by Robin Trent
The carriage jostled to and fro as it entered the woods, temporarily interrupting Elizabeth's thoughts. The most direct route from the train station to the house went straight through the woods that butted up against their yard. Elizabeth forgot her moroseness as she stared out the window. The night was clear, and the moon was half full, but still shed plenty of light that filtered through the trees to mottle the forest floor.
All manner of creature moved through the woods. She saw grazing deer lift their heads up and down, staying alert while feeding. She occasionally heard the yips of fox, and the tree frogs steadily droned on in the background. She was listening to all of this when she picked up on another sound.
First, it was just a light flutter, barely distinguishable from the other night sounds. Then it grew louder, and Elizabeth saw something fly past the window of the carriage. She wondered if it was an owl, and she began to poke her head through the window to see when a flurry of black feathers swished in her face causing her to fall back onto the carriage seat. Elizabeth put her hand up to protect her face fearing the raven would fly inside to attack her.
Instead, the bird perched itself on the window ledge and let out a loud "caw." It turned its head so that it could focus one eye on her, seeming to size up her shiny broach. The bird let out another caw and what sounded like a series of cackles. Elizabeth sat up straight, deciding she wasn't going to be intimidated, and reached out her hand to pet the bird. Realizing it was about to be touched, the bird flapped its wings and flew off.
Elizabeth looked out the window into the forest beyond. No sign of the bird. Instead, eyes began to appear in the leafy vegetation, glowing yellow eyes that seemed to be focusing on the carriage. She felt a chill go down her spine. "There's nothing there," she told herself. "There's nothing there, and I am letting my imagination run wild." It was the same mantra Elizabeth used to repeat to herself as a child. She found it comforting in its familiarity and began to relax as she repeated it to herself over and over. The carriage hit a bump in the road, and she nearly jumped out of her seat. She started to laugh for allowing herself to be startled. She had an overactive imagination as a child, and was allowing old habits to arise. It was silly.
The trees seemed to pulse with life. She could hear her heart beating in her ears, as her blood pressure rose. As a child, Elizabeth thought the trees were sentient beings threatening to fall and crush her. She smiled to herself as she started to think of her childhood again. Their enormous size and great age overwhelmed her, ancient sentinels, waiting, watching. She felt like they were watching her, even at night. She would lay in her bed and stare at the trees in the yard, and they would seem to pulse and vibrate and make noise. They glowed with a strange silver hue, and if she listened carefully, she could swear she heard them talking to each other. These were experiences Elizabeth kept to herself, childhood fancies that didn't mean anything.
Elizabeth settled back into her seat in an attempt to calm down. She was a wife and mother after all, and she didn't have time for such childish musings. She sat up straight as she spied something not more than a few dozen feet from the road. The wind blew and the trees rustled, making the moonlight dance in the shadows. Elizabeth saw something in silhouette rise up to a standing position and turn towards the carriage.
From this distance, it looked like a man. And then, to further amazement, it leaped and ran from the conveyance on all fours. That's not possible. How does a man run on all fours like an animal? Elizabeth caught herself again and decided she had had enough. She pulled the curtain down on the window, leaned back against her seat, and shut her eyes. She must be overly tired, and there was no need to indulge in this.
Left alone in her chambers to think, Queen Oonagh paced the floor. The humans had started destroying the Earth with the advent of machines and factories. They had proven themselves to be heartless, where nature was concerned, consumed only by their greed and lust for power. They used to live in tune with nature, tending to the sacred places of the Earth, where the natural world was fed with light and energy so that it could flourish.
Nature was a complex system with an intelligence of its own, and the humans were oblivious to it, focusing on what they deemed to be observable fact. Of course, the Daoine Sidhe had retreated from humanity a long time ago. Fae still tended to nature, but they were no longer seen or even thought about by humankind. Maybe this was the fault of the Sidhe since they chose to be invisible.
