by Liam Reese
“What are you looking for?” she asked as if this were any other visit to Old Haega’s cottage. Croenin couldn’t believe his sister’s nonchalance. She seemed to have forgotten their mother’s breakdown only a few moments before as she warmed her hands and stared at the old woman. The small girl shook her wild, silver curls before repeating her question. At that point Old Haega looked up, smiling grimly.
“I am sure you already know, my young one,” the old woman responded, continuing to flip the pages of the book.
Ayne merely nodded, as if taking in some unspoken knowledge. She walked back and gracefully dropped down to sit by her brother’s side, reaching out a hand for him to hold. Croenin grasped his sister’s hand tightly, holding onto it as if it were his last hope. There was something important happening that both Ayne and Old Haega seemed to know and he didn’t, and that worried him. He wondered if it had to do with the fairy rings. Perhaps the Sidhe did not immediately take those who stepped into the mysterious circles. Perhaps they were taken later, scooped up in the dead of night so no one would see them. Perhaps Old Haega would be the one to hand them over.
“Croenin,” Old Haega’s smooth voice broke him out of his thoughts, “would you fetch me the little bundle on the table?”
Croenin looked at the sturdy wooden table behind Old Haega’s chair, on which sat the bundle he had been carrying so dutifully. He had dropped it when the door to the cottage closed behind him.
“I’ll get it,” Ayne said, standing and dropping her brother’s hand. She began to walk slowly toward the table, but Old Haega put out her hand to stop the girl, grasping her small arm tightly.
“No,” she said firmly, “I told your brother to get it.”
Ayne nodded slowly and returned to the floor beside Croenin, who stared at his sister and the old woman in front of him, her hard, black eyes refusing to take no for an answer. Slowly, he stood, and began to walk over to the table. He reached for the small bundle, glancing back at Ayne and Old Haega when everything flashed white.
Croenin startled awake, panting and staring wide-eyed into the morning light. He tugged at his nightshirt, now damp with sweat and stumbled out of bed, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He plodded groggily into the larger room of the cottage he shared with his mother and father, dropping himself in the old wooden rocker by the fireplace.
“Oh no you don’t!” His mother’s voice came from across the room, startling him. “Your father has been waiting for you for far too long!” She said, glowering at her son and moving closer, wagging her finger at him. She yanked him up by his hair and started shoving him toward the door. When he was halfway outside, his stomach growled loudly, and she smirked at him. “If you wanted breakfast you should have woken earlier. Perhaps that will teach you,” she mocked him, one final shove causing him to fall into the path in front of their cottage.
Croenin watched the door slam forcefully, grimacing as he brushed himself off and stood. If his mother’s anger was anything to go by, his father’s would be much worse. Neither of his parents ever showed him much love. When Croenin was younger, he would stare in envy at children kissed and petted by their mothers, his own only touching him to shove him out of bed or out of their cottage, or to grip and twist his arm for misbehaving. In some ways he preferred his mother’s abuse to his father’s. He could take her jabs at his character, withholding meals, and the occasional shoves and slaps. His father’s anger was explosive, and the large, hulking man would often throw things at him or box his ears, swearing loudly about being cursed with such a feeble-minded and lazy son. He fingered the scar on his palm, a burn from when he was a baby, or so his mother had told him when he asked as a child, and hurried to the blacksmith’s lodge just off the main square of their village.
His father didn’t even look up as Croenin entered, but he could see the deep frown on his father’s face as he hammered at a flattening sheet of oryn, the black and grey marbled metal that allowed man to drive the Sidhe into the Unknown, that he was not pleased. His father grunted and pointed toward the fire, which was starting to flicker out. Croenin hurriedly grabbed wood from the corner and began to build the fire back up. Just as he began to stand and survey his work, he was knocked sideways by something hard and solid. He looked up shakily to see his father standing over him, panting.
“Did I not tell you I would need you in the morning?” His father demanded. Croenin nodded weakly as his father bellowed. “It is damn near midday!” He grabbed Croenin by the ear and dragged him to a standing position. “Now, I told Raena that I would have her husband’s old shield back to her by the time the sun was high in the sky, and that time is now!” He grabbed a long, flat object wrapped in cloth from the back table and thrust it into Croenin’s arms, almost knocking him over once more. Though the young man was nearly as tall as his father, he was rather slight and easily shoved about, having only recently grown into his adult height. Croenin grasped the shield tightly and hurried out of the smith’s lodge before his father could shove him once more.
He hurried across the village square, carrying the shield under one arm. Though Croenin was slight, he was abnormally strong, something the more aggressive boys in the village learned early on. Back when they actually came near me, Croenin thought to himself. He couldn’t remember when it started, but everyone in the village seemed to give him a wide berth, refusing to look him in the eye or muttering to each other when he passed. He had asked his mother about this one day, and she merely looked at him gravely before leaving their cottage for Old Haega’s. It was odd, Croenin thought, that his mother’s best friend was an ancient, eccentric woman who lived slightly apart from everyone else, but he dared not question her and risk her anger further.
