Magnus grinned and took a step. He did not sink into the crystalline snow, but stayed steady on top. All this was impossible, but he did not have time to worry about it. Hurry, hurry, hurry, the weak voice urged him.
He grabbed his bag, tossed it over his shoulder and started off toward the twin ice mountains in the distance.
Chapter Thirteen
Esmé was lost, drowning in the unkind waters of the loch. The pain radiated through her tiny body, wracking her bones. She tried to close her eyes against the flames leaping among the lochs near-frozen waves, but she could not escape. The heat grazed her delicate skin, marring it, puckering it with a throbbing that would not cease. All at once a jagged-edged stone was heading for her and she froze, unable to move, as it sliced her deep across the chest. Her blood flowed into the icy water, billowing into the choppy flames: weeping, stinging, singing out in anguish. I am here! Help me! I need you!
~ * ~
Esmé woke up gasping in torment and grief. “Tis too late!” she cried to a motionless, emotionless world. “Again!” She stretched out on the snow, reaching for something or someone she believed she could never have. Not too late, the voice murmured. Don’t ye give up on me. Don’t.
Sitting up, Esmé felt the warning like a fist shoved into her stomach. “I don’t give up. I’m strong. Grandmam Caelia said so. Strong in spirit, Caelia declared in her memory. Strong in intention and in talent. But I wonder if you’re no’ afraid to use those things. Afraid of whom ye could be or where ye might end up?
The girl squinted as though in pain. Why had she not heard and understood the first time? Her grandmother was right, as was The Voice.
She did give up. Always. That’s why she had hidden away in the house for so long; why she had learned the healing arts, but never taken them out to help the people; why she turned young men away without looking—they might challenge her heart, her protected soul, and leave her defenseless once more. Because she had given up. She was too afraid to risk losing one more thing.
The knowledge burst inside her, bright as the rising sun on the smooth white snow, trailing lilac, purple, pink clouds, and the color stained the pristine landscape for those few minutes, then was gone. But Esmé’s burst of light would never go. It consumed her.
Yet she had no time to sit and wonder at the magic of the light. She had to go, to get to The Voice before it flickered out. Gathering her things, she rose, barely noticing the strange-shaped laced objects tied to her boots. She concentrated on the pain that drew her forward across the winter landscape—the beautifully frightening icescape so far from the home she loved.
And then she came up short against a solid wall of stone that rose straight up into the sky. To her left she saw one after another waterfall frozen solid in mid-current—not one drop of water fell from these ice behemoths, but they glittered and shimmered in the sun that did not warm.
Esmé forgot the impossible-to-climb stone wall. She forgot her fear of an everlasting winter. She was mesmerized by the beauty and unlikelihood of those waterfalls of ice, and the white silent world around them.
“Not yet,” a voice above her interrupted. “Ye’ve work t’do, m’lassie.”
Looking up, the girl saw the same old crone she’d glimpsed before, standing sideways on the rock wall, several feet above her head.
“Follow me,” said the woman of few words.
Only then did Esmé notice that the wall was not a wall, but a natural stone incline. The lower part went back and up, so, determined to get to the top in time—
“Yes, tis to the top ye’re going,” the crone confirmed, making the girl more nervous, rather than comforting her.
Esmé doggedly climbed, often clinging to little more than a slight out-cropping of stone. She was sweating, and her breath kept catching in her throat; this was not what she was used to. Having spent so much of her life inside, she was not sure she was strong enough. Her body had let her down before.
“Tis yer soul that’s strong, sweet lassie. Stronger than I’ve seen in a long, long time. Yer body will follow where yer soul leads. And yer soul knows where it’s goin’.”
The crone was no longer laughing. Esmé gave herself up to this new voice (praying to the Tuatha Dé Danann that it was not the voice that had called her here), and stopped thinking and wondering.
