The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  On a time when the waters rose higher than ever, Eolacha and Chieftain Stillwater led a small crowd of the householders of the marsh out into the darkness. It was a chill, moonless night, and they shivered, from cold and other reasons, but they did not turn back and they held high their lanterns against the gloom. When they reached the Lonely Banks, they halted, crowding together, while Eolacha walked a little ahead of them until she stood alone.

  She called out, “Tiddy Mun without a name, the water’s thruff!”

  Then all the householders joined in chorus, crying, “Tiddy Mun without a name, the water’s thruff!” And they continued calling until they heard a thin ululation, pewit! pewit! like a lapwing’s call coming out of the darkness across the vast, watery acreages of the marsh.

  At that, they turned about and went back to their homes. Next morning, the flood tide had receded.

  Whether because she lived with a carlin and learned what was permitted for her to learn of the carlin’s lore, or whether due to her sharp eyes and intuition, it seemed that Jewel encountered wights more often than any other marsh child. Or perhaps, out of sheer inquisitiveness and hunger for new experiences, she rashly sought them out when others would not.

  Her father too was granted his perilous wish to view more wights. Over time he happened upon several; an inevitability when one traveled often through a region as haunted as the marsh. In the shearing season, his route between the Mosswell cottage and the outmarsh areas took him through thirteen wight-infested places. Particularly in the evenings on his way back from work, he glimpsed strange sights, and ofttimes he was mightily glad of the extraordinary protection that shielded him.

  After descending the stone stair from Carter’s Way, Jarred would strike out along Green Causeway, which led to a ramshackle jetty where his dinghy waited to take him home. This causeway passed by a small deserted isle upon which loomed an old ruin known as “the mill.” A little stone bridge led from the causeway across the water to the doorless entrance to the broken, moss-covered walls. Whether this moldering shell had ever truly been a working mill or not nobody knew, but it was one of the few stone structures in the marsh and as such deserved a name.

  Jarred came along the causeway later than usual one moonlit eve, with his black-and-white sheepdog, Tralee, trotting at his side. The usual night sounds could be heard. Frog notes pulsed nearby; far off, sudden wild laughter was interspersed with shrieks and sobbing. The husband of Lilith paid little heed to such familiar music, until suddenly his dog growled. Jarred turned his head and, looking across at the mill, saw a lady standing at the far end of the bridge. She was clad in a cloak as green as the leaves of water hyssop, and a long hood was hanging down her back. From her waxen face, her body, and her marigold hair, water streamed in swathes and rivulets. It flowed from her as if she had just stepped from a deep bath. But it ran off, and it ran off, and still she was not dry.

  She stood, staring straight at Jarred.

  He had thought at first she was human and wondered why she should be standing there so late at night. It came to him then that he had inadvertently stopped in his tracks. Crouching close to Jarred’s feet, Tralee continued to growl softly, his teeth and gums bared in a terrified snarl.

  With a jolt, Jarred started forward again. “Come on lad, good lad,” he said briskly. Followed closely by the dog, he passed by the mill and the bridge without looking back.

  Nine days later he saw her again, involuntarily following her along Green Causeway until she crossed over the bridge leading to the ruin and vanished from view. She was a mysterious wight indeed.

  By chance or design, Eoin had removed his house to a remote anchorage abutting that very causeway, not far from the stone stair leading up to Carter’s Way. It was far from Marshtown and could only be reached by navigating circuitous channels.

  Suibhne Tolpuddle would occasionally call on him there, accompanied by his older sister, Doireann. Having gifted Eoin with a half-grown retriever pup, Doireann insisted on regular meetings to ask after the animal’s welfare. Eoin suspected there was more behind her social calls than affection for the young dog. It may have been partly due to these visits that Eoin had removed himself to such inaccessible, inhospitable reaches, for when they came, the Tolpuddles would never leave his house until after midnight, their conversation was less than stimulating, and Suibhne seemed plagued by constant hunger.

  “Suibhne is fortunate in having me to direct him,” Doireann would say. “He never knows what day it is.”

  Her brother would nod agreement. “If anyone ever asks me, I always say ’tis War’s Day.”

