Night Goddess (The Goddess Prophecies Book 1)

by Araya Evermore

  ‘Ahhh, she wakes.’ An excited voice came from somewhere. A plump old woman hugging a large wooden bowl came to stand before her, a warm smile spilling over her deeply lined face. She was not yet stooping and her long grey hair was tied back, her cheeks were red, and her eyes were green, full of life and a certain mischievousness reserved only for the truly wise.

  She wore a long-sleeved pale pink dress that fell to her feet, and over it a crisp white apron with a deep pocket that held an array of wooden spoons. Her ample bosom shuddered as she stirred the contents of the bowl. The cat looked up at the woman and purred faster with half-lidded eyes.

  ‘Where am I?’ Issa asked, her voice groggy with sleep, her hand reaching again to the lump on her head.

  ‘Well, that’s not an easy question to answer since you are no-where that you know, but you are in my home, a tiny house on a tiny island far from the confusion and corruption of the modern world.’ The old woman looked into the middle distance with a forlorn sigh, then something caught her attention from behind the chair, and she waddled off. There came the clang of oven doors, a stronger smell of sweetbreads, followed by approving murmurs.

  ‘You landed here,’ the old woman said, ‘and then that foul beast was trying to lure you to him, like he does all his victims.’ She had a slight tang in her accent, making Issa think that she came from the mainland.

  ‘Foul beast?’ Issa murmured, remembering the wailing sound. ‘It made me go into the water,’ she said with a gasp, the cat’s eyes went wide as if mimicking her fear, but it continued to purr and knead her leg.

  ‘That’s right,’ the old woman said. ‘I saw you wandering around the island. I had decided to leave you to it, being wary of anything after the Dread Dragons passed overhead, but then he came, and I knew I had to do something.’

  ‘You hit me,’ Issa said, somewhat indignantly.

  ‘Yes. It was the only way to break his spell, a sharp physical jolt.’

  ‘There was magic… I saw a flash of blue light,’ Issa said.

  ‘Yes, magic to snap the cord, that was necessary too, and I only just managed it in time. No being, once their toe leaves the land, can ever escape the White Beast. As skinny as you are you’re a heavy one to lift when unconscious.’

  ‘The White Beast?’ Issa ignored the last comment, her attention caught up in thoughts of the fabled monster. ‘He’s not real, he’s just a myth come out of the tales of the far away Shadowlands,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Hah.’ The woman came to stand in front of her again, this time with a glass and a pitcher. ‘No no no, he’s real all right. Most folk don’t want to believe it, but he is. And the Shadowlands, I’m sad to say, are not far away at all. Every night I watch the dark mist creep closer, clawing at my lantern’s light, only to recede again under the pure light of the sun. It has been growing and growing and now its filthy fingers reach not a mile away. The Lost Ones and the Forsaken walk close, you can see them at night, moving atop the still waters,’ the old woman shivered.

  Issa looked away wondering if this strange woman was mad. ‘You can use magic?’ she asked, lying back with a sigh, struggling to take everything in.

  ‘All witches worth their wick can,’ the old woman said proudly as she poured water from the pitcher, and passed Issa the cup. She drained it and took another glass.

  ‘I didn’t know the monster was real,’ Issa said. ‘Had I known, I would never have left.’ She stared blankly at the blue cat, recalling those frightening children’s stories of the “White Monster of the Deep,” and the Cursed Dead of the Shadowlands - a place of terrible sorrow inhabited by the lost souls and wraiths of the damned. The tide carried ships there to their doom, for once they entered the current towards it, they could never get out of it. ‘I could not control my boat…’ she said.

  ‘Indeed, my dear,’ the old woman frowned and nodded. ‘I’m sad to say the world is changing faster than we are. The Land of Shadows grows larger by the day, and with it the White Beast’s power. But I will fight the Shadowlands to the end, I shall not leave my home.’ The woman’s face was set. ‘Thank the goddess you even made it on that tide to this island. I think you have luck on your side,’ she winked.

  ‘Really?’ Issa arched an eyebrow. ‘Do you know what has happened? Do you know what befell the Isles of Kammy, my home? If that’s luck, then I want none of it.’

