Shaman of Stonewylde

by Kit Berry

  A sudden shadow passed overhead, momentarily darkening the brilliant sunlight, and Sylvie felt her skin prickle. She squinted up, trying to make out its cause, and glimpsed a large, pale bird soaring against the sunbeams, impossible to see clearly. It looked like a barn owl but must surely be a seagull or perhaps a buzzard? The heat was still intense but she shivered and thought suddenly of Yul and the boys down at the entrance to the tomb. A whisper of dread trickled through her, for she’d never felt entirely comfortable about opening up this hidden cave in the hillside. Were they alright? Had something terrible happened? The skin on her arms tingled and the fine hair stood on end; briskly she rubbed it and dismissed her silly fears. She reached across and picked up her bottle of water, taking a long draught as she must keep up her fluid intake, what with the heat and breast-feeding.

  Then, with her baby cradled happily in her elder daughter’s arms, and her younger daughter cuddled up to her sister-in-law, and all beautiful and right with her world, Sylvie moved the edge of the rug slightly. The viper coiled beneath it stretched forward in smooth slow-motion and stabbed its fangs deep into her ankle. She looked down in complete, paralysed disbelief. The great silver and black chevroned snake recoiled sharply, pulling back into itself, into a kinked double S. Then it slithered away silently out of sight behind the standing stone, away to a new, warm basking spot.

  It hadn’t really happened surely – had she just imagined it? Sylvie stared at the rug, then stared at her foot, which had started to swell. There were two puncture holes and her ankle hurt – and now her leg hurt and she sat back suddenly, the world tilting. But it would be alright of course. It was just an adder bite and she wasn’t a baby or young child – thank Goddess it hadn’t bitten Ioho, Bluebell or Celandine! Snake bites in England didn’t kill healthy adults. Hazel had explained all this last summer – only a handful of recorded deaths in many years as very few people were allergic to the venom. Pain, discomfort, even bruising . . . feeling unwell perhaps, but no more than that, and certainly nothing to make a fuss about. She mustn’t frighten the children by screaming. She tried not to imagine the dark venom in her bloodstream, travelling up her leg, in her veins and arteries. Would it affect her milk? What a good job she’d just fed Ioho. She’d have to give him dried baby milk for the next feed just to be on the safe side, or ask Dawn or another nursing mother to feed him. Sylvie was surprised to find herself feeling a little breathless. It was just shock of course; she’d be fine. But then . . .

  Her mouth was very dry and her breath rasped; she found it hard to swallow. She felt so dizzy and slumped down onto the rug, cradling her head in her arm, everything slightly unreal. Her three children and Leveret looked at peace in the bright sunshine, with the larks singing all around them, and the bees buzzing in the clover and the sky so vast and sweet, a perfect forget-me-not blue. Forget-me-not, she thought wildly, as a pair of swallows flew high above in graceful union. A beautiful cobalt-blue butterfly with silver-studded wings danced towards her, the exact shade of Bluebell’s eyes. Her heart was beating very fast in her chest and she tried to speak, to waken Leveret, to ask for someone to please sort this out because actually, it was all becoming a bit frightening . . .

  The bright day began to darken. She felt so very lightheaded and the pain in her leg was sharp, throbbing. Her throat was tight and the breath wouldn’t come. It just wouldn’t come. She felt sick, so weak, she wanted Yul now. And then Bluebell began to scream and scream, her face scarlet. The peace was shattered and Leveret was shouting for help and the baby was howling and Celandine was clutching him but trying to hold her tight too, shouting ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ over and over.

  And Yul was there at last and Sylvie smiled, knowing now she’d be safe, now it would all be alright. She felt his arms lifting her, cradling her, holding her tight and safe . . .

  Magpie had made a nest for the children and all three sat safe and protected in his lap, wrapped in his arms as he rocked them, all crying, with their mouths round holes of horror like little fledglings waiting to be fed. Leveret was holding Sylvie’s wrist, her fingers pushing down hard to feel the pulse, her dark curls tumbling forward. Rufus was at her swollen leg – she could see his gleaming hair – and Yul was all wild eyes and wide mouth and white face. He was shouting at Rufus to go and get Hazel NOW and to call the air ambulance and Rufus was crying too, saying he’d go but she was reacting so badly and so rapidly that she must be allergic to the venom and she was in anaphylactic shock and he’d run for help but . . . but it was darker and getting very cold now and everything was sinking deeper and deeper and slower and slower.