  “Why War’s Day?” Eoin once dutifully asked.

  “Because,” Suibhne replied indistinctly, through a mouthful of Eoin’s seedcake, “I know it always comes around once a se’nnight.”

  Eoin stared hard at him without changing his expression. Then he slowly shook his head. “Amazing,” he commented. He slapped his own face. “Am I asleep?” he wondered aloud.

  Yawning his way through one such night of ennui, Eoin was bleakly contemplating what a tainted word courtesy was when at last Suibhne dusted the crumbs from his chin and said, “Come along, Doireann, ’tis time we were getting home.”

  Eoin’s sudden wakefulness and surge of gallantry surprised even himself. Leaping to his feet, he held open the door for his guests, gave their lighted lantern into their hands, politely escorted them across the pontoon, and handed them up the lush banks of the causeway.

  “Will you not accompany us as far as the jetty?” begged Doireann.

  “Er—Sally is sleeping,” said Eoin, indicating the pup curled up in a basket in the corner. “Should she waken, she might wander and fall overboard.”

  “But she is tied up—”

  “Good night!” Eoin called, waving from his doorway, to which he had already retreated. He stepped indoors. The rectangle of lamplight in which he had been standing narrowed to a slit and winked out.

  “Come along,” droned Suibhne.

  He and Doireann went together along the causeway. To either side of their path, the albino flowers of water hawthorn rose above the black water on their forked spikes. The air was heavy with their scent, so that to breathe was like eating honey and cream. Two owls flitted through black veils of shadow.

  As they approached the little bridge to the old ruin, the lantern flickered and Suibhne saw, coming straight toward them, a lady—or what appeared to be a lady. She was wearing an ankle-length mantle as green as maidenhair ferns. At her back, her long hood was hanging down, and her loose yellow hair was covering her face. Water was dripping and running copiously off her. Alarmed, but not knowing what else to do, Suibhne kept walking. The woman simulacrum came up with the two mortals and passed them by.

  Doireann did not see her—I am dreaming, thought Suibhne. But I will not say anything to Doireann in case I frighten her.

  They went on farther and they had almost reached the jetty when Doireann said, “Suibhne, that woman knew you.”

  Suibhne was astounded. He said, “What woman?”

  “That woman who went by us,” said Doireann. “She walked right in between us.”

  Her brother’s scalp tingled. Fear began to lick in his chest like a thin tongue of poison. He increased his pace. The jetty was in sight.

  “Come along,” he panted, and he would say no more until they were both secure in their rowboat and paddling away.

  After that, every time the Tolpuddles visited Eoin in his eerily located abode, Suibhne appeared keen to depart early. When Doireann delayed and it grew late, Suibhne would add his pleas to her customary invitation: “Won’t you come with us along the causeway a bit?”

  He added, “And bring the hound.”

  Judging he would be rid of them faster if he escorted them to their boat, Eoin accompanied them, taking the boisterous, half-grown hound. Suibhne would not allow him to return to his house until they had passed the spot where he had seen the lady with the green cloak, with the water sheening
off her wet hair and garments.

  When Jarred heard this tale from Earnán, he laughed. Later he told Lilith what he had seen on the Green Causeway.

  “The Green Lady has instilled fear into Tolpuddle,” he said, “but such apparitions hold no terror for me.”

  “Even were you not protected by your inviolability,” she said, “I think you would not be afraid.”

  “You invest great faith in me,” said he, smiling.

  “To be sure,” she answered. “And further, I invest great faith in our lives together. More than twelve years have passed since our wedding. Twelve years of happiness, and no hint of any sound of footsteps has come to me, save for the real footsteps of my lover returning home and my child running to my arms. It appears we have beaten the curse after all.”

  “That we have,” he whispered, enfolding her in a loving embrace. “That we have.”

  With all the fervency of his spirit, he hoped he was right.

  VII

  Madness

  Eoin Mosswell had moved his nomadic home not merely to make himself less accessible to unwelcome visitors.

