by P. C. Cast
Mari bit her lip against the disappointment her mother’s decision caused her. “Sora! She’s too selfish and arrogant to be a Moon Woman.”
“Sora is young and self-absorbed, but she also has power aplenty, and a strong desire to be my apprentice. I believe with guidance she will mature into a Moon Woman who will care properly for the Clan.”
“You don’t like her,” Mari said.
“It is true that I am not fond of the girl. She has been given too much too early, and that has made her difficult. Yet she has a certain logic about her that will serve her well in her dealings with the Clan. Also, I can feel that she has the power to draw down the moon and to wash the madness of night from Earth Walkers. Those things make her the right choice as my successor.”
“I—I know I should have expected it, but I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” Mari said softly, looking away from her mother.
Leda was at her daughter’s side in an instant, putting her arm around her and drawing Mari’s head to her shoulder. “Don’t let it cause you pain. Were I given free choice of all of the children on this earth, I would have no daughter except you. And could I choose between every Earth Walker who has been gifted by the great Earth Mother with the power to draw down the moon, I would want no apprentice except you. But fate has sketched a different scene for your future. Perhaps someday fate will allow you to stand naked in the sun, as well as to draw down the power of the moon. Until that day I will do everything I can to protect you from those whose ignorance would do you harm.”
“And all I want is for fate to let me be with you and Rigel forever.”
“Then you have been granted your wish, as you have him and me for as long as we draw breath. And think of the positive—once Sora is well and truly trained there will be more time for us—for the three of us,” Leda said, kissing Mari on her forehead. “Now, let’s apply the poultice to your young Shepherd before I have to go about the business of the night.”
Mari sighed, but nodded. Side by side they examined Rigel, pulling off the moss that was packed over his chest wounds while he wagged his tail and lolled happily in Mari’s arms, his gangly legs all a-splay, his paws too big for his body.
“I am so pleased by how fast he is recovering. The wounds were deep, and his blood loss truly concerned me,” Leda said, prodding the neatly scarring lacerations on Rigel’s chest. “But his appetite is excellent. His eyes are bright and his nose is wet and inquisitive.” Leda laughed as Rigel stuck his nose into her armpit and sniffed. “I see no sign of infection whatsoever. All I see is a healthy, happy canine who is growing at an incredible rate.”
“And look at his paws.” Mari lifted the pup’s paws, one at a time, offering them to her mother for inspection. “He doesn’t limp at all anymore.”
Leda passed her hands over each of Rigel’s paws before she ruffled the eagerly watching pup’s ears, saying, “His feet are completely healed. I proclaim that by the new moon his chest wounds will be naught but faded lines hidden by his fur.” He licked Leda’s face enthusiastically, making her laugh. “You are quite welcome, young Rigel.”
“Do you think he looks thin?” Rigel went to Mari and leaned against her, watching her mother as if he, too, was waiting for an answer.
“Perhaps a little, but he is a swiftly growing young canine. We’re doing our best to keep him at least semi-full of rabbit.” Leda’s gaze returned to the pup’s paws. “I think he’s going to be bigger than Orion, and Orion was an enormous canine.”
“Mama, what if I change the snares?”
“Change them? How so?” her mother asked.
“Make it so that they don’t kill the snared rabbit. I’ve been thinking about it a lot during the past few nights, and look what I came up with.” Mari hurried to the pile of sketches on her desk and pulled out a long sheet of paper that was filled with drawings of a strange-looking rectangular-shaped basket. “Do you think you could weave a basket like this?” Mari pointed at one of the more finished sketches. “With an opening that allows the rabbit to go in, but closes once the trap is tripped and won’t let him come back out, like this drawing, here.”
Leda studied the sketches. “I believe I could.”
“Good! Then all I need to do is to catch a male and a female, then it won’t be long and Rigel will have all the rabbit he can eat. Actually, we will, too!”
