Next came the uncomfortable part. Ceren always tried not to think about it too much, but she didn't believe she would ever get used to it, even if she lived to be as old as Gran did before she died. First Ceren was aware of being in what felt like a leather cloak way too large for her. That feeling lasted for only a moment before the cloak felt as if it was shrinking in on her, but she knew it must have been herself getting. . . well, stretchy, since the Oaf was a big man, and soon so was she. Her small breasts flattened as if someone was pushing them, her torso thickened, her legs got longer and then there was this clumsy, uncomfortable thing between them. She felt her new mouth and eyes slip into place. When it was all over, she felt a mile high, and for the first dizzying seconds she was afraid that she might fall. Now she could clearly see the covering of muslin over the topmost skin on its shelf. She looked away, closed her eyes.
The uncomfortable part wasn't quite over; there was one final bit when Ceren was no longer completely Ceren. There was someone else present in her head, someone else's thoughts and memories to contend with. Fortunately the Oaf hadn't been particularly keen on thought, and so there wasn't as much to deal with.
The Soldier hadn't been quite so easy. Ceren tried not to remember.
"Time to go to work," she said aloud in a voice much lower than her own, and the part of her that wasn't Ceren at all but now served her understood.
She was never sure how much of what followed was her direction or the Oaf's understanding. Ceren knew the job that needed doing—a dead tree had fallen across the spring-fed brook that brought water to her animals and had diverted most of it into a nearby gully. That tree would have to be cleared, but while Ceren rightly thought of the axe and the saw, it was the Oaf who added the iron bar from her meager store of tools and set off toward the spring, whistling a tune that Ceren did not know, nor would it have mattered much if she did know, as she had never had the knack of whistling. Ceren was content to listen as she—or rather they—set out on the path to the head of the spring.
Ceren's small cottage nestled into the base of a high ridge in the foothills of the Pinetop Mountains. The artesian spring gave clear, cold water year round, or at least it did before the tree dammed up the brook. Now the brook was down to a trickle, and the goat especially had been eyeing her reprovingly for the last two mornings as she milked it.
The Oaf had been right about the iron bar. It was a large old tree, more dried-out than rotten. Even with her new strength, it took Ceren a good bit of the morning with the axe and saw and then a bit more of that same morning with the iron bar and a large rock for a fulcrum to shift the tree trunk out of the brook. She moved a few stones to reinforce the banks and then it was finally done. The brook flowed freely again.
The Oaf cupped his calloused hands and drank from the small pool that formed beneath the spring. Ceren knew he wanted to sit down on a section of the removed log and rest, but Ceren noticed a plume of smoke from the other side of the ridge and gave in to curiosity. The ridge was steep, but spindly oak saplings and a few older trees grew along most of the slope, and she made her borrowed body climb up to the top using the trees for handholds.
My own skin is better suited for this climb, she thought, but the Oaf, though not nearly so nimble as Ceren's own lithe frame, finally managed to scramble to the top.
Someone was clearing a field along the north-south road in the next valley. Ceren recognized the signs: a section of woodland with its trees cut, waste fires for the wood that couldn't be reused, a pair of oxen to help pull the stumps. She counted three men working and one woman. The farmhouse was already well under way. Ceren sighed. She wasn't happy about other people being so close; her family's distrust of any and all others was bred deep. Yet most of the land along the road this far from the village of Endby was unclaimed, the farm did not infringe on her own holdings, and at least they were on the other side of the ridge, so she wouldn't even have to see them if she didn't want to.
Ceren had just started to turn away to make the climb back down before she noticed one lone figure making its way down the road. It was difficult at the distance, but Ceren was fairly sure that he was one of the men from the new homestead.
Doubtless headed toward the village on some errand or other.
