The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2)

by Prue Batten

  Above him the heavens darkened to evening. The breeze dropped and from the sea came the haunting song of the roanes who graced the further rocks. Phelim could see them in his mind’s eye as he jumped over tussocks - beauteous as such wights always were, their graceful tails undulating in the tidal wash, phosphorescence caught in the moonlight gleam, their shoulders and breasts creamy white and covered in a shawl of trailing silver hair. Their song echoed and murmured, murmured and echoed - an eery melody to entrap the unwary, as evil and full of intent as the octopus that had given the kiss of death to Phelim’s burden.

  The bay glittered under the light of a full moon. Its reflection traced a path almost to Phelim’s feet so that he could walk on it if he chose - a moon bridge, a path to the Others or so the folks in the village would say and he wished now that he could walk this woman away from her doom along the bridge to safety.

  His path along the cliff-top was dogged by spriggans who chanted quaint rhymes and teased the shepherd.

  ‘Shepherd carries bag of wool.

  Silly man, silly fool.

  Faeran gives ‘ee much despair.

  Leaves ‘ee lost wi’out a care’.

  They repeated the same verse but in Other language and whilst the word ‘Faeran’ set up a tingle, Phelim endeavoured to ignore them, hearing a bark close by. As he rounded a corner in the track, Ebba and Spot met him.

  ‘She was lucky you were there.’ Ebba reached for the delicate arm as Phelim laid the girl on a bed of bracken.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said in her matter-of-fact manner. ‘I met Spot halfway. Aine Phelim, I hope we’re not too late.’ She prised the girl’s fingers away from the bag and tossed it to her stepson, bending to place her ear against the girl’s slight chest. ‘It beats faintly.’ She pushed a breath between the girl’s lips. ‘Phelim, she’s very cold, light a fire while I work.’

  Phelim piled bark and twigs and stroked a deft spark off his knife. In the flaring flame as Ebba pumped the girl’s chest and then stopped to breathe into the girl’s mouth, he could see the rigidity of the body, the wide eyes, the faint lilac of the lips.

  ‘Ebba.’ He touched her thin shoulders thinking she wasted her time.

  ‘Phelim, I shall tell you something,’ she puffed again and then compressed the chest. ‘This girl is Faeran, I can feel the frisson that is Other. I may yet be able to save her.’ Puff. Compress. ‘If I can breathe for her for a little while, she may survive the poison more so than a mortal.’ Puff. Compress. ‘Other than that,’ puff, compress, ‘there is nothing - no medic, no carlin’s charm to stop a poison strong enough to kill twenty mortals.’ Puff, compress.

  They took turns as the night dragged the moon across the sky and as the first bird called in the Squire’s avenue of oaks, a gasp echoed around the clearing.

  ‘That’s better! Come on muirnin, again.’

  Another throaty breath followed and the eyes, so fixed and dilated before, moved to focus. Black eyelashes feathered down over pallid cheeks and then wafted open again, the reduced pupils gazing vaguely at Ebba.

  ‘Cannot.’ The young woman’s voice rasped, her chest rising as each agonizing, greedy gasp was sucked. ‘Bane.’

  ‘Rubbish, child,’ Ebba scoffed. ‘Just breathe slowly.’

  ‘Soul flies.’ A tear trickled from the dark eyes and over the sculpted face. ‘Name Lhiannon. Help me.’ Her delicate fingers sought for something.

  ‘Phelim, the bag,’ Ebba grabbed the dirty chamois bag from her stepson and laid it in the clutching fingers as the hopeless eyes scrutinised the carlin.

  ‘Must help. Carlin. Almost Other.’ Breaths sucked in and out. ‘Bag to Jasper. Veniche.’ More breaths and fingers grasping Ebba’s own with bone-white strength. ‘Must help Others.’ The vague eyes sharpened for a moment and Ebba felt herself sucked into the vortex of their depths.

  ‘Jasper. The bag. I understand, muirnin. Rest you now.’ Ebba’s hand gently stroked the woman’s forehead as the breathing softened, becoming distanced and shallow. The eyes had closed and the boyish chest suddenly ceased its irregular rise and fall and Ebba, having placed a finger on the fragile neck, ran a soft and gentle hand round the girl’s face, blessing her in carlin-tongue.