Croenin arrived to Raena’s cottage quickly, and knocked sharply three times. The little old woman opened the door slowly, smiling at Croenin. It was then he realized that she was, what many called, Sidhe-touched, starting to lose her memory and sensibilities in her older years.
“You’re Credus’s son, aren’t you lad?” she asked quietly, still smiling softly at him. She beckoned for him to enter, and he couldn’t bring himself to disobey. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had shown him a kindness. “What have you got there?”
“I’ve brought your husband’s shield,” Croenin mumbled, letting himself be led in front of the fire. “My father just finished repairing it this morning. It looks just like it did before he left for the war,” he lied, gently leaning the oblong cloth bundle on the side of the fireplace.
“Do you want some tea?” Raena asked as if she hadn’t heard him, bustling to grab a kettle from a lopsided wooden cabinet. She filled it from a pitcher of water on a rickety table pushed against a wall. As Croenin looked around he realized how cluttered the small cottage was with knick knacks and random items. Half-finished knitting projects and a basket of yarn littered the right hand corner of the cottage, while small whittled toys sat in a row atop the mantle. Scraps of cloth and the beginning of a quilt lay haphazardly over a wooden chair, on top of which sat a man’s belt and a woman’s slipper. A large black and white cat lounged in a bowl sitting atop a stack of books. Croenin frowned, Old Haega was the only person he knew who kept books. The majority of the village couldn’t read, having no need to.
“I remember when you were this high.” Raena startled him out of his thoughts, stooping gesturing at the level of her knee. “Your mother used to carry you with her everywhere. She used to tell me how you refused to leave her skirts.” She chuckled and busied herself with honey and two chipped mugs.
Croenin blushed, and then was confused. He couldn’t ever remember his mother holding him or showing him any sort of affection for that matter. Though, perhaps she had been affectionate at one point. His early childhood was rather hazy, and he couldn’t remember much of it. He would always get a throbbing headache when he tried to think back too far in his life, though sometimes he would get odd flashes, images of a forest in the moonlight or a circle of flowers. He was t
hinking of this when Raena gently placed the teacup in his hands, bustling back to grab her own cup.
“I do have a favor to ask of you young one,” she said, slowly letting herself down onto the empty wooden chair on the other side of the rickety table. She noticed Croenin’s worried face and hurriedly told him that it wouldn’t take long. “I’ll pay you as well,” she exclaimed, jumping up surprisingly fast for a woman of her age and taking a small oryn key from the small, white bun that sat at the nape of her neck. She walked over to the lopsided cabinet and took out a small, wooden box, carefully inserting the key into the lock. From where he was sitting, Croenin couldn’t see all that the box contained and could only watch as she removed a worn piece of paper. He frowned as she smiled at the scribbles on the sheet, folding it into a smaller square and placing it into a leather pouch on a cord. Raena closed the box, taking care to lock it once more, and return it to the cabinet. She walked back to Croenin and placed the leather pouch around his neck.
“There,” she said, patting the pouch. “Both payment and favor in one.”
Croenin frowned, standing and placing the teacup on the mantle next to a wooden horse missing a leg. Before he could ask what she meant, Raena grasped his hands in her rough, surprisingly large ones, and told him to bring the pouch to his grandmother.
“I have no grandmother,” he said, frown deepening. “At least none my mother ever mentioned to me.”
At that, Raena laughed. “No grandmother? Has Old Haega disowned you, lad?”
“Old Haega?” His mother’s friend couldn’t be her mother. Grandmothers lived with their children, helping to tend grandchildren. Raena was an exception, her own husband and children were long dead, killed long before Croenin was born.
“Yes, Old Haega. Are you daft, lad?” She pulled him toward the door. “She told me when I was a child to give this to the boy with the golden hair. I did not know I had to wait so long, but I am glad I am alive for this.” With that she gently pushed Croenin out the door, giving him a smile before she gently closed it behind him. He shook his head wonderingly and decided to take a look at the paper, starting to slowly walk in the direction of Old Haega’s. He, of course, couldn’t read the squiggles on the old paper, and quickly put it back in the pouch. He was sure he was being sent on a fool’s errand by Raena, sure the Sidhe-touched old woman had invented the story in her head. After all, she was young much too long before he was born to know to give him an old slip of paper. Regardless, he would bring it to Old Haega. Perhaps the woman would keep a watch on Raena lest she grow too addled to care for herself.
As he neared Old Haega’s cottage, Croenin felt a strong sense of deja-vu. As far as he knew, he had never been inside Old Haega’s. Other children were allowed to visit the old woman, who would always hand out sweets she made from the honey of his mother’s hives, but he was never allowed to go near the old lopsided cottage. He would merely be a nuisance, his mother always told him. Croenin couldn’t shake the anxiety that began to rise from the bottom of his stomach as he neared the cottage, telling himself he was being childish. He was, after all, performing a favor. Perhaps it was not the favor Raena had in mind, but he knew it was better that someone know how quickly her mind was deteriorating.