“You are remarkable, Mari,” Leda said. A small shiver passed through her body. She sighed wearily and the happiness that had been in her voice dissipated like dew before a summer sun. “I feel dusk approaching. The Clan will be at the Gathering in expectation of my announcement. I will be glad when this night is over.”
“Well, Rigel and I will be here when this night is over, waiting for you like always, and I promise to have your tea brewed and ready.” Mari purposefully lightened the mood, hating that as night drew near her mother looked more and more burdened.
“Then I will leave you early and, hopefully, return early as well. See, sweet girl, there is positive already happening in taking on Sora as apprentice. I will begin tonight in passing a few duties on to her.”
“You’re right, Mama. All will be well.”
“No more sadness and fretting?”
“No more,” Mari said brightly. “What can I do to help you get ready?” Mari said, determined to only show her mother support. Maybe Sora will be good for Mama, and for us.
In no time, Mari was saying good-bye to her mother and sliding the barring plank into its well-grooved slot. Though this night she did not take up her usual place at her desk. This night she stood, listening carefully at the door with Rigel sitting expectantly at her side. Mari glanced down at her Shepherd. “That’s right. Tonight is different. Tonight we follow her.”
10
Mari hurried to the pallet she shared with Rigel. From the ledge beside their bed she took down three small wooden cups. One held a thick clay substance, another charcoal mixed with dirt, and the third a dark dye made from walnut shells. Going to her desk she quickly used the mirror to check her reflection, reapplying dye and clay and dirt to cover her delicate features and camouflage the true color of her hair. When she was happy with her reflection, she rechecked Rigel’s chest wounds, being sure the sticky poultice was securely in place.
The pup had, as always, been watching her and moving around the burrow with her, preferring to stay as close as possible to Mari. He definitely felt Mari’s shift in emotion, and reflected her excitement with his own puppyish nervous energy—bounding around her, tongue lolling in expectation.
“Okay, we’re going to take it slow, but we are going after Mama,” she told him. “We’re just going to watch—to be sure everything is okay. She’s been talking so much about the restlessness in the Earth Mother that I can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to happen, and if it does we need to be there for her.” As she spoke, Mari went to a large basket full of smooth, robin’s egg–size stones. Carefully choosing several of them, she filled a leather pouch. Then she took her favorite leather sling and stuffed it into the pouch as well.
She paused before their collection of sharpened flint knives, picking the one she liked to use best for chopping, and added it to her pouch. Next Mari unhooked the precious goatskin bag that hung near the door and was a match to the bag her mother took with her every night. Out of a lifetime of habit, she lifted it, testing its fullness. Satisfied, she hung it across her shoulder and neck. Then Mari met Rigel’s bright, intelligent gaze and focused her thoughts into soothing emotion, which she telegraphed to him as she spoke. “It’s different tonight. We’re not just sneaking out so that you can relieve yourself. We’re going out. We have to be silent. We can’t let them see us or hear us. No one can know we’re there.”
Rigel understood; she knew he did. It wasn’t like the canine answered her with words—that was impossible. It was a sense she had—a feeling of completion and understanding, one that grew and strengthened every day she spent with Rigel.
“
Okay, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Let’s go.”
Mari opened the door and took her walking staff from its resting place. Rigel waited patiently for her to lead the way, holding aside the thick arms of heavily thorned brambles so that he could follow her without injury through the maze of hidden pathways around their burrow. As if he had been with her for years and not days, Rigel remained silent and close until they cleared the bramble thicket.
From there Mari had several choices of which way to go. Leda would be proclaiming her heir, which meant she would go to a Gathering Site that was larger and more easily accessed than the full moon site. Mari began to sift through the possibilities in her mind, trying to anticipate which would host that night’s important announcement.
