Any feeling of contentment left Grace in that moment. She felt the old pleasure seeping out of her, like water out of a cracked mug. Yet she knew it was true.
“I—I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Balat, I don’t mean to be so, but I don’t seem to be able to stop. I am not happy playing nursemaid to such a struggling student. I feel purposeless. When we made our trip, I felt powerful and capable and eager; now I am only bored. There must be something I can do while you teach Tarr only basics.”
“So you felt ready for new challenges after our trip? And you chafe because the Goddess has not sent you one?” Balat walked quietly, hands clasped behind his back. “Did you not say that the Goddess had made you Hers?”
“Yes.”
“Do you suppose that, after all that, She knows not what you want, what you strive for? Do you think She forgets you, or does not see you?”
Grace could feel where Balat was going and her frustration began to ebb away. “No.”
“Perhaps what you desire and what the Goddess desires are two different things, then?”
Grace sighed. “Perhaps. And perhaps the challenge that I desire is not what I need but the challenge She sends me is. And my challenge is Tarr.”
Balat smiled sideways at her. “Oh? How clever.”
Grace laughed for the first time in many days. “I see, Balat. But understanding does not always bring peace. I still do not like Tarr; I may never like him. Will you think less of me if I cannot love him as a brother?”
Balat took Grace’s hand in his and squeezed it. “No, I will think no less of you. For that matter, you may be as untrusting, as discontented and as miserable as you like.”
“No!” Grace said quickly. “I don’t want to be those things.”
“But you cling to them so. You must want them. And that is all right. You can be unhappy as long as you like; Tarr and I will continue on our way all the same. You may join us when you wish.”
Taken aback by that, Grace mulled his words over in her mind for a few long moments. She hadn’t thought her lack of enthusiasm was her fault; she’d been laying the blame on Tarr. Was it possible it was her determination to make and not his?
She had a choice. The truth of that rang in her mind silently, something given to her as a gift. She had a choice. She could be sullen if she liked or she could be joyous. She could be whatever she wanted.
“Perhaps I am not quite ready to be joyous, yet,” she said finally. “Perhaps I need to be miserable a bit longer. Just a little bit.”
“If that is what you feel, I honor that,” Balat said. “Only you know what is in your heart.” He smiled at her. “You are my love, Grace, no matter what.”
Comforted some, Grace smiled back. “I think I would like to be alone for a bit, Balat. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. I will walk back to the cabin and see how our young student is doing.”
Grace watched him walk away through the forest and her heart filled with love for him. He was truly her greatest gift. Alone, she walked aimlessly among the trees.
The words Balat had said circled around in her mind and seemed to lose their meaning, yet the feeling of them remained. Grace felt some sadness that perhaps she had failed somehow, failed to trust in the Goddess, failed to see Her purpose. Yet she was not the Goddess herself and could a mere human know all that was in the Creatrix’s mind?
She found a place where the cool autumn sun streamed down through a break in the trees and she sat at the foot of the opaque light. Raising her eyes, she saw dust and pollen and insects and tiny bits of leaves all dancing in the whiteness, all the tiny things that made up the living breath of the forest. She felt a strange kinship to the small bits of matter; they were all so small, almost insignificant, yet each had its purpose. Each was created and sent forth for a reason.
Dear Goddess, Grace prayed, falling forward onto her knees, I am so small, please help me to know Your bidding. Please help me to be strong and wise and knowing so I may do what You wish. I am human, not like You, and I make mistakes. But I can learn. Help me learn.
The forest air that was thick and silent began to thrum somewhere far away and Grace’s eyes caught at a moth that fluttered rapidly in the light. It moved within the river of streaming sun as if caught there, held in by the light, able to move up or down but not out. As Grace watched, it began to climb, and with ever-strengthening beats of its wings, it strove higher and higher into the streaming, opaque light. Soon it was lost in the whiteness and Grace found herself staring helplessly at the brilliance of the sun as it flashed and swam beyond the tree tops. It was at once warm and soothing, and cold and stark. She blinked against its brightness and thought she should turn her eyes away, but something held her there.