That would never have been necessary if the humans had not moved away from their connection to the land. The old sacrifices were no longer made, the bonfires no longer tended. No one gave any thought to the belief The King and the Land were one. The old ways, abandoned for mechanical devices and indoor plumbing, were now quaint. Once the humans removed themselves from the land, they lost their understanding. The prophecy said the Earth could heal, and the Sidhe and humans reunite if the Emissary was real.
The queen moved to the wall at the back of her chambers and waved her hands. The rock wall shimmered and dissolved as the glamour was released and a niche appeared. There on a stone dais in the middle of the alcove lay the book with the prophecy. There were other prophecies in the book, but the queen was only concerned with this one particular prophecy, written long ago by the Mad Man in the Woods. A seer and magician, the last true arbiter between Sidhe and human, the merlin was a force for good. Other humans thought him devoid of his faculties, but Oonagh had been his friend and knew of his prophecies. She feared his journal lost forever until word reached her that the ogre had been boasting about his raids and some book he had stolen that the humans coveted.
The queen gently lifted the volume's cover and turned the pages to the prophecy. She reread it, as she had so many times before.
On the thirteenth moon at the thirteenth hour
Dyadic life will come to pass the test
The tides of change will rush forward
Bringing forth an end to strife
And the well-springs of life
Shall bestow their favor once more.
The Gates of Annwn flung open
The mortal realms renewed
Nature's halves reunited
The Emissary shall be
A bridge between the worlds.
Prophecies were always so vague. Everything rested on this turning out all right. However, there was the issue that the one left in the human world was in more danger than the child she kept under her protection. It was a risk that she must take, no matter what, and she had placed the burden squarely on Titwell's shoulders.
The house was quiet. Elizabeth sat in the baby's room, nursing Euphemia, and rocking back and forth. Ophelia slept in the bassinet. The sky outside seemed to reflect Elizabeth's mood. Storm grey clouds were moving in, and the wind had picked up. She rocked back and forth and stared out the window. What had she seen in the woods? Why had the raven sat on her door staring at her? It was not normal behavior.
Memories pushed on the edges of Elizabeth's consciousness. Dark memories. Memories of being in an asylum and feeling like she was drowning from the alienist's tender ministrations. The asylum's treatments did nothing to affect a cure. What they did was teach Elizabeth to be quiet, don't tell anyone about what you see or know and learn to ignore it yourself. It was a matter of survival.
But what about before the asylum? That before when she did not know the harshness of the adult world where abuse was so familiar. At that time, Elizabeth had a friend. She could remember the visitations in her crib. Her visitor was small, so small he could sit on a baby's chest and not cause discomfort. He would sit on her chest and stare her in the eye and talk to her.
Elizabeth couldn't remember the conversations. But she remembered the strange way that they communicated. Her visitor would send her thoughts, thoughts that seemed to be delivered all bundled up into one package. As she mentally unpacked it and slowed down the pictures, understanding started to occur. She knew exactly what her friend meant. She would receive complete thoughts with imag
es, like so many sentences. It happened so fast that it made using human speech seem clunky and inefficient.
Once she went away to the asylum, all of that stopped. Her friend didn't follow her there. And when she arrived home, it seemed her friend had disappeared. So, naturally, Elizabeth doubted herself. She doubted that any of it had ever happened, and she told herself daily that it didn't. But the feeling that she wasn't alone and that the natural world held its secrets, that was something she couldn't shake.
Now today, as she rode through the woods, what she saw and the raven's strange behavior, brought all the memories flooding back. She wondered if she should have responded differently; if she should go back. Of course, if she were to return to the woods and start traipsing all over the place looking for faeries, well, her mother and everyone else would say she was insane and probably try to put her away again. No. Elizabeth wanted to stay home and be with her children. All she wanted in this world was her little family and their blissful routines.
Thunder rumbled outside, drawing Elizabeth's attention. Hopefully, it wouldn't wake the babies. Elizabeth wanted to sit there and rock, holding her child and enjoying the solitude for just a little more. Strange thoughts and seemingly strange events were not to be dwelled upon.
