by Sandra Waugh
Glass for clarity. I took the hard stone and smashed the empty vial of yew, then equally sprinkled the shards. One shard I used to pierce my little finger, adding a drop of blood to each pile. “Life’s blood,” I murmured. Then I pressed my hands into the earth by each word, saying aloud three times, “Show me the reasons; show me the whys.”
I went over the steps in my head one more time for good measure, then picked up the cinder stone and struck it on the hard stone next to the first offering. I watched it spark and flare into a little flame before going on, until three little herb piles burned white-hot and then fizzled. As soon as the flames died, I swept the piles into the center so the smoking ash mingled. Then I tipped the goat’s milk over my scalding hands—all but the last bit, which I drank, taking care not to swallow any yew.
Finished. The cup placed outside the circle. Fingers laced in lap. I breathed—in, out, in….The exhale was so very loud. Another breath, and another, and then I could not stand the silence. Had I done well? Would I have to wait? How long? A plea was already forming—
Then only half uttered. The poisoned milk seared my belly, raced fire through my veins. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, gagging against the burn, and maybe I tipped to one side, to stop the world from spinning, but none of that was important….
—
I was flying, the earth racing far beneath. There was the marsh, then solid ground, a canopy of trees, and a lake hemmed by rock and fed by countless waterfalls all thundering down the face of a cliff. ’Twas a bird’s flight, this. I recognized the flash of wing—my wing—from the corner of my eye, the black feather above white. The bird I’d rescued was the form I’d taken in this spell; burned wing and all, I was flying. In a heart-stopping breath, I skimmed the cliff of waterfalls, turned to sweep far out into the center of the lake, and then shot straight toward one furious torrent.
No easing of speed, no gasp for air. I burst through the fall and landed in a hollow behind the sheet of water, into blurred sight and deadened sound. There was a ledge of some sort, a faint shimmer of light. Red, slime-slicked rocks before it…
It lay there, the answer to my first question: a whelk’s shell—pinkish gray on the outside, pearlescent within. I’d seen pictures of them in Dame Gringer’s books. This one was no different, small and ordinary, discarded on the damp shelf. And yet a feeling stabbed through me with sudden force—that this insignificant object wanted rescue from the cold and dripping walls, that I should scoop it up and carry it home. But even as I moved closer, a protest began—a faint rumbling of sound, which grew into shadow form, bellowing huge and black and utterly horrifying. A stench burst out from it in revolting waves, swallowing all the senses, and I rolled to avoid it and fell straight into cold blackness before another spiral of flight began….
I spun upward out of water. Slick stone became hard-hewn rock—a warm gray splattered with onyx and mica—rock that was cut, stacked, designed. My gaze traveled up, up, following battlements and turrets and banners all spilling precipitously above an enormous canyon. A castle, carved from the very stone it was so precariously built upon. It stood majestic, strong, and wholly stunning. The sky was a luminous backdrop, the sun slanted finely etched shadows in curves and corners. I soared straight up the east bulwark, and then made a dizzying fall between its tallest turrets. The dive sent my stomach into my throat. I shut my eyes, then blinked wide, for I was crossing a small bit of green—an interior courtyard bursting with white blossoms. I spied the blue of a stone-rimmed pond, and then went racing up and out, over the west turrets to a broad scape of grass.
Two horses stood stark against the lush green—dappled gray and brilliant white—with two riders who’d paused midride to share an embrace. I remembered those horses, remembered their startling visit to Merith. And I knew their riders: my cousin, Lark, and the Rider Gharain.
I swept right over their heads and flew on, no voice, no hand, nor anything to call to my cousin. I’d only a glimpse to barely think silly things: How was she riding a horse? What were those leggings she wore? Where was her moss-green frock? And then to understand: this castle, this canyon—this was Tarnec. It meant Lark had left Merith, as I had. She’d found a new home. She was with her love.
My second question answered. And I thought, briefly, gladly: She is happy.
