by M. C. Elam
When she finished, he set the cup aside and stroked her forehead until she quieted.
“My babe can’t come,” she told him.
“Worry not child. Soon you will sleep.”
Her deep regular breathing told Evan that the potion worked. She watched Melendarius placed both hands on Chinera’s belly. His words, strange and dreamlike, urged the babe forth. Outside the storm raged, pushing against the cottage walls, an endless fury that split the sky and threatened to drown the earth. Embers burst from the hearth and scattered over the floor. They smoldered to ash and left little blackened dots wherever they landed. Evan didn’t know when she decided this storm was different from any she had ever witnessed. This storm clawed the earth, and twisted the trees until they flew apart. This storm tossed heavy branches like so much kindling. This storm wanted something, and Evan thought she knew what it was. It found a path through the chimney. Glutted with power, it sculpted the flames into a jagged, misshapen hand that streaked across the room, caught the hem of the robe Melendarius wore, tried to climb and fell back, tried again, smoldered, and withdrew. Defeated but no less angry, the storm fled. Thunder rumbled in the distance, where the mountains rose above the valley, and dark clouds settled over the peaks like a rumpled blanket. Here it waited.
She would never know how Melendarius brought the babe, but in those moments while the storm ebbed, he lifted Chinera’s daughter in his own two hands and sang a dedication prayer in the old way, a language she knew from Gram, slow drawn syllables like precious jewels full of earth and sky, a song to the Mother.
“By what name do you call your daughter, Chinera,” he asked.
“Ceri,” she whispered. “My wee girl be Ceri Whelan.”
Evan’s hands felt like icy stumps glued to the ends of her arms, but Melendarius, her anchor in the present, drew her away, out of the cottage in the forest where the baby slept beside Chinera. She saw the sky, clear and blue overhead, and sought what lay beyond the billowing clouds. The storm was gone, left behind in Chinera’s cottage, and even there, its spent energy made no further threat. Why did Melendarius hold her earthbound when the sky beckoned? She struggled to push him away and felt his mind wrap around her own pulling her back, drawing her in, like a kite at the end of a string. Melendarius, her tether, Melendarius her guide turned jailer; he was too strong, far stronger than she. She wanted to resist him, climb higher and higher, but she was losing ground, falling, falling, falling.
“Open your eyes, Evangeline. Look at me. Evan, open your eyes.” Melendarius cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her head from her chest. “Come girl. I know you hear me. Now open your eyes.”
“Melendarius?”
“Aye, girl. There now, there you are.”
“I almost got away.”
“Aye, you did.”
“I flew among the clouds.”
“Indeed, and nearly slipped from my grasp. You have great power, Evangeline.”
“I saw a woman named Chinera. You helped her give birth during a terrible storm. The babe nearly died before you came.”
“Aye.”
“I saw your memories, didn’t I?”
“I can only show you through my memories, Evangeline.”
“She called her Ceri.”
He nodded.
“The babe is important.”
“Oh, so very important.”
“That Chinera, that woman with the red hair, she is my Chinera?”
“In a way, she is, yes.”
Evan stood and crossed the room to a straw stuffed pallet in the corner and knelt beside it. The pup Marcus dubbed a runt because she was the smallest in the litter, lifted her head and whimpered. Eventually, the description had turned into her name. Evan scratched her behind the ears, and she rolled over on her back expecting a belly rub. Evan smiled and obliged.
“The same Chinera that birthed Runt?”
“Aye.”
“And the baby born during that storm, the one she called Ceri was a girl?”
“A girl child,” he nodded.
“Melendarius?” She turned her face toward him, her eyes held a strange kind of recognition that things believed impossible might be attainable after all, like flying through clouds and talking without words. “That girl child was me.”
She didn’t need his affirmation to know she was right. She lifted the pup into her arms. All legs and tongue, Runt licked her face with mad abandon and wiggled so much, Evan could barely hold on to her. “Shush, little, sister, I’ll not be able to hold you this way much longer.”
She returned to the chair across from Melendarius. “I want to know the rest, all of it.”
“No more cloud dancing?”
“No more.”
He took her along again, back through memory to the morning of the raid. She saw it all, walked with him through the commons, watched her father die, felt Chinera’s horror. The choking feeling she remembered from the first day she and Marcus returned to Baline, the day she found the root cellar under the cottage floor returned. She watched her mother running from the village. She saw the little girl wrapped in a blue woolen shawl lying still and silent, alone in a thicket.
“She deserted me!”
“She saved you.”
He pulled her through the forest to the place where Chinera lay among the trees. The other Melendarius knelt beside her. She saw his tears and knew her mother lay close to death. He beckoned to something out of sight, something watching from the trees, and a white wolf came to him. He spoke softly, and the wolf licked his hand and lay down beside Chinera. She stroked the snowy coat, and so weakened by the effort, her pale hand rested against its side.