  She stood up, her stepson helping her. ‘She’s gone.’ The carlin whose daily life familiarized her with death, spoke with empathetic calm. ‘She did well to battle as long as she did. The sea-spider kills swiftly.’ She looked down at the girl. ‘What a mystery.’

  She and Phelim laid the girl on a shawl in their dory in the creek by the side of Ebba’s house. Birds twittered, welcoming the warmth of morning and a welkin wind laced through the trees with whispers and sighs that came from some Other source. But they were kind whispers, sad sighs, as if whoever watched was bereaved and grieved.

  ‘If she was Other, Ebba, why didn’t she survive the bite? Is there not glamour she could have used? And if she is on a quest, why did she not return to Faeran through one of the Gates. Why even venture into the mortal world?’ Phelim folded the girl’s hands with consideration.

  ‘Indeed. But you must remember that Faeran are not infallible. They are as prone to bad judgment, Fate and timing as the rest of us. Patently the sea-creature was her bane and that proving so, she would never have survived. To be immortal was not Fate’s choice for her, poor wee thing. Although I confess I’m surprised. She is so young. Faeran usually go lifetimes beyond our own before they meet their bane. Why so short for this one?’ She tucked the fringes of the shawl away from the water with thoughtful fingers. ‘As to the Gate, the closest is reputed to be far from here and I suspect she was under duress, being hunted perhaps. Who knows? And her glamour? That I don’t know, perhaps she was exhausted beyond belief. Aine knows she looked it. Like I said, Phelim my love, it’s a mystery. But all that aside, here is a shade that must be sent on its way with all the respect it is due.’ A longer sigh whispered from under the veil of a willow and Ebba looked up. Even though she saw nothing, her skin tingled and she felt the touch of something odd and a knowledge that she didn’t want and wouldn’t countenance.

  Phelim pushed the dory away from the bank and watched the current grasp it. The bag swung by its cords in Ebba’s hands, and as the craft floated to the centre of the creek, he touched Ebba’s shoulder. Birds called and a lacy vapour wrapped around the boat so that it vanished from their sight.

  ‘Do you see anything, Phelim?’ Ebba asked.

  He barely needed to squint. ‘A throng of beautiful people who are sighing and crying,’ he said. ‘They’re wrapped in mist on the far bank. But I’ve no doubt it’s just a wild imagining.’

  Later, Ebba watched as Phelim stride off, shadowed by his dog. Every day she watched her stepson walk away filled her heart with pain because she knew it was one day closer to the moment of her vision. The calm that habitually flavoured her life disappeared as she gazed, so she shook her head and turned to the wooden trough to wash and stow her utensils. Then picking up her ashwood staff, she walked to a settle at the window and seated herself amongst cushions, Grimalkin leaping onto her lap, and she and the cat sat together staring at the chamois bag lying on the seat. She took it in her hands, mouthing a protective charm, and turned to the window to get a better look.

  The soft grey chamois had a layer of dirt and dried salt crystals in its folds and its neck was gathered tightly in a cord. Ebba’s bent and swollen fingers worked at the fibres, easing the knot apart until it slipped free. An opaque white mist drifted out intimating winter, frost, ice…

  And something else.

  She couldn’t bear to leave the bag open, grabbed the ends of the dark cord and jerked it shut, sitting with it closed in her fingers, her chest rising and falling. They’re souls! Faeran souls! Aine protect them! Aghast, she quickly placed the bag back on the seat and shrank against the window embrasure. Grimalkin had arched his back, hissing as the hair rose in a rigid line along the chain of his spine.

  The frigid puzzle in fr
ont of Ebba was something of which she only had the most basic knowledge. Faeran souls could be stolen with the legendary soul-syphon she remembered. Is it about then? Against all belief had it reared its terrifying head?

  And what about Jasper? The girl had mentioned him as if he were the solution to all the mysteries that curled in frightening fashion around Ebba’s shoulders. She had hoped never to hear his name again and suddenly his existence was as noticeable as the headache that threatened to crush her skull. She sat back and lit a pipe with the fragrant weed she so liked tamped into the bowl and sucked away with anxious puffs.

