“That’s right,” said Isabella, smiling widely back at him and spreading her hands in what she hoped was a welcoming and not-in-any-way-threatening manner. There was a rumor at the Academy that some parents of backwater towns still reinforced the old story that witches ate children. Benevolence was hardly backwater, but Isabella didn’t want to present any sort of child-eating mannerisms, just in case.
“Stop smiling like that. He’ll think you’re going to eat him,” said Alice softly when Isabella had ushered Billy into the solar room, simply pointing to the table laden with pastries before he fell upon them, stuffing two cookies into his mouth at once. The cat leapt up from the floor to a bench to the witch’s shoulder, flicking her tail primly.
Isabella glanced sidelong at Alice, hissing, “Why was I cursed with a talking Familiar?”
Alice made no reply, but her whiskers pointed forward in a haughty cat smile.
One by one, the children of the village began to stomp wetly through the door. Isabella greeted them all nervously, guiding them to the pastries table as soon as they shrugged out of their coats and kicked off their boots.
When Changers fell in love and decided to have children, they could never be absolutely certain, until the child left the womb, which parent's animal shape the baby would inherit. So Mr. Rabbit and the late Miss Badger might have birthed either a small Changer rabbit or a small Changer badger. When their little girl was born, she transformed into a bunny within her first five minutes of life, and so—as was custom—she was named Molly Rabbit, not Molly Badger.
But then there was the common case of Mr. Robin and Miss Wren. Mr. Robin, far back in his family tree, boasted a long line of Goats. Miss Wren also had a great-grandmother and two great-grandfathers who were Goats (of no relation to Mr. Robin’s family; Miss Wren’s parents had traveled a great distance to live in Benevolence). When Mr. Robin and Miss Wren had a baby, then, it was no great surprise that the little boy transformed into a baby goat, or kid, in the first half hour of his birth.
Though the latent Changer forms were somewhat rare, they weren’t uncommon in the fifteen children Isabella saw before her now. The last child to come through the door, for instance, was Miss Eveline Snake, and Isabella knew there were no other Snakes in Benevolence save for Eveline. The girl took a witch pastry eagerly and sank down onto the last remaining space on the solar room benches.
Isabella cleared her throat, then, hands on her hips and cat on her shoulder, posed in what she hoped was an impressively witchy stance, as she breathed in and out and stared at the children with a too-wide smile.
And the children, all fifteen of them, stared back at her.
“Well?” asked Molly Rabbit after a terribly awkward moment in which Isabella wondered, in a panic, if she could still somehow get out of this. “Are you going to tell it or what?”
“Well, dear,” said Isabella, forcing her voice to brightness, “I’m just thinking… Perhaps my version of the Ostara story isn’t exactly like the one you’re used to. See, I was raised at the Magicmaker Academy, and I’ve found that we had some different—”
“This is boring!” said Eveline Snake helpfully. “Tell us the story!” In her defense, she was only four years old.
Isabella breathed out for a long moment as Alice curled her tail along her arm.
“Once…” Alice whispered in her ear, her whiskers tickling Isabella’s cheek.
“Once…” began Isabella.
---
Once, long ago, there was the first winter, and it was very mighty: it snowed, and it snowed, covering the world in a blanket of white.
The people and the animals were very afraid and called out to the goddesses and gods to hear their prayers, for they needed the sun back and the snow gone so that they might plant and harvest and live, and put the season of death behind them.
And Stara, the goddess of spring, heard their prayers, and she went to her beloved Solsta, the goddess of winter. Stara kissed her sweetly and said,“My dear one, the people have need of spring. Winter has gone on long enough…”
But Solsta had been encased in blizzard and snow and ice for so many months that her heart itself had become frozen. “I will not yield, wife,” she said. “The world shall be covered in snow for some time more,” she hissed between icy lips, her skin as blue as the deep ice that had claimed the lakes and streams.
Stara whispered into her ear, “But the people and animals are dying. Have pity on the mortals. Your season is lovely, and it is glorious, but it has had its season. Come home to me. We have been too long apart.”