Slowly, painfully, inch by inch she climbed the wall, scraping her arms and legs, hitting the side of her head, but never once taking a step backwards or letting go. It took her many hours, and once, as she stared behind the waterfalls, she thought she saw a figure—a man—making the same climb, but she shook her head and when she looked again, he was gone. For reasons she could not explain to herself, she was inordinately disappointed.
But she did not have time to worry over it. Her sense of urgency was greater and greater, and she hurried faster, climbing over the top at last, but slipping back and cutting her leg on a sharp rock. “Bollocks!” She glanced around. Up here it was the same: perpetual winter, except for the trail of her blood in the snow.
Chapter Fourteen
Spitting and sputtering, Magnus climbed the last few impossible feet of the impossible rock face. His clothes were stained and torn, his boots battered as if he’d been wearing them for years. He checked the soles, where at least two holes were working their way through. “Bollocks!” he shouted to the cold in general and The Voice specifically. He thought he heard an echo down the way, but that could not be in this vast flat winter wasteland.
And then he saw two things. The woman and the flames.
Esmé caught sight of him, and in the next instant smelled fire. Her heart raced. This was it—the end of the long journey she had taken, the things she had learned, the possibilities. As if drawn by a magnet, she and the man began walking away from the rock face and toward each other—and the distant crackle and smell of fire.
When they reached each other, they stood staring, silent, stunned. Magnus was tall, and though not precisely handsome, his chiseled features were compelling. His shoulders were broad enough, but not too broad, and his body honed, though not like a soldier’s. His hands were intriguing with their long fingers, and the expression on his face, though irritated, hid some other emotion entirely. Esmé’s thoughts and feelings were jumbled: full of joy and expectation and recognition overtop her fear and pain and sense of dread.
“So, not Julia,” he muttered, knowing only in that moment that he’d guessed it all along. Knowing also that he did not care. She was lovely, this girl-child, with her heart-shaped face and long blond hair. Her silver-grey eyes both reflected and obscured the winter landscape; they were full to the brim of wisdom and a kind of ache he had never seen before.
“Do I know ye?” she asked.
“I think no’. That is—mayhap.”
She summoned all her courage and told him, “I’m Esmé. I was brought here by a dream.”
“I too. By a dream. I am Magnus.” You’re not mad, Magnus, he rejoiced internally. And the yearning—surely it’s for her. They could not be so cruel as to lure him here with the shape of her, the taste of her, the image of her just beyond his reach… But you’re getting ahead of yourself. Acting the fool again. You don’t even know her. But he felt, deep inside, that she was familiar in a way he had known no other.
She offered her hand and he took it, clasping it tight as flashes of emotions, intensity, tenacity went through their bodies.
Shivering from the aftermath, he said, “We have work to do.”
“To the fire,” she replied.
They began to run wordlessly over the soft silent snow that once again seemed to go on forever. Then, all at once, the fire came into view, and above it the image of the celestial white buck, shimmering palely, guiding the way. They paused for only an instant, dazed by its beauty, by its very existence, for both had heard stories of such a great being—white from head to toe, its antlers huge and glowing with heavenly light as it rose above the snow. A beacon of hope, of honor, of nobility, an
d protection. Beneath it, the fire had melted a ring of snow, obliterating the trees, singeing the grasses. And something lay in the center of that deadened ring.
Esmé’s heartbeat and hurting were greater as she raced awkwardly through powder, then over ice where the flames had melted the snow and it had re-frozen, she slid at last into the barren circle, not warm and yet not chilly. She knelt beside the stricken animal. It was a white fawn—a tiny baby fawn—with burns on part of its side and back, and someone had cut it across. Beside it lay a sharp rock, on edge, coated with blood.
Esmé remembered her dream and shuddered. With great care, she lifted the fawn’s head and rested it in her lap. Ah, The Voice said inside her. At last you have come. I will rest now while you heal me.
“But why me?” She glanced up at the man, at Magnus, whose presence confused and aroused her. “And why him?”
