Journey of Awakening

by Shawna Thomas

  “So ye’re up, dearie?” A small, round woman entered, carrying a large bowl. “Me name’s Nolwen.” She hefted the container onto the table then, wiping her hands on an apron tied to her generous waist, shuffled over. “Aye, ye look better. I’ll warrant ye’ll be feeling fine in a day or two.”

  Sara ran her hand over an unfamiliar long white smock while she fought dizziness. Where are my clothes? A fog permeated her mind. She couldn’t quite wake up. She reached for the pendant, finding it safe beneath the strange gown. At least she still had Ilydearta. If it had been lost...

  Memories coalesced, angry gray waves, her grandfather’s sorrowful eyes, silver spray as the waters dashed against the rocks and then... She gasped as though once again fighting for air.

  “Aye, lass.” Nolwen gazed at her with a soft expression. “It comes in waves, like the breeze, like the ocean, like life.” She moved forward and patted Sara’s hand. “The grief may never pass, but the waves diminish in strength over time.”

  Sara swallowed, her mouth dry. The storm. Grandfather. “Where’s my grandfather?” Her voice sounded rough, unused.

  Nolwen shook her head slowly.

  “Do you mean...” No. She refused to accept it. She scooted back on the bed until her back hit the wall, as though retreating would protect her from the terrible confirmation she saw in Nolwen’s expression.

  It’s not possible. My fault. All my fault.

  Nolwen settled on the bed but didn’t attempt to touch her. “We found two men washed up farther down the beach the same day we found you. A younger man was found yesterday. Should we look for more?”

  More? What more was there? Sara shook her head and closed her eyes against the pain, but it didn’t recede. In the darkness behind her lids, Haboth stood on the gunwale attempting to show off his newly acquired muscles. Jith hugged her. Grandfather.

  She reached for Ilydearta. The pendant lay cold and heavy against her heart, offering no comfort. They couldn’t be gone.

  “Where?” Her head ached. She discovered a large knot behind her ear.

  “We’ve sent them to the Mother, as is our custom. For a while there, we thought we’d lose you too.”

  She wished they had. “How long?”

  “A quarter moon or so. You’re fevered.”

  Sara’s chest caved in on itself, her mind and body shriveling until there was nothing left. She blinked. She didn’t want to cry. The tears would be salty. The ocean had enough of her; she’d not give it any more.

  Nolwen hesitated and then gently patted her hand. “What’s ye name, dearie?”

  “I’m—my name is Sara.” Such a simple question, but one she’d never heard spoken. She wasn’t on the island anymore. This was the mainland. And she was alone. Grief settled on her like a heavy blanket. It just wasn’t possible. Maybe if she didn’t believe it, it wouldn’t be true. They were mistaken. Her grandfather would have found a way to make it to the beach. She needed to get stronger so she could find him.

  She plucked at the gown. “Thank you. I don’t know how to repay you.”

  “Tsk, no need of that, child. Does me heart good to see ye up. Would ye like something to eat? I still have bread from dinner.” She rose and the mattress lifted.

  Sara’s stomach rumbled. “Yes, thank you.”

  Nolwen removed a plank from the floor and reached for a wrapped bundle. She laid it on the table and from a hook on the wall took an object that reminded Sara of the small machete she’d used in the garden on the island. The entire thing was made of metal. One edge curved slightly with a wicked gleam, the other shaped by various sized half-circles, as though someone hungry had taken bites out of it. The knife had a loop at the end of its handle, probably for hanging. Nolwen sliced a generous slab from a dark loaf then spread a thick brown substance on it. “Ye’re from up north?” she asked as she passed the bread to Sara.

  Flanked by two chairs, a sizable stone fireplace with a blackened pot hanging over dancing flames occupied most of the opposite wall. Glancing at her bed, she saw it was a wooden platform attached to the wall by brackets and topped with a thin mattress. The bed was high enough off the floor to serve as a low table if the pad was removed. Small rugs dotted the wooden floor, their colors brilliant under the light.

  “Sara?”

  Startled, she turned her attention back to Nolwen.

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, I don’t know. We lived on an island.” Gone. All gone.

  “An island?” Her eyes widened. “Don’t worry, child. Curiosity has always been one of me faults. I was just trying to place yer accent. It’ll only be ye and meself for a few days. Pierric left this morning.” Nolwen paused, pulled the curtains away from the window, looked out to the darkening sky and sighed. “I knew the bad weather couldn’t last.” She gasped. “Oh, lass, I’m sorry.”