When she was younger, Elizabeth had loved thoughts of magic, wonder, and that humans were not alone on this earth, but that they were part of something bigger, something that most people ignore. But the adult Elizabeth considered these things to be flights of fantasy, something amusing to a child, but of no use to an adult, living in the adult world, with adult responsibilities. Elizabeth found herself saying her old mantra in time to the rocking of the chair, "They're not real, they're not real, they're not real."
Comforted by this, Elizabeth put Euphemia, who was now napping cozily, back in the crib and picked Ophelia up, and returned to her chair. Ophelia was still groggy and probably would have slept some more, but the children were on a feeding schedule, and Elizabeth never tried to miss the babies' feeding times. Ophelia took to the nipple instinctively, and Elizabeth smiled. Even the babies were adhering to the new schedule. A soft report on the door startled Elizabeth, and the baby started to whimper. Elizabeth calmed Ophelia and softly answered the knock, "You can come in."
The door quietly swung open, and Rebecca entered the room on tiptoe. "I wanted to let you know that dinner would be a little late this evening, mum. John and I had run some errands into town, and we just got back."
"Oh, that's all right, Rebecca. I'm not all that hungry. Maybe I will be once it's ready," Elizabeth whispered.
Rebecca stood and stared at Elizabeth and Ophelia with a kind of dopey grin on her face. Elizabeth wondered what she was on about. "Rebecca?"
"Nothing, mum. Just seeing you sitting there, feeding the little one gives me a smile. Ain't motherhood grand? Babies are such a blessing."
Elizabeth blushed as Rebecca just reminded her that her servant had never had children, but apparently wanted some of her own. "Someday, Rebecca, I hope you, too, shall be blessed."
Rebecca's face faltered a little as she tried to maintain a pleasant countenance. John and Rebecca had tried, actually tried to get pregnant, but it had always failed. Rebecca had experienced several miscarriages. It upset both of them so much, John and Rebecca quit trying. "You never know mum. Maybe. But for now, we have your little 'uns to tend to. They're such sweet babes." And with that, Rebecca beat a hasty retreat to the door, leaving before her mistress could see the sadness in her eyes.
4
The full moon cast a light bright enough to read by. In a circle of standing stones, Rhys Bryhana crouched near a cairn built long ago but not forgotten. His stark white shirt lay against ghostly pale skin illuminated in the moon light, his natural moonshine glowing as he reached to lay a well veined hand upon one of the stones. The open sleeve fell away from his forearm revealing a faded Celtic tattoo that went all the way up to his shoulder.
The stone hummed underneath his hand and he could feel the centuries in the aged rock. He reached past that, into the heart of the cairn, into the bones of the one who lay there, his beloved wife whom he lost so long ago. A wisp of air began to move above the cairn, slowly growing into a thicker mist which formed around and under the rocks. The mist gyrated above the cairn, undulating, curling, becoming the familiar visage of his lost love, Brianna.
After all this time, he longed to see her, touch her, smell her. He missed the warmth of her body next to his at night and her laughter brightening his days. He tried not to be morose about it. Her essence was never nearly as strong as a Sidhe's would be. Being human meant her pattern would fade over time and it was more and more difficult to raise her image.
Rhys didn't obsess as he once had, visiting her grave every day, raising her visage, sitting for hours just looking at her, wanting to hear her voice, longing to be near her one more time. Even though he had chosen her as his mate for life, he stopped torturing himself long ago. Now he visited her on the day that mattered, the anniversary of the day she was taken from him. He lay wildflowers on the cairn and stared at her visage, remembering his wife and lost child. Centuries had passed, but the Sidhe were long lived. Humans had such comparably short lives. What was a few decades in Elphame, would be a thousand in human years.
The sound of a throat clearing brought Rhys out of his musings. "Rhys, got some news for ye," said a gravely voice in low hushed tones. Rhys didn't acknowledge his companion, he just waited. Strakx let loose an audible sigh. "I wouldn't interrupt you if it wasn't important. The queen is on the move."
