Chapter 2
Iwoke up late the next morning to warm snuggles from Astra and an awful fall rainstorm thrashing outside my window.
My muscles were aching badly from the previous night’s activities in the Nightwood.
I stretched my arms overhead, leaning from side to side, trying to release some of the stiff tension in my back.
I was slightly embarrassed that at twenty-eight years of age, my body felt this poorly after running through the woods.
Thankfully, I only had Nocturna, Astra, and an injured fox to play witness to my soft physical shape.
After a few more minutes of lamenting my aches, I got up and went into the living room to check on the little fox.
Nocturna was still curled up with the small creature and had most likely been so the whole night.
I gently looked over the fox to make sure its state hadn’t gotten any worse overnight, and to my surprise, the majority of its wounds looked almost fully healed.
There was still some flesh exposed on its paws, but not nearly as much as there had been last night.
Its head wound looked like it could be fully healed by the end of the day.
This is amazing! Thank the Mothers Above.
With my healing abilities, I had expected these results after a few days, not after a few hours.
I checked over the food and water dishes, and it didn’t appear it had woken up and had any sustenance.
That made me a little apprehensive, but we still had time before this became a situation I needed to worry about.
As I had the previous night, I grabbed a couple of water basins, cloths, and antiseptic to treat the animal’s wounds.
Even when using magical abilities, infection posed a risk.
This little one wasn’t quite out of the woods yet, so I needed to stay vigilant.
I’d seen far too many times how things could turn poorly very quickly.
That was mostly with people, but the same principles applied to animals as well.
One moment they were on the mend and looking great.
The next, they are down and out with no explanation as to why.
The creature had already been through enough; I wasn’t going to add to its pain and suffering if I could help it.
Next on the to-do list for the day was tidying up my humble little home.
The cottage was small and cozy and decorated exactly as my grandmother had left it.
All these years later, I hadn’t been able to muster up the courage to change anything.
If I left it all the same, it would feel like she was still here.
Even though it had been twelve years since her passing, I could not say goodbye to this part of her yet.
The living room was surrounded by bookcases, filled with a staggering assortment of literature that my grandmother had procured over the years.
The volumes were organized according to their subject matter: recipe books, herbology, healing texts, mythical tales, and my personal favourite, romance novels, which she had imported from the lustrous Southern Territory.
A plethora of crystals adorned the top of the mantelpiece.
My grandmother believed that they all held power required for all types of manifestations—my favourite was a sapphire shaped like a star.
Mixed throughout the crystals were various scented candles she had taught me how to make with essential oils and beeswax.
Strewn about the sofa were a few of my most cherished possessions: the blankets she had made for me by hand.
I had accumulated quite a collection over the years.
I picked up the blankets and carefully folded them, placing them over the back of the sofa.
The remainder of the blankets my grandmother had made were carefully folded and stored in a cedar chest behind the sofa.
The kitchen had a small bay window that looked out into the forest, the wash basin sitting below it.
I often found myself standing there, staring out into the forest, as if the magic of the forest was constantly calling to me.
Kitty-corner to the window was the wood-burning stove.
Hanging from the wooden beams above the kitchen were numerous dried herbs and plants.
The countertop was cluttered with recipe books, a mortar and pestle, and numerous empty glass tincture bottles.
I picked them up and moved them over to the chipped and worn wooden table in the corner, beside the discarded towel-wrapped chains from the previous night.
When my grandmother was alive, we would sit and eat breakfast here every morning.
It was where we gathered to share bits about our day.
Now it had just become another surface on which to store my tools of the trade.
In the centre of the kitchen, underneath an old rug, was a door to an underground cellar.
Down in the cellar was where I kept most of my healing aids and supplies.
While it was very rare that anyone came out this way to visit, I couldn’t justify leaving it all out in the open.
I couldn’t trust the majority of those around me to keep my work secret.
After I cleaned up the countertop and put the items from the table down in the cellar, I took a quick inventory of all the elixirs, tinctures, and various other healing aids I had on hand.
It turned out I was almost out of a lot more than just the moonshade, which meant adding another task to the list of things to do today: go into the village and pick up some supplies from Magda’s shop.
I hated going into the village and having to endure the weird looks and whispers sent my way.
I was not as warm and approachable as my grandmother, and that made me a bit off-putting to the other villagers.
Regardless of my feelings about the villagers, I always enjoyed visiting with Magda.
She knew everything that was going on, whether it was in the Southern Territory or the Northern Territory.
She always had juicy gossip to share, and I was always a willing listener.
Shadow’s Gate was a small village in the Northern Territory of the Fairview continent, aptly named, as it was nestled at the entrance of the Umbra Valley, shadowed by the colossal Mount Morningstar, whose blast-mark-covered surface was a constant reminder of what I had lost before I had ever had the chance to love it.
Half-surrounding the village was the moody Nightwood.
Walking toward the village square was wet and treacherous.
The pounding rain made the sloping cobble walkway slick.
Given my recent luck with physical activity, it would surely only be a matter of time before I found myself planted on my butt on the wet stone.
Not that anyone residing in the humble stone-and-wood homes would bother themselves to check if I was hurt.
I coughed from the constant stream of smoke that poured out of their chimneys and nestled in the pathways. Another reason I disliked the village.
As I approached the village square, the shouts of haggling merchants, the clinking of mugs, and the hushed secrets being shared filled the air. The scent of woodsmoke, fresh bread, and pine lingered above, blending in with the dampness of the mist from the Night-wood.
At the north end of the village square sat an unwelcoming squat stone fortress.
Set atop the menacing structure was a quartz star—the symbol of the Children of the Celestial Mothers.
On the surface, it was King Alexander who ruled this continent, but in practice, it was the Cult of Children, as I secretly called them.
Their restrictive doctrine was constantly changing, making life difficult for everyone, especially me.
I found it hard to believe that the Celestial Mothers would approve of their actions most days.
They bullied and belittled the women of this continent and said they were doing so in the name of the goddesses, Nyxenia, Vikteriya, and Maxxis.
It was all a pile of bullshit, as far as I was concerned.
It was insecure men using faith to push their own agenda.
If Nyxenia were truly watching over all of us, like the Children claimed, she would have wiped them all off the face of this realm by now.
Scattered along wooden lampposts and businesses were crudely drawn missing posters.
Shadow’s Gate was the largest village in the Northern Territory, which meant that a lot of people visited from smaller villages.
The constant flow of people in and out made it difficult to keep track of who was coming and who was going.
According to village lore, the Nightwood was cursed, and any who entered were kidnapped and taken by any manner of mythical being: fae, mountain goblins, gremlins, or even half-man, half-horse creatures.
Personally, I didn’t believe it, for numerous reasons.
The first being that I had been in and out of the Nightwood so many times, and not once had I been taken hostage by a mythical being.
Some people came here to escape. Life in the North was hard.
All manner of people came here and paid a lot of silver to be taken away to the Southern Territory—I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered doing the same. They wanted to be lost and never found.
As I entered Magda’s shop, the powerful scent of citrus and balsam eagerly greeted me.
I held open the door for a young woman leaving the shop.
We nodded at each other, a silent Thank you and You’re welcome exchanged.
It was how most of my interactions with village folk went during daylight hours.
Just enough to be polite, but not enough to draw any real attention to myself.
“Ah, my sweet child! Finally you come!” Magda boomed from her perch on her stool behind the counter as soon as I gently closed the door to the shop.