Because of the tears that streamed down her cheeks Evan’s vision blurred, or maybe it was because Melendarius could not show her the forest magic. Whatever the reason, all she saw was a golden light that settled over the three of them. Time seemed to stop. Birdsong died away. Only the trees witnessed his ministering hand, the trees, Melendarius, and the Lady of Baline. At first she thought he tried to save her mother. Bring her back, she prayed, make her whole. Was his magic that strong? Despite what she knew in the present, she wished for that more than anything, but when he stood away from the body, she knew her mother was dead. The golden light withdrew from Chinera’s body and hovered over the wolf. The animal took a rigid stance near the body and accepted the light, absorbed it not in part, but all at once, like a flood. The snowy ruff around its neck stood out, and it raised its head to the night sky, to the moon. The sound of its call was one Evan knew. She had heard it often enough. Here was her Chinera, strong and vital, bursting with the spirit of her dead mother.
Evan did not have to follow the wolf to know that it led Melendarius to the little girl. She stood beside the living Melendarius and watched the figures from his memory travel off through the trees.
***
Runt struggled in her arms. She was back in the cottage again, and Marcus held out a tankard of mead.
“You be a bit pale, Lady Evan. Give me that pup and take this.”
“I must have dozed off,” she said.
She felt dull and senseless, as though she had slept too long and, while she had, somehow the world changed. No, not the world, but her place in it. She had substance now, a mother a father. She came from Baline. Her parents had died during the raid. She had proof. She had the memories.
“Marcus?” Her eyes held a question he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.
“Aye, milady.”
“Where did you find me?”
“On the mountain,” he offered without resignation.
“Alone?”
Aw now here be the part he dreaded. “Nay, wee girl, I found you there sure enough, but Chinera be there guarding you.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“Aye, Melendarius be there.”
“You know my real name?”
He dropped his head. “I never treated you false, milady. Me and Gram always tried to keep you safe.
It be true. I know your real name.”
“How long?” She whispered. When he didn’t answer, she twined her fingers through his, brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I know you love me. I know anything you did to hide my identity; you did for me. You’ve always known, haven’t you?”
He took a ragged breath and covered her hand with his own. “Aye, wee girl. Long time back when I found you, Melendarius said as how Gram and me should raise you up a foundling child. Gram set great store in that old man, and I set great store in her.”
Evan nodded. “Did they give you a reason?”
He nodded. “They give me a reason of sorts. Not sure it makes much sense, but Gram said you be a healer born of the Mother. My guess be Melendarius knows.” He patted her hand. “You bearing a grudge to me now, milady?”
“I be holding you as dear in my heart as ever,” she answered falling into the old vernacular. “Where be Melendarius?
He turned his head. “Yonder, milady, resting. He be tired out, gray as a ghost when I come from tending the stock. Set I was on helping him to his bed, but he shook me off and said I should tend to you. Said you’d be tuckered, too.”
Evan handed him the tankard and stood. She crossed the room and knelt beside Melendarius. He did look so old and tired. She touched his forehead, and her cool fingers pushed back a wispy lock of snowy hair. His features twisted in a restless dream, eased, turned serene at her touch, and she abandoned her plan to wake him.
15 - Glenny’s Journal
“Milady, I be begging you.”
“Marcus, can’t you understand that the whole of my life I’ve been as nothing, and now to know my name, the names of my family. I have to see for myself. If you won’t take me, I’ll go alone, but go I must.”
“I’d not be letting that happen. Of course I’ll take you, but not just now, not before you know the way of it.”
She stamped her foot in frustration. “I don’t want to make you angry with me, Marcus. You’re more than my friend, and I love you well. But I must see my name in the ledger. I have a birth name, Marcus, one that ties me to a place. I am a person of the land. That dear old man held the knowledge I so craved”
“And by old man, I suppose, milady, you mean me. I thank you for the dear part, at least.”
“Melendarius, there you are.” She turned around and found him standing in the doorway of the Baline inn, leaning heavily on Lunarey. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“Nay, girl, I am good enough. Just old as you so aptly describe. Amazing what one hears standing in the entry corridor of a country inn, even in so remote a place as Baline.” He looked around the inside of the common room and nodded. “Good work, Marcus, and a smart move. Every time I come the place looks better. Never can tell when travelers with a bit of coin might stop to pass the night.”
“Aye,” said Marcus. “Kitchen fireplace be the most sound in the village.”
“That’s true,” said Evan. “We’ve been making our meals here while you were gone.”
“Well then, a mug of mint tea might serve if you can spare some for an old,” he cleared his throat, “very old, man.”
Evan’s cheeks burned, but the merry glint in his eye eased her conscience. She rushed into the kitchen to fetch the tea. A kettle that hung across the fire was already steaming. She lifted it with a pothook and set it on the wooden table in the center of the room where dried mint and other herbs hung from a rack attached to the ceiling. She gathered a few of the leaves, crumbled them onto a small square of cheesecloth, joined the corners, and held it over a large mug. When she poured the steaming water over the top, a minty smell filled the room. She dipped the tea sack into the mug a few times until the water turned a greenish gold and then added a touch of brandy. She cut thick slices of bread from a fresh loaf and arranged them on a tray along with a crock of butter and small paddle spreader. By the time she finished and returned to the common room, Melendarius was sitting on bench near an open window. Benjamin perched on the sill and pecked at a broken shard of glass that, despite years of weather, stuck firmly in the casement.
