Heartwood

by Freya Robertson

  Of course Bearrach knew, but he too remained silent, more than a little disturbed, she thought, by the presence of the floating body in the pool. She had not spoken to him much since she woke the others to inform them of what she had found. True, they had been busy, first with burying Lalage and second with continuing to clean the Portal site, but she also felt he had withdrawn from her. Whether that was because he thought her somehow responsible for the knight’s death, or whether because he wanted to give her some time to think, she didn’t know. Not that it mattered, anyway, she thought miserably. Not even Bearrach could give her comfort now.

  They had finally finished clearing the site that afternoon, and no longer could she put off her final task – the activation of the Node. Which was why at that moment she was standing just to one side of the Portal, soaked to the skin, and feeling as if she could quite possibly go and drown herself in the lake, too.

  What exactly did she fear? She hesitated on the edge of the huge stone trilithon, her feet freezing to the floor. Just the unknown. It had never been made clear to her what to expect when she tried to activate the Node, because Nitesco himself hadn’t known. Each of the Quest leaders had realised they would have to find out for themselves. How were the others doing? Had they activated their Nodes already? Had anyone had any success?

  Behind her, one of the others shifted. They were growing impatient. They had been standing there for over half an hour now, waiting for her to begin the process, and she still didn’t know what to do. She had hoped it would miraculously come to her, that the answer would reveal itself in a flash of light, but so far there had been nothing.

  Still, didn’t she really know how to start the process? Fionnghuala turned her face up to the rain and let it fall on her skin, closing her eyes. Of course she did. She had just been putting it off until now.

  She looked through the Portal to the hillside. Cast in the same gloom as this side of the hill, there was nothing suspicious about it, nothing unusual. Still, she knew the answer lay this way.

  Taking a breath, she stepped through the doorway.

  Nothing changed. She looked around, disappointed, having half-expected to step into another dimension, another world. But the rain was still falling, the grass sodden. She turned to look back through the Portal to her companions, a shrug already on her shoulders.

  Instead of finding Bearrach and the Heartwood knights, however, there was only one person waiting patiently for her. A little girl sat on the boulder Mundus had been resting on, the knight nowhere to be seen. Fionnghuala stared at her. She was about seven years old, with long fair hair hanging to her waist in braids. She was staring back at Fionnghuala, her face expressionless.

  Fionnghuala stepped back through the Portal, half-expecting the girl to disappear as she did so. But she remained, watching as the Hanairean Council Leader walked up to her.

  “Who are you?” Fionnghuala asked softly.

  The girl stuck out her chin and looked her directly in the eye. “Can you not guess? Mother?”

  Fionnghuala’s heart missed a beat. As soon as she had calculated the girl’s age, she had guessed who the girl might be, but it was so incredible that she had discounted the idea immediately. However, at the girl’s words, she looked at her more closely, seeing the familiar upturned nose, the wide blue eyes with a hint of gold, the kink in her beautiful hair. All characteristics she herself shared.

  “You are the child I lost?” she asked, her voice almost non-existent.

  The girl glared at her. Her antagonism was evident, and she perceptibly drew back when Fionnghuala took a step forward. Fionnghuala’s stomach clenched. How was this possible? Could it be the spirit of the child she had lost had continued to grow, to age, in whatever place it went after she died?

  “Not the child you lost,” said the girl. “The child you murdered.”

  The blood drained from her face. “I…” She fell silent. How could she possibly defend what was quite clearly a just and honest statement about what she had done?

  The girl eyed her curiously. “You do not deny it, then?”

  “No.” Fionnghuala’s eyes filled with tears. “I have never denied the act. That is why I have suffered so long.”

  “Suffered, hah!” The girl was openly scornful. “You have barely given it a thought these past few years.”

  “That is not true,” Fionnghuala protested.

  “I know it to be true. You put me out of your mind mentally as well as physically.”

  Fionnghuala bit her lip. The girl’s words were like a sword cutting through her, slicing open her emotions and leaving them fresh and raw. She took a deep breath. “It is true I have tried not to dwell on what I did. I saw no point in that. The deed was done. So I tried to move on with my life.”

  “Tried to forget me?” For the first time the little girl looked upset rather than angry.

  Fionnghuala fell to her knees in front of her. “No, not forget you. Never.”

  “Do you regret getting rid of me?” asked the girl hoarsely.

  Fionnghuala hesitated. She could lie, but somehow she understood the girl would know. “I regret I never got to know you,” she said. “I hope one day you can learn to forgive me.”

  Tears poured down the girl’s face. “Forgive you? For taking away my one chance at life? How I could ever forgive you for that?”

  Fionnghuala felt as if her heart were breaking. She pressed her trembling hands against her lips but could not stop her own tears. They fell down her face, and soon she could not tell which were tears and which were rain.

