Avelynn

by Marissa Campbell

  A long braid of snow-white hair fell to just above her waist. Her face was pale, etched with years of living. Wrinkles upon wrinkles settled deeply around her eyes and across her forehead. She wore a pale green kirtle and a faded brown cloak. If she pulled the hood over her hair, she would disappear into the woods around us.

  “Leaves of common plantain.” She picked at a squat green plant. “For the cuts on your face.” She looked off into the distance. “And some calendula, yes.” She bent back over, studying the flora. “Did I not say your recklessness would get you into trouble?” She shook her head. “They never listen.”

  Recklessness? Trouble? The witch! I stared at her white head in amazement. The only part I’d seen in the cottage was her long, thin hand. And the images my mind created for the rest of her were certainly not favorable, nor did they remotely resemble the woman standing in front of me. While thin and elderly, her face had a regal, almost delicate quality to it—she might even have been beautiful when she was younger. I had been on my way to see her. But where was I? Where was her cottage?

  My memory snapped back like a bent sapling let go. Demas. Gil. The beast. Gods, it was her bear!

  I closed my eyes. I was reckless, but being called upon it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I had stepped into that clearing with Demas, thinking only to help whoever was in trouble. While noble, it was foolish. I had seen only the one horse and drawn the conclusion there was only one miscreant. It didn’t occur to me there might be more, or that I could possibly become disarmed or overpowered. I’d been arrogant and naive.

  “Can you walk?” Her face hovered inches from mine.

  “No.” I didn’t think I could ever move.

  “Why? Forgot how?”

  “Yes.”

  “Time to get up.”

  “Leave me be, witch.” I wanted to sit and wallow in self-pity.

  “Witch? Is that what you call me? Name’s Muirgen. I’d prefer you use that.” She stood, placing her hands on her hips. “You can come, or you can take your chances alone.”

  “Come where?”

  “You need care, and I can’t help you here.” She waved her hand, indicating the wilderness around us.

  The thought of entering her cabin made me remember my earlier strategies. “My horse … my sword.”

  “I imagine they’re either in the possession of your attacker or remain where you left them. You can look to them after I’ve treated you. Until then, you’re coming with me.” She grabbed my arm and looped it over her shoulders. “Ready?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Here we go.” She pulled me upright with considerable strength, my legs doing only half the work, and I almost buckled under the pain.

  She waited a moment. “Ready?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Good.” She stepped forward, dragging me with her. The pace she set was slow, but my body reeled from the impact of each and every step.

  By the time we reached her cottage, I was covered in sweat and shaking with the effort. She led me inside. My first impression was that it smelled fresh, like linens washed in lavender and dried in the sun. Not the oppressive stench of unwashed bodies or wet bear that had impregnated the cottage when I was here last.

  Leaving the front door wide open to the hazy late-afternoon sunlight, she sat me on a bed thick and soft with a feather mattress. Near the door, she pushed aside a heavy tapestry, tucking it behind a hook on the wall, revealing a large window. She opened the shutters. I stared at the scene before me. Along the farthest wall, opposite the door, a long, wide table stretched from one side to the other. It was cluttered with jars, bottles, boxes, knives, candles, and plant odds and ends. The central hearth, glowing a warm red, was raised on a large stone slab. A huge iron cauldron hung from a tripod above it. Several boxes and baskets lined rows of shelves opposite the bed.

  “Thank you for coming to my aid today,” I said.

  “I don’t care for men who abuse women. He’s lucky there were two of them. Coward ran off like the filthy rat he is.” She poured the contents of several bottles into a large bowl. “Do you know him?”

  “He’s to be my husband.”

  She stopped what she was doing. “Not a happy marriage, I fear.”

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s get this dress off. I need to wrap your ribs.”

  After much struggle, starting, and stopping, we were both left sweating, my face covered in tears.

  She clicked her tongue. “Only one rib is broken, the rest are bruised.”

  “That was from your bear.”

  “Well, he wasn’t perfect.” She grabbed some cooled fat and scooped it into a bowl with the liquid, mixing it thoroughly with a knife. “He gave his life to save you from a terrible fate.”

  Chastened, my tone softened. “What happened?”

  “The ogre cut him down.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She grunted and let the matter drop, applying salve to my ribs. I flinched.

  “Be still.”

  I grimaced, but complied, watching as she worked. “What are you using?”

  “Horsetail and calendula. Good for broken bones and swollen, hot skin.”

  She wrapped my ribs with long strips of linen and then ladled hot water from the cauldron into a wide wooden cup. She rummaged through the clay jars on the table, deciding finally on one, and placed some of the contents into the cup. She pulled down a large stoppered pitcher from the shelves overhead and poured a ladleful of the liquid into the strange concoction. “An infusion of wood betony for your head and fermented hops to help you sleep.”

  After a thorough examination and treatment of cuts and bruises, she handed me the cup. “Drink and then rest.”

  I sniffed the muddy-looking liquid and frowned.

  “Drink.”