You need not speak aloud. I can hear you. You two were chosen from the beginning, from my birth, because together, you can save me. The voice was fading, and Esmé knew she must work fast. The fawn was frightened, its pulse racing, and its injuries were serious, so Esmé brought out an infusion of chamomile in one of the jars her grandmother had helped her prepare, which would calm it and help keep down the swelling. She had worked on small wounds, but none as severe as these. She knew if she gave way to her terror, the fawn would feel it too, so she took a bit of the infusion herself. Then she took out her recorder and began to play soft, soothing music that wrapped its tendrils—like the green tendrils of new growth at spring—around the fawn, and around her, and even Magnus, whose pulse slowed as he beat back the fire, stifling the flames with snow until gradually he separated them one by one and they sizzled out in the snow.
When Magnus knelt beside the fawn he was vastly discouraged. How could he help an animal so tiny and so helpless? So badly wounded?
Think, The Voice urged him. You know what to do. He glanced at Esmé and she smiled for the first time and nodded.
“I’m too big. I’m afraid I will injure it further.”
“Here,” Esmé whispered, “take my hand.” She placed her palm just above the fawn’s open wound, and Magnus rested his hand over hers. Healers together they gently rested their hands on the open wound, became one when they felt the fawn’s heartbeat, the flow of its blood against their skin. The pulse of their own blood echoed each other’s as well as the deer’s, and all three hearts beat in perfect rhythm. In that moment, though they were strangers, Magnus and Esmé shared their souls and knew one another completely. That’s also when they realized that long ago The Voice had become their own, calling them to one another, to the fawn, and to this moment.
“My hands are small and I can sew very tiny stitches,” she murmured, unwilling to break the bond that held them—all three—together. “I take care of many small animals, so I am not afraid. But the burns and the wound are so grievous—”
“First we need leaf poultices of yarrow to staunch the bleeding.” He had already started a small fire as he unloaded herbs and bottles and leaves from his sack, packing the snow up around the sides so it would not spread, though he could not see how the larger fire had spread, for there was no wind; the air was so still he could hear every ragged breath of the tortured fawn. Magnus heated the yarrow leaves over the coals, doing what he knew to be practical, though he feared he could not save the animal. It was so tiny, and pale from loss of blood and the pain from the burns.
Something kept him from expressing his doubts. It would no’ be the hope and resolution in the wee lassie’s eyes, would it now, Magnus the empty-headed fool? If she believed they could do it, perhaps they could.
She leaned toward him at that instant and murmured, “I know we can save him—or her—whichever it be. I know it in my soul.”
He fell into her silver-grey eyes, feeling their pull—and her faith and their strength. She held him captive, refusing to look away until he nodded.
That rattled him. Magnus the Practical, that’s me. I’ve no time for absurdities such as people reading my thoughts. Even if tis a bonny lass with long blonde hair and a heart-shaped face. I don’t like it and I don’t need it. All the while this was happening, he continued making the poultice by adding heated water to the yarrow leaves.
He turned to the girl, telling her to quickly lay it directly on the open wound and cup her hand around it. She did so without question, replacing it with another when he was ready. The blood became sluggish and finally clotted. “We will need more yarrow later when the fever comes, though these leaves have helped clean the wound, so the fever may no’ be as great. But we will have to wait and see.
“What now?” Esmé, who had thought herself adept at healing, realized she knew little compared to Magnus, who was as useful as he was compelling.
“I have concocted something that will help even more,” he assured her.
She believed him.
“Tis a tincture of St. John’s Wort. I’ll get it, now the little one sleeps.”
She was grateful for that, and acutely aware of the celestial buck standing behind them.
Magnus drew his precious jar from his sack, surprised to see that, miraculously, it had not been broken. “I infused fresh flowers in oil to get this beautiful and powerful red oil,” he explained. He drew out some small cloths he had doubled. “Here, will you apply it?” He wiggled his long fingers. “I’m afraid I would hurt it unnecessarily.”