  It was in the midst of her despair that something strange happened. There was an odd noise, a mixture of a low rumble of thunder and a crackling of static electricity, and then suddenly a gap appeared in the clouds above their heads. Fionnghuala got to her feet hurriedly, looking up in awe as the grey clouds ripped, and through them the late sun shone down, illuminating the two figures on the hillside, the Portal casting a giant shadow across the grass behind them. Fionnghuala felt the sudden warmth of the sun on her face and closed her eyes, filled with an emotion she could not explain, a strange blend of love, happiness and contentment that swept through her leaving her breathless. “Gavius,” she said, only realising as she said the word that his was the face that had appeared in her mind’s eye.

  The whole thing lasted less than a minute, and then the sun faded, the clouds pulled back together and the rain began to pepper her face once more. She opened her eyes, stunned and confused, and then saw she and the girl were not alone. Bearrach stood in the Portal, his face creased with concern. “He let me through,” he said.

  Fionnghuala did not have to ask who he meant. She wiped her face. “I am glad you came.”

  He looked down at the ground. “I cannot move. I do not think I have long.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  He looked across at the girl, who was now standing, her face a mixture of resentment and fury. His eyes narrowed. “Who is this?”

  Fionnghuala did not want to answer him, but she knew this was no time to be cautious. “It is my daughter. Seven years ago, I got with child. He was an older Council member… He…”

  “You do not have to tell me,” he said softly. “It is of no matter now.”

  She swallowed. “But there is something you must know… I… I aborted it.” She bit her lip. It was the most terrible crime you could commit in Hanaire. Children were sacred, and to deny a child its chance of life was the ultimate sin.

  However, to her surprise, Bearrach just nodded. “I know.”

  “How…?”

  “The stone in Salentaire. It had no name. I guessed what had occurred.”

  “Oh.” She felt confused. He had known all this time and had not accused her?

  He looked across at the girl. “Are you sure this is your daughter?”

  “She looks like me.”

  “That does not make her your daughter.”

  “I know…” She did not know what to say. “She knows
things about me, Bearrach; she can read my mind. She knew what I had done; she called me a murderer…” More tears fell down her cheeks.

  Bearrach clenched his fists but could not move. “Do you really think your own child would say such a thing?”

  “It is a just accusation,” she said, trying to wipe her face clear and failing, “for I did indeed cause her death.”

  “You were very young. You must have been about to be nominated for the High Council?”

  “That does not excuse what I did,” she said softly.

  He smiled at her. “Is it your daughter who cannot forgive you, or you who cannot forgive yourself?”

  The Portal flickered. Bearrach vanished like a rainbow.

  Fionnghuala stared after him. His words rang in her head. Can you not forgive yourself…? “It is true,” she whispered. She turned back to face the little girl. “I must be able to forgive myself before I ask forgiveness from others.”

  The girl nodded. All resentment and anger had gone from her face, and suddenly, she looked much older and wiser than her seven years. “Come here,” she said, and Fionnghuala knelt on the floor, and the girl put her arms around her. “Guilt comes with the milk,” said the girl. “All mothers have it, even those who bear their children happy and healthy.”

  Fionnghuala looked up at the girl’s face. “You are not her, are you?”

  She shook her head. “But I have seen her. She forgives you, and now maybe you can learn to forgive yourself.”

  Fionnghuala’s lips trembled. “Then who are you?”

  “I am all mothers, and all daughters. I am present when you are giving birth, and I dig the grave when you die. I am birth, and death, and the life that comes in between.” She put her hand on Fionnghuala’s head. “Be at peace. Be open.”

  There was a huge crack of thunder above them. Fionnghuala gasped. The Portal trembled, the earth carrying the movement beneath her knees. In her mind’s eye, she saw a picture – herself giving birth, holding a child in her arms, watching the girl grow up, seeing her daughter marry and have children of her own. The baby she had lost or one yet to come? She could not fathom; time span like a web, and there was no beginning and no end. “Bearrach,” she gasped.

  And then, suddenly, all was quiet. She was alone on one side of the hillside, and through the Portal were her companions, their faces filled with fear and awe at what they had witnessed. The Node was open, and instinctively, she knew she would hear the baby cry no more.

  IV

  On the hill where the Henge stood proudly overlooking its landscape, it was cool and quiet, the dull gloom of the day fading to the grey fog of twilight covering the world like a blanket, muffling all sound.

  Gravis sat in the centre of the Henge under a small canopy which just about kept off the rain, as long as the wind didn’t blow too hard. He sat still and quiet, although inside his heart pounded, and he had to take deep breaths to calm himself. Around him reared the tall towers of the megaliths that made up the Henge, and at their bases sat the Guardians, who like him were silent in contemplation.

  The rest of his party were also there, sitting in between the Guardians, completing the ring around him. He half-wished they had stayed down in the houses. He had not grown close to any of them on the journey, save maybe Aranea initially, but she had not said two words to him since the incident in the Temple, and the others had maintained a respectful but clear distance. Even Fortis, who had wanted to stay with him to protect him, seemed withdrawn and distant.

  He was beginning to feel somehow separate from the world, as if he inhabited another dimension. Sometimes he wondered if he were invisible, a shadow that people saw out of the corner of their eye. It was almost as if someone was rubbing him out, he thought, as if he were slowly fading, like a rainbow after the mist.

