Chapter Three
Trust is fickle in the face of time. A doorway to betrayal; a plotted course to his end. Trust is only for the few whose magic binds them to the merciful. Incantations fall from his lips despite the pain, despite the blood. Old magic comes with costs.
THE MEADOW
Living under Eira’s wing is unlike anything Anna’s ever experienced.
Some things echo her old life—the one she had before she was exiled.
Shared meals of bread and cheese between busy, hardworking mornings and quiet evenings with flickering candles casting soft shadows along the walls.
But the feeling is different. Eira shows her how to turn elderberry into jam, teaches her the names of every plant in the field and forest and explains its uses.
When she discovers Anna has no teachings of reading or writing, she sets out for her to learn that as well.
She is a wealth of knowledge like Anna’s never seen, and it’s not until the first person comes stumbling along the trail, begging for help, that she begins to understand.
Eira leads him through the front door with an ease and grace that speaks of experience.
When she helps him remove his boot and the smell of rot pervades the room, fat maggots twisting anxiously beneath the grotesque sores, she doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t gag. Her only words are to direct Anna to put a pot of water on the hearth.
She shows her how to make a poultice to help speed the healing; stresses the importance of boiling water before trusting it on an open wound.
When she encourages Anna to take a closer look, she explains how the maggots probably saved this man’s leg—eating the deadened flesh before it could spread.
The man pales, trembling under her touch.
Anna fights to keep her meager breakfast down, but she watches and she learns as Eira slathers the salve over the wounds.
Soon, she sees the maggots break through—fighting for air—and Eira’s aged fingers patiently pluck their fat bodies from the skin and place them in a dish reserved for chicken scraps.
Not once does Eira mention payment. Not even when the wound is clean and dressed, and the patient is fit to leave.
It is only when he asks, that she breathes a word about it.
“Money is no good for an old woman like me, living in a place as far out as this. But you said you raise sheep, yes? Bring me the yarn you can spare, to busy my hands and keep me warm in the winter to come.”
The shepherd thanks her for her mercy, kisses the backs of her knuckles as if she were a saint, and leaves. Anna watches him disappear into the tree line, frowning. There is nothing to hold him to his promise. “Do you think he will return?”
Eira shrugs. “Some do, some don’t.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“His care cost me nothing but time, a handful of herbs, and a bit of cloth. Perhaps I’ll get some lovely yarn in exchange, but the true worth is the one he doesn’t pay.”
Anna’s brows draw together as she tries to interpret the sly little half smile lifting the corners of Eira’s wrinkled lips. “I don’t understand.”
“Impressions and reputation are worth their weight. That man will go to his village and sing my praises and more sick will come looking for treatment. Most will pay what they can, when they can, because illness is as sure as rain and they’ll want to come back.”
Anna’s not entirely convinced, but she lets the words sit in the back of her mind. It’s hard to trust a system built on honor when she has seen so little of it in her life. Even more so when it’s never been directed towards her.
When the next person comes, begging for a cure for dysentery, Eira introduces Anna as her apprentice, and in that one word, Anna realizes the difference in the life she’s living now compared to then.
Life on the lord’s estate was about hierarchy and orders; doing the job because not doing it meant punishments.
Eira teaches her freely and without expectation.
It is not commands that leave her lips, but knowledge for the sake of it.
Anna learns how to collect seeds; how to store them until they’re ready to be sown into the earth.
She learns which crops thrive when planted together, and which are better left separated.
Eira shows her how to set rabbit traps, how best to skin and clean the meat—how to boil the bones and use every last bit the animal provides.
For the first time, Anna’s cheeks grow less hollow and her body doesn’t hurt when she wakes.
The first time she catches her reflection, she doesn’t recognize herself.
Her frame is still small, stunted by so many years of never having enough, but she feels strong.
Summer wanes until the mornings carry a bite of frost that spiderwebs over the ground like lacework.
Eira has her tilling the soil to prepare it for the winter grains.
It’s hard work, even after the sun has thawed the ground, but Anna accepts the cost of aching hands for the promise of more warm bread in the future.