  Sara shook her head but her eyes brimmed again. This moment, think only of this moment, because if you don’t... Once again, she felt as though waves threatened to overwhelm her. The ocean’s roar in her head grew louder.

  She focused on the floor, watching the evening sunlight mellow, inlaying the wood with shades of yellow and umber.

  “Your boat got caught in bad weather?” Nolwen asked gently as she handed Sara a piece of bread.

  Sara only nodded. I don’t want to think about it. She tried to change the subject by saying, “Curiosity is not a fault.” Nolwen’s eyebrow rose. A sudden image of bushy eyebrows shot with gray flashed across Sara’s mind, leaving an ache of loss and confusion in its wake. Grandfather. No! The room tilted as darkness threatened the edges of her vision.

  “Aye, we’ll get along fine.” Nolwen moved to the large bowl on the table.

  Sara stared down at her uneaten portion of bread. It smelled good and with a detached part of her brain, she wondered what kind of grain produced bread so dark, but her hunger had fled, replaced by queasiness. She couldn’t quite focus on the bread and laid the slice on her lap.

  Nolwen clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her eyes gentle and full. “I’ll make ye some more broth, lass.”

  A wave of dizziness crashed over Sara, and she braced herself against the bed as her vision dimmed. Had the sun sunk beneath the horizon? Weren’t there candles on the mainland? A moment later, she felt Nolwen’s strong hands on her shoulders, gently lowering her to the mattress.

  Nolwen ran a rough hand over her forehead. “Aye, the fever’s returned. To bed with ye. Too much, too soon, I’m thinking.”

  Softness cradled her body, Sara’s eyes closed and darkness reclaimed her.

  * * *

  “Grandfather,” Sara called as she entered the house. Fear hastened her step. Where was he?

  The main room was deserted. She scanned the the familiar place that seemed somehow wrong—as though the light had changed. Two chairs, their wood shiny and worn with use, stood before a large stone fireplace. Sara shot a quick look past a bookcase and a trunk toward the doorway leading to her room, but knew he wouldn’t be in there. She had to find him. She moved toward the back of the house. “Grandfather?”

&nbs
p; “Back here.” Willam’s voice rang from a small door connecting the kitchen to the main room.

  Sara moved through the room, relief coursing through her veins, and stepped through the doorway to find Willam standing in a corner of the kitchen, leaning over their stout metal stove and stirring the contents of a cooking pot. Narrow shelves filled with earthenware pots and small bundles of gnarled roots covered two walls. An old pestle and mortar, a couple of bowls and scoops and several jars littered a table of roughly hewn planks. Overhead, bunches of herbs, sprigs of fleabane, blackberry leaves, sage and thuria, the wispy fungus Grandfather would set over small cuts or abrasions to promote healing and ward off infection, decorated the high ceiling. The dangling herbs partially curtained the entrance to her grandfather’s bedroom off the kitchen. Sara closed her eyes to breathe in the warm moist air always tinged with the fragrance of herbs and spices, and then her eyes snapped open as a new odor invaded the space. She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that awful smell?” Her voice sounded far away, as though the last vestiges of an echo.

  “Frostbite preventive.” Grandfather grinned as he replaced the lid of his steady boiler, one of his many inventions.

  Sara smiled in spite of herself. Some of her earliest memories were of her grandfather bent over the same stove, brewing one concoction or another. She watched him lift the upper section of the pot.

  “Are you going to stand there watching?” He nodded to the table. “Hand me that jar.”

  Sara passed over the container. Her hand seemed to move in slow motion and again she felt a slight vertigo.

  “Put the kettle on, please.” Grandfather’s rich voice brought her gaze to his face. The image wavered.

  “Grandfather, is this a dream?” Her voice cracked.

  “The tea, Sara.”

  Sara walked to the stove, removed the kettle from the back of the stove and began the tea. Already sweat beaded on her forehead from the warmth in the room. Willam finished pouring the contents of the pot into the jar then rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have our tea outside. It’s hotter than Gindean’s keep in here.”

  Sara watched him leave, the panic returning. She grabbed the mugs and followed him into a gentle breeze. The skimmer. No. Fear slowed her step. But Willam was sitting in his favorite chair under an arbor laced with flowers. Sara handed over his drink and sat on the chair next to him.

  “Now, let me tell you what I’ve done, so you can reproduce it as necessary.” Willam’s voice took a familiar lecturing tone as he explained the possible treatments for minor frostbite.