But Solsta’s heart was hardened with ice, and she would not stop the blizzard.
Stara was clever, though, and came upon the world. Among the people and the animals, she sent out a call. “We need to melt a heart of ice and snow,” she told the mortals. “Who can help me melt it?”
Mother Rabbit stepped out of her burrow, the first baby rabbits gathering behind her, never having known a world that wasn’t white. “I am timid, and very shy,” said Mother Rabbit quietly, “but I will go beg for my children’s lives.”
Mother Sheep stepped down from the hills, the first baby lamb pressing against her heels, bleating pathetically and shaking, for it was bitterly cold and in danger of dying. “I am stupid, and of not much consequence,” said Mother Sheep softly, “but I will go beg for my child’s life.”
Mother Bird flew down from the branches of the closest tree, her nest of eggs left behind, defenseless. “I am small, and surely meaningless,” said Mother Bird passionately, “but I will go beg for my children’s lives, because they will die if I do not.”
And Stara gathered Mother Rabbit and Mother Sheep and Mother Bird into her arms and journeyed over world and under it until she reached the maelstrom at the heart of winter that Solsta had created. It was bitterly cold, the coldest cold the animals had ever experienced. Their breath was stolen from them, even as Stara tried dearly to shield them, to keep them warm against her goddess heart. But still, they were mortal, and in the shrill and screaming wind and driven ice, they began to die.
“My beloved wife,” said Stara, stepping before Solsta, before the goddess whose eyes were glazed over with ice, whose heart was frozen to stillness now. “Winter must end. Look… These are some of the first animals...and they will soon be lost to us.”
“My children will die if the spring does not come,” said Mother Rabbit, shaking in fear but speaking the truth. “Please stop the snow, beloved Solsta.”
“My child will die in this cold,” said Mother Sheep, bleating softly but speaking the truth. “Please stop the cold, beloved Solsta.”
“My children have not yet lived, and will not, if spring does not come,” said Mother Bird, flying from Stara’s arms to land in Solsta’s hands. “Please, beloved Solsta…be kind.”
But as Mother Bird spoke those words, her tiny feet touched against the skin of the goddess’s palm. And because Solsta was now so cold, so frozen, Mother Bird was covered in ice instantly, her fiercely beating, tiny heart stilled.
Stara and Mother Sheep and Mother Rabbit stared at the small frozen bird in the palm of the goddess of winter. And Stara’s heart broke at the sadness of it…until…
The ice covering Mother Bird melted away, water dripping over her wings and feathers as she shook like a leaf in the dripping hands of Solsta, who, too, melted from top to toe, water running over her skin and dress, her white hair dripping down her back as she held up her head, eyes unfrozen and clear now, and stared at her beloved wife with love.
For the love of Mother Bird had melted the winter goddess.
“Winter must never again linger for so long. For winter can overtake, and winter can forget, and winter can freeze…even herself,” said Solsta, stepping forward and embracing her beloved Stara. “As a sign of my love for you, and so that this may never happen again, I will give you this gift,” said Solsta, and she knelt down and scooped up a handful of snow, shaping it and molding it. It grew larger and larger, leaving her hands to
spin and swirl on the surface of the snow.
“This is the Loss,” said Solsta, then, when the new creature stood before them, a creature built of ice and snow and love, all white and wondering. It looked a little like a bird, and a little like a rabbit and a little like a sheep—and, if you stared at it very hard, it looked like nothing at all.
“Because I have named it as a reminder for what I almost possessed: the Loss of the world. And it will live beneath the earth until the last winter winds touch it, and then it will rise and cover the land in spring, and at the first sign of the Loss, I will remember, and I will relinquish my crown to you.”
And Stara kissed her beloved, thanking her for the gift, and for her love of the world. And all was well.
And Mother Bird and Mother Rabbit and Mother Sheep were carried back to their children, and the Loss was taken below the world where he would wait for another winter and another spring, as the snows and ice began to melt.