Ceren watched for a while just to be sure and soon realized the wisdom of caution. The ridge sloped downward farther east just before it met the road. To her considerable surprise, when the man passed the treeline he did not continue on the road but rather stepped off onto the path leading to her own cottage. She swore softly, though through the Oaf's lips it came out rather more loud than she intended. Ceren hurried her borrowed form back down the ridge to the path from the spring, but despite her hurry, the stranger was no more than ten paces from her when she emerged into the clearing.
"Hullo there," said the stranger.
Ceren got her first good look at the man. He was wearing his work clothes, old but well-mended. He was young, with fair hair escaping from the cloth he'd tied around his head against the sun, and skin tanned from a life spent mainly outside. She judged him not more than a year or so older than she herself. Well-formed, or at least to the extent that Ceren could tell about such things. There weren't that many young men in the village to compare to, most were away on the surrounding farms, and those who were present always looked at her askance when she went into town, if they looked at her at all. It used to upset her, but Ceren's grandmother had been completely untroubled by this.
"Of course they look away. You're a witch, girl, the daughter of a witch and the granddaughter of a witch, the same as me. They're afraid of you, and if you know what's what, you'll make sure they stay that way."
The memory passed in a flash, and for a moment Ceren didn't know what to do. The stranger just looked at her then repeated, "Hullo? Can you hear me?"
Ceren spoke through her borrowed mouth and tried to keep her tone under control. The Oaf had a tendency to bellow like a bull if not held in check. "Hello. I'm sorry I was. . . thinking about something. What do you want?"
"I'm looking for the Wise Woman of Endby. I was told she lived here. Is this your home, then?"
"The Wise Woman is dead, and of course this isn't my home. I just do some work for her granddaughter who lives here now," Ceren/Oaf said.
"So I was given to understand, but is her granddaughter not a. . . not of the trade?"
Ceren nearly smiled with her borrowed face in spite of herself. The stranger's phrasing was almost tactful. He wanted something, but what? She finally noticed the stained bandage on the young man's right forearm, mostly covered by the sleeve of his shirt. Obviously, he needed mending. That was something Ceren could do even without a borrowed skin.
"She is," Ceren said. "If you'll wait out here, I'll go fetch her."
By this point Ceren was used to her borrowed form, but she still almost banged her head on the cottage's low door when she went inside. She made her way quickly to the store-room and tapped the back of her neck three times with her left hand.
"Done with ye, off with ye!"
The skin split up the back again like the skin of a snake and sloughed off, leaving Ceren standing naked, dazed, and confused for several moments before she came fully to herself again. She quickly pulled her clothes back on and then took just as much time as she needed to arrange the Oaf back on his shelf and cover him with muslin until the next time he'd be needed.
When she emerged from the cottage, blinking in the sunlight, the young man, who had taken a seat on a stump, got to his feet. He had pulled the cloth from his head like a gentleman removing his cap in the presence of a lady. For a moment Ceren just stared at him, but she remembered her tongue soon enough.
"My hired man said I'm needed out here. I'm Ceren, Aydden Shinlock's grand-daughter. Who are you?"
"My name's Kinan Baleson. My family is working a new holding just beyond the ridge there," he said, pointing at the ridge where Ceren/oaf had stood just a short time before. "I need your help."
"It's this. . . ." he said, pulling back the sleeve covering the bandage on his right forearm.
Just as Ceren had surmised, he'd injured himself while clearing land at the new croft, slipped and gouged his arm on the teeth of a bow saw. "My Ma did what she knew to do, but she says it's getting poisoned. She said to give you this. . ." He held out a silver penny. "We don't have a lot of money, but if this isn't enough, we have eggs, and we'll have some mutton come fall."
"Unless the hurt is greater than I think, it'll do."
Ceren took the coin and then grasped his hand to hold the arm steady and immediately realized the young man was blushing and she almost did the same.
Why is he doing that? I'm no simpering village maid.
She concentrated on the arm to cover her own confusion and began to unwrap the bandage, but before she'd even begun she knew that Kinan's mother had the right of it. The drainage from the wound was a sickly yellow, but to her relief it had not yet gone green. If that had happened, the choice would have been his arm or his life.