  I downed the contents as fast as possible to limit the contact with my tongue. It was foul, but warm, and by the time it was finished, I felt relaxed and sleepy. I lay back onto the mattress, grateful for the tight wrap around my ribs because it seemed to help ease some of the discomfort. Or perhaps it was the drink. I placed the cup down on the floor beside me and rolled gingerly onto my side, covering myself with a wool blanket. I knew I should be angry with myself for getting caught off guard, for allowing Demas and his henchman to disarm me, but I was feeling oddly at peace with it all. Everything was going to be all right. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of summer meadows in a distant land and a handsome young Viking standing on the bow of his longship.

  I vaguely remembered being woken often by Muirgen. She made me sip more of her foul potions and asked me bizarre questions like what my name was, or my mother’s name, or where I lived, but after a while, even her questions stopped, and I was left to sleep unmolested. I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I woke, it was to a loud growl of protest from my stomach.

  I rolled out of bed, pleased that my ribs felt much better, and retrieved my kirtle. Muirgen was nowhere to be found. I wandered over to the hearth, where something was simmering in the cauldron. I peered inside. While it smelled like porridge and looked like porridge, I wasn’t willing to take the risk.

  I stepped outside. The air was warm. The sun shining straight overhead was hot. The bones swung eerily in the breeze, chinking and clacking softly, but in the dazzling brilliance of the summer sun and the presence of a neatly tended garden, lush with flowers bobbing in the wind, the cottage looked almost quaint. I paused, ear tuned to the back of the dwelling, where a woman’s voice rose in perfect pitch, singing in a foreign tongue.

  I followed the sound, poking my head around the back of the cottage. I was a little light-headed and felt close to swaying to one side, but the sunlight felt wonderful on my face and spirit.

  A large garden etched into the earth stretched beyond me, and in the middle, naked, with her back to me, Muirgen was plucking weeds.

  “Good morning,” she called, her voice high and piercing, losing all of its previous beauty. “Grab a s
pade. There are plenty enough weeds here for two.” Her long, slender finger pointed to a row of garden implements leaning against the cottage. Her hair was loose. Long, wispy, silver-white waves tumbled to her low back. Her skin, wrinkled and thin, was tanned a light bronze and her frame was lean and wiry. I could count each bone in her spine as she bent over the dry, dusty earth.

  I stood there.

  “A spade. The garden won’t weed itself.”

  “But I’m hungry.…”

  “There’s porridge in the pot. Eat and then weed. You need to earn your keep.”

  Earn my keep? I had thought her kindness genuine. “I can pay you in coin for your efforts.”

  “Don’t want your coin. Eat and then weed.”

  I stomped back into the cottage and ladled out a bowlful of oats, eating and grumbling under my breath at her audacity … her insensitivity.

  When I finished, I grabbed the spade and started in on the opposite side of the garden. I couldn’t bend over, but I could loosen the soil around the roots, making it easier for her to pull the weeds out.

  “Your mother never liked gardening,” she said, pulling a noxious corn cockle out by its stem and tossing it aside.

  “How did you know my mother?” My spade froze in midthrust.

  “I know a great deal about your family.” She grunted and pulled at another weed. “Carry on.” She gestured to my shovel, hanging in the air.

  I brought it down hard into the earth, jarring my ribs in the process. I took a deep breath, as deep as the bandaging would allow, and wiped the sweat from my brow. The sun was blazing down, melting me where I stood. “How do you know my family?” I knew nothing of this woman, and it was unsettling that she claimed to know me.

  A man’s voice called from out front.

  “Back here,” Muirgen’s voice pitched.

  Bertram rounded the side of the cottage.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’ve come to bring you home.”

  I turned to Muirgen. “How does he know I’m here? What have you told him?” My temper flared.

  “Bertram, give us a moment.”

  Bertram nodded and retraced his steps out of sight.

  I turned on her. “What have you done?”

  “I merely informed your household of your safety. They sent messengers throughout the countryside looking for you. You’ve been gone five days.”

  “Five days?”

  She stood up straight, her back cracking and popping. “Yes, and it’s time you headed back home.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Demas threatened to rape me. And while he didn’t succeed, it won’t stop him from telling everyone we slept together. We will have to be married. It will be his word against mine. Everyone will think I am a whore.”

  “Well, you are.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Demas didn’t take your virginity—but someone else did. You were on your way to see me so that you could meet him again, were you not?”

  Any words I might have said dried up, and I stood there with my mouth open.

  “Demas didn’t take your virginity, and he knows that. What he doesn’t know is that it had already been taken. An advantage you can use—if you continue to play the role of virgin. He has no proof and therefore will not bring up the encounter. Your family believes you were thrown from your horse and that I took you in.”

  “Play the role of virgin?”

  She slapped her hands together, sending small clouds of dust into the air. “Look pious. Keep your eyes downcast when men are around, act humble and chaste.” She regarded me and smirked. “Not an easy role for you.”

  Words evaporated on my tongue, and I closed my mouth.

  She laid a hand on my shoulder. “That man from the clearing is a beast, a horrid, evil man. I’ve seen the shadow of death and sorrow around him. He will cause you only pain. Do whatever it takes to break free of his grasp. If you’ve found love, let it carry you away from this place. Leave England. If you stay, I see heartache and suffering for you ahead.”