  The old woman was silent, her face paled as she nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ Her eyes flashed distinctly blue as she spoke.

  ‘Your eyes, they shone blue,’ Issa gasped as the woman’s eyes lost their bright blue shine, and became green once more. She looked at Issa as if wondering what she spoke about.

  ‘Ah yes, I’d forgotten about the blue of insight, so long have I been away from humankind. All witches and seers and some wizards have the ability to see into the past or future to varying degrees, and when we do so our eyes turn a bluish hue.

  ‘When the attention is properly focused, I can see what is happening, or has happened, to things close to this island, but beyond there are only shadows. I cannot see more than a week into the future, and it has been a long time since I met anyone who could. The future is dark…

  ‘I saw them come, terrors in the sky sent by Baelthrom,’ she swirled her hand in the air as if making a warding sign against evil. ‘They only come when they want something, and what they don’t want they destroy. There was nothing I could do. This island is so small, and I protect my house with a weak shield, the barest undetectable magic, so it looks like only trees and dirt to the far-away eye. They did not see my home, thank the goddess.’

  Issa looked down into her lap, and picked her fingers, thoughts of her mother and the Dread Dragon crowding her mind. ‘Everyone is dead, and all is destroyed. I fell into a… a Fairy Pocket. Only I escaped, though I wish I had not.’

  ‘Hush, do not say such things,’ the old woman breathed. ‘It’s clear to me that the goddess has a plan for you, and for you to be here now it cannot have been a Fairy Pocket. But anyway, you must have a name?’

  Issa glanced at the old woman, wondering how she knew such things about the goddess, wondering whether to say more. She bit her tongue and stayed silent about the stone-ringed mound and doorway to the desert.

  ‘My name is Issa, Issalena Kammy, and I have never met a witch before. Who are you that knows so much of the goddess’s ways?’ Issa queried with genuine interest.

  ‘I am Edarna. Edarna Higglesworth, the Witch of the Western Isles.’ She stood up proudly, and put a hand on her chest, ‘and all witches know much of the Great Goddess, much more than those foolish priestesses who damn our art. Pah, what do they know other than “haughtinisseries” and “better-thans”?’ She spat and turned red. Issa hid a smile. Edarna made a funny noise with her lips.

  ‘We keep to ourselves, mostly because we were all once priestesses of the Temple, and disagree with the digression of the practices. We are not looked upon favourably. We work in the shadows and our Goddess is the Night Goddess, the Goddess of the Oceans, the Goddess of the Dead.’

  Edarna paused, seeing Issa frown, and elaborated with an exasperated sigh. ‘Goodness me, what do they teach you in school these days? The Night Goddess is one aspect of the Great Mother Goddess from whom everything comes and to which everything will return. Zanufey is the Goddess of the Dead, she leads us from life through death to Feygriene, the Goddess of the Light, of life.’

  Issa’s ears pricked up and she caught Edarna watching her carefully. Issa dropped her gaze. ‘I know little of the Great Goddess, or any of her guises, and I know even less about witches and priestesses, there are none upon Little Kammy.’

  ‘Oh, but she knows you, she knows all of us,’ Edarna whispered, then waddled off again. ‘Here, have a sweetbread, you look pale as a wraith from the Shadowlands.’ She passed Issa a sponge filled with raisins. Issa thanked her, and though it was almost too hot to handle, bit and swallowed, barely chewing the sweet cinnamon cake. It tasted divine.

  ‘The
flour is several months too old now, from when I last went to the mainland,’ Edarna said apologetically. ‘Now it tires me greatly to get there. I blame the encroaching Shadowlands. It took me a day to get back and a week to recover, I vowed it would be the last.’

  Issa choked upon the sweetened bread. ‘The mainland? How do you get there? It’s impossible. It takes a big ship days or even a week at sea. Why are you here if you can get there?’

  ‘Oh, I do not sail,’ the old woman chuckled, and her face went deadly serious, ‘You will never get me in a boat. Besides, no one can avoid Keteth or the Shadowlands. No no no, not me. On a favourable wind, I fly on the wings of a gull. But to make myself small enough for them to carry me, yet large enough so they don’t eat me, takes some doing, and at least a week of preparation. And the gulls don’t respect you for it. I was lucky to get the stupid bird to bring me home last time. And if they decide to take a dive for fish, then you can forget about it.’