  ***

  I could imagine Ebba’s disquiet as she handled the souls. I had felt the same when they were in my own hands. Their black texture was indescribable, it made every part of me shiver and tremble and I felt guilty of an assault as I handled them weeks before - such intimate things, the very life-source of a being. I could imagine it would be like someone touching my own naked body without invitation. And to see them so vulnerable and treated with such disrespect by Severine made me not only vicious and angry but in the same breath unbelievably sad.

  Even then everything seemed so black, so hopeless, and it just seemed to get worse, like sinking into quicksand. But at least I knew the provenance of the souls and I had the advantage of Lhiannon as a knowledgeable helpmeet and companion. Poor Ebba knew nothing, neither whether the souls represented friend nor foe. Nor from whence they came and why.

  But now you must follow the bees again until you come to the next piece of embroidery. It’s a sprig of blue and yellow heartsease with smiling kitten-like faces. The whole is arched over by a sprig of honesty with its mother of pearl seed casings and another sprig that is in full flower. I hoped the astute observer would mark the bud, the flower and seedpods and imagine a season passing from the end of spring, through the heat of summer to the beginning of golden autumn - a reflection of time passing for me in this accursed place. It gives me a perverse pleasure to mark this passage.

  I want you to lift each of the leaves and you will find two books and three more under the heartsease. There is no excuse for you to stop.

  Chapter Three

  ‘This is paltry. Where is the progress I demanded? At this rate you shall be in your dotage before you finish half of it. What in Hell’s name have you been doing?’ Severine threw the stitching down in disgust, her face drawn sharper with her whining demands.

  ‘Stitching, what do you think?’ Adelina turned an insolent eye on Severine, daring her to strike again. Like the times she had hit her when Lhiannon escaped. ‘Do you think that I play games with myself in your absence?’

  But Severine folded her hands into a tight knot, refusing to be drawn. Instead she spoke in quicksilver tones. ‘Have you looked through the gate into the field at your beloved Ajax lately?’

  ‘If you think to scare me with your threats, Severine, don’t bother. I am doing the best I can. But then this you know, don’t you - I am the best or you wouldn’t have imprisoned me to do your wretched embroidery for you. Aine knows you could never have stitched it yourself because you were never an embroiderer, were you? Never inherited your mother’s skill. There was a stitcher.’ She looked at her captor; every word, every action designed to cause loss of control for there was masochistic pleasure in punishment, each little word aimed to strike with the sharpness of a stiletto point. ‘Besides, have you got the souls back? The need is hardly great when you have still to find them. Oh but of course,’ she laughed as she stared at her adversary. ‘You do have that loathsome ring. You could find some more Faeran, syphon more souls... couldn’t you?’

  Palpable anger rippled across Severine’s face. Adelina’s convoluted spirit soared to triumphant heights as the woman hastened to the embroiderer’s side and pinched her shoulder in a painful grip. ‘You push too hard, bicce! Keep pushing and I shall kill that nag of yours.’

  ‘Kill that nag of mine and I shall never finish the robe. You kill him, you kill me, end of embroiderer, and oh dear, end of robe. Go away, Severine, leave me solitary. The more you are in my ambit, the less I feel like working.’

  Severine sucked in a frenzied breath, nostrils dilating and storm grey eyes freezing further. Her hair fluttered about her face as she turned, black strands slick with a silky sheen. Her gown flowed like liquid around her body.

  ‘Work, Adelina. Your life will be worse if you don’t.’ Severine stormed from the room, her henchman Luther pulling the door shut behind the two of them.

  Adelina thought back to a Faeran phrase Liam had taught her. Bain as, oh, bain as! Piss off, she thought with disgust and then sighed as she wondered how many months she had been imprisoned and counted on her fingers. One, two, three - three since Liam and Kholi had been murdered - three months during which time she had been intimately privy to the evil Severine and Luther manifested.

  One day in the acres of garden, waterfowl had exploded into the air with a cacophony of bird cries as gunshot after gunshot peppered the air. Ducks, geese and heron had fled in a feathered stampede as one after another of the flock was hit by gunshot and plummeted to the ground in a horrifying eruption of down. Adelina froze to the spot, her hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

  A swan-cry echoed across the sky as she saw the elegant bird banking to flee the massacre. She heard Severine scream orders to Luther and then the bark of the harquebus, saw the ebony shape tumble and flutter and found herself running to the killing-field.