  “How do you know these things?” Fear gripped my stomach.

  “I’m a high priestess. I make it my job to know. And I care what happens to my granddaughter.” She left to join Bertram, leaving me standing in the middle of the garden, watching the pea pods shimmer in the breeze.

  * * *

  “Granddaughter?” I burst into the cottage.

  Muirgen, who was now fully dressed in a pale green kirtle, sat at the table with Bertram, the two companionably drinking from fine glass vessels.

  “Wine?” Muirgen asked.

  “No. Explain to me how you’re my grandmother.”

  Muirgen looked at Bertram as if expecting him to answer for her.

  He sighed. “Muirgen and I were involved in a sacred fertility ritual that begot your mother.”

  I stared at him. “You’re my grandfather?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wine.” I sat down on a sturdy chest behind me.

  Muirgen handed me a glass. “During the spring equinox, before the planting, we were chosen to unite and bring forth a child, a gift from the Goddess, a promise of fertility for our crops and health for our livestock. Bertram was the highest druid; I was high priestess. We were both virgins.”

  Bertram continued. “If our coupling had not succeeded in producing a child, our village would have suffered dire consequences. There had been two years of drought, and a sickness in the cattle that killed half the herd. It was a blessing when your mother was born. While your grandmother swelled with life, our crops prospered, and our animals grew healthy and strong.”

  I looked at Bertram. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You’re being raised in a Christian world, Avelynn. It didn’t seem appropriate to complicate matters with the story of your mother’s pagan birth.”

  “I’m a priestess, a follower of the Goddess. You promised my mother to teach me all you knew. Yet I know nothing of my mother’s family. Don’t you think I would have wanted to know? To understand where I came from? You never thought this information would have helped me?

  “And you…” I turned to Muirgen. “Why have I not known about you? When my mother died, why didn’t you make your presence known? I’ve felt alone, adrift, without anyone who understands me. Bertram was the only person I knew who was pagan, but he’s a man. I could have learned so much from you.”

  Bertram nodded. “Perhaps we were wrong in keeping these things from you. Our only thoughts were to help you fit into the world around you.”

  “But I don’t fit in. Every day I walk a fine line between my beliefs and the ignorance of others. No one understands me.” I set the glass down and walked to the window. I gazed at the bleached bones. An image of a body hanging from the tree, shriveled and old, flashed into my mind. I blinked, but the specter was gone. Had I only imagined it? Feeling disoriented, out of time and place, I turned back to the two strangers in the room.

  Muirgen studied me closely.

  “You see where I live,” Muirgen said. “Would you have preferred to live this type of existence? I chose to withdraw myself from the world your mother embraced rather than give up my faith.”

  “But she didn’t give up her faith. She still performed rituals, she still prayed to the Goddess.”

  Muirgen frowned. “She practiced only at feast days or at the equinoxes. She had to hide that side of herself. I would not.” She moved a few jars on the table and pushed an object to the front. It was a stone carving of a small, very pregnant woman. It looked old, the face distorted with the softening of time and handling. “There’s more to our faith than a token ritual. I will teach you if that’s your choice. But understand—the more you know, the more you risk. The Christians will not hesitate to kill you for your beliefs.”

  Bertram sighed. “I would caution you, Avelynn. This part of your life was kept from you in order to protect you. Pagans are not welcome in England. Yo
u are young, with a life of promise ahead of you. You would be wise to distance yourself from your past.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I’ve done all I can. If you wish to continue, your grandmother will be the one to guide you on this path. I cannot.”

  I had so much to ask, so much to understand. A thought struck me. “You were both on the boat when my mother decided to stay here?”

  They nodded.

  “Is there anyone else I should know about?”

  “You may have a cousin somewhere,” Muirgen said.

  “A cousin?” My head swam. I wasn’t sure if it was from the news or my injury, but the room tilted away from me, and I reached a hand out to the windowsill to steady myself.

  “We’re not certain,” Bertram added. “It was a long time ago, and his body was never recovered.”

  “When your mother agreed to stay in England, there were many who stayed with her. Your aunt—” Muirgen said.

  “My aunt?” I dropped back down onto the chest and stared at them.

  “Her name was Leenan, and she was murdered, left for dead along the roadside. Her son, only a babe at the time, was never found.”

  “But he was not only your cousin on your mother’s side,” Bertram added. “Leenan had an affair with your father’s brother, Osric, the Earl of Dorset. That relationship is what killed her.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Muirgen reached above my head and pulled a small chest down from one of the shelves. She removed a fine gold brooch and placed it in my palm. It was intricately carved with vines and animals. It was very heavy. “This was Leenan’s. When we found her body, the bastards who killed her didn’t bother to take this. It wasn’t an act of robbery. It was murder. Cold and simple.” She sat back down by the table. “I knew Leenan had met someone, but she tried to conceal his identity. She was eighteen. You turn eighteen this summer, don’t you, Avelynn?”

  “Yes.” I avoided her eyes.