  ‘Sylvie, Sylvie!’ sobbed Yul, rocking her, stroking the hair back from her face frantically. ‘Sylvie, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!’

  She could hear her children calling her, her baby crying for her, but they were far away and she must be gone now, for it was too late. But she loved them all so very much and this was not – surely – real? Not the end of her magical life at Stonewylde? Not her fate, to die on the hill marked by Hare Stone, the place where she’d danced for the Bright Lady and brought down the moon magic to the waiting land? This was not how it should be?

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ she whispered, as suddenly truth blossomed and she saw deep inside, into the perfect, inexorable pattern that was life and destiny.

  Yul craned his ear next to her mouth to catch her words, and she tried to kiss him.

  ‘I’ll never leave you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll always be here with you . . .’

  ‘Sylvie,’ he choked, and she felt his tears falling hot on her face, felt his body shaking so violently with great sobs, with terror. ‘Sylvie, my Sylvie . . .’

  ‘Don’t send me to the Otherworld, Yul,’ she gasped, her throat now almost closed. ‘Don’t let me burn.’

  ‘No! No! Of course you won’t—’

  ‘I . . . I must be here, Yul, for eternity, beneath the earth in this hill. I’ll dance for you in the moonlight . . .’

  ‘I won’t let you go!’ he cried, desperately cradling her against his chest, crushing her to his heart. ‘You’re my life . . .’

  Leveret was gripping her hand and suddenly she felt Leveret’s healing power and strength pouring into her, flooding in like a cool river and up through her arm, trying to douse the venom that pulsed through her system, trying so desperately to fight it . . .

  ‘Stay with us!’ shouted Leveret. ‘Stay, Sylvie!’

  ‘Sylvie, please . . .’ sobbed Yul, ‘please, my moongazy girl . . .’

  She wasn’t burned at the Yew of Death, and nor was her presence at Stonewylde marked by a simple pebble. Her presence became Stonewylde, for this had always been her destiny. From that moment of conception, as the crimson Harvest Moon rose over the woods and her young faerie mother accepted the seed of life from the man in the hawk mask, this had awaited Sylvie. She had finally found the place where she belonged: in the womb of the Goddess, deep inside the earth at this sacred place marked so very long ago by the ancestors.

  One morning at dawn, as the red sun rose over the hills and the light was soft and blush-pink, Sylvie was taken from the Great Barn. The folk of Stonewylde had been paying their respects since sunset the evening before, but now she was brought back ceremoniously to the place that had always called to her. She lay on a litter of woven wicker laced with flowers, and was carried carefully on many strong shoulders. Through the woods filled with late bluebells and birdsong they came, the early morning light streaming mistily through the new greenery. Under the arch of branches and into the field they stepped, to climb slowly up the hill to the outcrop of rocks.

  The chambered tomb inside the hill became her resting place, as it had for others long, long ago. Inscribed all around the ancient chamber were triple hares, their ears linked, dancing inside their circles of eternity. There were spirals patterned everywhere, and scratched and painted onto the stone walls and ceiling were older, more primitive images. Deft outlines of hares leapt, and some gazed up at the full moo
n. And that most primeval of symbols was all over – the serpent uncoiling into S.

  The folk of Stonewylde had prepared the cold chamber, filling it with flowers, greenery and blossom to make a bower for the queen of their tribe. The carved stone bier in the centre of the long-barrow had been decorated in her honour to create a soft bed of cushions and petals. The other small, dark chambers-leading off into the depths of the hillside were left undisturbed, respecting the precious ones who’d been laid there many life-times ago.