Make mistakes, a voice said inside her head. You are my love, Grace, no matter what.
That afternoon, Tarr was again chopping wood at the stump before the cabin and he saw from the corner of his eye as Grace wandered back alone. Her disinterest in him was confounding; sometimes he felt angry, sometimes afraid, sometimes just lonely. She was so different; would he ever understand her? He tried, but seemed to always fall short.
Half frustrated, half moved to carelessness by her nearness, he raised the ax high over his head and yanked it down as hard as he could on the block of wood he was cutting. The ax head shimmered in the late sun, turned the smallest bit sideways in the air, and caromed violently off the wood. Tarr felt the force of the collision vibrate down the ax handle into his own hands and it seemed as if the misplaced energy burned him. With a yelp, he dropped the ax to the ground and clutched one hand to the other in pain. Almost afraid to look, he pried his own bent fingers open, and found his palm spattered and oozing with blood. His hand stung like fire.
“Let me see.”
He had forgotten all about Grace. She stood before him, head bent over his hands, and gently opened the one that bled so she could see the damage. Her touch was as soft as a breeze, barely the whisper of a butterfly’s wings on his skin.
“Oh, you’ve broken a blister,” she said. “It looks very painful. Let me get some cool water and I’ll clean it for you.”
Bewildered by her sudden attention, Tarr stood dumbly while she got a clean cloth and soaked it in cooling water. When she returned to him, she again took his callused hand in her small, soft one and carefully dabbed the blood away from the angry, broken blister.
“Does that hurt?” she asked.
Shaken, Tarr had to force himself to remember what it was he’d injured. Belatedly he glanced down at his hand and murmured, “No,” to her bent head.
“Well, I think just the water will cool it,” she said, her voice dreamy and far away. “But if not, Balat will have some salve to put on it. There, I’ve stopped the bleeding already.”
She smoothed the blister once more with her cloth, then closed Tarr’s hand and gave it back into his own keeping. She looked up at him and smiled.
Tarr stood speechless, groping for words or even thoughts that made sense. Grace’s eye glowed at him with a warm light, a light that had nothing to do with the slanting afternoon sun. It was a light of love and mercy and care, a light that illuminated her face and lit her from within. For a crazy, fleeting second, he almost thought the Goddess Herself stared at him through Grace’s eyes but he had never seen the Goddess before, and the image disappeared before he could convince himself it was there at all.
“Do you want me to call Balat?” she asked. “I will if you want.”
“N-no,” Tarr stammered. “No, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“All right.” She smiled again, gracious, giving and kind. “I’ll go see if he needs help with dinner.” And she turned away from him and it seemed as if that light was physically taken from him, as if he turned cold in that moment after. He watched her pick her way across the wood-littered yard and go into the cabin and when the door shut behind her, he shook himself as if from a dream.
He opened his hand and looked down, and
felt the chill of autumn shiver up his spine.
The blister was completely healed.
An early, wet snow coated the forest with a thick blanket of whiteness, and the three people huddled near the fire for warmth. The snow fell in complete silence, muffling the world it seemed, so the only sound in the cabin was the crackle and hiss of the fire. Hava the owl sat dejectedly on his lofty perch, glaring out as if this unhuntable weather were the fault of the humans below.
“Poor Hava,” Balat sympathized. “If this storm lasts much longer, we will have to go out and catch mice for him ourselves, or else die from the wounds of those daggers in his eyes.”
Grace chuckled. “I am glad my owl doesn’t glare at me so. Dya is quite content to hang at her place on the wall.”
Balat glanced sideways at the wooden charm that hung over Grace’s bed. “She is,” he admitted. “Although I have yet to see Dya sit on your shoulder and coo into your ear.”
“True enough,” Grace said. “But I doubt Hava would coo in your ear today, either. He might bite part of it off, but perhaps you would be willing to feed him that rather than catch mice.”
The two laughed at their companionable bickering, and Hava shifted sullenly from one clawed foot to the other. He obviously saw no humor in it.
