by Kim Wilkins
She stood, waded back out to the shore. Almost immediately the heat came back to her face. She looked down and saw her belly, usually flat and hard, was distended, tender to touch. She sat on a rock for a while, let the air and the sun dry her. Then she picked up her clothes and dressed again, hung her sword across her hips.
‘Hello.’
Bluebell whirled around, was greeted by a goblin of some kind with seaweed for hair. Her sword was out a second later, the tip resting under its barnacled chin. It stared at her with huge, limpid eyes and she could see her own reflection in them, her wet matted hair, her febrile eyes. Her heart pounded.
‘Why can I see you?’ she demanded. Again the fear that these supernatural visions were a sign she was poised upon the edge of death.
‘Because I willed it,’ the goblin answered. ‘I know your sister, Ash.’
‘You know Ash?’ Bluebell’s sword arm wavered. ‘Can you take me to her?’
‘You will die before you get there,’ it said simply. ‘You are mortally sick.’
‘I’m not. I didn’t have a fatal dose. I’m sure of it.’ She brought the tip of the sword up again. ‘Can you cure me?’
It shook its head sadly. ‘Alas, no. Ash could. She could draw the elements out of your gut and veins, the ones that have poisoned you.’
‘How far away is she?’
‘Miles and miles and miles.’
Bluebell lowered her sword, sat heavily on a rock. Her head whirled. You will die before you get there. She had hoped to travel a little every day, but now accepted she could go no further. Head in her hands, tide lapping at her heels, she sat and forced breath in and out of her lungs. Even the thought of climbing back up the cliff path was too much for her. If she could rest a while, just long enough to get a little strength back …
‘I will get her for you.’
She lifted her heavy head and looked at the goblin. ‘How?’
It turned and whistled. Moments later, the ghostly horse was thundering down the cliff path and onto the shore.
‘Great,’ she said. ‘The sea goblin has my ghost horse.’
‘Rest near your mount,’ the creature said to her, then hurried its steps, leading the horse into the water. Bluebell watched as both turned to frothing water and dissolved into the waves.
Rest near your mount. The creature was right about that. The tide was coming in. She couldn’t collapse here on the beach; she’d be swept away. She wasn’t prepared to accept yet that she would die.
Grasping at rocks, half-standing, half-crawling, she started up the slope. ‘Torr!’ she called, not because she thought the horse would hear her or come, but because she couldn’t bear to be alone. Somehow she made it to the top, found her horse lying very still in the bracken. She bent to listen, heard his heart pumping faintly, curled against his body and closed her eyes. Everything spun and swung about. It reminded her of being a child: she and Rose turning as many circles as they could before lying down with eyes screwed shut. She breathed, and waited, and didn’t notice when she slipped away into crushing sleep.
The haft of Ash’s spear was made from the wood of the tree that bore her name. It was light and smooth in her palm as she carried it upright, using it like a walking stick, down the rocky river valley back to the sea. Its head was shaped like a pointed leaf, with an iron core and shining steel edges, adorned with swirling welding patterns. It was a pretty thing; the smith had made it well because of the amount of money Ash had given her, not knowing that it was a single-use weapon. One blow, between the dragon’s eyes. Or a missed blow, and Ash wouldn’t survive to use it again.
The thought loosened her stomach and made her knees weak.
It had been nearly impossible to leave the village behind. She had stood in the market square for many long minutes before a dark flash at the corner of her vision – as it turned out, a colony of rooks making their way overhead – galvanised her to leave. Alone now, she struck out towards the moment for which she had been preparing for four years; a moment she felt completely unequal to.
Ash stayed inside the tree line, noticing everything. Every dappled sunbeam, every bird call, every pop of a broken twig or rustle of a loose leaf making its way to the ground. Memorised all of it in case it was the last time she ever saw and heard such a thing. One foot in front of the other, down towards the sea.
Many hours later, when her body was weary and her soul wearier, Ash eased off her shoes, took a last drink from the stream and left the cover of the trees. She made her way down to the gritty sand, and stood there, toes working in the sand, with her spear beside her. She expected the dragon to come for her immediately. It did not.