  A galaxy of tiny candles had been lit to welcome her and to banish darkness, until the stone chamber became a temple of soft, flickering light. Sylvie was dressed in finest white linen and her arms were crossed on her breast. Her silver hair was spread around her on the pillow, a circlet of flowers around her head. On her breast Yul placed the tiny golden hare carved of yew, and the love token he’d woven for her and tied with silver ribbon one Lammas, hoping to be her sweetheart. Trembling, he kissed her white lips and placed in her cold fingers a lock of his own hair, which she would hold for eternity. Everyone departed, leaving Yul alone with his beloved.

  Those who’d come up the hill went down to the Village, down to the Hall, down to their normal, now-saddened lives. But Leveret took her little nieces up to the standing stone at the top. Today she wore her hare headdress and the mantle of Wise Woman and she held the children’s hands as they guided her, one on each side, to the summit. The dew was a sparkling carpet of crystal prisms at their feet and as they stood, their shadows were huge in the low, golden sunlight of early morning.

  ‘We three,’ Leveret said softly, ‘we three will always take care of Ioho and we’ll take care of each other, and your father too. We are three special ones, each with magic at our fingertips and each with a different gift. We all have Raven’s blood in our veins and we are now the three maidens who must guard and protect Stonewylde and all the folk here.’

  Bluebell looked at their giant shadows and knew that they must be as strong as giants, and just as brave. Inside she felt the shard of sorrow turning everything to ice.

  ‘I have made you each a charm-bag,’ the young Wise Woman said. ‘There’s one for Ioho too, when he’s big enough to wear such a thing.’

  ‘What’s inside them, Auntie Leveret?’ whispered Celandine, taking the tiny sealed leather pouch that hung on a cord.

  ‘A lock of your mother’s silver hair, a crescent-moon of her fingernail, an adder-stone and some herbs,’ said Leveret.

  ‘An adder-stone?’ shuddered Celandine.

  ‘It’s an ancient magical protection,’ said Leveret. ‘The Glain Neidr – a special stone with a hole in it.’

  ‘Not a toad?’ muttered Bluebell, her heart numb with grief as she pulled the cord of the charm pouch over her head.

  ‘No, Bluebell, not a toad. That was just Old Violet’s name for a charm pouch.’

  ‘But why didn’t it save Mummy then?’ cried Bluebell. ‘I don’t understand! I thought it was bad but you said—’

  ‘Bluebell, you didn’t do wrong. You did the best you could, just as we talked about. The toad-bag kept your mother safe for as long as she needed to be here with us. But now . . . now she’s in the Hollow Hill with all the magic and that’s right. You played the part you had to, just as we all did. Nobody could stop what had to happen.’

  The children felt the dewy ground beneath their feet and gazed at the golden orb in the pink sky, the curling mist that still clung to the trees below, the three long-legged shadows before them. They both held on to the strong hand that gripped theirs with such confidence and comfort, so the shadows were linked into one triple figure. Perhaps one day the world would seem right again, but it didn’t today.

  Yul sat with her all day, unheeding the passing hours, wanting never to leave her side. Overhead, above Hare Stone, the sun climbed in the blue sky and the shadow cast by the great marker stone moved around measuring the time, like a black finger pointing accusingly. All day Yul sat with his true love in their final hours together. He yearned, as the minutes ticked by, second by relentless second, to slow the turning of the earth and delay that moment when darkness would come. But at last the long day and the vigil in the tomb were over. The tired sun began to sink towards the waiting folds of land.

  At sunset her family came to say farewell; her three children and her two mothers, her brother Rufus and her sister Leveret. Silently, for too many tears had been shed during the days since the Black Moon, they entered the tomb. Yul sat, as if carved in stone, his curly head bowed. They brought fresh flowers which they placed about her on the soft white bed where she lay. They lit more candles and they took one final look. The baby didn’t cry and the little girls were hushed, beyond sobbing now.

  Sylvie looked serene and at peace in the resting place that had always been here, had always called to her, had always waited for her. Stonewylde had at last taken her back, into the womb, into the place of dancing feet and moonlight, the place of hares and eternity, the place of moon magic and coiled spirals deep in the earth. Here was the resting place for the Moongazy Maiden who must lie beneath the earth and weave her magic for Stonewylde. Sylvie was finally here, deep in the hill, where she belonged.