"Should have come to me sooner," Ceren said, "with all proper respect to your mother."
"She tried to make me come yesterday," Kinan said gruffly, "but there's so much to do—"
"Which would be managed better with two arms than one," Ceren said, planting a single seed of fear the way her Gran had taught her. In this case Ceren could see the wisdom of it. Better a little fear in the present than a lifetime disadvantage. "Hold still now."
Kinan did as he was told. Ceren finished unwrapping the bandage and pulled it away to get a good look at the wound. The gash was about two inches long, but narrow and surprisingly clean-edged, considering what had made it. The cut started a hand's width past his wrist, almost neatly centered in the top of the forearm. A little deep but not a lot more than a scratch, relatively speaking. Yet the area around the cut had turned an angry shade of red, and yellowish pus continued to ooze from the wound.
"Sit down on that stump. I'll be back in a moment."
Ceren picked up her water bucket, went to the stream and pulled up a good measure of cold, clear water. Before she returned to Kinan, she went back into her cottage and brought out her healer's box, a simple pine chest where her Gran had kept her more precious herbs and tools. While most everything else in her life felt borrowed, Ceren considered that this box belonged to her. She had earned it. Both by assisting her Gran in her healer's work for years and by being naturally good at that work. Ceren inherited the box, inherited in a way that didn't seem to apply to the rest of the things around her.
Especially the skins.
Ceren carefully washed out the gash as Kinan gritted his teeth, which Ceren judged he did more from anticipation than actual added pain. A wound of this sort had its own level of pain which nothing Ceren had done—yet—was going to change. Once the wound was cleaned out, she leaned close and sniffed it.
"I can't imagine it smells like posies," Kinan said, forcing a smile.
"I'm more interested in what it smells like, not how pleasant it is." Ceren wondered for a moment why she was bothering to explain, since her Gran had been very adamant on the subject of secrets: "Best that no one knows how we do what we do. Little seems marvelous, once you know the secret." And it was important for reputation that all seem marvelous; Ceren saw the wisdom in that as well.
Even so, Ceren found it easy to talk to Kinan, she who barely had reason to speak three words in a fortnight. "My Gran taught me what scents to look for in a wound. A little like iron for blood, sickly sweet for an inflamed cut like this one. Yet there's something. . . . ah. You said you cut yourself on a saw? Fine new saw or old, battered saw?"
He sighed. "Everything we have is old and battered, but serves well enough."
"Yes, this saw has served you pretty well indeed. There's something in there that smells more like iron than even blood does. Unless I miss my guess, your saw left a piece of itself behind and is poisoning the wound. That's why your arm isn't healing properly."
He frowned. "You're saying you can smell iron?"
"Of course. Can't you?"
"Not at all. That's amazing."
Ceren almost blushed again. So much for Gran's ideas about secrets, Ceren thought. Or at least that one.
Ceren reached into her box and pulled out a bronze razor, which she proceeded to polish on a leather strop. Kinan eyed the blade warily, and Ceren nodded. "Yes, this is going to hurt. Just so you know."
Kinan flinched as Ceren gently opened the edges of the wound with her thumbs. More pus appeared and she rinsed that away as well. She judged the direction the sawblade had cut from and looked closer. A black speck was wedged deep into the wound's upper end. Now that she had found the culprit, it only took a couple of cuts with the razor to free the piece of broken sawblade. Kinan grunted once but otherwise bore the pain well enough and kept still even when new blood started to flow. Ceren held the fragment up on the edge of her bloody razor for Kinan to see before flicking it away into the bushes. She then washed the wound one more time and bound it again with a fresh strip of linen.
"Considering what you're likely to do with that arm, I really should stitch it," she said. "And it's going to bleed for a bit as things are. Let it, that'll help wash out the poison. If you'll be careful and wash the cut yourself at least once a day—clean, clear water, mind, not the muck from your stock pond—you should get to keep the arm."
