Chapter 2
Two
Flee
There was still a gentle thread of smoke coming from the chimney when I reached home.
Herbs dried on the mantle, a new bowl sat half formed in a pile of wood shavings on the table, and loaves of bread were rising on the windowsill.
The cottage held a table, a hearth, and two beds piled with furs and quilts.
As I stood in the middle of it, its warmth clung to my skin.
A place filled with love. Little did the cabin know that its master was never coming home.
I wrapped myself in a blanket from Bryn’s bed and sat on the floor and cried. Tears fell for my father, and for me, and for the destroyed patches of forest. None fell for the village.
The fae’s face wouldn’t leave my mind, and I hated him for that.
It had been terrible but carved like a sculpture.
My stomach twisted at the thought. He was a monster, not something to admire.
But I couldn’t deny he was beautiful too.
They were supposed to be; that was how they lured in people for their terrible tricks.
The hells could have him. He looked half animal anyway.
And I’d likely offended him greatly. One of the rules Mila had taught me, and I’d broken it the moment I met my first fae.
But he was awful for what he now knew of me without receiving my permission to know it.
It was little wonder humans didn’t trust them. Trust me. Not that I had ever been among my fae half before, but it hadn’t mattered then, and it hadn’t mattered today. They hated me just as surely as they hated anything from the Wyldes.
Even when my tears finally dried up, I stayed on the floor.
I didn’t know how long I sat there. I traced the grain of the wooden boards.
Small black patches were smooth where sparks from the fireplace had licked the floor.
My fingers danced around a gouge I’d put in the oak with a spoon when I was young.
I’d been trying to carve a bird. Bryn had scolded me for that.
Bryn. I hadn’t dared look for his body. I was a coward.
I wouldn’t remember him mangled or burned or cut down, though.
I would remember him as he was. Smiling, gentle, a large man with a large beard and a bigger laugh.
He told the most wonderful tales, and he could carve anything with a knife and a piece of wood.
He’d taught me the kinds of trees, and animals, and he’d taken me to Mila for reading and learning. But he was gone, and I wasn’t.
I did what Bryn would have done to cheer me up, if he were here.
I sang. I sang badly, with a broken voice and lyrics interrupted by sobbing, but I sang.
I sang a sad ballad I had once heard at the fair.
I sang through the few songs of the mountains I knew.
Running out of things to sing, I even threw in a tune with bawdy lyrics I’d heard in the ale dens of Sulls when we went there on occasion.
Everything I had to give, I gave through my voice in tribute and love and loss for my only family. The family of my heart if not my blood.
When I was done, my head ached. Next would be a stone of as much value and beauty as I could muster to set on his burning place.
But with the tribute of song paid with everything I had, there wasn’t enough of me to give any more that night.
I lay down by the fire and slept, not waking until the fire burned out and the cold night woke me.
Blinking, I watched the moonlight cross the floor for a while.
Eventually, I stood and let the blanket drop around me.
My fingers itched for work, so I found things to do.
I washed the mess I had become in the water basin.
My dress, now ruined, lay discarded on the floor as I pulled on my doeskin pants and long green tunic.
Dresses were for blending in with the people of the mountains, to make myself less different from them.
Tunics were for working. I stoked and fed the fire’s embers and put my coat around me.
I laid the now risen bread by the fire and swept the wood shavings from the room.
Wet drops dotted the floor as I swept. Bryn was gone. Mila had hinted at leaving too. Without them, I wasn’t sure there was a reason for me to stay.
Would the surviving farms around the forest accept me?
I had helped chop wood and clear trees since I was big enough to hold an axe, and I could put up a new fence as fast as anyone, but my presence had only been tolerated because of Bryn.
He was a friend to all. How long could I stay?
And what would I do if the plainsmen returned?
Did I even need to see another human ever again? The only reason for money was to buy what I couldn’t get for myself. Like clothes, I supposed. Food would never be a problem. But soap. I would miss soap.
A rustling that had no wind behind it whispered outside.