I soared toward the clouds, leaving behind the beautiful castle. But then it seemed I hit some invisible wall, for I stopped hard in one searing jolt, thrown off flight. A jerk, a pause, and then a freefall; I went crashing down toward the couple, screaming and putting my hand out to break the fall. Only my voice was a caw, my hand a wing.
Wing or not, Lark sensed something. Her head shot up; she lurched forward on her horse to reach up. And whatever she saw—the beaded black eye of a seabird, or my own sea-blue gaze—she knew me. Eye to eye we clung, connected.
A sadness, sharp as any blade, stabbed through, a longing for the before—before Lark discovered the severed hand, before her journey and our terrible birthday, before the wound on her shoulder that would never quite heal and the young man who would take her heart…before the Troth would kill the man who’d offered me his. Lark felt what I felt, for there was longing in her eyes as well. She missed me as I missed her. And however happy, however beautiful this castle, however strong her love for Gharain, something else had been ripped away:
Innocence.
And then it was gone and there was something else in her stare—fear. “Evie,” she gasped, “what have you done…?” Her eyes lifted to something beyond, behind my wing. She screamed in warning, “Evie!”
I looked up to see some hideous bird, grizzled and sharp and human-eyed. I spun sideways, flight recovered, and was winging fast away over the castle’s wide terrace toward the dizzying cliff. Lark came galloping after, crying my name. I was high up; I could do nothing but watch as she raced across the grass, hair flying. She would go straight over the edge. Gharain was shouting her name, too far behind to catch her. And there were others it seemed, streaming suddenly from everywhere to chase her runaway speed with warning cries: “My lady!”
Yet her shining horse did not take her over the cliff, but ground to a halt. Lark slid off him, falling straight to her knees then stumbling up again, staring up, reaching arms high to where I circled.
“No! Evie, don’t! Stop!” Lark begged until she was hoarse. Gharain was shouting too, galloping forward, sword drawn. Alarm rang all the way to the castle—people were spilling into the back courtyard, running to assist….
“ ’Tis but a shrieking fowl, my lady,” one old woman was calling. “No harm, no harm!”
But someone else was pointing beyond. “Not a fowl, a harbinger! They come!”
“Evie, look out!” Lark screamed. And I wheeled on my little wings as that hideous bird-thing swooped straight for me. I passed just under its breast, scorched by the heat. The creature swerved to attack again, but an arrow loosed from somewhere below shot the thing straight through the heart and it exploded above me in a crash of light and sound.
Gharain had raced in on that gray steed, his chestnut hair blown back. He clattered across the courtyard to the edge of the cliff, was off his horse, throwing his sword and running to scoop Lark in his arms in one sweeping move. And she half clung, half pulled from him, sobbing, “She’s cast a spell, Gharain. Evie cast a spell! Look—the bird! Now they’ve spied her. They’re coming—she’s in danger!”
“It’s all right, love. He is near. He will reach her.”
“How? He cannot know where she is! We don’t know where she is!” Nothing would calm her, though an army of concerned faces surrounded. They murmured, soothed, and fussed while Lark reached up, imploring, “Stop now, Evie! Stop what you do!” Then she turned, frantic, looking to the others as if someone else would be able to speak to me.
But now their eyes were not on her, but on the sky beyond where I circled. Fussing turned to urgent warnings; the horses were sent galloping to their stables; Gharain was shouting,
“Inside, everyone! Dartegn, find Ilone!” Lark spun back to look as well, her face turned dreadful. She screamed: “Run, Evie, run! The Breeders come!”
Two men lifted their swords, shielding Gharain as he grabbed Lark by the waist and tried to hurry her away. But Lark held, begging, “He must hurry! We must make him hurry! Laurent must find her!” She wrenched away, furious at her helplessness. “I have to see! I have to see….”
Gharain pulled her back into his arms and together they ran for the safety of the castle. I could not see if they reached it nor could it matter, for at the name Laurent I was winging up and away and swirling back to witness the answer to the last question, back to an image that I could not bear….
Smoke whipped around me. I was no longer high above the earth, but grounded flat against cobblestone, eyes stinging and choking for breath. I recognized Merith’s market square and the confusion of the day of the Troths’ attack. I recognized the blood that stained those cobblestones.