  Sara sipped her tea. She didn’t enjoy the lessons on healing as much as Shi’ia but she remembered this lesson. He’d taught it before, hadn’t he? She listened, wrapping his words around her as though they’d warm the ice forming in her limbs. She remembered thinking she’d never need a frostbite remedy on their little island. A twinge of guilt pricked her chest. She knew many arcane recipes for elixirs and balms. Why was she remembering this one?

  “This is a special day—the day we’re celebrating your birth. Perhaps it’s not a lecture you want?”

  The ocean roared in the background. “Grandfather?”

  He smiled, a small, sad gesture in a weary face.

  “Grandfather, if the pepper is hot on your tongue, it’ll warm your skin, but dilute it with an inert substance so it doesn’t burn and further damage the skin.” She spoke quickly, repeating the lesson as she always did as though she could overcome the looming dread. “If you don’t—”

  Willam reached and put a hand on her knee. “I’ve done what I had to do, and so will you.”

  “No!”

  The garden faded.

  “No!” She reached for him but Willam receded; the sound of the ocean filled her ears.

  * * *

  Nolwen ran the moist rag over the girl’s forehead. Heat from her fever warmed the cool water, returning it tepid. “Such a wee thing to have lost so much.” Nolwen dipped the rag in fresh water and continued her ministrations, brushing back the dark hair that framed the girl’s pale face. She was a pretty thing—a bit delicate of face if not body. When she’d changed the poor thing into her old nightie, Nolwen had been surprised at the corded muscles and lean body of the girl. If not for the girl’s hands, she’d have thought Sara was a well-fed slave from down south. As it was, the callouses were in the wrong places.

  And her eyes, gray like the Mother’s more somber mood and just as deep. When they’d brought her in, Nolwen hadn’t expected her to last the night, but she proved tougher than she looked. Then the fever hit. Nolwen only caught bits and pieces of Sara’s raving but enough to piece together the tale she’d heard more times than she could count in her years living by the ocean. The Mother was fickle and powerful, a deadly combination.

  Before he left, Pierric had warned her not to become attached, but even he knew his warning fell on deaf ears. It was too late. Nolwen ran a calloused hand down Sara’s face, stroking a strand of dark hair away from her pale cheek. Her eyelids trembled. The wee thing was dreaming again. Nolwen adjusted the blanket, hesitating when the contour of the pendant the girl wore came into view. “That’s a piece of tricky business, it is,” she muttered.

  She couldn’t say, but there was something about the pendant that filled her with a longing for faraway places. An uncomfortable feeling a
t best, one she’d be hesitant to share with even Pierric. Nolwen laid the cloth over Sara’s brow. She’d check on the girl during the night. Mother knew it had been many seasons since she slept the night through anyway. “There’s a good lass, rest, ye’ll be all right come mornin’.” Nolwen stood, praying to the Mother that her words were true.

  * * *

  Sara opened her eyes, taking in the now familiar room. The light had changed. Was it later the same day or... It didn’t matter. He was gone. The realization pinned her to the mattress. If she pretended hard enough that it wasn’t true, would the loss diminish? Her chest burned with it. It emptied her limbs of strength and filled them with dread. She couldn’t pretend it away. Tears warmed her eyelids and pooled at the corners to run in salty rivulets down her face. She became aware of a gentle hum. Nolwen. Sara blinked and attempted to sit. The room spun then settled.

  “Ah, child, ye’re looking a wee bit better, ye are.” Nolwen neared the bed, a steaming bowl in her hands.

  “Is it...?”

  Nolwen followed Sara’s gaze toward the shuttered window. “You’ve slept the rest of the day and most of the next away. The moon rides the skies.”

  Sara nodded. Grandfather’s gone. Gone. And it’s my fault. The refrain echoed in her head. If only she hadn’t pushed...but she had. She took the bowl from Nolwen, staring into the clear amber broth, then took a tentative sip. It was good. She took another sip out of courtesy.

  She was alone in this strange place where she knew no one. No one but this woman, sitting at the table before her. “Who’s Pierric? You mentioned him before...yesterday.”

  “He’s me man. Right fine man too. He’ll be back by the new moon. A born waverider, he is. Born with the ocean in his blood.”

  “He...he found me on the beach?”

  “Aye, next to his boat, ye were.”

  “Did—” Sara cleared her throat, “—did he find the others too?”