My heart beat faster. Even now, a stray warrior could be lurking, waiting for a chance to strike.
I grimaced and went to the wall by the door where the tools were kept.
I couldn’t see anything out the window, but that didn’t mean nothing was there.
Axe firmly in hand, I slowly opened the door and crept outside.
I would not be cornered in a cabin in the woods.
“Mila.” My shoulders dropped their tension as the hunched black form of the Witch of the Woods approached. Her raven sat on her shoulder, feathers ruffled. Usually his one clear eye stared back at me, but today it was the milky white eye that I had always assumed was blind.
“You need to leave, child,” she wheezed.
My heart sank. “Why?”
“As soon as the fae left, the village turned sour. They hunt us whom they do not understand.”
“The witches?” I whispered.
“They do not understand you either,” she added.
The large bird perched on her shoulder flapped its wings a few times, scattering feathers on the ground.
“They say we brought the bad luck to them,” Mila continued. “This is the final time I will be crossed by those who do not understand the Mother’s love. We will not stay by people who do not want us.”
“No,” I breathed. “How could they? After all you do for them . . .” My eyes widened at the horror of a mountain so near the Wyldes without the protection of a witch. The Mother didn’t guide her Daughters to watch over the wilder places for no reason.
“My sisters have been going home for the past few years. Times change, child, and whatever is on the horizon, we must all prepare for it. It won’t be long before you will be sought out too.
” Her cold eyes studied me from head to toe.
“You don’t deserve what this mountain will do to you without the woodcutter. ”
“What will you do?” I asked, but already I had retreated to the cabin, where I could pack my belongings. Mila followed.
“The coven will gather where no man will find us. The question is what will you do?” Mila handed me the flint from the mantle. I put it in my sack.
“Can’t I go with you? I could be of use.” I didn’t like the quiver in my voice as I gathered my comb and a small mirror. The skinning knife fit in the top of my boot with familiar ease.
Mila’s stare weighed heavy on my back until I faced her somber expression again. “I cannot take you with me as you are now. The Mother does not answer my questions, and I do not know why her hand is closed to you. You cannot cross the borders I must cross, child.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “I can be useful. I’ll keep your jars organized, I can carry bags and set traps for game.”
“It is not about what you can do for me,” she said. “The valley is closed off. Times are growing uncertain all over the lands, and you will not be able to pass through without magic of your own.”
My shoulders tensed, and I turned back around to continue packing. “I know, I don’t have witching magic like you do.”
“And yet you do have something in you,” Mila murmured. “There is a fog about you I cannot read. The Mother will show it when she wishes, I’m certain.”
My hand strayed to the missing top of one ear. “I’m not one of her Daughters—”
“We are all her children,” Mila corrected.
“And you do have something in you not of these mountains. The Mother veils so much of you from my knowledge, dear child. If I could know more ways to help you, I would. But I cannot take you with me where I will go. I will travel with Gilly. Even now, she comes to me from the northwest. So I ask again, what will you do?”
It eased my worries that the old woman would be traveling with the much younger witch, but it didn’t provide me with any answers.
For a long time, my thoughts ran wild as I packed my clothes and a large store of food that we had been preparing for winter.
The bird squawked, drawing my eyes to the wall beside him.
I took the protection trinket Mila had given me from over my bed.
I paused at the wooden cup Bryn had carved for me long ago. I put it in my sack too.
“There is nothing left for me here,” I answered eventually.
“I’ll go further east. Maybe the people on the other side of the mountains can find a use for me.
” I looked around the cabin. What remained were not things I could bring with me, or they were things belonging to Bryn.
My attention landed on the post at the foot of his bed.
Bryn had worn his good coat into town, but that wasn’t the one he used all winter.
A dark leather coat hung ready, the inside lined with fleece, two pockets crudely sewn on in which to place warmed stones from the hearth.
I shrugged off my own coat, nothing particularly special about it save for it being the nicest garment I could trade for at the Sulls markets two years ago, and pulled Bryn’s around me.
I took my own coat and hung it around the older woman’s shoulders.