  Of an evening, when Jarred walked homeward along the levee and the causeway with Tralee at his heels, Eoin could sit at ease on his front staithe with a pipeful of weed and watch him go by, screened from view by the pendulous branches of the river she-oaks with their long showers of needlelike leaves. When he saw Jarred walking with a spring in his step even after a hard day’s work, Eoin would picture the wife who waited for him, and he would not wonder at the sprightliness of the whistled tune on Jarred’s lips. His hatred of Jarred had festered over the years, burgeoning to become a devouring need. For a long time the desire had been brewing in him to pull off some trick that would humiliate Jarred and make him the laughingstock of the marsh.

  Jarred’s inherent courage was naturally bolstered by the certainty of his invulnerability. Aware that the sorcerer’s blood ran fierce and hard through his body, he knew no fear of unseelie wights. Knowing no fear, he showed none, and this in itself was a form of protection against eldritch wickedness. As he passed to and fro along the paths of the marsh, the native wights became accustomed to his carefree attitude, his complete freedom from terror. In time, this fearlessness warmed to something like friendliness on Jarred’s part; he began to view the familiar local manifestations with a kind of comradeship born of long-term acquaintance. Indeed, with his typical good humor he was not averse to teasing them to pass the time on his journeys. He did so, however, out of earshot of humankind, lest any should be astonished at his singular temerity.

  Dirty, smelling of hard work, his skin smooth and pliable from constant contact with the creamy wool fat, Jarred would make his way home in the dark. As he walked along the dike above the glisten and glug of the marshes, he’d see the lantern men’s lights bobbing about and hear their spurious calls for help, whereupon he would chuckle to himself and cordially wish them good night. Even without such a birthright, such fearlessness would have lent immunity to any mortal.

  He never flinched when any wraithlike figure glided toward him along Carter’s Way. “Slow down!” he would call out. “You’ll fall in if you’re not careful. ’Tis amazing how well you do conduct yourself, considering you’ve no head on your shoulders, poor wretch. Come over here and I’ll guide you.” At that, the wight would usually disappear with a shriek.

  Some of the frighteners refused to acknowledge defeat.

  The marsh lights were attracted by lone mortals, and they crowded close to Carter’s Way to brandish their lights when Jarred walked by. Sometimes he felt as though he passed through an eerie garden of luminous flowers: pastel blue, pale green, and pearly white.

  Of course, Eoin had no inkling of Jarred’s unmitigated fearlessness. Despite the fact that he often watched Jarred go past on his way home, he never spied him laughing at the lights or jesting at the frighteners. Eoin had been born and raised in the marsh, and it did not enter his comprehension that any living mortal might be utterly unafraid of its eldritch haunters. Besides, he was usually tipsy and unfocused when he sat on his front staithe in the evenings, with his golden retriever at his feet; he enjoyed a tankard or six of swampwater at the end of a day.

  On a King’s Day night in early Autumn, Eoin downed ten tankards instead of six. He had been musing about the forthcoming ceremony of Lantern Eve, envisioning Jarred enjoying the festival with Lilith and Jewel, while he, Eoin, would be forced to great lengths to elude the company of Suibhne Tolpuddle’s sister. The swampwater might have been somewhat stronger than usual—certainly the marshmen’s brewing methods were erratic—and what with the extra tankards, by the time dusk approached Eoin was more than tipsy.

  There would be a new moon that night, and the sky was clouded over. The marsh would lie spread-eagled under a thick blanket of darkness. It occurred to Eoin to take a lighted lantern up onto the embankment, there to lie in wait for Jarred. As his enemy approached he would yell for help, and when Jarred came to his aid he would guide him off the edge of the path, down into the slush of the quagmires.

  Eoin had never walked Carter’s Way alone at night.

  Picturing the sorry sight Jarred would make, covered from head to boot in mud, Eoin guffawed to himself. Dark lantern in hand, he unsteadily climbed the stone stair leading up the wall to Carter’s Way. Sally trotted after him, sniffing the ground.