  Surrounded by the bloodied and shattered bodies of birds, a swan-maid lay in a huddled black heap gasping, her shoulder shot to pieces. Severine rolled her over with a disdainful toe, grinning at Adelina as the brutalized maid uttered a faint cry. Adelina threw herself down by the Other’s side, wadding a kerchief and trying to staunch the blood from the gaping hole.

  ‘Oh please stitcher, control yourself,’ Severine gazed down, her voice stripping away the last of Adelina’s sensiblities. ‘She’s a damned shape-changer, no doubt sister to the one who took my souls. What does it matter? One less methinks and glorious retribution for me.’

  ‘Bicce. BICCE,’ Adelina screamed but the woman laughed - a single ugly sound. Adelina went to leap at her but the swan-maid grabbed her hand and pulled her down close by the beautiful mouth.

  She whispered a faint plea. ‘Tell Maeve Swan Maid. Revenge.’ Her eyes closed and her hand fell away, leaving her just another lifeless shell amongst the feathered debris of the killing spree.

  Back in her room, Adelina had shivered as the morass of hate bubbled away. She needed the comfort of companionship and care. She missed Ajax... even as she sat and sewed she could smell that wonderful equine fragrance. She could feel his muzzle brushing over the top of her hand, tickling with his chin whiskers and she could hear the quaint ‘lollop’ sound he made as his lips mouthed her palm, licking off the saltiness of human sweat. And then she imagined another altogether more lusty mouth licking her palm and other parts but she pricked her finger with the needle in agitation and resolved not to dwell on Kholi for if she did she would cry a stream, a river, perhaps even an ocean.

  She missed her kindred spirit Ana, missed the sisterhood. She missed Liam, the love of Ana’s life. Adelina had watched him, this Faeran who was supposedly immune to pain and grief, watched him curl in upon himself and suffer the same gut-wrenching pangs any mortal endured. Adelina had held strong views about the avaricious egoism of all Faeran and he was some of that - a little bit - perhaps. Ah, he had been such an enigma. He had wanted to learn about mortal life, to feel the pain, experience the dross as well as the gold. He had forgone his immortality, desiring to be as close to Ana in death as life, never imagining death would be waiting only seconds away for both of them. How Adelina had delighted in telling Severine that Liam had taken potions to remove his immortality. But the insane woman still maintained it was an immortal Faeran soul she had syphoned through her grim little ring that fateful day. Adelina gave a wry, watery smirk. A Faeran soul to be sure... but a soul as afflicted with m
ortality as Luther’s or her own.

  ‘Don’t fret, milady of the thread.’

  Adelina’s head jerked up at the voice that spoke from behind her and she spun around.

  Standing leaning against the wall was a thin young man with wispy golden hair cut around his face. His clothes seemed covered in shadows that patterned him all over. As if broken light dropped through leaves and buds. Boots laced up his skinny legs and his grin alighted on her in a friendly way. The angular face exhibited a chin dusted in fine down as though by growing a fledgling whisker he was learning to be a man.

  ‘A time spent in melancholy is time wasted. Better to enjoy the moments you are given and let sadness drift away,’ he spoke melodically and picked up a piece of silk thread to toss it in the air, ‘like a piece of silk on the breeze.’ The cerise thread hovered for a moment and then drifted on a current towards the open window and out, up into the sky. The lad pointed with a lazy finger. ‘Like so.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Adelina’s crisp voice replied. ‘And as you are Other for how else would you manifest in my room, that would be easy to do. Enjoy the time rather than dwell on sadness, no matter how profound.’

  ‘Sadness is an emotion that has little place in my life because I choose not to let it, Needlewoman. If that be Other then so be it. But I tell you this. I know sadness. I could be sad.’ He walked to the window and squinted into the light, perhaps to discern the thread he had consigned to the air. ‘But I choose not to.’ He spun round quickly and walked to her side to lean back against the table and look down at her. He grinned, two dimples marking the lower edges of his cheeks, and she noticed his green-flecked eyes. ‘Do what I do, Adelina. You have work to finish and plans to be made. Such introspection wastes your time.’