Raif was there, eyes closed, lifeless. Shock slammed into my gut again, then the dizzying spiral of agony, the horror that I was too late to help Raif, that there was nothing I could do to save him.
And…that I had not told him that I loved him.
Brutal knowledge, bitter pain. They overwhelmed, consumed, left me stunned and empty. The rampaging Troths had been forgotten. I’d not thought to look if I was safe. I’d not thought at all. And even when I did look up in that sudden moment and saw the Troth leaping for my throat with teeth and claws bared, I felt only mild surprise, and then the fierce wish: Kill me now.
But my wish went ungranted. The Troth was stabbed through in midleap and gone, and in his place was the one who’d saved my life. A Rider. The strong, dark-haired, blue-eyed one. The one I learned was named Laurent. Our eyes caught briefly in that moment. Only briefly.
See was the last question. I thought I’d been thrown back to Merith to relive Raif’s death, to witness once more his prone body and my terrible regret. But the spell was showing me something else: what I’d truly seen in that frenzied rush of battle and despair and never before recognized.
It was Laurent’s gaze I met, clear-eyed, raw, and nakedly honest.
And then that moment too was ripped away and I was flinging back—from cobble, to sky, to stone, to water, to earth. With a great shudder and gasp my eyes flew open and I gagged for breath, hard-slammed into the ground as if I’d been thrown down from the heights I’d flown.
—
Night. The Insight spell had held me from morning until past sunset. Stars twinkled above; the grass was soft beneath. Something was different, though—maybe it was the marsh. Maybe it was I. I blinked and gingerly turned my head at the sound of a bleat. There were the goats still tethered as I’d left them. And there, the little stream was still bubbling its way along its banks. I lifted my arm to inspect: arm, hand. No more wing. I was whole. I was alive. I’d survived my spell making.
But not unscathed.
LAURENT.
A hollow whisper in my ears. I ignored it, stood up, wobbly and dazed, and began unmaking the circle as ritually as I’d fashioned it. I struck the cinder stone and lit the beech limb, then stuck it into the ground to burn as a torch. I returned the stone, the singed lark feather, and ring to my satchel, gathered the remaining ash from the three offerings, and sprinkled it into the stream. I scoured the cup with sand from the stream bottom and brought it back to the hut. Stone by stone I undid the circle and scattered them into the stream as well, the way one might sow a field.
Laurent.
The second whisper caught me by surprise in midstride; I had to stop to shake it away before continuing on, to clear the fog. I untethered the goats, went to my store of provisions, and ate handfuls of blackberries and dandelions, breathing deep while my body slowly calmed and righted. The kid was there, nudging for some of the greens, and then the whole goat family surrounded me with hungry interest, and so I shared my store. Then I scrubbed my teeth and hands in the stream, spread my turquoise cloak on the grass, and lay down for sleep.
Laurent.
“Stop!” I hissed loudly to the night sky. But the name only whispered again, so I shut my ears and closed my eyes to will the name away. Still it stayed.
“What is this?” I muttered, sitting up. It made no sense. I should not have survived the spell only to have this name take all the space in my head. There was a shell behind a waterfall, there was Lark in her castle, there were rumblings of something monstrous, and Lark’s terrible fear….
And I was thinking on a name.
I’d shared a single glance with that Rider—even if I now recognized how powerful that glance, ’twas still only the briefest of moments. He’d caught the Troth with his sword, caught my eye as he flung it away, then galloped on while I sat with Raif until Quin and Kerrick Swan came to carry him from the square.
Eleven of the twelve Riders came that day to Merith, eleven, not one. They all did their part in saving our village. None stood out more heroic than the next. Food was prepared when the dead beasts were carted away, when the smoke cleared and the stone was swept. The Riders stayed for that, grateful for a hot meal as we were grateful for our rescue, but I was not there. I stayed with Raif—washed his body, sewed the gaping wound shut, and dressed him while they supped in grim celebration. The eleven were gone soon after, their hoofprints soon erased. Later I asked Quin the name of the Rider with the dark curls and bluest eyes. I asked, because it seemed polite to do so, to put a name to the one who’d erroneously spared my life.