Sweat makes her tunic stick uncomfortably to her skin, and towards the end she finds herself tugging at the high collar.
Eira’s hands don’t pause as she scatters the seed, her eyes only on her handiwork. “You needn’t hide them, you know.”
Anna stills, fingers tangling in the fabric. She can’t bring herself to meet Eira’s glance when she answers. “I know.”
She’s certain Eira has caught glimpses of her skin, but the older woman has never flinched away or prodded her for answers. Anna picks up the hoe, returning to her job of turning over the earth. It seems like there are earthworms everywhere. Eira assures her that’s a good thing.
“You’ve never asked,” Eira says, seeds sifting through her palm like sand. “Words we hold on to only grow harder to uproot. Ask now before things get too tangled to let go.”
Anna knows exactly what question Eira’s referring to, but it makes it no easier to part with.
Last month, a woman had come in with a rash so foul its stench had filled the small cottage.
Eira had placed a jar of salve in her trembling hands and promised the worst of it would be gone before the snows fell.
Anna had watched the exchange, the tiniest of hopes taking root over her heart. She swallows thickly, willing her voice to carry over the autumn breeze. “Is there a cure?”
“No,” she says, and Anna feels that small hope crush beneath the weight of it. Eira’s hand cups her chin, lined eyes soft. “You are not ill.”
Anna sucks in a breath, her grip on the wooden handle so tight her knuckles turn white and her fingers grow numb. For so long, she’s been cast aside and held out at arm’s reach because of the markings on her skin. Treated like a contagion. “But it’s not normal.”
“Normal?” Eira’s hand drops. “Such a strange concept for someone who can walk through fire and emerge unscathed.” She chuckles. “Normal is dead to you, Child. Best for you to embrace it.”
The winter is as cold as ever, snow blanketing the earth in sheets so thick it’s as suffocating as it is beautiful.
Anna already misses the outside, the same way she does every winter, but there’s a comfort in the short days, too.
The cabin is always warm, and Eira finds ways to keep their hands busy.
Anna learns how to knit. Her stitches are sloppy at first—the first few projects are unraveled before they’re more than a dozen rows in—but practice is the greatest teacher, and she slowly improves.
She likes the repetition of it; the rhythmic clicking of the wooden needles and the sense that every looped stitch is another step towards a greater whole. There’s a poetry in that, she thinks.
A knock sounds on the door, startling her from her thoughts. There have been less patients willing to brave the cold, but the desperate still find a way. Shoving her knitting to the side, she stands just as Eira opens the door.
The woman waiting on the other side is beautiful despite the rags she wears. Her blonde hair spills over her shoulders, her skin clean and flawless. If she were dressed in finery, there’s no doubt she could pass for nobility. Anna wonders how she was able to survive the cold in such thin shoes.
“Please,” she says, one hand grasping the scraps of cloth at her chest while the other grips the door—as if to stop Eira from shutting it on her. “I have a child at home who is very sick.”
It’s the first time she has ever seen Eira hesitate. Anna steps forward, filling the silence when her mentor doesn’t. “Come in out of the cold before you catch your death.”
There’s a frown deepening the lines around Eira’s mouth, but she opens the door wider in invitation. “My apprentice is right; it’s much too cold. She will provide you with what’s needed.”
Anna starts, a protest on her lips, but Eira silences her before she can start. “Trust what I’ve taught you. If you need assistance, I’ll be in my room. It seems a headache has come on rather suddenly.”
The woman clasps her hands in front of her, chin dipping. “Thank you for your kindness.”
Her gratitude sounds sincere, but there is a tightness around Eira’s eyes that makes Anna doubt it’s appreciated. Still, the older woman returns the gesture before walking away.
Anna wonders if maybe the stranger is one of the few that never fulfilled their promised payment but doesn’t voice the thought. “What are the child’s symptoms?” she asks, already rummaging through the jars.
“He’s burning up with fever and has an awful cough. It sounds like there’s water in his chest.”
Anna reaches for Eira’s special fever blend before searching for something to help with the cough. “For how long?”
“A fortnight.”