by A V Awenna
Chapter 2. About Your Great-Great-Grandmother…
‘In this place, but in another time,’ Blackbird began, ‘your people lived in a village by the tower, and my people lived in the woods on the hill. This was before the smoke and the machines, before your people built this city, road by road, house by house. Back then fairies and humans shared more of the world, but even then we hid from most of you.
‘Aelwen was one we didn’t hide from. She was a clever healer, gentle and wise, and one day she healed a man who’d travelled a long way for a cure, as he’d been told she was the only one who could help. His name was Tegwyn, and he was clever like her, strong and hardworking too. They ended up married, with a little cottage in the fields nearby. Soon they had a daughter, a bonny girl with big green eyes.
‘At sunrise on the first new moon following the daughter’s birth, there was a knocking at the door. Aelwen expected to find someone who needed help, but when she opened the door, there was a small man, the size of a beardless youth, with wings folded behind his back. She had seen fairies before, but never on her doorstep.
‘This fairy called himself Rowan, and said that, years before, Tegwyn’s great-grandmother had loved that fairy’s uncle, and birthed his grandfather as a result. Rowan had gifts for his baby cousin, and had come to weave spells of protection around her.
‘So the fairy stayed with them that night, but Tegwyn didn’t sleep much – he was already plotting. He had seen Rowan use a book of magic to weave the spell of protection around his daughter, and he wanted that book for himself.
‘So in the morning, he asked Rowan, “Cousin, would you help me out? I need a favour.”
‘And Rowan said, “Yes, of course”, so Tegwyn knew the fairy would do whatever he asked.
‘Tegwyn said he needed a blanket for his new baby daughter, as the nights were getting cold, so would Rowan fly around and collect all the wool that was caught in thistles and brambles, and spin it and weave it into a blanket?
‘And he added, “I can look after that heavy book for you, to save you from having to carry it around.”
‘So while the fairy flew around, collecting tiny scraps of wool from here and there, Tegwyn neglected his duties, and read through the fairy’s book. But he could make nothing of it. Late that evening Rowan returned with a huge pile of wool. Aelwen, who had been working all day as well as caring for her newborn, fed them all, and thanked the fairy for the wool.
‘The next day the fairy spun and wove the wool, and in the evening he presented them with a blanket, soft and fine, a beautiful thing. Aelwen fed him and thanked him again – she was delighted with the blanket. But Tegwyn wasn’t delighted – again he had spent all day trying to make sense of the book of magic, and again he could make nothing of it. So all that night he schemed, and in the morning he asked the fairy for another favour.
‘This went on for many nights, until the moon grew round and full. Every day Tegwyn asked Rowan for another favour, and every day he neglected his work and tried to make sense of the fairy’s book, but he could get nothing from it. Then he would lie awake at night thinking up another task for the fairy. And every evening, Aelwen thanked Rowan for the work he’d done, and fed him a tasty meal. She was an excellent cook.’
‘Not like anyone in our family’, Demi interrupted. ‘Where is this going, anyhow? I thought you were explaining what happened tonight.’
‘Shut up with interrupting,’ Blackbird snapped. ‘Is a long story, and you did ask. Okay, so, when it was full moon, Tegwyn was in bed, scheming, and Aelwen was about to join him, when she looked out of the window, and something tugged at her heart. It was so beautiful out there, under the silver moonlight. She asked Rowan, could she borrow the book of magic.
“Of course,” said Rowan. “Take this charm, go out and read this book beside an oak tree, in the full moonlight, and if there is any magic in you, it will be woken tonight.”
‘So she did all that, wrapping herself and her daughter in the beautiful blanket, and in a little while it all made sense to her. She studied that book from cover to cover that night, and by morning she knew everything within it. So she returned Rowan’s book, and thanked him for it. And he was glad, because he couldn’t leave without payment, and a thank you from the one he’d helped was all the payment he needed.
‘Aelwen suggested he left before her husband woke up and asked him another stupid favour. She gave him some food to take with him, and he gave her another charm and told her if she ever needed help, just hold the charm up to the moonlight, and he would come to her aid.’
‘Wasn’t her husband annoyed when he found out?’ Demi asked.
‘Sure, he sulked a few days, but Aelwen’s magic had been awakened, so she could share her knowledge with him, and that shut him up a little. Anyway, this was in the old days, when women still had power, when they could still speak their minds without being burnt or beaten for it.
‘Everything was good for a few years. Aelwen used her new knowledge to become an even better healer, and her daughter grew strong and healthy. Aelwen didn’t have to spin or sew any more, or bake her own bread – others did that for her in return for her healing them.
‘But then the bad ones came. The witch-haters. They spread their poison and lies, and made people afraid to go to Aelwen, even though she was the only one could help them when they were sick. The witch-haters caught her one night, picking herbs in the silver moonlight, and took her to the tower.’
‘Was the tower still there then? How long ago was this?’
‘A long, long time ago. Before I remember. The tower was all broken then, all big holes in the roof, but the dark places beneath were still used to hold people. It was dark and damp, and despite all the other people, it was lonely. She knew in the morning they’d beat her, or worse, and burn her on a fire for being a witch.’
‘Poor Aelwen. What happened then?’ Demi asked.
‘She still had the charm Rowan had given her. She used it to call him to her. There were iron bars on the window, so he couldn’t cast a spell past them. Fairies hate iron. It kills our magic.’ He fell silent, but just as Demi was about to prompt him, he continued.
‘Rowan had an acorn with him. An egg would have been better, but it was the wrong time of year for them. Rowan told Aelwen to climb up to the window, and reach out her hand, so he could guide her life into the acorn.
‘Aelwen told me she doesn’t remember what happened next. Next time she knew what was happening, it was spring, and she was inside a tree. Her life stayed in that tree, growing year by year, until a girl came seeking one day, and she knew this was her daughter.
‘The girl would talk to Aelwen, and Aelwen would talk back to her. The daughter said, on that night when she’d been a tiny baby wrapped in a blanket with her mother, her own magic had been woken too. She was a witch, and understood things others didn’t. Aelwen’s life stayed in that tree year after year, as her daughter grew and became a mother herself. The tree became known as the Wishing Tree, because magical things sometimes happened there, and all Aelwen’s line became clever healers. But although Aelwen could hear the people talking to her, most people couldn’t hear her talking back, and that made her sad. Then the world changed around her, the fields became houses, and people started talking in a new language, one she didn’t understand. People forgot about the Wishing Tree, and she got lonely.
‘But tonight, you came along – and you are one of the daughters of her line – and you smeared your blood on the tree, and danced widdershins in the moonlight, and that made so much magic that she made a new body for herself, from the tree, moonlight, and your blood. That is what happened tonight. That is what I saw, and that is what she told me.’
‘So…what’s all that got to do with you? Why are you back?’ Demi asked.
‘Too many questions!’ He snapped. Then, more gently, ‘It’s late, you should sleep now. Aelwen wants to meet you tomorrow, tes
t your magic.’
‘Will you stay here tonight?’ Demi asked.
‘Yes. Show me to your cousin in the morning. See if she believes in me then.’
‘Will you explain all this to her, Blackbird? I’m not sure I can!’
‘Tomorrow, I will explain. Sleep now, little girl. I will sleep over there.’
He kissed the end of her nose, then slipped away to the bedside chair, where he snuggled into a pile of discarded clothes.
Demi’s nose was wet where he had kissed her, and filled with his musky, masculine scent. She closed the curtains, ignoring the lightness in the east, and tried to sleep.