A name—it meant nothing. So why should a Rider be the answer to Harker’s challenge to open my eyes?
I got up from my makeshift bed and paced the perimeter of the little island under the starlight. I trailed my fingertips along the rushes so that their rustlings drowned the whisper of his name. Still, I tasted the word on my tongue, whispered it myself once, then twice. Laurent. Laurent—
I stopped my mouth with my hands. I loved Raif! I would have been glad to wed him—his warm smile, his calm strength, bountiful harvests from the orchards and market days, the cottage at the west edge of the village, and pudgy, red-cheeked babies and an herb garden—to fill our world with laughter and sweet fragrance. I yearned for those lost plans; it was ridiculous to focus on a name, as if it took precedence.
“There, and be done with it!” I clapped my hands three times and threw them wide to dispel the thoughts. But there was still a whisper in the air. So I chafed my bare arms and legs with my palms to still the trembling and erase the Rider’s name forever. But when I stood up, the whisper lingered.
“A fool’s suffering,” I bit out, walking away from the reeds. But the whisper suddenly wafted from the far edge of the marsh, and I could not help but turn to look. Nothing was there. But then another whisper hinted from the near border, and then again behind me. I turned, turned again—
Whispers were floating from all around the marsh. I almost laughed at my obsession, except the sound was curdling, resolving into something else entirely—
She…
Whispers doubling, then growing tenfold. She…She…I stopped and stared into the wall of reeds. Darkness, all of it; there was nothing to see. The whispers rebounded now, bouncing from one end of the little island to the next. And there was too the faintest rattle of stems—a rattle when there was no wind.
And then, not just a rattle, but a cracking, a breaking of stems. The night lost its hushed privacy. Three days I’d spent in silence, but now things were in the marsh. Things that sensed.
Things that searched.
She…She…She…
I backed away from the boundary, stunned by the suddenness of company, the little thrill of threat that ran with those whispers. Not Troths, Troths had no words. Not Kelpies, for they were singular menaces. But these whispers were likewise hostile. She…She… A drumbeat. Ominous and closing in.
And then I remembered Lark’s terrified cry: Run, Evie! Run! The Breeders come!
I w
hirled, unprepared, standing empty-handed in my undershift. My mind worked fast—there were none of the plants I’d need to fashion a barrier, but there was a broom in the hut. I ran across the grass, pulled on my frock and cloak, crammed into my sandals, and threw my satchel over my shoulder. The rustlings were louder—how much time? How many were coming? I raced to the shelter of the hut and felt my way in the darkness, sending a brief thanks skyward to the owner who’d left a simple tool, something that might fend off an attack.
Attack—a shuddering, unexpected word. It made me think, suddenly, of Raif’s grandfather suffering the first attack of the Troths. Lark said the old man accepted his death with noble dignity, as any villager of Merith might. I didn’t think I could stand still like that, didn’t think I could surrender. I’d planned my death over and over these months, wished for it, but the Healer in me immediately armed against it.
I found the broom, stamped on it to splinter the handle for a spear. It was the best I could do. No one from Merith ever learned how to fashion a weapon properly. To us, violence was appalling.
I stepped back outside and held, listening. A silence had taken hold of the marsh—an abnormal silence. I looked up. The stars seemed fainter in the rich blue expanse, which meant the moon was rising. I looked at the goats. They huddled at the side of the hut, panting and restless, so I walked away from them toward the center of the lawn and planted the spear at my feet like some makeshift soldier, ready to defend.
Our little island waited, poised. The silence deepened—a held breath. Then—
The goats bleated in panic, shattering quiet. I spun to catch the first intruder; but it was just a shadow skittering across the grass, gone before I could blink. I whisked the other way as another little blur darted out of the reeds and was gone, and then another and another. Shadows, ’twas all, harmless little swipes as quick and silent as bats. But then a thousand hisses of She! exploded from the reeds, and dark things poured out of the marsh aiming straight for me.