Well, she could wait. And if an hour or two or an afternoon and evening passed and it still didn’t come, then she would see if she could part the water and walk out there to the dragon’s cave on the wet sand.
An afternoon breeze caught her cloak, lifting it softly and slowly. The sea rose and fell. The sun glinted off the tip of her spear.
In the distance to the north, a wave was coming, frothing and white, cutting sideways across the tide. Ash tightened her grip on her spear. The white wave curled around when directly in front of her, and rushed towards her. Was it coming out of the water? She lifted the spear, said, ‘Help me, Great Mother,’ and felt the blast of heat to her heart.
But no dragon emerged from the water. Instead, a silvery-blue horse formed out of the wave. First its long nose, then its ears, its neck and powerful shoulders, a wraith of mists and sea spray. Then it was galloping towards her onto the sand. It was only then she noticed the little sea-spirit, the one who had brought her the gifts, clinging for dear life to the horse’s mane.
The horse was saddled and Ash dropped her spear and reached out to grasp its reins. The horse stopped with a jerk, nearly pulling Ash’s arm out of the socket. For a beast made of mist, it seemed solid and heavy enough.
‘What is this?’ Ash asked.
‘Your sister,’ the sea-spirit said. ‘Bluebell. She lies not thirty miles from here, poisoned and dying. You must come.’
Ash stared at the sea-spirit, struck dumb. Bluebell was nearby? But this was awful. The dragon would come for her, kill her sister … the thing she feared most.
‘You must come,’ the sea-spirit said again. ‘Without your aid, she will die tonight or tomorrow.’
‘I can heal her?’
‘Her blood is poisoned by metal from the ground. Elemental poison. You command the elements.’ It climbed down and put its sticky hand over hers on the reins. ‘I brought you a horse. Why do you hesitate?’
‘This beast is not … alive.’
‘And yet I can ride it and so can you. It will never need to be fed or groomed or shod and it will bend to your will as easily as all unseen things do.’
Ash ran her hand along the horse’s flank. It was cold, not quite solid. All her bones and blood longed to see her sister, but she did not want to put her in danger.
‘She will die without my aid?’ Ash asked.
‘It is almost certain. You must go.’
‘Show me the way?’
‘The horse knows the way. You will turn away from the sea soon, but I have been glad to know you.’
Ash’s mind whirled, then she fixed on her mark. Bluebell was dying. She climbed on the horse and butted the spear in her stirrup. The horse moved under her strangely: fluid, finding its balance as a boat might.
‘Farewell,’ the sea-spirit said.
Her heart tugged. ‘Will I see you again?’
‘A sea witch will always find help among the spirits of the sea,’ it said.
Ash leaned forward and said to the ghost horse, ‘Take me to Bluebell,’ and it began to move.
Bluebell opened her eyes. Didn’t know where she was. Her guts ached. A shadow moved in front of her. She tried to focus on it. The sky was dark blue, streaked with the last pink light of the day. The shadow came closer. A grim face emerged, hollow cheeks.
‘It’s me,’ th
e shadow said, and Bluebell recognised the voice but couldn’t place it.
She tried to move her mouth, but she was cold and sweating and everything was stiff. ‘I’m dying,’ she managed to say to the shadow. ‘Stay with me.’
‘You’re not dying,’ the shadow said. ‘Close your eyes. This may hurt.’
Although it looked fearsome, the voice was comforting. Bluebell did as the shadow told her. She felt hands on her stomach, was dimly aware that she was very vulnerable. If her enemies were here –
Grinding, grabbing pain. Her eyes flew open. ‘You’re killing me!’ she gasped.
‘I’m removing the poison,’ the shadow said, her head bent so that Bluebell could see how short her dark hair was. ‘Lie still.’
All along her veins, the grinding pain drew its jagged feet, as though her blood had been replaced by shattered steel. The pain was beyond her imagining, and she had suffered a lot of pain in her life. She called out, her voice echoing loudly around.