It might seem as if the Clan was a ragged group of people, barely scratching out an existence from the earth, but that was far from true. Earth Walkers were highly social, with a complex system of Gathering Sites that had been molded into the skin of the earth between clusters of burrows. Mari’s Clan were skilled weavers, and they filled those burrows with hemp tapestries, dyed with delicate beauty, just as they wove incredibly intricate baskets, nets, traps, and even clothing. Clanswomen were undisputed rulers, making all decisions, from where new burrows and gardens should be built to which other Clans they should trade with and how often. They taught the children to read and write through the telling of ancient myths from a world that no longer existed anywhere except in the imagination.
And above all—Moon Women were revered as the physical incarnation of the Great Earth Mother, and as the Spirit of the Clan.
So where would the Weaver Clan gather this night? Near which cluster of well-concealed burrows? Mari knew where each of the Earth Walker sites were located, she and Leda mapped them frequently, keeping scrolls updated as well as committing them to memory. But there were many Gathering Sites, and Mari had no time for a wrong choice. She couldn’t watch over her mother if night fell before Mari found her. Only a fool or an Earth Walker fully in the midst of Night Fever would wander the forest alone after dusk.
Which way had she gone?
Mari paused, listening intently, hoping she might hear a rustling in the distant underbrush that would give her some indication of which direction Leda had gone, but the only sound was that of a jay in a nearby tree, calling his displeasure at Rigel.
Mari glanced down at the pup. He sat beside her, ears pricked, looking off into the distance knowingly, as if the wilderness around them whispered secrets only he could understand.
That’s it! Mari realized. He does know things I don’t—smell things I don’t—hear things I don’t. Mari crouched beside Rigel and took his face between her hands. She and the young Shepherd locked gazes as she sketched within her mind an image of Leda.
“Find her,” she told him. “Find Mama!”
Instantly the pup went to work. Nose to the ground he began to weave a serpentine pattern back and forth, side to side, until suddenly his tail went up and he stopped, sitting expectantly before a small pathway that led to the northwest and looking back at Mari.
“You’re so smart and handsome!” Mari kissed and hugged the pup. “If this is the path she chose, then the Clan must be Gathering by Crawfish Creek beside that big grove of cherry trees. Okay, remember—silently and swiftly. No one can know we’re watching.”
Then it was Mari’s turn to lead Rigel as she left the little path—not trusting that latecomers to the Gathering wouldn’t overtake her—and made her way northwest, halting only when Rigel pushed ahead of her, whining softly, ears pricked and tail up.
Mari knelt beside Rigel, listening intently. The faint sound of water was carried to her on the wind that brushed against her face, and within the voice of the creek she heard the familiar sound of her mother speaking calmly and slowly. On her hands and knees, Mari crept forward, Rigel beside her, until she came to a holly bush that had grown fat as a spring lilac and tall as a tree. Ignoring the stinging spikes that tipped each slick leaf cluster and scratched at their faces and arms, Mari and Rigel burrowed their way beneath the concealing branches of the needle-like foliage. From the impromptu hiding spot under the holly, Mari peered down and over the steep bank.
Crawfish Creek was usually a lazy stretch of clear water with enough river rock in its bed that it made for easy crossing, as well as an excellent breeding ground for tasty little crawfish, though as Mari studied the area she noted that the creek was filled with spring rain that made it swollen and muddy. The opposite side of the creek had a gentle bank that smoothed gracefully down to create a beautiful little clearing, behind which was a grove of mature cherry trees that were just starting to bud into their pink and white flowers. The Gathering area was one of Mari’s favorites, and she smiled in remembrance of the foggy days she and her mother had spent tending the Earth Mother idols that appeared to miraculously materialize from the ground. There were six images of the Earth Mother in the glade, each easily thrice the size of a human woman, and each in a different pose. Some of them were lying on their sides, stone faces carved with serene smiles and closed eyes, as if in eternal, dream-filled sleep. Some were leaning against boulders that had been carefully placed so long ago that how they had arrived there had been utterly forgotten. And one idol, Mari’s favorite, lay on her stomach, with her head resting on her hands, smiling as if she knew a particularly fascinating secret. Her face had been carved from an enormous gray stone. Her long, thick hair was made of ivy that Mari had pruned just weeks before on a lazy, rainy morning. “Magick or not, they are beautiful,” Mari told Rigel softly. Then the people of her Clan drew her attention from the idols as Earth Walkers greeted one another and chose places to sit around the circled images of their Earth Mother.