“Stop that bird. You’ll cut your throat,” he said.
Benjamin cocked his black head sideways, eyed him, hopped through the window and perched on his shoulder.
“You know, don’t you, Lady Evangeline, that a raven isn’t really black at all. See how Benjamin’s feathers reflect color.” He took the mug of mint tea, held it under his nose, and sniffed. “Delightful, dear girl, right down to that heavenly bit of brandy you laced it with. You needn’t have, you know. I expect brandy is a rare commodity here.” He took a swallow. “Now tell me. What’s all this about Falmora?”
Evan slid onto the bench across the table. “I want to go to the Falmora Cathedral. I want to see my name in the census ledger. I’ll go by myself if I must.”
“And Marcus told you to wait.”
“Aye, he did. He thinks the trip’s too hard for me.”
Melendarius laughed aloud, and Benjamin mimicked the sound with a deep-throated gronka, gronka.
“I doubt anything is too much for you, milady. However, seeking your name in the ledger is futile. You won’t find it.”
“Aye, wee Evan. Melendarius speaks true. I be set to tell you.” He scratched his brow with work-calloused fingers. “But,” His voice drifted away.
“But,” Melendarius picked up where he left off. “she’s cussed stubborn.” He took a another drink of tea and swirled it over his tongue, savoring the mix of mint and brandy before he swallowed. “Just like her mama. She didn’t give you a chance, did she, lad?”
“Tell me, then.” She patted her foot and looked from one of them to the other. “That ledger is a record of every birth, death, and marriage in Ascalla. Why is my name missing?”
“That’s just it, my girl. You missed the census taker. He came two years before your birth and wasn’t due again until the spring after the raid. Your name is not in the ledger.”
“Missed him, you say.” Wrinkles formed on her brow and she screwed her mouth in a grimace.
“I be fixin’ to tell you,” said Marcus. He took a hammer from his box of tools and gave the broken glass a sharp tap. It came free of the window casing and fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up. “I be knowing it sits hard with you, milady, but name or no name writ in a book don’t’ change who you be.” He tossed the glass into his toolbox.
“Mine, mine, mine,” Benjamin squawked and raced for the box.
“I think not, my crafty friend.” Melendarius poked him with a finger and the raven fell on his side.
“Murder, murder, murder.”
“Well,” said Evan. She crumbled a piece of bread into small pieces and Benjamin, having decided he was not dead after all, snatched one in his talons and pecked away at it. “You’re right. It doesn’t change who I am.”
“Sorry I be, wee Evan.” He hated the dejected look he saw in her eyes saddened him. He shouldered the toolbox and started outside. “Best I get to setting the shutter over the windy.” He knew how she loved bright places and wished he had fresh panes of glass for the windy-light. Dark came on early now that winter knocked at the door. Without glass panes, they’d be closing the shutters against the cold soon enough.
“A moment, Marcus, if you don’t mind,” said Melendarius. “I want to tell Evan something. You should hear it, too.”
“A-right. Spect chores’ll wait a might longer.”
“Evan, your gram, your blood grandmother that is, she, too, was a Lady of Baline. Her name was Glenny Owein. I officiated at her spring rites the day she wed your grandfather. The two of them tended to the business of Baline all their lives. She had a special talent for words, and I taught her to read and write. Glenny kept journals, and in them, she wrote much about Baline, more than any census record. The point is, girl, if I know anything about her at all, it’s that she’d have kept her journals safe.”
“What happened to her, Melendarius?”
“Gone in the rai
d, child. But she’d want you to have those journals. You’ll find your family history inside them and your name.”
“What if they burned with everything else?”
“Fires happen for more reasons than raids, Evan. She’d have stowed them somewhere safe.”
“A safe place for writing papers and such as that?” asked Marcus.
“Aye, lad.”
“I might be knowing of a place. Just across the creek south a here they be a rise in the ground made purely out of rock. Down to the end be a cave. Short cave, it don’t go far back in the rock. Least ways it looks like it don’t. Opening slides into the ground then stops. Go up the other side and along the back wall you come to another opening. Gotta to crawl through and it be pretty tight, but back there I’m thinking might be a safe place for hiding something like a journal.”
“Have you been inside?” asked Melendarius.
“A long time past when I be a tad. I be too big these days to crawl through, but,” he nodded toward Evan, “you’d fit, milady.”
***
“Look at that.” Evan held her torch high enough to cast light against the nearest wall. The air inside the cave was stale, and the fire from the torch sucked on it until both of them were breathless.
“Drawings from the long ago time,” said Melendarius.
“Melendarius, look—a dragon.”
“Aye, part of the old legends, dragons are children of the Mother.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I believe the Mother has many children.
“That’s no answer.”
“Too see the Mother’s children, you must believe. She will never reveal them until you do.”