‘I’m so sorry, Bluebell,’ the voice said, and the feeling of recognition flared again. If only she wasn’t dying, she’d be able to place the voice.
The shadow drew the pain into Bluebell’s stomach, and it gathered like a storm, heavy and grumbling. She was sure she would split in two, but then the shadow threw her hands in the air and the pain evaporated. Bluebell felt a small popping sensation low in her guts. Then nothing.
She lay back, eyes closed, breathing ragged, as she forced herself to overcome the wake of the pain. ‘My horse,’ she said. ‘He’s afflicted as well.’
The shadow moved off, a soft rattling sound accompanying her steps. Torr made awful noises of pain, and Bluebell said, ‘Sh,’ but so quietly and far away she knew the horse couldn’t hear. Maybe she was quieting herself. Her head spun. Her thoughts were scattered.
But her body felt better. Cured.
Bluebell opened her eyes and righted herself slowly. She watched the shadow and knew who it was. She didn’t want it to be Ash. Not this painfully thin woman who had aged twenty years in four, with her hollow face and her raggedly cropped hair. But it was Ash.
Torr whinnied one last time then settled. Snorted softly.
Ash turned to her, and Bluebell’s eyes pricked with tears.
‘What has happened to you?’ she asked.
Ash laid down, put her head in Bluebell’s lap and sobbed. Bluebell stroked her hair softly, still gathering her senses, still disbelieving of how bony her sister’s shoulders had become.
Finally, Ash sat up, palming tears off her face. ‘You must go and forget you ever saw me,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘You couldn’t have come at a worse time. I found it. I found the dragon in my dreams of Becoming. I’m going to kill it …’ She trailed off.
Bluebell shook her head. ‘You can’t kill anything. Look at you.’
‘It will come for me,’ Ash said, crying, shaking her head. ‘And if you’re with me, you will die.’
‘No. If I’m with you, I’ll kill the fucker myself. Ash, you are not up to this fight. I am. Let me help. Then when it is dead, you return to us in Blicstowe. To your family.’
This made Ash cry harder.
‘I have you now,’ Bluebell said, gathering her sister in her arms. ‘I am not letting you go.’
Ash nodded against her shoulder. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you where the dragon lives.’
Twenty
Another day in the forest, and another, and then another, and Rose barely kept her despair at bay. She didn’t mention it to Skalmir in the evenings when they ate by the fire. Instead, she mined him for stories about Rowan: what they did, what she liked, what she said. Sometimes he answered her readily, other times more guardedly. Rose presumed his reticence had to do with his loyalty to Wengest, who had probably never said a fair word about Rose.
Nor did she mention her worry that they would be lost forever, when they lay down on either side of the fire at night to rest. Instead, the fears bubbled and bounced in her mind, holding sleep at arm’s length. She would never find her daughter; she would never see her son again. Eventually, she would drift into fear-dreams until dawn. Tired, she dragged herself to her feet to walk again the next morning.
It was close to midday on the fourth day – midday was the only time of day she could accurately tell, given it was the only time where the sun shone directly down through the thick canopy – when Skalmir stopped walking, and said, ‘No.’
Rose caught up with him. ‘No? What do you mean?’
He pointed at the ground and she saw one of the little piles of balanced stones he used as markers. It took a moment for her to catch on.
‘We have already been here?’ she asked.
‘So the marker would say … but I have been taking us directly west. Following the sun. It can’t be.’
She crouched, touched the stone on the top of the pile. It tumbled to the ground. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
He was crouching too. ‘This is certainly my marker,’ he said. ‘I remember this heart-shaped stone. Do you see?’ He held up the stone for her to witness.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So we have come around in a loop?’
‘I can’t see how it is possible, but the evidence is right here.’ He sat back, knees spread, and put his face in his hands.
It was the first time Rose had seen him adopt any posture of despair, and it unloosed all the nerves in her stomach. If Skalmir was losing hope, then she had nothing stable left to hold onto. She stayed still, waiting for him to raise his head.