Mari blinked in astonishment. She had never seen so many Earth Walkers together at one time! Though it wasn’t long until dusk, the Gathering was not a somber waiting, but had the atmosphere of a celebration, and the Clan’s excited voices lifted easily to her hiding place. Mari quickly counted forty-five women, twenty men, and seventeen children—including Jenna, who was rushing to greet Leda.
“Leda! Leda! Is Mari with you tonight?” Jenna asked eagerly.
Leda hugged Jenna. “No, Jenna. Mari cannot join the gathering this night.”
“She’s been really sick lately,” Jenna said sadly. “I miss her.”
“And she misses you,” Leda said.
“Is Mari still not well?” asked Xander, bowing respectfully to Leda.
“Mari’s health is always precarious. You know how delicate she can be,” Leda said, repeating the words that had become a lifelong excuse to keep her daughter separated from the Clan, and to keep her secrets hidden, even from Mari’s only friend and her father.
“But she has your powers,” Jenna insisted. “I know she does. Her eyes are just like yours.”
“That they are, child,” Leda said kindly. “And Mari does have power, but it is as unpredictable as her health.”
“So it is true. You are not choosing Mari tonight,” said Xander.
“I am not choosing Mari tonight,” Leda said firmly.
“I’m really sorry,” Jenna said. “I was hoping she would be strong enough.”
“I was hoping the same, child, and so was Mari,” Leda said. “But it is not to be.”
Mari wrapped her arms around herself as if to keep her heart from bursting from her chest. She wanted to run down the bank, take her place at her mother’s side, and once and for all claim her birthright without being frightened that she would be cursed for her fair hair and sunlight-absorbing skin. She closed her eyes against the wave of longing, feeling so weary of being different that she felt unimaginably sad and alone.
Rigel pressed against her, lending silent comfort and reminding Mari that she wasn’t truly alone, and that her emotions no longer only affected herself. Mari hugged the pup to her, focusing on releasing her sadness, imagining that it washed over and then through her, dissipating into the fertile ground beneath
her before Mari returned her attention to her mother.
Leda had moved to the center of the mossy clearing. She lifted her staff and then brought the end of it down on the felled log before her, once, twice, thrice. An expectant silence fell over the Clan. Leda raised her chin and stood straight and strong. The wind caught her long hair, lifting it in a dark, silver-tinged curtain around her.
“I am your Moon Woman. It is my destiny to care for Clan Weaver, and it is because of my destiny that I have heard and considered the concerns of our people. I agree. It is time that I name my heir so that she may begin to walk the apprentice’s path.”
Leda paused, looking from Clan member to Clan member, allowing each one time to nod their agreement and to feel as if it was because of their concerns, in particular, that the Moon Woman spoke. In the dimming light of encroaching dusk, Mari thought Leda looked full of power, wild and beautiful and wise, like one of the forest fae from the tales her mother had told her as a child.
“All Earth Walker women with the silver-gray eyes of the moon-touched, step forward and present yourselves to me!” Leda commanded.
Mari gritted her teeth against her desire to answer her mother’s call and to step forward along with the four girls who moved quickly into the center of the gathering to bow before Leda.
Three of the four girls bowed deeply, respectfully. Sora, of course, was different. Though she, too, bowed to their Moon Woman, it seemed to Mari that her movements were too languid to show the proper respect. When Leda released them and the four straightened, Sora instantly lifted her head and tossed back her thick black hair. This night she wore no crown, but her hair was ornately braided with feathers and beads and shells, cascading down her back almost to her curving waist. Mari scowled. Sora’s entire demeanor radiated an arrogant confidence that was wholly inappropriate for one who someday would embody the Great Mother Goddess and hold safe the Spirit of the Clan.