  Gravis looked around the Henge, feeling claustrophobic with the tall stones towering over him. His eyesight was beginning to blur. The drugs the Guardians had given him had started to work.

  He had spent some time talking to Thancred, the leader of the Guardians, about his life and the Quest, and the problems he had experienced on the journey. To his relief, Thancred had believed every word he said, listening seriously and nodding intently as Gravis tried to describe the deep misery he felt, although he could not truly give an answer as to why.

  “I am so lucky, I do realise,” the knight had told the Guardian. “I was chosen in the Allectus, which many are not, and I have had the privilege to serve the Arbor all my life. I know I have led an honourable and worthwhile life. And yet still I cannot shake off this feeling of… being less than whole.”

  Thancred had nodded, his face solemn. “There is something unseen at work here,” he said. “And the only way to find out what is to loosen the bounds of consciousness.”

  Which was why Gravis was starting to see the stones move, having drunk a full tankard of the herb concoction the Guardians had brewed to instigate visions.

  It was the first time he had ever been under the influence of a mind-altering substance, and for a while he sat in wonder as the world around him danced. The stones seemed to sway rhythmically, their tall forms filled with light. Gradually, the background faded into darkness, the forms of the Guardians and his Quest companions vanishing, but the stones remained bright as full moons, until they were all that existed, shining like beacons in the night.

  Gravis closed his eyes. Very faintly, he could hear a low, throbbing hum. It pulsed like a heartbeat. No, he was more than hearing it; he was feeling it, through the ground, vibrating up through his bones, echoing in the cavity of his chest.

  It was the stones.

  Gravis’s heart thudded, but he kept his eyes closed. And in his mind’s eye, he began to see a picture.

  It was a room in a small cottage, lit by candles and a fire dancing in the tiny grate. A woman lay on the large bed that took up most of the room. She was in the process of giving birth. Two women stood by her side, one holding her hand and stroking her brow while the other busied herself preparing for the imminent arrival.

  The scene itself was not particularly strange; after all, births happened most years in nearly every cottage in Anguis. But what was most odd was that Gravis felt he was not just seeing the physical side of things; each person had around their bodies a hazy glow that pulsed and blurred as they moved. He had never seen the likes of it before and wasn’t sure what it was, but it was clearly something to do with the individuals’ energies: all the women’s auras interacted with one another, blending and mixing like wet paint as they touched or spoke to one another.

  Gravis stood in the corner of the room in awe. He had recognised the place instantly. It was the cottage where he had lived for the first seven years of his life. The place where he had been born.

  He looked at the woman straining on the bed, her dark brown hair damp and her face flushed. It was his mother. Was it possible…? Could it be he was witnessing his own birth? It could not be anything else; he and Gavius had been the last of a large family, and she would now be past childbearing age.

  As a contraction took hold of her, his mother pushed, and Gravis watched as the midwife guided the head of the baby down the birth canal and out into the waiting world. His mother panted, her face creased with pain, as the midwife turned the child and eased first one shoulder and then the other out, and then the rest of the baby slid quickly into her waiting hands.

  The other woman took the baby and cleaned it. Gravis watched, his throat tight with emotion. He did not know whether it was himself or Gavius – his mother had never told them who came first.

  The baby was encased in a fine silvery light, as if carried in a web, which turned almost to gold at the crown. A thin trail of the light followed the baby’s umbilical cord back into his mother.

  Gravis watched as her contractions began again, and she began to push out the second baby. It was not long before the twin followed his brother into the world, wailing a little at being separated from his mother.

&n
bsp; Gravis frowned and leaned forward to peer intently at the twins. A silvery trail also led from the second twin to his mother. However, as the midwife cut the cord and he was taken to the other side of the room to join his brother, something happened. The umbilical cord now ended at the babies’ navels in a tied stump; however, the silvery trail, severed from its source, continued to hang like a piece of thread from their bodies. And as Gravis watched, and the second baby was laid next to his brother, the two threads suddenly linked around each other, joining to make one thread from the first twin to the second.

  He gasped. At that moment, the babies were inextricably linked. Was it always the way with twins? Of course, he had no answer to that, but it was certainly clear from what he was being shown that he and Gavius shared a distinct connection.

  The scene before him faded as if a heavy mist had come down, and then it cleared and he was looking at another view. This time it was a sloping field leading down to the river. He recognised it as being a meadow to the south of his village, where he and other children who lived around his house used to play when they were young, before he and Gavius went to Heartwood.

  And indeed, here were the six year-old children now, barging through the gate at the bottom of the field, yelling as they ran across the buttercup-covered grass and down to the water. There were half a dozen children, and he could spot the twins instantly: tall, wiry and with the same shock of brown hair, they could have been a mirror image of one another. Once again, he could see the blurred colours of an aura around each child. The other children had greens and pinks and yellows merging like butter left too long in the sun. The twins’ aura, however, was a bright gold, and they were clearly still joined by a thin trail that led from one twin’s solar plexus to the other. For a moment, he thought their auras identical; however, as he looked more closely, he could see one brother’s aura was brighter than the other’s. Again, he was not sure which twin was which; they were completely identical, and even Gravis could not pick himself out between the two.