Neither did Tarr. After the incident with the ax, he had thought perhaps things had changed between him and Grace, that she was finally opening up to him. And, in fact, that was true; she no longer hid her eyes from him, or made excuses to be away from him. That strange quality of light he had seen in her eyes had not remained but she still smiled sweetly and spoke gently to him. But now it was that very sweet smile and gentle tone that seemed unreachable in a way she hadn’t before. The change that should have been advantageous to him, but wasn’t, became a vexation instead. And he was no closer to understanding her than before.
“It’s good that we got all our preparations done for the winter,” Balat said. “This storm is moving very slowly, giving the snow plenty of time to accumulate. We may be here for awhile.”
“I will miss my walks,” Grace said, “but this will be a good time to start some mending. I just can’t seem to force myself to sew when it is nice outside.”
“And I have some herbs that need preparing,” Balat agreed. “I am like you and find it hard to keep my eyes on the pestle if the day is beckoning. What about you, Tarr? Have you anything that waited for a snowstorm to be attended to?”
Tarr roused himself from his silent reverie and shook his head. “No. I have little use for indoor work. I have always hated winter for that reason. This kind of cold, wet snow is misery for me.”
“Well, you are more than welcome to go outside and find what work you may,” Balat said, “or you can help me with my potions.”
Tarr sighed. “All right. What needs to be done?”
Grace sat by the fire where the wavering light set an orange gleam to her needle of bone, and Tarr and Balat moved the table into the center of the room where they could work freely all around it. Tarr went to clear off the crockery that they used for meals and almost tripped over the rocks Balat had piled against the wall. Kicked by the toe of Tarr’s boot, one rock rolled free of the pile and teetered, glinting, in the firelight.
“Oh, those rocks,” Balat said. “Just set it near the wall. Maybe in spring I will take them outside. This cabin seems too small for three of us and all my paraphernalia, too.”
Tarr bent to pick up the rock and it shimmered dully in his hand. “That reminds me,” he said, “I found such a rock days ago. I’d forgotten about it until now.”
“Oh?” Balat asked. “Found it where?”
“Out by the wood pile. I was stacking wood and trying to level the ground so it would stack more closely, and I dug this rock out of the ground. It’s in the pocket of my coat.”
Tarr retrieved the rock and handed it to Balat. From across the room, Grace could see glints of reflected firelight as the older man turned the rock in his hand.
“A very nice rock,” Balat said passively. “Did it speak to you?”
“Speak to me?” Tarr asked. Frowning, he thought back to that day. “I don’t know. Do you mean words? It didn’t speak words.”
“Not words.” Balat shook his head. He looked over at Grace. “Do we have any wood saved?”
Grace put down her sewing. “I’m sure we do.”
“Wood?” Tarr echoed. “We have all kinds of wood. I said I was stacking it—”
“Not that kind,” Balat interrupted kindly. “This is special wood. Get some, would you, Grace?”
Without a word, Grace rose and went to Balat’s plant larder where she extracted a handful of small, dried twigs and a small metal brazier. She set the brazier on the hearth in front of the fireplace where Tarr could bathe his rock in the smoke, yet the smoke could still be drawn up the chimney. With no further direction from Balat, she started a small fire in the brazier, using regular wood, and set the prized twigs to one side where they could be added once the fire was strong.
“Here.” Balat gave Tarr back his rock. “Grace will show you what to do.”
Confused and unsure of their purpose, Tarr followed Balat’s direction and went to the hearth where Grace waited. She indicated the brazier.
“Sit here, and feed the small twigs to the fire. You’ll know when it’s ready.”
“What do I do when it’s ready?”
“Bathe the rock in the smoke. The smoke will cleanse the stone and clear the crystals. Only then can the stone speak to you.”
Enthralled, yet doubtful, Tarr built up the fire. As he added the special twigs, puffs of blue smoke began to rise up out of the flames.
“Watch the fire,” Grace commanded. “See the smoke. See how some of it is white and some of it is blue. Do you see?”
