiled. “You know so much Rori, yet you are so young.”
He shrugged, scratching the cat creature on the head. It started making that strange rattling noise in its throat again. “Mother and Father taught me all kinds of things when I was little.”
Rori bit his lip and swallowed hard. Surely his memories were painful to him. To have his entire family ripped from him so violently, and to be alone for three long days, only to have a stranger, an uncle he’d never met before, arrive when it was too late. Seren couldn’t imagine how Brennon had managed to earn the boy’s trust after what had happened. In that moment, her opinion of him inched up a notch. What kind of man must he be to come home to so much sorrow and then immediately take up the raising of a young boy? Perhaps her conscience was correct in its musings. Maybe Brenn and Rori were just the sort of people she needed to befriend now that she was on her own.
The cat beast in Rori’s lap shifted, tucking its clawed paws beneath its body. Seren forgot about the boy’s sad past and his uncle’s growing nobility in her eyes. Instead, she focused on the animal. Rori seemed perfectly at ease with the cat, but there was something in its green-gold eyes that Seren didn’t trust.
“She won’t hurt you, you k
now. Only if you are a mouse, or a rat. Or a bird. Or maybe some of the big bugs that come out of the woods in summer.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Seren couldn’t help but smile. “She is a guard beast, then?”
Rori beamed. “You could say that. And she keeps me warm in the winter. And she purrs. Have you ever heard a cat purr?”
Seren furrowed her brow in puzzlement, then a thought occurred to her. “You mean that strange rattling noise?”
The young boy nodded his head vigorously, his dark wheaten hair bouncing around on his head. “She purrs when she’s happy, and Uncle Brenn says that a cat’s purr can help heal you if you’re hurt or sick.”
Seren’s skin prickled, but not necessarily in a bad way. This cat beast was a creature of healing? Like her?
“Does it make that sound because it is producing glamour?” she asked, in a whisper.
Rori screwed up his face, his hand never ceasing its rhythmic stroking of the cat’s head. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “Something about the vibrations she makes are good for us.” Rori shrugged. “I might know stuff, but I can’t explain most of it.”
Seren breathed a sigh of relief and sunk back into her chair. Why such a thing might make her nervous, she couldn’t say. Maybe some little part of her wondered if the cat might be a kindred spirit. Yet, if the cat had healing powers and could shift like she could, would it, like her peers back in the Weald, consider her competition and seek to do her harm? The claws on the beast looked wicked enough. But Seren shook her head dismissively in the end. She was being silly. This creature was Rori’s pet. Like the wolfhounds his uncle kept around to protect them and help with the livestock, this hostile looking creature had its uses as well. One of those characteristics being pleasant company, according to Rori.
Seren turned an eye on the cat only to find it staring at her, its lids half closed. She got the strange feeling the animal was sizing her up, judging her and deciding whether or not she was worthy of the kindness her master was currently pouring over her.
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