  After walking three furlongs, Eoin had sobered somewhat. The night had turned bitterly cold, and the path, though broad, seemed to sway before his eyes. He decided to stop, and slid the metal casing over the lantern to conceal the light within. Then he fastened the lantern to the end of a stick so that he might dangle it out over the mire. Not long afterward, he heard footsteps approaching. He felt unnerved for a moment, not knowing whether the footsteps were eldritch, until he heard Jarred’s voice raised in song and knew it was he.

  Eoin cupped his hands around his mouth. “Help!” he shouted off to the side of the road. Uncovering his lantern, he leaned out over the side of the wall and flourished the light on the end of the stick to mislead the young man who walked so merrily in the dark. After a moment a voice shouted “Help!” nearby, and Eoin dashed in that direction, believing the voice to be Jarred’s and wishing to witness the discomfiture of the object of his hatred. He swung his lantern and giggled tipsily under his breath; then the ground was snatched from beneath his feet and a gelid emulsion smacked up all around him. His light had flown from his hand and been extinguished.

  He was up to his middle in the quag.

  His feet found no purchase, not that he could move them against the sluggish weight of the morass sheathing his lower limbs. Gradually he began to sink, and as he felt the gasping slime climb his body, he screamed in mortal panic. The mud was close to freezing, and it had by now siphoned him in up to his armpits.

  Overhead the clouds parted and weak starlight seeped through. Eoin flailed about in the mud and felt it grip him tighter. He pictured it moving slowly over his face, secreting itself into every orifice, oozing down his throat into his lungs. Drawing a rasping breath of pure horror, he screamed again.

  “I thought I heard someone,” said Jarred out on the dim edge of the embankment. “I shall send the hounds in to rescue you.” When he whistled, both Eoin’s retriever and Jarred’s sheepdog came willingly. Into the mud they jumped. They floundered toward Eoin and caught hold of him by his clothes. Then they towed him to the wall, where Jarred helped him clamber up to solid ground.

  “Ah, ’tis Master Mosswell! You look a bit wet,” said Jarred in a neighborly manner. “You’d better get back to your hearth fire and dry off.” He was doing his utmost to conceal his amusement at Eoin’s plight.

  Eoin was shaking from his ankles to his scalp. His eyes were two white holes in a black mask of stinking mire. Slipping and sliding, he made his way back to the stone stair. Jarred saw him safe to his house then strode off homeward, breaking once again into song.

  The rage of Eoin was beyond description. Jar
red never mentioned the incident to anyone, and Eoin was spared the indignity of public derision. For Jarred’s kindness, Eoin hated him the more. He seethed, privately swearing he would someday take revenge.

  The moon was full on a Ninember night. Behind the half-bare boughs of willows it squatted low on the horizon like a hole scorched by the sun—huge, ripe, and glowing somber orange, as was its wont at that season. Stars stabbed forth in their frost white zillions. Far away, weird notes of eldritch flute music twined among the willows, pure as silver, haunting. Snatches of voices keening or raised in merriment came lilting over the marsh. Near at hand, green tree frogs piped and barked.

  Jewel was returning home on her own, and she was thirsty. Passing the aged, swarthy stump near the Mosswell cottage, she paused, looking down to the water at its feet, where floated the reflection of the pumpkin moon. She threw herself to the ground and leaned out over the pool to scoop the quenching liquid in her hands and drink. Yet for no apparent reason, she hesitated.

  As she stared into the glimmering water, she became aware that she was seeing a face. But it was not her own. It was a masculine face, pale and confoundingly handsome, framed by long hair blacker than wickedness. The stars of the firmament seemed snagged in that pouring of coalgleaming hair. The eyes, of some color that was elusive in the starlight, were chips of diamond, or perhaps slivers of steel, outlined with lashes of a darkness so intense they might have been rimmed with cosmetic antimony.

  Something about this vision made Jewel’s flesh sting all over, like a sudden dousing of lemon juice. It was as if a long-drawn chord of disturbing music resounded from the depths of her being, fading out into the darkness. Here was a being—a man, maybe? No, surely not a man, though his masculinity was utter and categorical—here was an entity too elemental, too stark, too consummate and extreme to be human. Currents combed his hair, his torrential hair, a river of sensual forgetfulness.