“Yes.” Tarr did see, but his eyes were playing tricks on him. He closed them, rubbed them with his fingers.
“Watch!” Grace commanded. “Don’t take your eyes off it. What do you see in the smoke?”
Tarr squinted at the smoke. It coiled sinuously above the brazier before it turned and was drawn into the fireplace. It reminded him of something, but ...
“What do you see?” Grace asked again. “Do you see the serpents?”
Serpents, Tarr repeated to himself. There were no serpents. It was only smoke. Blue smoke coiling about the white.
“Do you see them?”
“I—no,” he gulped. “There are no serpents. It is only smoke.”
“Let go,” Grace said, and her voice had gone soft and far away. “You’re hanging on too tightly. Let go, Tarr. See the serpents.”
Tarr’s vision swam and blurred, but his mind recognized no snakes. It was all smoke. How could he see serpents where there were none?
“Let go, Tarr. Let go.”
“There are ... no snakes,” he said in a pained voice.
The smoke spiraled and coiled and drifted silently for a moment, seemed to be the only thing alive in the cabin. Then, quietly, Grace continued her instruction.
“Hold the rock in the stream of smoke. Hold it so the smoke can reach all the sides, all the facets. Bathe the stone in the smoke.”
Obediently, Tarr did as he was told. He held the rock over the fire and turned it carefully and smoke fingers reached in and touched and caressed every node and niche of the stone.
“Do you feel it?” Grace asked in a hushed voice. “Do you hear it?”
Tarr struggled. He held the rock up and peered at it keenly; he strained to hear ... something. No sounds came to him. No feelings. Only ... something prickling along the back of his neck. The small hairs on the backs of his hands stood up, electric, taut, questioning. He felt chilled, yet sweat broke out on his brow. He began to tremble and tensed his body to make it stop. He gritted his teeth against the unfamiliar feelings that plucked at him.
“Let go!” Grace hissed. “Would you close a door on the Goddess? Let go!”
Torn by conflicting emotions, Tarr gri
pped the rock more firmly. Sweat ran into his eyes. This was no Goddess work, he thought. Yet, if I could open, maybe ... But it was silly. Rocks don’t speak. But if Grace could do it, why couldn’t he? But ...
“Augh!” Bellowing, the small hairs on his hand puffing into flame, Tarr flung the rock across the room. He jerked his singed hand against his chest and smothered the flame in the material of his shirt. The acrid smell of burnt hair mixed with the aroma of the wood in the room.
“By the Shift!” Tarr swore. “Where’s the burn salve? That damn smoke is hotter than the fire!”
For a moment, Grace sat as if blind, her eyes unfixed and staring, her body tense. The smoke began to break into disjointed whorls as the wood burned into char and with a small hiss, fell in on itself in the brazier.
“Grace,” Balat said. Just across the room, his voice sounded eons away.
Grace stirred, blinked her eyes, and rose from the hearth. With a fluidity that was ghostlike, she found the ointment and brought it to Tarr. The boy sat quiet and sullen as she soothed the cooling mixture over the angry red welts on his hand. When she was certain she had coated every bit of burn, she wrapped the hand in a clean cloth and returned the salve to Balat’s larder. Only then did she retrieve the rock from the floor where Tarr had thrown it.
She turned and faced Tarr. “Do you want it?” she asked quietly.
Tarr glanced at the rock and then returned his attention to his hand which still stung. “No. I don’t want it,” he said sullenly.
Nodding, Grace turned away. Without a word to Balat, she walked past the older man to her cot and placed the rock on the floor beside it. Her back to the men, she pulled up the rough blanket and slid beneath it, then pulled it up to her chin. In seconds, the shallow rise and fall of her shoulder slowed into a rhythm of sleep.
The snow stopped falling that night and in the morning the day was clear and painfully white. The thick, heavy snow glittered like diamond dust, turning the entire forest into a dreamscape. The air was cold and vaporous.
“After breakfast,” Balat said to Tarr, “I’ll help you dig a path to the wood pile. We need to bring as much as we can into the house.”
Goddess Rising Page 15