Chapter 6
Six
My heart trembled with what I was about to do. Glenna Baker grew great with child, and I would seek out the herb to prevent its birth.
The babe was far from quickening. Some reckon that a lesser sin.
As if we fae care aught about sin.
Still, the Bess I had been for eighteen years told me not to do this. Not from any fear of eternal damnation, but because Eamon Grieve had cautioned me not to follow in Mairi’s footsteps, nor to meddle in God’s will. Disobedience would bring his rod against my back.
Yet in my mortal seeming I was Mairi Grieve’s daughter, too. Her daughter, her student, and recipient of the knowledge she passed on to no one else. Mairi had never denied anyone her aid, whatever their reasons. If I were to follow in her footsteps, I must follow that example as well.
I went to Carterhaugh.
Mairi had never brought me further than the outskirts of the forest, avoiding the times of day and year when the fae were wont to roam.
Ever did she keep a wary eye out for those who dwelt in Carterhaugh, peering into the brush and shadows, or up to the sky overhead.
The Wild Hunt, she told me, ravaged the skies at Samhain, dragging hapless mortals into its number.
A handsome piper charmed young lasses by the well at dusk, stealing their maidenheads and sometimes their wits.
Circles of chalk did mark the ground, and those who stepped inside them disappeared from the earthly realm for years at a time.
“Did ye ever know anyone who vanished thus?” A delicious chill ran through me as I asked it. Only six, I had the love of story shared by mortal and fae alike.
Mairi did not immediately answer but stared at the plants she plucked. “I knew a woman once, taken to serve the queen.”
The queen! Oh, didn’t that sound grand! “Did she like it there? Was it beautiful? Did she ever return?”
“Yes.” Her mouth clamped shut, and for the first time in my very short life, I could sense she was hiding something from me.
I lowered my voice, speaking with a mixture of anticipation and fear. “Are you worried they will take me?”
Mairi placed her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “I have claimed ye. The folk shall not take ye while I am here.”
But there came a time when I was awakened by hoofbeats and ringing bridles outside the cruck house, and a great wind battered at the door.
My hair rose on end, and all the shadow fae took notice, wriggling and frantic on the farmhouse walls.
Mairi herself shouted through the door: “Ye willna steal what I now claim. I did the best I could, the best anybody could. Ye cannot fault me for it. Haven’t ye already taken enough? ”
Mairi closed the door and fell back against it, weeping.
“Did I not do as She asked me to?” she murmured.
“I only tried to protect a child.” The next morn, she had gone ’round the house and scattered salt in a large circle, which made me feel slightly ill whenever I crossed the threshold, yet somehow safer as well.
Mairi was no longer with us. Her claims were valid no longer. I must enter the bonny forest alone.
I wrapped my cloak over my head and shoulders, making myself small and unremarkable, no more to be noticed than the beggar woman haunting the kirkyard path.
Fear rose in me of both the fae and Eamon’s anger.
Well I recalled the feel of his heavy rod cutting into my skin.
I might not be a vulnerable mortal, yet I still could feel pain.
My pulse quickened as I entered the fae-haunted forest, the danger as intoxicating as it was frightening. For encounters with the fae, or in this case, their environs, are ever thus.
Particularly when your blood is half of Faery as well.
With a basket slung over my arm, I gathered my plants by the path to the old well, delighting in the rich scent of loam, the gentle green fragrance of wildflowers, and the minty aroma of the pennyroyal itself.
March is a fickle month, sweet as a first kiss one day, cruel and chill as a green-toothed hag the next.
Today, ’twas a pleasant coolness between the two, and despite my misgivings I found comfort in both my own solitude and the loveliness of the day.
How pleasant it was to be outside the smoky farmhouse, away from the raucous presence of the Grieve family or the sullen strictness of Eamon Grieve himself.
As I journeyed deeper into the forest, the trees grew thick, their branches interweaving above me like a canopy of green lace.
The sunlight was no longer a constant presence but made itself known only as a dappling on the forest floor.
The world seemed to dance around me, dissolving into shadow and mist. Here stood a ring of lovely yellow flowers, blooming out of season.
There I glimpsed the wings of a pixie—no, only a butterfly, after all.
Yet for those who knew how to read it, Faery had indeed left its mark.
I reminded myself that the deeper I ventured into the forest the closer I came to Faery, and thus I should take care.
Still, my feet seemed to have a will of their own.
Before I knew it, I had made my way to the well, where the maidens bathe on Beltane, and where Glenna had met her tricksy love.
Mortals reckon it holy, but it was ours long before it belonged to them, and those who partake in its beautifying, healing waters do not go at the counsel of any priest.
I glanced down into the water, my reflection still human and still homely, round-cheeked and pinkish, with the birthmark blooming at the side of my throat. This face had naught to fear from a seductive elfin piper. I could hardly credit that the human shepherd looked upon it with delight.
While I watched, the face reflected in the water seemed to change.
Instead of my own youthful features, I saw a woman past childbearing age, though not yet as wizened as she might be.
Dust-brown strands still wove through her long grey hair.
Her expression was soft, her eyes still clear, and I felt tears prickling at my own.
“Mairi,” I whispered, and could my faery tongue endure it, I would have added, “Mother” as well.
A hand reached out for her, with tapered fingers, elegant, but far too long, like the sinewy branches of a pale birch.
Though Mairi turned her face away, those fingers reached out to stroke her cheek.
Her skin greyed and hair thinned; half her face began to sag, and her eyes were crazed as I last remembered, when she had ceased to treat me as her own.
Faery-struck. The townsfolk had whispered it under their breath. I did not want to listen, for what other fae did Mairi know of, save myself? Could I be to blame for her dread illness after all?
But those were not my hands. Not my laughter that hovered behind it all, mocking, cruel, turning into birdsong when I listened close.
A sob broke from me, and the sound of piping arose in the distance, growing louder, high, and sweet above the breeze.
I froze, and the song wrapped around me, pulling at my footsteps, beckoning me forward, to lead me on a merry dance.
Mairi’s piper, Glenna’s elf lord. Every story Mairi had ever told me, every mortal instinct I had, begged me to proceed with caution.
I could not. The pull of the music overwhelmed me, like water flowing over a sinking rock. In this song, I tasted faery fruit, and heard silver bells tinkling on elfin bridles, unearthly laughter ringing throughout the forest green. Faery called me home.
Or towards the well before me, whose bottom I could not see.
With a cry, I shook myself free from the enchantment and backed away from the well.
Into the warm, hard body of a man standing behind me. The piping stopped, and long fingers caught my elbow. I spun around to face the handsomest man I had ever seen.