Finally, he did. ‘Rose, we are not in the world we know. I believe the forest is losing us on purpose.’
‘A forest cannot have “purpose”,’ she said, but even as she said it, she knew he was right: they were not in a world where the usual rules applied. Their experience with the standing stones had proven that. ‘Are we doomed to wander, then?’
He shook his head. ‘I still believe Rowan is in here somewhere, with Rathcruick and his tribe. I saw her footprints at the dolmen near the lake where I lost her, I saw them again in the barrow that lost us. The Ærfolc can transport themselves, and we took the same route … though whether they know we are here or not remains a mystery. But more importantly, Rathcruick and Dardru said they had always lived in the Howling Wood but I had never seen them. That’s because there are two Howling Woods, one laid over the top of another. The real one, the one we know.’ He looked around, his face drawn and weary. ‘And this … haunted one.’
Rose lay down on her back, forearm over her eyes. She tried to breathe away her panic.
‘But if this Howling Wood has rules, if it has routes and landmarks, we will eventually learn them,’ Skalmir said. ‘So I do not believe we are doomed to wander forever, and I do believe that we will find Rowan.’
‘How?’
‘She spoke of a singing tree. We must just keep listening for it.’
‘What if we just keep going around in the same loop?’
‘We crossed a stream about a mile back. I propose we follow it. Streams don’t run in circles.’
Rose was about to say, ‘What if streams running in circles is one of the rules of this place?’ but she didn’t. If it were the case, they would find out. For now, she had to hold on to small hope. She climbed to her feet, and they headed back the way they came and found the stream readily enough. By then, they were both hungry so Skalmir went to shoot a bird or a rabbit while Rose started a fire.
The glade was dark, overshadowed by towering oaks and sycamore. The stream bubbled by. She had her back to it as she knelt on the leaf fall, making a circle of stones and filling it with twigs.
She sensed the movement behind her before she heard or saw anything. A prickle of cold up her spine. Then the soft footfalls. Heart pounding, Rose stood and turned slowly.
By the stream, a woman crouched. She was elderly, her black hair streaked with iron. She didn’t seem to have seen Rose, which was impossible as they were only a few yards from each ot
her.
‘Hello?’ Rose said.
The woman had an armful of clothes and, as Rose watched, she began to wash them in the stream.
‘Hello?’ Rose said again, louder, still too frightened to approach the woman. Who was to say whether she might grow claws or turn into stone in an eyeblink? ‘Do you know where we are?’ she asked. ‘Can you help me find my way out of here?’
‘There’s so much blood,’ the woman muttered, scrubbing and scrubbing a handful of cloth on one of the rocks. ‘I’ll never get it out.’
Rose wasn’t sure if the woman was talking to her or to herself. She ventured a few steps closer. ‘Are these your clothes? Are you hurt?’
‘Clothes of the soon-dead,’ she replied.
Rose’s blood turned thin and cold. She dared not look at the clothes and see one of her own dresses, or a small frock the size of Rowan, or Linden’s little pants. She covered her eyes, peeked through her fingers at the woman.
‘Where am I?’ she asked the woman. ‘Please, you must help me.’
The washerwoman slapped the garment against the rock, dunked it and wrung it out. ‘That will have to do,’ she said, and as she spread it over a rock to dry, Rose saw with relief that it was a man’s shirt, not a child’s. Not her own. Was it Heath’s? Skalmir’s?
Bolder, she lowered her hands, moved to stand closer to the stream, still out of reach if the woman suddenly lunged. Now she was washing a robe threaded through with gold and crimson, and with a cold sensation in her heart, Rose recognised it immediately.
It was her father’s.
‘Is that Æthlric’s?’ she asked, a catch in her voice.
‘The soon-dead,’ the woman said.
‘How do you know? How will he die?’
‘So much blood on it.’
‘Stop. Stop and talk to me. Who are you? Where are we?’
‘Rose?’
Rose turned to Skalmir emerged from the trees with two pheasants in his hand.
‘Who are you talking to?’ he asked.
She looked back and the washerwoman was gone, as were the wet clothes.