Esmé took one of the cloths, let him pour on some oil, and turned to the fawn.
“Put it first on the open wound. It will make it numb and clean it both, and also keep it from swelling.”
The fawn woke, sighing in pain.
“I am here, little one, right here.” Esmé began to hum in rhythm with her deft fingers.
As long as she kept the fawn’s head in her lap, it was quiet.
“Now for the stitches.” Magnus spoke so low she barely heard him. He brought out a thread she had never seen before. “It’s catgut, “ he said, answering her unasked question. “Sturdier than thread, and natural to a body.”
And then he did the strangest thing: he dragged the needle and thread through the deep red oil from the St. John’s Wort. “More caution to make sure it won’t become putrid.”
Nodding, she smiled. How wise he was. Especially with this weak little deer. Taking a deep breath, she held the sides of the wound together, as she had on many a rabbit or vole or fox, and began to sew gently but firmly. She kicked her recorder toward Magnus with a raised eyebrow, but at first he was too fascinated with her dexterity to look anywhere else.
They had given the fawn a draught to put it back to sleep again, and asleep it stayed. Magnus stared open-mouthed at the precise stitches Esmé took as she carefully closed the wound. They were so small they held the sides together evenly—and were, themselves, straight besides.
Not until the third time she kicked him did he pick up the recorder in his large hands. His father had given all three boys lessons, desiring that they be cultured as well as strong. Like Magnus, his father was ready for a new kind of world, or he had been long ago when his wife still lived. But Graeme and Hugh were not. They wanted to be soldiers, heroes, fighting for clan and home. Playing the recorder was not part of their plan. Nor Diarmid’s. Not anymore.
Magnus had tried, but his brothers had stayed around to mock him and his big hands, so he had given up. He picked up Esmé’s instrument and idly blew a note or two. Then two more. She looked up from her work and smiled at him, and that was all it took. He found his lessons came back to him, at least enough for him to play quietly. He watched the fawn’s heart beat through its wounded chest—through stitches and red oil and puckered burned skin. He saw that the heart beat slowed as he played, and though he could not feel what the small animal felt the way he now understood Esmé could, he could at least see the difference.
He could see, as she continued to sew, and stroke the fawn’s head and hold its feet in her palm, that she had given herself over heart and
soul to the wounded animal.
When she finished sewing, he gave her drops of the red oil on her fingers and showed her by motioning in the air, how she should drop it onto the burns without rubbing. “We’ll have to wait till tis somewhat more healed for that,” he said.
She met his gaze and both realized they would stay as long as necessary to be certain the fawn would heal fully. They smiled at each other and did not mind.
When Esmé had finished treating the burns on the animal’s side and back, she once again followed Magnus’s instructions and lightly bound the wound with more medicine, to keep it clean, and the burns to keep the oil in place. Finally, she gently lifted the fawn into her lap and took the warm medallion from her pocket. It was cool now, but still gleaming—infused with magical light. She placed it on top of the bandages as a final offering, a final gift of healing from the long ago past. Then she began to play her recorder, soothing all within its melody.
It came upon her and Magnus that they were bone-weary from their journey.
They closed their eyes, for all they could do now was wait.
That was when the white celestial deer finally lay down nearby and began to speak. For a long moment, they were awestruck by this spiritual figure. Both knew long ago deities had taken the shape of the sacred deer.
Only now that he sleeps can I take the time to tell ye why he has been calling ye to him for so long.
“It’s a male,” Magnus said in surprise, for he had thought it a female. But Esmé only smiled a secret smile.
Yes. The first—and only—white celestial deer born through these two centuries, for that is how the ancient gods proclaimed it. We are the protectors, the fertile, the honorable the loyal. Because the line had gone unbroken for thousands of years, the seasons change as the months pass: summer into autumn, autumn into winter, winter into spring and spring into summer. But from the moment of my son’s birth, he has been in danger.
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