And the seasons’ crown passed from Solsta to Stara, and the Loss rose each spring so that eternal winter would never again threaten the mortals. And to this day, rabbits and sheep and birds are sacred to our beloved goddess of spring, Stara, for the first day of spring came because of the brave and courageous actions of three small animals who were, of course, of great consequence, as we all are, no matter how small.
---
Billy Crow’s hand had been up for most of the latter half of the story, and as Isabella finished telling it, she sighed in relief, for she could finally point to him and say, “Yes, Billy?” And he could finally take down his hand.
“Why was Solsta so mean?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. A few of the other kids shouted out in response: “Yeah!” and “She wasn’t mean!” and “Shut up, Billy!” But Isabella cleared her throat. She’d wondered about this as a kid, too, and had drawn, as an adult, her own conclusions.
“Solsta wasn’t mean,” she said, letting Alice down from her shoulder to jump up onto the pastry table and inspect the remaining witch peak pastry, trying to hide her purring cat laugh. “She’d just been too long at her task, and her heart had become frozen, so it was harder for her to understand the pain she was causing. But she never did cause a winter like that again, you see. She always handed the seasons' crown on to her beloved, Stara, as she promised.”
Another hand shot up—Molly Rabbit's.
“Miss Fox, I’d like to tell you that you told the story wrong,” she said primly, taking her hand down and pointing her nose in the air. “It’s not the Loss. It’s the Glossmer.”
“Yeah!” chorused the children. "The Glossmer!" “How could you mess that up?”
Isabella stared openmouthed as the children all began to shout at once.
“Can you tell us the story of Litha and Mabon? It’s my favorite!” screeched Eveline Snake, as Molly Rabbit stood up and took the paper wrapping that had been beneath the cookies and began to fold it into a vaguely hat-shaped thing, dropping crumbs all over the floor of the solar room.
“I am Solsta!” she howled triumphantly, jamming the butter-stained hat on top of her head. “I bear the crown of the seasons.”
“Well, I’m Stara, and you’d better give it to me,” said Billy Crow, raising his brow and holding out a hand.
“You can’t be Stara. You’re a boy.”
“He can…" Isabella cleared her throat, raised her voice. “He can be Stara if he wants to be Stara,” she said hastily, staring at Molly in what she hoped was a stern but not this-witch-is-hungry-for-children sort of way. “The goddesses and gods can be portrayed however anyone wants to…”
But Eveline Snake began to shriek, because Tom Salamander had pulled one of her tiny braids, and then chaos broke out all over the room in a stampede of little feet and loud voices.
“Kids? Kids!” Isabella called over the tumult, but they either didn’t quite hear her or were having too much fun ignoring her as they began to run around and around the room, presumably playing a game of tag. Alice’s ears flattened, and she made herself as small as possible upon the table of pastries, shooting Isabella her patented “do something!” look.
As if the gods themselves had heard Isabella’s fervent prayers, Lacey Turtle chose that precise moment to swing wide the doors to the solar room. The children, as if by magic, all became perfectly still, then, gazing up at Lacey with utter adoration as she beamed down at all of them, hands on her hips.
“So…" She grinned. "Who wants to go on an Ostara egg hunt?”
Fifteen children screamed at the top of their lungs, leaping past Lacey. Molly Rabbit was so excited that she spontaneously transformed into her hare form and then changed into a child again, and Eveline Snake slithered after her, tiny and green and quick as lightning. Out the door and down the hall, into the sanctuary, the kids tumbled over each other, and Isabella could hear the sounds of their shrieks of delight echoing against the stained glass windows and the high ceiling.
“Thank you so much for your help,” said Lacey, patting down her frazzled jet-black bun of hair. “I could never have done any of this without you, Isabella!”
“You’re…you’re welcome,” said Isabella then, smiling tentatively. The children had misbehaved, yes, but she was fairly certain that children tended to misbehave when gathered together in a group, and, after all, their unruliness had only lasted for a few moments. And nothing had been damaged or broken or irrevocably destroyed—not like that last time.