  Issa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Can you teach me how to do it?’

  ‘Absolutely not. For starters, you need to be three times twelve years of age, and my dear you are not that unless you have the Magic of Ageing.’ Issa shook her head. ‘I thought not. And anyway you need to be a witch, and that takes two times twelve years of training from a witch four times twelve years old. And again it requires lots of stuff to make the potions and spells. It takes ages to collect, and is quite gruesome; eye of newt, wing of bat, scale of dragon, you know, really nice things. Especially if you actually like the animal from which you are trying to steal its eyes. And besides, it takes energy out of you which you never get back.’

  Issa paled. ‘Maybe I’ll think about it at another time.’ She decided against the idea and finished off her sweetbread. She watched the flickering flames of the fire whilst Edarna rustled around cleaning pots and pans.

  ‘You live here all alone don’t you?’ Issa asked.

  ‘Yes, best way,’ Edarna replied from behind the chair.

  ‘Don’t you get lonely? And if the Shadowlands are reaching here isn’t it dangerous?’

  ‘Nope, never lonely. I’m too busy looking after the birds and this island. I chose to come here years ago to try to keep watch on the growing Land of Shadows, maybe to help keep it at bay, and to help those lost souls find a way out. A bit of a Way Shower if you like, though of the witching kind,’ she grinned from over the top of the chair and wiggled her eyebrows up and down. ‘But this place is fading into the Shadowlands itself. Soon I fear I will become a Lost One like those I try to help. I pray to the Night Goddess that she will come for me before then.’

  Issa wondered again at Edarna’s mention of the Night Goddess, so rarely heard spoken of on Little Kammy. All the island folk believed in the goddess, but they lived simply, had only one sacred dwelling place on the island, and no priestess or priest. There had once been an old priestess on Bigger Kammy. People always went there to marry as a result, but that was five years or so ago. She’d thought little upon it. She was always too busy with Ma and the house and her work at the smithy to spend any time pondering on spiritual paradigms. It seemed of late, in her struggles simply to stay alive, that such spiritual thoughts were never far from her mind.

  She noticed the cat staring up at her with that strange grinning face, and felt obliged to say something to it, as she did with most animals. She felt more at home talking to them than people, or at least more likely to get some sense out of them.

  ‘Tiniest lion, seer of the night, guardian of Other Worlds, and blue too.’ The cat meowed in response.

  Edarna laughed. ‘A way with animals, I see. Now that is the question you should be asking, why is the cat blue?’

  Issa stared at the cat’s fur. ‘For some reason, I had assumed that all witches’ cats must be blue.’

  Edarna laughed again. ‘Indeed, perhaps they should be. That rascal of a cat disappeared two days ago, and when he came back this morning, he had turned from black to blue. His name is Mr Dubbins, by the way.’

  The cat purred louder and grinned up at them both as if enjoying a fabulous secret. Edarna became serious, and she stared into the distance muttering. Either mad or wondering what to say, Issa thought.

  ‘Now it’s a funny thing…’ Edarna said, and fiddled with her apron. She turned, dragged a rocking chair closer to the fire, and plopped her bottom down. It creaked loudly in protest. ‘Yes, a funny thing. I had the strangest dream when Mr Dubbins was gone, only… I cannot be sure if it was a dream at all, for when I awoke I was fully clothed and my boots were wet.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Issa said, when the woman paused.

  ‘Yes…’ Edarna said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I shall. I got out of bed in the middle of the night. Maybe something awoke me, maybe I walked in my sleep, I don’t know. I went to the cove, expecting to see the wraiths walk the waters, as usual, trying to come here, but unable to penetrate the magical shimmer I put up each night to protect me and my birds. But there were no wraiths, not one.

  ‘Instead of the white light of Doon that should have shone that night, I watched rise a massive moon from ages past, its indigo light flooding the land and ocean, like it was cleansing the whole world. I fell to my knees, for I looked upon the blue moon of Zanufey from the Ages before Ages. The power was so gentle, so caressing of the spirit, and yet so strong and all pervading. Like the force that ties all things to the ground, though no one can see it. It filled me with joy, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that everything would be all right in the end.’