"We have our own well now," Kinan said. "I'll heed what you say. I'm in your debt."
She shook her head. "You paid, so we're square. But mind what I said about washing."
Kinan thanked her again and left. Ceren watched him walk back down the path toward the road. After a moment she realized that she was, in fact, watching him long past the point where it was reasonable to do so. She sighed and then went to clean her razor in the cold stream.
* * *
That night Ceren dreamed that she walked hand in hand with Kinan through a golden field of barley, the grain ready to harvest. Yet no sooner had Kinan taken her in his arms than there stood his family: the brothers whom Ceren saw that day from the ridge, a mother and father with vague, misty faces.
"Stay away from that witch! She's evil!" they all said, speaking with one voice.
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Ceren said, but she didn't believe it. She knew there was. Those in the dream knew it too. Kinan turned his back on her and walked away with his family as the barley turned to briars and stones around a deep, still pool of water.
"You can't do it alone, you know. Your Gran knew. How do you think you got here?"
Ceren looked around, saw no one. "Where are you?"
"Look in the pond."
Ceren looked into the water but saw only her own reflection. It took her several moments to realize that it was not her reflection at all. Her hair was long, curly, and black, not the pale straw color it should have been. Her eyes were large and dark, her rosy-red lips perfectly formed. Ceren looked into the face of the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, and the sight was almost too painful to bear. "That's not me."
"No, but it could be. If you want."
When Ceren opened her eyes again, she had her own face once more, but the other girl's reflection stood beside her on the bank of the pool, wearing golden hoops in her ears and dressed like a gypsy princess. Ceren couldn't resist a sideways glance, but of course there was no one else there.
"Dreams lie," Ceren said. "My Gran told me that."
"This one is true enough and you know it. Even if Kinan was interested, what do you think his family would say if he came courting a witch?"
"He's not going to court me. I'd toss him out on his ear if he did. What a notion."
"Liar."
Ceren's hands balled into fists. "I just met him! He's not even that handsome."
The girl's laugh was almost like music. "What's that got to do with anything? He's young, he's strong, he has a touch of gentleness about him, desp
ite his hard life. And he's not a fool. Are you?"
"Be quiet!"
The strange girl's reflection sighed, and ripples spread over the pond. "I never cared much for your Gran, but I will say this: she was always clear on what she wanted and never feared to go after it, too. So. She's dead and now you're the mistress here. Tell me you don't want him. Make me believe you, and I'll go away."
"How do you know me? Who are you?"
"I've known you all your life, just as you know who I am."
Ceren did know. Just as she knew how she felt about Kinan and how strongly she tried not to feel anything at all.
"The topmost shelf. That's you."
"No, there is no one there. What remains is little more than a memory, but it is a memory that can serve you in this, as the memory of the Oaf and the Soldier and the Tinker cannot. What remains is merely a tool. Your Gran understood that. Use me, as she did."
"No!"
"Mark me—you will." The ripples faded along with her voice and reflection, but just before she awoke, Ceren gazed into the pool one last time and saw nothing at all.
For the next few months Ceren kept herself too busy to think about either Kinan or what lay on the topmost shelf. It was easy enough. There was always something that needed doing around her croft and a fairly steady stream of villagers and farmers from the surrounding countryside.
After her grandmother was cold and buried, Ceren had worried about whether the people who had come to her Gran would come to her now, she being little more than a girl and not the Wise Woman of Endby, who always wore her Gran's face so far as Ceren was concerned: ancient, bent, hook-nosed and glaring, while Ceren was none of those things except, now and then, glaring. But she needn't have worried. A Wise Woman was always needed where more than a few folk gathered, and as long as there was someone to fill the role, there were always people willing to let her. Ceren knew she would grow into the part, in time. Besides, "Wise Woman" was them being polite; she knew what they called her behind her back. Such rubbish had never bothered her grandmother. Ceren couldn't quite say the same.
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