  The desolate group took their leave of her, the little girls on either side of their father, who could barely breathe for sorrow. The boulder was rolled smoothly back into place – so much easier than anyone had expected – and the tomb was once again sealed. Silently, the family group returned to the Village on automatic feet, to the ordinary things of life that awaited them. The baby must be fed, the girls tucked into bed and the range stoked with logs. Yul must remember to take in breath and let it out, and to swallow food and water, and to look his children in the eye and give them some purpose for living. Though what that could be, he had no idea.

  Once more the Hollow Hill held its secret treasure, marked by a great stone on the top where the barn owl sat and the hares danced and gazed at the moon. The earth turned and life went on, as it does. Darkness and brightness, death and life, the pattern continued and slowly, the wounds in their hearts healed. Slowly, gradually, there was once more laughter and life. The children were loved and cared for by their family and the folk of Stonewylde, who all tried to cushion the awful, tragic absence of their mother.

  For Yul it took much, much longer. Never again was life bright or sweet in the same way. For him, every single thing was shrouded in the ashen-grey veil of mourning and grief. At first, after she’d been entombed in the hill, he too entered the grave. Darkness came upon him – the darkness of pain and despair, of loss so sharp it shredded his heart and sliced his soul. He lived in hunger and bleakness, hiding his blackness deep where nobody could find him. He locked himself in his own tomb of misery from which there was no release, and could never be any release, for Sylvie was gone. Sylvie, his love and his life – without her there was nothing. Nobody could reach him and nobody could help.

  But then, in time, he began to feel her pain and desolation. She howled at him in the wind and washed him with tears of rain. He started to feel her sorrow all around him; her sacrifice was as nothing if he were only to walk the path of despair. With her sorrow, he began to understand her words, whispered as she’d died in his arms on the hill top.

  ‘I’ll never leave you,’ she’d whispered. ‘I’ll always be here with you . . .’

  Slowly, he started to understand. Life gradually awakened inside him after a winter of frozen death. The Green Magic began to bud and unfurl within him, shoots of new life began to grow. Finally, he emerged blinking and starved from his Underworld of misery to a bright spring of awakening.

  Then he understood her words and he felt her presence everywhere. She had not passed on to the Otherworld. She had not left him – she had stayed, to walk Stonewylde with him at every step. He felt her feet beside his on the earth. Her soft breath was in the breeze that caressed his cheek. Her eyes sparkled in the dew, her strands of silvery hair were the cobwebs that trailed like spun silk in the branch
es. Her voice came to him on the wind, spoke his name, told of her undying love for him. He laid his head on her breast and felt her beneath him as he lay on the grass on the hillside. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he turned, she was there with him.

  Sylvie was Stonewylde all around him – his life, his soul, his reason for existence. She was there for all time and she would never leave him. She was the Goddess who walked forever in silver beauty over the land of Stonewylde. She was with him always; joy had ended, sorrow would never end, but love would nurture him for eternity.

  Finally, when the wheel had turned and time had passed, Yul understood the mystery. Everything in this life is but smoke and shadow. At the end, only the beauty of the land remains – the seasons, the skies, the moon and the sun, the stars that sparkle in the heavens. All that remains, at the end of desire, is the dance of life and the magic of the Goddess who is life itself.

  Sylvie lived on forever in the landscape – she was the landscape. Many years ago she had come hoping to be healed, and now she would give healing. Her love and her magic were in this place for all time, to be shared by her people and her beloved. Sylvie and Stonewylde were one.

  Slowly, silently, the moon rose over the chimneys of the Hall, blazing through the mullioned windows to form geometric patterns of moon shadow on the walls of unlit rooms. Inside the teeming building, the elderly folk in their wing gazed out and reminisced about younger, wilder days, and how the Moon Fullness had enchanted them. The patients in the Healing Centre were entranced by her bright glance. They spoke of folk tales and magic, convinced that here, surely, the full moon was somehow different. Others were stirred by her touch, for she was part of their heritage and in their blood, and with her came the bloom of ripeness. Youngsters felt their heartbeats quicken under her gaze, dreaming of secrets yet unknown. Up in the tower, the silent gongs trembled slightly at her fingertips, and a whisper of sound vibrated through the circular room.