The visage of Brianna faded into thin air as Rhys turned on one booted heel, giving his full attention now to Strakx." And this report came from?" he asked, arching his left eyebrow. He took in Strakx's muddied appearance and wondered what the imp had gotten into now.
"Groz. Groz sent the information via leaf. The Seelie queen, she's traveling in the woods, with her personal guard no less," Strakx said.
Immediately, the Unseelie Queen Maeve came to mind. Rhys looked off to the north, in the direction of her court.
"No," said Strakx. "She's not moving on our court. She's 'eaded some place else."
"Well, I guess we need to see where the good Queen Oonagh is headed this night. Come, Strakx, this may prove interesting." Rhys turned to the cairn and placed his hand once more upon the stone. "I will keep my promise, my love, and see justice done." And with that, Rhys transformed into a wolf with golden eyes and Strakx jumped up on his back and held on for dear life. Rhys could travel faster in this form and he had some ground to cover if he was to catch up to the queen.
Moonlight shone through the trees as crickets chirped and fireflies floated like tiny lanterns. The smell of pine and forest flowers filled the air. Oonagh loved the forest at night. It was actually its most active under cover of darkness. The sound of the breeze rattling through the leaves, the haunting beauty as light and dark played hide and seek between the trees. Nocturnal animals moved about and could be heard skittering through the undergrowth. She moved quietly through the wood as did her personal guard. Sidhe do not make any sound as they walk. But other creatures do.
A twig snapped to her left and the procession halted. Oonagh could hear the breath and heartbeat of the animal stalking her party, just as easily as she could feel the pressure of its gaze. Slowly she turned her head, peering into the darkness to see what creature was following them. Movement in and out of the trees could be seen in the moonlight. As the animal grew closer, Oonagh's anger grew as well.
"Stop!" she commanded as she stared down a large grey and white wolf. The wolf stopped in its tracks and sat down on its haunches, tongue lolling out the side of its mouth as if it were laughing. "That's enough, Maeve. What is the point in following me if I know you are there?"
A low growl emerged from the wolf's throat in displeasure.
"I am not in your territory," Oonagh hissed. The wolf stood up. "Don't you dare. I have no wish to harm this creature. Be gone.”
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The wolf took a few steps forward.
Oonagh waited. She was patient. All animals were under her care, even if they were being used to spy on her. She stared into the wolf's eyes and tried to communicate with it, but the one who controlled it would not let go. "So be it." Oonagh sighed, raising the palm of her right hand to face the wolf, and a very strong force of energy encased in white light emerged from her hand, hitting the wolf squarely between the eyes. When the light dissipated, the wolf lay unconscious on the forest floor.
Maeve sat upright in her black oak chair and hissed her displeasure. Her private chambers were lit from within as a fire blazed in the hearth, sending its warmth throughout the room. One of Maeve's magics was to command the creatures of the forest and inhabit their bodies using their ears and eyes for her spying. Inhabiting another being had its price, however, and caused Maeve's own body temperature to drop. So she usually did it in front of an open fire to keep herself warm.
Oonagh was not stupid. Maeve had been trying to be stealthy but wasn't quite enough. She probably should have inhabited a crow instead of a wolf. Easier to hide, harder to strike. She wanted to know what Oonagh was up to and now she had lost her chance. She wasn't going to attack, but it looks like Oonagh didn't take it that way and chose to be proactive. Now she had a screaming headache. Damn it, Oonagh!
The queen's party began to move forward again, but Oonagh seethed over the intrusion. What on earth was Maeve thinking? You do not attack another queen. All the years the two have been in competition with each other, they have never once attacked. Remembering this caused Oonagh to calm down and rethink things. Maybe she misread the situation. However, she did need to keep in mind that Maeve was watching. Curious Maeve could cause more harm than good if she found out. Oonagh was well aware that Maeve had no love for humans. Best to be done with tonight's doings before the rival queen recovered and inhabited another creature of the forest. It would not do to have her figure out what Oonagh was up to. She urged her guard to move faster.