  As Edarna spoke Issa imagined a massive moon rising the colour of the deep blue sea, its light cleansing the world of darkness. Within it a figure took shape, a woman robed in a cloak made of the night sky, with stars and galaxies swirling in its folds.

  ‘But then the little me inside became fearful,’ Edarna continued, ‘for I knew that with the rising blue moon comes great change, and no change was ever brought about without growing pains. And that’s all I remember. Then the cat turns blue and you show up,’ Edarna chirped with a shrug.

  ‘The prophecies speak of the Night Goddess’s chosen, though I forget which prophecy now, there are so many. They called her disciple the Child of the Raven. Raven of course because the raven is Zanufey’s messenger, and being always a girl, they would become the Queen of Ravens.’

  Issa’s attention snapped back to the present. ‘The Child of the Raven?’ she asked, remembering her raven friend. Edarna peered at Issa as if inspecting her, she was sure her eyes flashed blue again as she creaked back and forth on her rocking chair.

  ‘They say that when the world is in its darkest hour, it is the Raven Queen who will lead us through the darkness towards the light. If one should fail, then two others may be chosen before the path is closed, and if all fail then all is lost. Pfft, I should think we will be seeing one soon, the state the world is in, and it seems to be moving faster now, set fully upon the path to its own destruction.

  ‘There is always death where his hand touches. Baelthrom became powerful quicker than anyone had thought possible, thus our need is now great. He has been searching for those who might take on the mantle of the Raven Queen. Any child born of a wizard or seer he finds and destroys, for he knows all about the Night Goddess prophecies.’ Edarna looked off into the distance and shivered at what she saw there. Issa also shivered at the mention of his name and a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

  ‘There is so little I know of the world,’ Issa admitted. ‘My life has only ever been about Ma and the animals at the smithy. Now everything I know is gone. What hope do I have of ever reaching the mainland?’ The tears in her eyes made the flames in the hearth blur, and she blinked them back, afraid that if she cried she would not be able to stop. Edarna got up off the rocking chair and put another log onto the fire.

  ‘You, girl, are tired, and lucky not to have high fever. The Great Goddess works in mysterious ways, and all things come in blessed right time and blessed right order. Why don’t you try to
sleep, things are always much better after sleep.’

  Issa nodded. She was very tired, bone-weary they called it, tired to the very marrow of her being. Mesmerised, she watched the flames lick at the new log. With Mr Dubbins curled up on her lap, she drifted off into a restless sleep and dreamed of becoming an old woman trapped forever on a tiny island.

  Chapter 12

  Blue Moon

  ISSA awoke in the dead of night. The white light of Doon fell through the gap in the curtains. The fire was out, and it was cold. Edarna was gone, as was the cat, and the house was silent. After living through a lifetime trapped upon an island in her dreams, she awoke with a desperate need to get off this one.

  Now wide awake, she got up wincing against the stiffness, pulled on her clean clothes, and tried to stretch out her sore arms, back and legs. On the small kitchen table behind her makeshift bed, was a bowl of apples and more sweetbread. Her stomach rumbled at the sight of them, and she stuffed one in her mouth.

  The house was very small. The kitchen adjoining the sitting room was just big enough for the table, two chairs, and an oven which was a third the size of the one she and Ma had, and with only one hot plate whereas theirs had four. At the far end of the sitting room was an old bent door, which she assumed led into Edarna’s bedroom. At the back of the kitchen was another door made of thick wood.

  She headed toward the kitchen door. There she found her galoshes and fisherman’s coat hanging on a hook. She pulled them on and shivered under the cold heavy material. She needed to get out, she wanted to see her boat as if seeing it would give her hope that she could get to the mainland.

  She stepped outside, and quietly closed the door behind her. The air was still and moist, and it seemed warmer outside than in. The pale moon of Doon sat just above the stubby tree-line and looked to be setting soon. Only a few of the brightest stars were visible, for the air was misty and bouts of thick fog rolled slowly in the still air. The sound of the sea came from close by.