So, all in all, a win! Isabella straightened up a bit, her smile growing more certain. “It was even…sort of…fun,” she said carefully, mulling over that last word as she gazed at Lacey. “I think.” And then she blinked. “Um. Lacey… About the story. I think that mine was different from what the kids usually hear—”
“A little bit of diversity will do them good,” said Lacey, winking, gazing over her shoulder toward the sanctuary and the din of gleeful children.
“It’s just that, in my story,” said Isabella, brow creased, stepping forward, “I talked about the Loss. You know, that ancient creature that Solsta made for Stara?”
Lacey stared at her, head cocked. “The...Loss?”
“The children had never heard of him before. An ancient god…” Isabella trailed off. “They said that he wasn’t supposed to be called the Loss—”
A wail from the sanctuary, high and shrill and piercing, interrupted Isabella.
“I’ll bet coins that Molly Rabbit stole Eveline’s first egg,” smiled Lacey, casting her eyes to the heavens. She dashed forward and hugged Isabella tightly before she ran to the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. “I have to go watch them, to keep the egg-stealing to a minimum. Thank you so much again, Isabella. Promise me that after the trek to Mirror Lake tomorrow, you’ll come to my place for Ostara dinner? We’ll talk a bunch then.”
“Well, I should ask Em…”
“Please?” She was already out in the hallway and moving toward the sanctuary.
“Yes, all right,” Isabella called after her with a grin, and Lacey Turtle, gifted with that rare magical ability to calm rowdy children, raced into the sanctuary, and the wails and shouts were quickly replaced by laughter.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Isabella told her Familiar as they began to make their way back toward the cottage.
“They seemed to enjoy the story,” said Alice, sighing out, “though they had never heard that version before. Either way, it was enough to keep their bottoms on the benches for the amount of time Lacey needed. And the pastries helped.”
“Hmm. I wonder if that's Lacey's secret, winning the kids over with sugar,” pondered Isabella, then laughed. “It keeps me in line, anyway.”
And, because Isabella had done her duty and, most importantly, survived, she stopped at Mr. Ox’s on the way back to the cottage to purchase herself and Emily each a fresh-baked witch peak pastry.
But when Isabella and Alice returned to the cottage, Emily was not home. This wasn’t unusual; the Changer had lived her entire life wild in the woods an
d craved the satisfaction of wandering outside for hours on end each day. Isabella wrapped Emily's witch peak pastry tightly in the paper it had come in, and then wrapped a lap blanket around it for good measure. She didn’t want her sweetheart's treat to get cold.
And then, because she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, the witch yawned widely, dragged the quilt down from the loft bed, and curled up in the rocker before the fire. “Just for a moment,” she told her Familiar, who rolled her eyes and began to daintily lick the snow from her paws.
Isabella slept.
---
The ice cracked.
Suddenly, Isabella was sinking, her broom bouncing away. She stared down in horror at the darkness reaching up shadowed hands to drag her down, down, swallowing her body into its cold depths.
Water, everywhere: in her lungs, her eyes, her heart. Dark water dragging her down, down, forever down.
She was drowning.
Movement, to her right. Isabella turned her head so slowly, it felt caught between two hands, and there was a darkness in the water beside her, a strange, large form that seemed to writhe beneath the water. As Isabella watched, she wondered: was it a snake? A monstrous snake, sinuous as a serpent? And why did she see antlers? It sank down in the water with her, and Isabella knew, then, that it, too, was drowning.
It was drowning with her.
Drowning.
…needs help…
Isabella gazed up, up, and there was a woman, a beautiful woman, with eyes brighter than stars, skin shimmering as she reached down her hands toward Isabella, begging her. Isabella reached up toward this woman, this impossibly beautiful, shining woman…
Their fingers brushed.
Please help him. He needs you. He needs all of you.
But Isabella couldn’t talk, couldn't breathe, and the blackness pulled her back, dragging her down and down as the shadow still writhed beside her, as the water dragged it down, too.
Both of them, drowning…
---
Under Her Spell Page 18