Croenin’s heart nearly stopped as he neared the cottage. He saw his mother embracing Old Haega in front of its large wooden door, and he looked around panicked, trying to find a place to hide himself. If his mother saw him not at the smith’s lodge, he knew there would be hell to pay. He was already risking his father’s fury by being gone for so long. He ducked and moved off to press himself against the side of a nearby tree, holding his breath and waiting for his mother to pass. When he was sure that he was safe, he slid out from behind the tree, only to come face to face with his mother’s angry, red face looking up at him.
“I knew it,” she hissed, “trying to get out of working. Do you know how hard your father works, day in and day out, slaving away in the smith’s lodge so that we remain safe and—” she stopped, squinting at the pouch around his neck. “What,” she paused, eyes widening, “is that?”
Croenin began to stammer, slowly telling his mother what Raena told him, glancing every now and then in the direction of Old Haega’s cottage. His mother grabbed his arm, gripping it tightly as he squirmed in pain, and all but dragged him to where she and Old Haega had been standing a few minutes before. She banged on the door, still gripping her son’s arm and ignoring his attempts to pull away. Croenin may have been abnormally strong, but his mother, scarily, was stronger. Old Haega opened the door quickly, wide eyed at the aggressive thumping she heard.
“What did you do?” His mother’s demand startled both Croenin and Old Haega, who stared at her in awe. No one had dared speak to the old woman like that in decades, as, while she was not the village leader, she commanded just as much respect. Old Haega recovered from her shock before Croenin, and drew herself up to her full, rather imposing height.
“I know not what you mean,” she replied, her dark eyes flashing as she stared her daughter down. She shocked them both by grabbing Croenin and yanking him into the cottage behind her. She slammed the door in his mother’s face. They heard her yelling and banging for a short time longer before she gave up, knowing her mother would not give in to her anger. By the time she had gone quiet, Old Haega had sat Croenin down in a large chair by her own fireplace, and Croenin couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had been through this before.
“She refused to let you come here for so long,” Old Haega said quietly, startling Croenin out of his thoughts. “Poor thing didn’t even know why she felt so strongly about not letting you come here. I think some part of her knew what you returning here would bring.” She brought a chair from her kitchen table and sat across from her grandson. “Take it off and show me.” She held out her hand, and Croenin sat dumbfounded for few moments before scrambling to remove the small, leather pouch from around his neck. He handed it to her, slowly, knowing by the way she looked at it with an intensity burning in her beady black eyes, that it held something incredibly important.
Old Haega held the pouch in her hands gingerly, opening the pouch slowly and removing the small square of folded, yellowed paper. She began to unfold it, and Croenin found himself holding his breath as she did. He hoped she would read it aloud, but, as she stared at the etchings on the paper, she did not. She simply folded the paper and replaced it in the pouch, holding it out for him to replace around his neck. He took the pouch from her, carefully slipping the pouch back over his head. He watched as Old Haega slowly stood, moving over to a bookshelf, and the feeling he had earlier returned even stronger. He had lived this before.
Before he could say anything, she returned to the chair in front of him, holding a thick, leather-bound book on her lap. At that moment Croenin had a flashback to himself sitting on the floor between them. His memory was fuzzy, but he could remember Old Haega slowly flipping pages of that same book as he cried. He felt the fear he felt then, saw his mother gripping him and sobbing. He saw Old Haega pushing her out the door and a small bundle of cloth on the table that sat behind him now. Suddenly, he remembered her.
Clearer than any of his childhood memories, the memory of his sister rushed back. He saw her, sitting next to him on the floor, her wide grey eyes and silvery hair, the heart shaped face that leaned so close to his own round face trying to offer comfort. Her pale skin, so much like their mother’s, contrasted sharply with his darker skin, so like their father’s swarthy complexion. He remembered further back, her tinkling laugh, the way she skipped through the village, smiling brightly at all who passed. Croenin felt tears form at the corners of his eyes, trying to remember why she was lost to him.
“I’ve found it,” Old Haega said quietly, bringing him back into the moment. She held the old book a bit higher and began to read:
“The prophecy, told by the Sidhe-blooded old man, stated that the Age of Oryn would be short-lived, ending with the collision of the Sun and Moon, endi
ng one of two ways: The Day will end and the Sun will set on the Age of Oryn. Perpetual Night will fall and those who live under the Moon will take over the lands of Men…or the Sun will set, bringing the Moon down with it, and a New Age will begin, with the followers of the Sun ruling over the followers of the Moon.”
She stopped reading and closed the book, sighing deeply and looking back up at Croenin. He frowned at the old woman, a question forming on his lips, but then he decided against it. He sat back and thought on what the prophecy could mean. He stared at the woman who Raena said was his grandmother, waiting for her to speak. Old Haega saw his frown, and decided to break the silence.
“You remember now, I’m sure of it. Your mother remembered too when she dragged you up to my door this afternoon.” She sat back, running her hands over the book. “I know she is angry with me, but I had to protect this land. The Age of Oryn has only just begun. Now is not the time for it to end.” She stood, walking to her bookshelf and replacing the book. Old Haega sighed and turned back to face her grandson, who was craning his neck to look at her.
“What did you do to her?” He blurted out, surprising both of them with his bluntness. He flushed almost as soon as the question left his mouth, looking downward.
“I hid her,” came the reply.
